Citizen Kane : Shot by Shot

[Jeff Bernstein]

85–88

 

NEWSREEL NARRATOR : “For 40 years appeared in Kane newsprint no public issue on which Kane papers took no stand.”

 

85

“No public man whom Kane himself did not support . . . ”

 

86

 

87

“ . . . or denounce.” (dramatic pause) “Often support . . .”

88

“. . . then denounce.”

Fade out.

[Jeff Bernstein]

85–88 shows us various time periods in Kane’s life. The still youthful Kane in 85, a secretive Kane in 86, a middle-aged Kane in 87, and an aged Kane in 88.

 

Interesting?—the stubbornness, the doggedness, with which Kane directed himself to be “where was action was”, even in old age. (He returns from his Nazi-filled trip in Newsreel 117–118.) Some people just don’t know when to quit. How old is he beside Hitler? Theoretical question : Shouldn’t Kane be enjoying his golden years, not worrying over world issues? What personal stake did Charles Foster Kane have in issues of a future world?—he had no children!

 

Another point. Perhaps Kane might not have known his precise age. On the American frontier, who knew what day it was sometimes? That said : there may have been paperwork. If Kane’s exact age was in the public record, how come the Newsreel doesn’t convey it to the public? Anyway : Charles Foster Kane is a frontier American myth, so why shouldn't he share age-old American characteristics, such as, "I'm not sure how old I am exactly"?

 

 

 

 

Edited February 26, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

86

Might this be Great Britain? Compare the windows with :

PT, (5:55)

 

 

 

Edited February 26, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

87

Latin America?

The Wild Bunch (1969), 2:04:46

[Jeff Bernstein]

88

This shot might have felt uncanny for some in the audience? Just then in time (1941), the Newsreel is overlapping with Real Life. The character in the movie—“Is he the character in the movie, darling?”—“This is the movie, darling?”—“This is not a real newsreel, darling?”—is standing beside America’s sworn enemy of WW2, lurking somewhere outside the darkened cinema.

 

This is one example of Art “making light”.

 

 

Edited February 26, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Grammar!

 

NEWSREEL NARRATOR : “For 40 years appeared in Kane newsprint no public issue on which Kane papers took no stand. No public man whom Kane himself did not support or denounce. Often support, then denounce.”

 

All this is an amusing mix-up of syntactic parts. But the second line uses the impressive “whom” correctly. Are some in the audience dazzled by the Impressive Power of the All-Knowledgeable Newsreel? Theory : Yes.

 

 

 

Edited February 26, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Mirrors

 

“For 40 years appeared in Kane newsprint no public issue on which Kane papers took no stand. No public man whom Kane himself did not support or denounce. Often support, then denounce.”

 

What’s the difference between Charles Foster Kane and the News Corporation competitor producing a Newsreel of his obituary?

 

Example : The Newsreel sometimes supports Kane (patriotic, sentimental, or monumentally mournful music); sometimes denounces Kane (pictures say a thousand words).

 

What is going on here?

 

 

 

Edited February 26, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Fashions of 1934, 5:42

The Lady Eve (1941), 5:43–53

The Devil’s Eye (1960), 1:19:47

 

 

 

Edited February 26, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

What is going on here?

 

The Media, received as Truth by the Citizenry, is the Blather of Imbeciles.

 

Art takes us out of the imbeciles and installs us in a bubble of art, where we breathe the fresh air of freedom.

[Jeff Bernstein]

labyrinth

 

The Media shouldn’t take it personally. Who isn’t in Error?

 

 

Edited February 26, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

89–98  Kane’s Two Wives : Emily Monroe Norton and Susan Alexander

 

89

90

91

92

93

94

95

96

97a

97b 

98

 

 

 

Edited February 26, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

 

 

[Jeff Bernstein]

89–98

 

As the Newsreel’s stream of information on Charles Foster Kane grows ever-larger with its running time, an apt structural metaphor that appears during this onslaught of information is the “large structure”. The “large structure” theme also conveys the ponderosity of Kane’s life. Significant buildings appear significantly in five shots in 90–98 (running time 8:48–9:44).

