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Citizen Kane : Shot by Shot


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Prefatory Matters

 

1.

 

Citizen Kane, one of the best films ever made.”

 

That is an obvious, unimpeachable comment that requires no elaboration. Yet one cannot say enough about a film more miracle than movie.

 

Random : the amazing high level of acting across the board. Amazing, because most of the actors (coming from radio, or from the stage) had never before acted in front of a cinema camera before, yet every single one of these novice film actors seems to understand film acting to the highest degree. Just as striking is that many of the key roles progress in age from the mid-twenties to middle age and beyond (Kane, Leland, Bernstein). Of course : with regard to the craftsmen and craftswomen behind the scenes, the make-up was of the highest standard, which enhanced all performances (or, put another way, allowed the performances to realize themselves).

 

Every technical aspect of the film is breathtaking. Virtually all of the process shots (matte paintings, miniatures) can hold up without embarrassment to visual effects generated by twenty-first century Hollywood production companies. Absolutely no question.

 

And no CGI lens flares. Citizen Kane is good old-fashioned craftsmanship.

 

Another cliché would be to enthuse with the most ecstatic passion on Gregg Toland’s cinematography, but why are clichés clichés?—because they’re true.

 

Two of the countless clever uses of sound : (1a.) In the rich and fabulous deep-focus shot of Kane’s parents signing away their child to Thatcher, we see, through the open window in the background, little Charley playing outside in the snow, acting out a Civil War-type scenario : he cries out “Union forever!”—just as his parents are cutting ties with him by signing Thatcher’s contract. (1b.) Another resonance : “Union forever!” evokes Kane’s life-long memory of this carefree time (“Rosebud”). (2) Much later, when the middle-aged Kane looms angrily over Susan in their tent during the picnic in the Florida woodlands, he slaps her, and joyous screams from the happy revellers outside of the tent underscore the moment : these screams are an unsettling, ominous counterpoint to the emotionally charged, violent moment between estranged husband and wife.

 

The innovations in every conceivable technical department are innumerable. For example, there are more amazingly clever transitions between scenes in this one movie than in hundreds (thousands?) of Hollywood films put together.

 

There is so much to say about Kane, though everything has been said; yet, one must keep saying it all. Like prayer. The trick here, as in my previous Vertigo commentary, is knowing what not to say.

 

The narrative structure of the film is amazingly innovative—it is the cinema’s equivalent to Joyce’s Ulysses : which is to say, it is a pioneering structure that can only be imitated, and never bettered : a structure so breathtakingly realized, that it is not even often imitated (just like Joyce’s). However, there were predecessors to the structure, generally speaking, in 1930s Hollywood cinema.

 

The “News on the March” sequence is such an inspired experience, both in the idea and in the realization, that one must behold it with awe every single time one watches the picture.

 

From the first second to the last second this is filmmaking so conceptually brilliant and technically extraordinary that it holds its own beside any film ever made since, regardless of the myriad technical innovations in every conceivable film department since 1940.

 

But : like a cloud of Covid hanging over the film is the history of Welles’ subsequent disastrous career in Hollywood. Imagine it, one of the greatest filmmakers—scratch that, one of the greatest American artists of the twentieth century—couldn’t get suitable work in Hollywood? The grotesque behind-the-scenes story of Welles-in-Hollywood is sickening to contemplate: but that’s Hollywood.

 

(Don’t think so? In contemporary Hollywood’s infinite wisdom, one of its most intelligent Directors and one of its most intelligent Cinematographers—take a guess about whom I mean—are now working in television. And who remembers Warner Brothers not cancelling the production of a certain film in 1983?)

 

Adding to the grotesquery was the sickening William Randolph Hearst. He effectively destroyed the picture’s chances with the public, and it vanished from the radar almost as soon as it was released and remained out of view for over a decade. And if Hearst had had his way, the negative itself would have been destroyed outright (indeed, supposedly the negative was destroyed some years later, and, so we’re told, what we see today is a copy made from a cleaned-up secondary print). The emotionally retarded and socially irresponsible Hearst would have fit in perfectly with today’s America. What is so breathtakingly lame about Hearst’s vendetta against Citizen Kane is that, all in all, the film doesn’t judge Kane, nor, in fact, is Kane simply a composite version of Hearst. Rather, the character of Kane uses some of Hearst’s details, sure, but the film is by no means a character assassination. Hearst at the time simply had a bee in his bonnet, and, being a megalomaniac in the manner of the later Howard Hughes, simply enjoyed flexing his powerful will, regardless of logic. Hollywood’s destruction of Kane was one of those times when a ball gets rolling, regardless of logic of spin and direction (and it was another horror of the Earth, the inexplicably powerful gossip columnist Louella Parsons, who rolled that ball in the first place). Theory : If Hearst and his cronies had simply kept their mouths shut, the general public wouldn’t have even noticed the Hearst connection. Anyhow, what happened behind the scenes after Kane was made is a lesson in one thing precisely: idiots with money wreak havoc on society with impunity.

