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Citizen Kane : Shot by Shot


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Two General Approaches to Structure

 

(a) the homomorphic structure

(b) the ever-evolving structure

 

Homomorphic structure : the storytelling introduces its method, and sticks to it until the end. Example : an author's style; e.g., Jane Austen : the last page of Persuasion will sound, structurally, like the first (btw, Persuasion is first-rate prose).

 

Ever-evolving structure : the storytelling continues evolving its structural method of storytelling until the very end. Example : Joyce’s Ulysses. (The last page of Ulysses looks and sounds nothing like its first.) Example : the relentless invention in shot composition for fifteen hours or so by a director moving at top speed : Fassbinder, Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980).

 

Citizen Kane is in the realm of (b). The invention is relentless, innovations come fast and often. There is no let up in the extreme creative imagination from everyone involved from first shot to last.

 

 

 

Edited by Jeff Bernstein
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Shot 6  :  Memories

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Why this particular image? Perhaps because it recalls Kane’s first marriage? He met Emily Monroe Norton on a trip to Europe.

That marriage didn't end well. Nor did her life. Nor did anything about that life they led. So the creepy undulating reflection of "Dracula's castle" (so to speak) is consonant with the lugubrious memory.

 

 

 

Edited by Jeff Bernstein
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Shot 8  :  High Society

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The golf course : recall the down-on-his-luck screenwriter in Sunset Boulevard (1950) : "Finally I located that agent of mine.  . . . He was hard at work in Bel-Air, making with the golf sticks." Don't the Evil Mediocrities of the earth plot their Vile Work while out on the greens? ("Golf : where no one can hear you speak.") Golf is an occupation for the moneyed : golf is high society. 

 

(a) Shot 8 evokes the bad times of Kane’s disastrous bid for governor of the state.

 

(b) Shot 8 evokes the futility of game-playing in fleeting time : 

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The monolith : now a pool table. "I was just knocking a few balls around." (From 2001 to idle nihilism.) / Lady Macbeth : "The Thane of Fife had a wife. Where is she now?" A cruel jibe : she's dead. (Shining : “Yes, sir. l have a wife and two daughters.” “Where are they now?”)

 

Kane? Governor?

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A "Kane for Governor" sign from CK in Cover Girl (1944). Why? Welles' new wife at that time : Rita Hayworth.

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Edited by Jeff Bernstein
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Shot 7 :  Time's Up

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The raised drawbridge : symbol of Kane’s death. Progress has stopped. There is no further move to make—for him. But just as we the Spectators got over the fence (following the Creator), now we’ll leap the gap here and continue toward the window. And go inside.

 

Looking out of a window is often a cinematic expression of engaging with the world. Here, we must go in through the window to engage. This inverted progression conveys that CK will explore the “inner world”.

 

The chain, centrally placed in the frame, is an evocative symbol. Perhaps the statue may be, at least at first, mistaken for a live animal, such as the primates—then the audience realizes the shape isn't alive : continuing the theme of life-as-stasis.

 

In these shots an eerie mist glides through the locations. . . .

 

 

 

Edited by Jeff Bernstein
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Shot 9  :  Suddenly Rectilinear

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shots 1–3 : founded on the vertical, and on diagonals

shots 4–8: founded on diagonals

 

shot 9 : the most stable shot in CK yet. It is the first shot founded on a series of horizontals : from architecture, to trajectory of eerie mist. The various verticals here are perpendicular to the foundation, thereby not detracting from, but adding to the peace of the composition.

 

(a) Peace. One might say, a soothing sense of grace is near, because a soul is soon to pass away?

(b) Implacable Fate is approaching, in all its order, and there’s nothing we can do about it.

(c) The order of things outlasts those for whom the order ostensibly exists.

(d) A rectilinear composition soothes the audience. Preparing for Kane's Death, this shot is akin to a shot of a sedative, dialing down the visual tension now that we’re getting closer to a Story Essential.