 

The progression of 90–98 is marked by contrasts. What a comedown for Kane, to be married (for the second time) in (possibly Susan’s) hometown government offices, after his first marriage was held at the White House. The sweet, idyllic first wedding contrasts with the hectic rabble collected around the newlyweds during Kane’s second marriage. (Comedy : This is Kane’s own weapons being used against him, pushy reporters and photographers to inconvenience him and his newly-wedded wife.) The appearance of the Municipal Opera House brings a smile to the lips of the architecturally-minded Spectator, since the White House can just about fit on the stage of the New York Metropolitan Opera House. If Kane’s plans for the presidency were ruined, well, he’d outdo the presidency : first, in the grandiosity of architecture, then—in Kane’s mind—in fanciful visual appeal : the symbolism. Xanadu as American myth—in Kane’s mind—would outdo the iconicity of the White House. The Newsreel already reminded its viewers that Kane was entangled in at least one presidential election. In Kane’s mind, Charles Foster Kane superseded the sanction of a president and presidency. Example : The American government may have frowned upon Charles Foster Kane meeting with Hitler in 1935. Who knew what the senile lone-wolf old man said to der Führer? Then, faithful reader, admire the contrast between the advertisment in 94 and the programme in 95. The advertisement presents Susan Alexander as one in a number of entertainers of a programme, though she has top billing; and, comically, her name is exoticized to lure in the sensual. The promise “Coming Thursday” glued over the advert suggests fleeting engagements, as does the number of other posters (evidently) hanging behind Susan’s own. But the programme for the Chicago Municipal Opera House has Susan featured all on her own, having come up in the world, from a here-today-gone-tomorrow performer to a (seemingly) enduring fixture of the country’s cultural scene. There is more contrast. Note the Intertitle : “Few private lives were more public”, yet in the last shot of the sequence, Xanadu stands off by its lonesome. On this point, note the CU bustle of 90, the CU characters of 91, the hoopla and bustle of 92 and 93, the suggestion of grandness on the largest civic stage in 96, Kane among the leisurely class on a beautiful day for the idle wealthy in 97; but then comes 98 : the one shot in the sequence without imagery of a human being. Kane has withdrawn. Isolation.

 

 

 

Edited February 26, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

90

NEWSREEL NARRATOR : “Twice married, twice divorced. First to a president’s niece, Emily Norton, who left him in 1916.”

 

91

NEWSREEL NARRATOR : “Died 1918 in a motor accident with their son.”

 

FADE OUT.

 

If the audience remembers this fact about forty minutes later in CK’s running time (9:05 / 51.55), the audience may feel a pathos for mother and child, for it will be observed throughout all of their interactions that their beautiful youth shall soon thereafter be taken by Death.

 

Audience as Gods : as in Pulp Fiction : when JT exits the film at the end, he’s headed for his final exit. We know what he doesn’t know about himself : the limits of his life.

 

In 91, the abruptness of the fade out fast upon the narrator’s words (somberly expressed) suggests untimely truncation. (“A mournful moment that transcends politics and our hatred for the man,” the Newsmen might have said.) This quick fade out suggests discretion and uninterest and whatever else.

 

Note how a person’s life can be stuffed into a space even smaller than a cardboard box : a heap of words.

 

“Died 1918 in a motor accident with their son.”

 

Perhaps Emily Monroe Norton merited a mention in a biography of her “Uncle John” the president (mentioned at 53:10), or perhaps she appeared in a memoir or two; but, for the general public, she warranted two shots of the Newsreel with a running time of 8:52–9:05, almost the same running time as the forgettable bridge-shot of the newspapers circulating upwards on the production line (84).

 

Curiously, the image used in 91, during which the Narrator reveals the unhappy ending of mother and son, has nothing to do with that circumstance. At any rate, the patriotic Media Corporation producing this Newsreel decided an innocuous photograph of mother and son would serve everyone well in the instance.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Smiles

These three Kane smiles are all connected with negativity. His first marriage ends in divorce (90), his bid for governor fails (108), and mother and child are reported untimely dead (91).

 

118

With, once again, CK’s cinematographer Gregg Toland. Here, perhaps Welles is happy to smile because he’s standing with his closest companion on Kane : they are breathing the fresh air inside the Bubble of Art.

 

 

 

Edited February 26, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Pause

 

Data-points are appearing quickly here. The reader is not to attempt to piece all this together. No. Every time you watch the film, some of the points will return, while others will not; also, new discoveries will be made. Idea is, there are limousines of the mind waiting, but only if we go our furthest.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Staircases

Do the squares recall a chess board?