 

And there’s nothing you can do about it—except keep banking the paychecks from Tyranny.

 

However, some lone-wolf onlookers can have the last laugh as it were while watching Citizen Kane : for one of the many lessons of the story of Kane is : money can buy things, sure, and power can push people around—but : neither money can buy love, nor power force it into being. Part of the tragedy of Charles Foster Kane is that he wasn’t an unfeeling man; in fact, he felt some things deeply—but he had trouble showing his feelings, and trouble connecting properly with others. As he says : “If I didn’t have money, I could have been a very great man.”

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Shot 0

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The guy making decisions at RKO Studios took a gamble on Kane.

 

The contract was stunning : one might say this guy “bet the house” on the unknown. Obviously his instinct said : “Go for it!”

 

Instinct is not to be followed blindly. “The enrichment of the primordial by the derivative.” Education enriches one’s invaluable instincts.

 

Aren’t sharp instincts required to survive in the jungle? (BONUS : Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman : “Never fight fair with a stranger, boy. You’ll never get out of the jungle that way.A Hollywood motto?)

 

Howard Hughes’ RKO gave Kubrick his start, then Hughes promptly dissolved the studio; and left us his “last known photo”.

 

If we like, we can spend all day admiring the view. A radio tower radiating electricity atop the circling earth, sending out signals amid the clouds : who’s listening?

 

 

 

Edited by Jeff Bernstein
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Shot 1

408454082_01Shot1.thumb.jpg.60aab1a66aa42515a59bd25bebdb2b09.jpgMercury = Hermes = messenger of the gods. Mercury carries messages between gods, and brings messages from gods down to humans. Would a message from god be different from an Artwork? Vertigo demonstrated that an artwork and the dream are in many ways synonymous : And wouldn’t someone (most anyone) think themselves dreaming if they receive a Divine Message? What is it to dream? Reason’s definition : To dream is to experience the "out of the ordinary". Whatever is in the dream may look ordinary, but someone (most anyone) will tell you that a dream is weirder than “real life”. What is in the film frame may look like “real life”, but it isn’t. That last statement is obvious, but the entire storytelling process is founded on the hope that audiences indeed mistake the illusion for real life. So it's worth repeating : No, a story isn’t real life, regardless of how “real” it may look. It’s lazy to believe the lens is a window—and stop there. Art is the gymnasium that sharpens the mind so that, subsequently, the mind absorbs new material quicker and with more acuity. But what’s that to anyone but yourself? Citizen Kane is here for you. A dream you instantly forget? Or a dream you investigate? Which option might have more utility for the enterprising mind?

*

At this time in Hollywood history, a sound film beginning without music was an extraordinarily rare occurrence. Your humble narrator can recall seeing only one studio movie in the 1930s that opened without music, but cannot recall the title. Regardless of how many there are, it will be a rare occurrence in every case.

 

Theory : so rare, that the quietude of this opening is noteworthy :

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Edited by Jeff Bernstein
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Why did Hollywood ruin Orson Welles the moment he stepped into town? He made the mediocre look worse. (Truth hurts.) Get rid of the Genius, and the arrogant mediocrities get to seem a little brighter to themselves : and bestow awards upon themselves : all an illusion more inane than any of their products (“hard to believe”). That has too often been the response to authentic artists now celebrated as Great: from John Milton to John Keats to Shelley to this one and that one : a mediocre community destroys the best, so it can sell junk to the public with a smile. Q : Who was the most popular poet of the day of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, Lord Byron? None of those. . . . Let's give the last word here to Shelley : he mournfully remarked that the critics killed Keats. Whose side are you on? Do you know?

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Shot 1

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The visual experience begins with words : themselves pictures. A celebration of language perhaps, or a weight on us, or both, like :

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Dunkirk (2017), which recalls :

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The Marriage of Maria Braun (1978)

 

No Trespassing : The film chooses to place its Recording Eye just here. It would be absurd to remark, “The camera's in CU of a location detail and that's that.” Xanadu is as vast in size as any estate in America; the film had more than a few details to choose between when deciding on the camera placement of its opening shot.

