There are points in history where things starts changing. An insurgency, that changes the entire course of the respective field, perhaps a renaissance. This film is that point in the field of filmmaking. I know many of you have left after seeing the title itself. Only some of you have tapped on this article and actually read it. Because let’s face it. It isn’t the most entertaining film, but it’s the film that has revolutionarised filmmaking that we see today. Despite being a huge flop, and the RKO production house, which was one of the top five production house of the golden age, lost around 1,25,000 dollars, it changed the course of cinema and Hollywood.
Performance
Orson Welles as Charles Kane is so brawny. His election speech was the part where I fell in love with him. God! he looked so powerful. And yes, how can someone even forget that grin. That grin on his face is so pleasing. Rest of the cast is bewildering as well. Be it the reporter, or Charles’ mother, or Jedadiah. Yeah, Leland is great. He is kinda shady that makes him stand out. Susan Alexander kane with her soft, yet mesmerising voice, managed to get into our heart. Mr. Bernstein, the right hand, is someone who is immune to every politics or bad deeds, he did whatever Kane ordered him to. How can anyone forget Mr. Thatcher, that person who was behind taking custody of Kane and changed the course of history. He did a very fine job, as a friendly rival of Kane.
A Stage Play
The whole film is like a stage play. With a single camera, he toured us about the whole scene. He propped the camera at just one spot, and made his direction talk. There are many great paradigm of such direction. Take this instance, the scene where Walter. P. Thatcher visits Mrs. Kane’s boarding house. The whole scene is staged very well, without any cuts. First the camera is placed on the window displaying the childhood Charles Kane and then it enters in the house depicting the scene where Thatcher takes the custody of Kane. There we get to know the traits of the characters. Mother is wise, father is powerless but he wants to be the patriarch of the family. Inside, the camera is kept close to mother symbolizing that she’s the one who is in-charge and that she’s playing a major role in the part. The camera then moves out through the window when all the three, Thatcher, mother and father of Kane comes out to disclose the bank-being-the-gardian thing to Kane. After that, the camera focuses on sleigh, the sleigh that holds the biggest mystery of the film,‘ROSEBUD’.
Lighting Factor
The way in which lights were used is very uncustomary. The actor, or the object which wasn’t salient were placed in the dark, and the important ones were placed in the light. The best exemplar is the scene where Jim Gettys confronts Charles and his wife by sending a note through Susan Alexander. In that scene, after a brief argument Charles enter the dark spot. It also symbolizes the darkness that’s gonna be introduced to Charles Kane in the form of failed election; failed marriage, marriage(s) infact; failed life. But then he enters the light, delineating that he took the charge of his life. Another example is the conversation during the projection of the news, most of it was in the dark. The actors used gestures to perform, which seemed really unorthodox.
The Overlap
Orson Welles instigated a new element, the element of overlapping. The dialogues of the film were overlapping at times. In a way it is realistic. Let’s say you’re having an argument, or you are sitting in a group. Don’t you think you overlap. Like, we all overlap each other at times. Ofcourse, not always, but yes we do, and this is what Orson Welles admired and added to the film. It is also really engaging, the overlapping forced us to concentrate more.
Rosebud
The Brobdingnagian mystery of the film, Rosebud. It seems that rosebud was a text written on his sleigh. The sleigh symbolizes his childhood and Orson smartly underlined that word through Thatcher, and also in many shots visually. The real meaning of rosebud according to me was his childhood, his mother, his delightful memories. He had a sleigh when he was a child, he was happy at that time even though he had nothing and now when he had everything he still is unhappy. Through remembering rosebud, he craved for his childhood and his ordinary life. He wanted to go back there, far away from Xanadu and everyone else. Regretted everything he’d done.
But this too is another story by another person(me), just like the rest. Nobody knew who Charles Foster Kane was in reality. It’s just the frigment of their memories, some real, some made up. Nobody can say who he really was, or what he really did. Because even if they do, it’ll be just another story from another mouth.