(1:39:00) Heading to Susan’s puzzle pieces.

(1:39:10)

 

[Jeff Bernstein]

the castle

How enchanting it seems, an extravagance rising up out of the trees, aspiring at the top of the hill, its fixtures pointing to Heaven. Calm sky and warmed trees contribute to a tranquil setting. Note the bridge at screen-left, a fairy-tale element. One might think themselves dreaming, or hoodwinked by a mirage of the past, when confronted with such a curious building in the state of Florida USA. There is an antique pious vibe to the Situation. But fairy-tales often involve princesses. Who might live there? What beauty? Doesn’t such a prospect promise ease and pleasure and happiness and beauty?

 

And the trees all over stand resplendent as their natural selves. That forest looks dense, suggesting that not just any old pedestrian might come wandering past this castle. This obscure forest would suit the first canto of Spenser’s Faerie Queene.

 

This gloriously artful effort to create an eyecatching work simply for the sake of it, and to set it within nature, celebrates a hope for love. Beauty promises love.

 

Twist : Xanadu was the prison that kept out the love.

 

The second half of CK is “just another Hollywood tale” of a bored marriage. Think for a moment of Xanadu as a house in the Hollywood Hills. At any rate, from the outside, everything looks spectacular and neat.

 

Or think of Bluebeard’s castle. Or . . .

 

This castle that crowns the hill promises love and beauty and happiness; the place where one’s dreams come true.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 26, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

94

Observe the other acts on the programme at the Lyric Theatre, coming Thursday.

 

A tight-rope walker. A reciter of “Bits of literature”. (e.g., The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018).) A magician.

 

This eclectic programme of travelling entertainment suggests that Susan Alexander's singing skills need not be first-rate? The shabby poster recalls old-time, pre-cinema days. It evokes circuses, fairgrounds, side-shows, amusement parks. This poster is a monument for the forgotten performer, the forgotten showman, and the forgotten audiences at the time of the prehistory of cinema.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Iris In

This iris shot recalls a common camera technique of the silent film era, just as 94 recalls the age of pre-cinema entertainment. The old technique recalls to us the fact of Time itself : what we're looking at may as well have taken place 10,000 years ago.

 

It would be instructive to enumerate every silent film technique employed in the Newsreel : but let's move on. Theory : In a manner of speaking, all movies are contained in Citizen Kane, just as in Eyes Wide Shut : these are, let's say, so-called "summation movies". (Perhaps more on this later.)

 

Kane sits on the chess board in the midst of it all, in a shirt that resembles prison garb. Examples :

Each Dawn I Die (1930), 12:39

1930s film footage from YouTube ("1930s Chain Gang Prisoners Labouring, USA from 35mm")

Edward G. Robinson in Blackmail (1939)

Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), 5:50

 

Chess is a game often used in storytelling to evoke themes of manipulation, cynical game playing, and entrapment. (E.g. Nabokov, Lolita, 2.6.)

Kane is the only character wearing stripes in this shot.

Note Susan Alexander : Her arm is around her husband : another echo of Kane "being caught" (e.g., the echo of prison garb and his fixture on a chess board).

[Jeff Bernstein]

Dutch angle

The angled camera position is used to intensify an uncomfortable moment. One of Hitchcock's "go-to" techniques :

The Lodger (1927), 1:22

The 39 Steps (1935), 37:58

Notorious (1946), 11:40

Strangers on a Train (1951), 30:18

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), 1:02:09

[Jeff Bernstein]

No lens flare.

Sylvia Sidney holding flashlight in Hitchcock's Sabotage (1936), 6:11

 

 

Edited February 27, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Dutch Angle  :  Double Vision

This usage of the angled camera recalls the "double-vision" (so to speak) of the Spectator absorbing the Newsreel : (a) in the moment : the angle is (evidently) a hurried, slapdash set-up by newsmen frantic to get some footage; (b) out of the moment : Welles the director is emphasizing the tension and chaos of the scene.

 

 

 

Edited February 27, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Hand-crank camera

Notice on screen-left : another vestige of the early days of cinema.

Show People (1928), 12:50

[Jeff Bernstein]

The Bride Wore Black

Bad luck?