 

The Spectator is meant to make sense of this in a special way, similar to how the roving camera, focusing on particular details in one continuous shot of Marion Crane’s bedroom, urges the audience to make sense of things :

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No Trespassing : In how many ways can this statement—“No Trespassing”—be heard? Example : the Spectator will be unable to reach to the character, Charles Foster Kane. The Spectator only comes to know this person through the memories of others, so that the lens throughout CK is not an inhuman gaze but a dream-state (Vertigo). We have come to hear about a character we will get no closer to by the end. Read in this light, the phrase No Trespassing is a lugubrious truth.

 

 

 

Edited by Jeff Bernstein
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Shot 11b.thumb.jpg.40a3a254862013f5414e3c68eb84f215.jpg

What gets us over the fence? What ignores the commanding NO TRESPASSING? Who seeks Truth? The Creator. We follow along, as Dante followed Virgil. We learn what we can along the way, as the Creator learns (concurrently, so to speak).

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No Trespassing

 

Already meaning production is getting out of hand. NO TRESPASSING. What is about to occur in this sequence? The character who gives the story its title dies, and we see and hear it happen. NO TRESPASSING. We’re nearing the realm of the Beyond. The “after the end”. Obviously we cannot enter this. Understood in this light, the phrase NO TRESPASSING is as a shrug of the shoulders. So far the sign is articulating :

(a) get out of here

(b) you will never understand

 

which recalls

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Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

 

also

(c) wherever you expect to go, you’re not getting there

(d) because you can’t

 

A first-rate story often chooses to remind us of what we cannot know.

 

 

 

Edited by Jeff Bernstein
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Hobby Films : The two most expensive home movies in Hollywood history :

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Coincidentally, Welles originally hoped to film Conrad's Heart of Darkness, then a script based on Howard Hughes! Instead : Kane.

 

 

 

Edited by Jeff Bernstein
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Shot 1 (00:36–01:13) : Telephoto Tease

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Is this a brilliant use of the telephoto here? A colossal sense of mystery builds as the camera rises : Is the audience’s desire to understand what that blur is behind the fence . . . rising?

 

Note : We might call this shot telephoto, we might call it a “telephoto effect” process, we might call it a foreground with a backdrop, etc. : regardless : can we agree it’s a complicated shot?

 

Theory : In 1940 this was a complex shot not too far from the following one—a much longer and much more complex shot—indeed, one of the most extraordinarily complicated shots in contemporary Hollywood history. (Might we at least deem these two shots “the same sport”?)

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The first shot of The Hateful Eight (2015). It tracks out from CU to Wide, incorporating many intricate changes, for over 3 minutes.

 

In fact, the “one shot” of CK is composed of three shots, joined with dissolves, to extend the height of the fence as the camera rises along with the curiosity of the Spectator (who may be asking, Where am I?andThat looks weird in the background.Perhaps evenIs there a mummy or a vampire in this? I'm feeling scared.”)

 

Shot 1 : The magic of cinema wordlessly generates curiosity and suspense.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Jeff Bernstein
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Multi-structure

 

Both Euripides (in ancient Greek) and Seneca (in Latin) wrote plays called Trojan Women. Both plays deal with the same general situation : the cataclysmic hours after the initial fall of the city of Troy.

Seneca, writing many hundreds of years after Euripides and his Greek world, begins his play in a manner pretty much identical to Euripides. Both plays begin with a sombre song (or songs?) sung by the protagonist and Chorus. Act 1 of Seneca is, generally speaking, an intentional rewrite of Act 1 of Euripides, with a Senecan spin to it.

After that, however, the two plays are completely different. The Senecan play, after fifteen minutes or so, shifts full-blown into a completely different structure. Seneca severs the cord with Euripides, and puts him aside for the duration.

So, "here's the thing" (House of Games) : why does Seneca structure his play in this way?

It's a cool thing to do, for one thing. The opening of the Seneca is akin to a sort-of psychedelic reminiscence of a massive past. It puts the audience into a freaky dream state, then shifts them abruptly into another state, a more traditionally-ordered state, for the rest of the play. The evolving structure shifts the audience into the present, so to speak, and the narrative kicks into high gear.

So, generally : Seneca begins his play with an atmospheric set-piece, then after fifteen minutes or so, cuts to a completely different way of telling his story.


What movies can you think of with this sort of "multi-structure"?

