Citizen Kane

Introduction

Orson Welles employs a distinct technical and visual style, and the result is considered to be one of the greatest cinematic masterpieces of all time. In the years following its 1941 release, Citizen Kane was praised for its style, its diversion from conventional cinematic norms, and its unique mode of storytelling. The American Film Institute polled around 1,500 film professionals in 1998 and in 2008 and found that Citizen Kane consistently ranked at the top of their “100 Years… 100 Movies” list. Citizen Kane is about the life and death of a prominent newspaper mogul, Charles Foster Kane; his story is told through the words of those closest to him (his father figure, Walter Parks Thatcher; his manger, Mr. Bernstein; his friend/colleague, Jedediah Leland; and his second wife, Susan Alexander Kane).

One of the most prominent themes of Citizen Kane is this idea that one can never truly understand a person once they’ve died. We learn about Kane’s life through the memories and (often contradictory) opinions of other people, but audiences miss out on a key perspective that would further enrich our understanding of Kane’s life, and that is the words of Kane himself. There are no diary entries from Kane’s point of view, no records of how he perceived himself and the world. The testimonies of Thatcher, Bernstein, and Susan Alexander could be far from the truth, but audiences will never know. 

This fallibility of memory contributes significantly to the film’s melodramatic characteristics because of the way it allows audiences to have access to several different emotional perspectives, all while contemplating the truth. It heightens the emotional response of both the audience and the characters in the film.

Moreover, we can see elements of melodrama through Citizen Kane’s use of cinematography and a strong sense of emotionalism.

Cinematography— Montage and Distortion

From a technical standpoint, Welles’ use of montage, shot distortion, and deep focus contribute to the melodrama of Citizen Kane. Montage as a film technique often allows the director to shorten the distances between moments in space and time, and we clearly see that in Citizen Kane. Audiences become familiar with montage as it is used to show glimpses of Kane’s past. However, as previously mentioned, these glimpses do not provide us with the full truth and thus infuse Citizen Kane with a heightened sense of drama.

Similarly, we can observe the use of shot distortion in the last scenes of the film where Kane is trashing Susan Alexander’s room at the Xanadu estate as a means of intensified melodrama. The scene starts calmly as Kane moves through the room; however, the camera is placed at a low angle to make it seem as if Kane towers over the space. As he begins to wreck the room, Kane’s movements are stiff and unnatural. These movements show his powerlessness in his old age and his inability to make Susan Alexander stay with him, which is juxtaposed by his large physical presence in the shots of this scene.

Emotionalism

James Brooks notes, in The Melodramatic Imagination, that melodramatic works tend to have an “indulgence of strong emotionalism” (11-12). In the scene from Kane’s childhood, where his parents are discussing the terms of sending young Kane away to live with Thatcher, we see an extreme juxtaposition of emotions. Kane’s father is clearly very against sending his son away, while Kane’s mother and Thatcher are cold and unaffected. When they tell Kane that he’s going away, his father tries to comfort him by listing all the new places he’ll see while his mother stands idly by.

Additionally, this camera work in this scene heightens the melodrama of the film. While the adults are having this serious conversation, Welles implements the use of deep focus to show a young Kane playing in the background. Welles is trying to draw audience attention to Kane in the background and the adults in the foreground in order to show alternate points of view and to introduce conflict to the film. Ultimately, this deep focus shot allows us to sympathize more with young Kane, sets us up to sympathize with him throughout the rest of the film, and thematically connects Kane’s childhood to his adult life.