(e) The two palms : another recollection of Hollywood. If we follow the conceptual pathway started earlier (shot 6 = marriage // shot 8 = high society governorship disaster), then here a Spectator might name these two trees Charles Foster Kane and Susan Alexander. The two trees are a visual reminder of the protagonist’s second marriage.

(f) In what time are we? The architectural monument prominent in the frame recalls a possibly far distant past.

(g) If we amalgamate together, say, (e) Charles and Susan; and (f) lost time; then we arrive at a pathos.

(h) Since Kane inhabits that one lit room in the castle, may we therefore say that these shots might be his life flashing before his eyes? These dour shots are a trip down memory lane; so that when he says “Rosebud”, that Verbal Situation slots elegantly into this set-up. It has already been mentioned (in the Vertigo commentary) that a first-rate storyteller always sets up a Colossal Moment (whether it be the sound of a consonant, or a consequential character interaction, or whatever). Theory : these opening exterior shots of CK are highly-charged with symbolic meaning (as in a dream)—but don't we know this by now?

(I) By this time in Kane's life : more stone than nature.

(j) The sudden change in geometry is akin to a trumpet call from afar (e.g., the famous horn call of the first movement of Beethoven’s Eroica symphony, bb. 394–395) : a signal of Kane : a cinematic equivalent to scenting the fragrance of a person before a sighting.

(k) Whatever else.  

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Reasonable Death : The Seventh Seal (1957)

 

 

 

Edited by Jeff Bernstein
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Pause : to Make Light.

 

EWS : “People die. It happens all the time. But you know that, don’t you?” (And both characters smile.) This is EWS, the artwork itself, speaking to the audience. Curious, that this sentiment is expressed in a light-hearted manner. One might say that the strongest possible contrast is embodied in this expression : (a) the carefree and (b) the deadly serious.

 

We have learned from the ancient Greek playwrights that the stronger the contrast (e.g., in character, in scene, in line-by-line exchanges), the more dramatic the situation.

 

EWS is employing one of human nature’s keenest strategies when facing the Serious : laugh it off!

 

But what if your humble narrator says the following?

 

Theory : A work of Art, no matter what it is—even if it deals with Death, well, then, it is in the “same sport” as humor, of “making light” (interesting phrase). The most serious artwork is not one jot closer to the Serious for all that.

 

If Death features in a narrative (say, a movie), then the concept of Death has been absorbed by your friendly Society and spat back out at the viewer. No matter what, this transaction is a soothing one, because it comes to you courtesy of your favorite sponsors.

 

Extremely intelligent artists often attempt to short-circuit this “levelling down” of the Serious by making their Artwork all the more uncomfortable to watch : such as Ingmar Bergman (e.g., Cries and Whispers, Autumn Sonata) and Gaspar Noe (take your pick).

 

The audience escapes the film at the end. But there is no escaping the Serious when it comes.

 

Recapitulation of Theory for Future Thinking : Art, by virtue of being itself, automatically makes light of itself!

 

 

 

Edited by Jeff Bernstein
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Shot 10  :  Don’t people say  :  “My house is an extension of my personality?”

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Newsreel narrator (4:44) : “Xanadu is the costliest monument a man has built to himself!” Possibly the narrator is correct, if we discount, say, Kane’s own self. A self is one’s one artwork to make, to cherish, and to lose. Anyway, the narrator knows nothing much, as his boss himself expresses.

 

Scale. Why would a person want to live in such a volume of space? Wouldn’t the air inside all that heaviness of masonry reduce a personality down to nothing? Later on we’ll have to wonder why Charles Foster Kane would choose to live in this menacing Situation.

 

Time. Once more, the imagery does not allow a Spectator to pin a time period on the sight.

 

Walls. A significant component of this shot is the massive wall surrounding the castle. Aggression and seclusion : a strange mix?

 

Grandiosity. An educated guess would be that someone important, or at the least self-important, would most likely live in this vast place.

 

Ludicrousness? Why would a modern human being choose to live in such a cold, forbidding, seemingly unpleasantly-retro place?

 

Walls. Seclusion—if not Isolation. Privacy—if not Obscurity. Solitude—if not loneliness.