 

Citizen Kane (the vibe of its first three minutes / the vibe of the rest of the film) . . .

 

and, say,

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There Will Be Blood (2007)

 

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commercial break

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Anton : "It will be brought to me and placed at my feet."

This phrase is very common in Homer. Such as :

"θεὰ κατὰ τεύχε᾽ ἔθηκε πρόσθεν Ἀχιλλῆος" (Iliad, XIX, 12–3)

[goddess] - [down] - [armour] - [to place] - [in front of; i.e., at the feet] - [Achilles].

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Sequence 1 (:36–3:11)  Why be normal?

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1930s Hollywood preferred to keep its stars alive. I think that Clark Gable died maybe one time only (forget the title); Marlene Dietrich in Dishonored (1931); Claudette Colbert in Cleopatra (1934); William Powell in The Great Ziegfeld (1936); Henry Fonda and Sylvia Sidney in You Only Live Once (1937); and I’m not going to rack my brain for more examples because whatever eventuates will be a very short list.

 

Example : It’s a colossally shocking moment when Barbara Stanwyck attempts suicide by jumping off a boat in Ladies of Leisure (1930). That sort of thing wasn’t done on screen by the stars of the 1930s! Stars did not attempt suicide, or die. After Ladies of Leisure, it becomes a very rare occurrence for Barbara to be put in harm’s way, such as The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1932). Violence threatens Barbara in a light-hearted way, such as in The Mad Miss Manton (1938). After 1932, Barbara Stanwyck doesn’t seriously face death again—unless I'm forgetting a film—until Double Indemnity (1944).

 

So what does Orson Welles do? He kills off his main character within the first four minutes of the movie.

 

 

 

Edited by Jeff Bernstein
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(2:37–2:39)   Emphasizing the lens

Clipboard01.thumb.jpg.c63302f159dbf58484d2429a4d0c21da.jpgClipboard05.thumb.jpg.aeda91a046850fbb72ebc1c7a3fdccb9.jpgClipboard06.thumb.jpg.457b10ec56ebac15b3850289e8938753.jpg

Water on the lens. In the 1930s, it was forbidden for a lens flare to interrupt the illusion of lens-as-window. Emphasizing the lens in any way in the 1930s was an extremely rare occurrence. (The very few lens flares I have seen in the 1930s are all extremely slight.) Lens flares were so rare in the 1930s then when I noticed one in a quickie Robert Benchley MGM short, I was, so to speak, "shocked” to see it (it moves with the panning camera here) :

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“That Inferior Feeling” (1940), 7:11

In the 1930s, if there was a lens flare (rare as they were), it was this type (more of a "reflection" than a "flare"), but in no way as visible as this example of the type :

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EWS : notice the reflections in front of the door.

 

So what does Orson Welles do? He emphasizes the lens within the first three minutes of the movie.

 

This moment in Citizen Kane recalls :

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Edited by Jeff Bernstein
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Recapitulation

 

Orson Welles in the first three minutes of Citizen Kane violates colossal Hollywood standards :

 

1. No music at the start (indeed, no sound at all).

2. Kills off main character : and at the beginning!

3. Emphasizes lens in a blatant way.

4. What is the genre of this picture?

 

And the first three minutes of Citizen Kane are far from finished! 

 

 

 

Edited by Jeff Bernstein
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(:36–3:11) The first three minutes of CK are composed of 20 shots.

 

11 exteriors : getting progressively closer to Kane (so to speak). . . .

 

1

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2

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3

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4

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5

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6

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7

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8

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9

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10

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11

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Edited by Jeff Bernstein
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Shot 4  : 10,000 midnights ago

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The palm tree. (Vertigo : McKittrick Hotel : the “old house”.) Hollywood : a distant memory by Citizen Kane : already even then!

 

e.g. Sunset Boulevard (1950) : “And, of course, she had a pool. Mabel Normand and John Gilbert must have swum in it 10,000 midnights ago.”

 

 

 

Edited by Jeff Bernstein
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Shot 5  Origins

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Primates : the first living beings we see in CK. As in 2001 : A Space Odyssey.

 

Lugubrious : these animals are caged in a desolate place, where the “king” is about to die, dissolving order there forever. Meaning : is it possible that these animals will starve to death in their cage? Maybe yes, maybe no. At any rate : they’re caught. This is the condition of the first living beings we see at the origin : caught.  

 

Contrast : At the end of this first sequence, the character of Kane, in death, is released.

 

 

 

Edited by Jeff Bernstein
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