 

Genre? "Still a total mystery."

 

Walls. “What did you find out about him, Jerry?” “Not much, really.” (1:53:47)

 

 

 

Edited by Jeff Bernstein
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Shot 11   Light of My Life

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One small step for lighting . . . One giant step for Hollywood cinema!

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This is the last exterior of the opening sequence. Just as we reach our final destination, Kane reaches his.

 

The arched window is suggestive of the spiritual and is therefore an appropriate visual correspondence with one’s last end.

 

Symbolism : the light of life. When the light goes out : Darkness : Despair : Nihilism. All is lost.

 

(Psycho : “The fire would go out. It'd be cold and damp—like a grave.”)

 

The rectilinear shot composition recalls shot 9. Is there visual irony here?—The derangement of Death is presented in a soothing compositional way.

 

The window : its cross-hatch pattern recalls the perimeter fence of shot 1. We are now in the realm of the “fence within the fence” : we have reached the sanctum sanctorum. We're at the threshold of where we do not want to be : the moment of Truth : Death.

 

The electric light switches off abruptly. (a) Either Kane or someone else turns off the light; and/or (b) the light switching off is a cinematic (symbolic) expression of the moment of Death. Regardless of (a)—(b) cannot be discarded, because, thematically, it’s coincident with the human situation inside.

 

Expressionist Lighting : Early echo of Storaro! The theatricality of the lighting is one more artistic and technical decision of CK that was alien to the star-system studio films of the 1930s.

 

Death as the “turning off of the light” : This storytelling technique is a general one these days, but back in 1940, this moment was as surreal a vision as a David Lynch movie. Obvious expressionist symbolism was not a "go-to technique" in 1930s Hollywood.

 

A colossal moment in Hollywood history and we’re only at running time 2:09.

 

Sound : The music builds to a climax, then cuts out as the light dies. Now comes dead silence for five seconds, from (2:10–2:15)—recalling the groundbreaking dead silence over the opening titles. Here, the sound is just as groundbreaking as the lighting! Q : Is this sonic moment the first time that dead silence was employed in this manner (in a story manner, i.e., a thematic manner), for such a duration of running time, in Hollywood sound-film up to 1940?

 

(One might remark that Welles is importing theater-stage lighting and sound techniques into Hollywood—but I am not writing film history here, or the history of Orson Welles, so such remarks should be rare in this commentary.)

 

Time : The window looks medieval. This detail compels us to ponder the weirdness of time. Kane dying in 1941AD may as well have died in 1941BC.

 

Now that Charles Foster Kane is dead? What becomes of his most personal possessions? Raymond, the butler, has the last word of the narrative : “Throw that junk (away).” (1:55:49)

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Jeff Bernstein
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The following is a record of the phenomenon of the Art Process, and not so-called “personal remarks” (though they will sound like them) :

 

This author does not want to enter the room. When we consider the enormity of the Situation, who would want to? Because if we drain away all the details of the story to its foundation, Charles Foster Kane is not just Everyman but Every Person. And we know this is a first-rate narrative. And we all know Truth Hurts.

 

Kane is an Ultimate. Who wants to look too deeply into the Ultimate? I say again : Truth Hurts.

 

Good news : There will be colossal utility in facing this experience, however uncomfortable at times, because the beneficial data generated (useful for further creation of our own, and by “our” I mean the Pynchonian “everybody”), will make the experience worth it. “I can sit through it once.”

 

 

 

Edited by Jeff Bernstein
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and, for now, just a reminder :

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Freddy is the lone wolf, the Screenwriter who sits down to write. The Master is the Director, the one who goes out into the world and reckons with it. The Master reckons with the world : like Jack, he might say : "I want my environment to be a product of me." Charles Foster Kane wanted this—his environment to be a product of him—his entire adult lifetime.

 

 

 

Edited by Jeff Bernstein
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A person dies alone.

 

Shot 12

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Precision dissolve matching Shot 11. Now the light is outside : obviously expressionistic. Complicated? Ten years earlier, films were edited deliberately slow while audiences eased into a new world of Talkies; many early-30s films had repetition at the cuts of contiguous shots. (Recall "It's an acquired taste" in NBK, 1:11). Just ten short years later seem a thousand years of development (so to speak), in technology, storytelling, and audience absorption.

 

Note the magisterial tone of this Situation. Might we call this comic? Because Kane is no leader of men. This, once we've come to know the character of Kane, indeed looks like a man's monument to himself (e.g., Robert Browning, "The Bishop Orders His Tomb"). A comic death? (Such strong contrast!) A comic death, yet portrayed cinematically as lugubrious in vibe? This is a complicated tone, which is a hallmark of the first-rate narrative.

 

Shot 13a

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"All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain." (Blade Runner) See also Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), chapter 19.

 

But the snow is also a memory of a happy time.

 

e.g., Wordsworth :

"golden daffodils . . .

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance."

 

Contrast! This is an image both happy and sad!

 

Kane, as he is dying, may be happy! He is remembering his happy past! He is recovering the feeling! Possibly for the first time in his adult life he's truly feeling human! Then he promptly dies. Comic? Tragic? "A triumph of the human spirit"? (Thus a spoof of Hollywood movies and the Hays Code?) Whatever else? Here it is again for a limited engagement : first-rate storytelling.

 

Shot 13b

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Does this snowglobe recall the latest Spielberg lens flare? The snowglobe may symbolize a lens?

 

And the snowglobe reflects the fairy tale world of RKO studios, which Welles famously decribed as “the greatest electric train set a boy ever had”.

 

And (first and foremost) the snowglobe means something personal to the character Charles Foster Kane. Holding this object in his hand when he dies, an object he chose to hold, therefore invests this object with a sort of mysticism, a solemnity similar to "one's last words".

 

Might this object be described as . . . holy?

 

Shot 14

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The overlay of snow on shots 13b to 15 dissolve together the "inner" and the "outer". The Dream. "Rosebud."

 

Shot 15a

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West Side Story (2021)

 

Shot 16a

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Shot 16b

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Death is a shattering experience.

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Shot 16c

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Shot 17

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Shot 18  An audience stepping out of the 1930s : "What is this?!"

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My goodness. The 1930s audience has already experienced more imagination and technical innovation in the first three minutes of CK than in who-knows-how-many 1930s films put together! To continue speaking of these series of shots in a responsible way requires the duration of Eternity. So, just one point : Both the Beginning and the End are in the Lens.

 

Shot 19 

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One talking point in Kane's life noteworthy enough to enter his obituary was the amount of valuable items he owned. Now, he himelf has become a mere object. Only once in life did Kane feel truly "at home"; now, once more, in death, funnily enough, he is "right at home".

 

Shot 20  Recapitulation of Shot 12 : Order. Peace.

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Theory : Not many of us on Earth would opt to exit this way : a lonely death. One might say here, "Funny thing is, this isn't a joke."

 

 

 

Edited by Jeff Bernstein
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Shot 18  Into the Light

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Kane's dead body looks to be levitating in the frame, as in a magic trick. Meanwhile, Kane's spirit has moved symbolically from the front of the frame (the bubble of his past) to the back of the frame (out through the window of spirituality and into the light).

 

 

 

Edited by Jeff Bernstein
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Coming Soon : Memories

 

The introductory part of Citizen Kane is a “movie in itself”—in its ambiguity of genre and so on and so forth. This is made all the more evident by what follows : the inexpressibly breathtaking “News on the March” newsreel. It’s all fake, but it feels real. An audience arriving late to Kane might have mistaken it for the real thing! (Audiences coming late to films was so common an occurrence that Hitchcock spun a publicity move out of denying entry to any latecomers to Psycho (1960).) Stylistically—in the broadest and most obvious sense—Citizen Kane is composed of four different movies!

 

(a) The Genre-Indeterminate Introduction;

(b) The Newsreel;

(c) The “Real World”;

and, occupying most of Kane's running time :

(d) The Memories.

 

 

 

Edited by Jeff Bernstein
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