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THE TRANSGRESSIVE AMERICAN: DECODING Alan Woolfolk, Southern Methodist University, Texas INTRODUCTION Film must be analyzed as a culturally subver­ The social sciences have not yet developed sive art form in its tendency to exploit the an adequate analysis of the film's relation to established tension between private·desires politics and culture. Propagandist uses of film and public ideals, and the higher and lower for political purposes are well known since the energies of the self, in favor of the private or advent of the cinema, but the readiness of film lower side of our culturally defined nature. makers to apply machinations of power­ Film, like the romantic novel before it, relies hungry elites to the entertainment and on exploration of ambiguities in social and per­ manipulation of the masses has been little sonallife for much of its attraction and power. explored. The susceptibility of film, in contrast But film is a much more public art form. It to other art forms, to exploitation as a weapon explores and exposes the undersides of soci­ against traditional culture needs clarification. ety and personality in the social realm, and I will analyze the American film classic, Citizen thus creates a complicity with the audience Kane, as an esthetic objectification of contra which cannot possibly exist among novel motifs in contemporary western culture. First, readers, except in a most abstract sense. emphasis on publicity and psychology leads The novel derives from a culture of the to shallow understanding of social life. printed word. Part of Citizen Kane's brilliance Second, the focus on esthetic performance resides in its pictorial description of the tran­ and technique in this film implies impoverish­ sition from an era of printed words to an era ment of culture. Third, there is systematic of moving pictures which Kane/Hearst helped denial of the idea of forbidden knowledge. initiate by using the printed word more to arouse than to inform. The transitional nature PUBLICITY AND PSYCHOLOGY of the Kane/Hearst figure may be gleaned It is an open secret since Citizen Kane first from the opening "News· on the March" opened amid controversy, over 40 years ago, newsreel which records with stilted that the protagonist, Charles Foster Kane, seriousness the life and death of Charles played by , is a thinly disquised Foster Kane. The newsreel and the reporters stand-in for the sensationalist news magnate almost certainly represent the Luce organiza­ and publisher, . Kane tion, displacing the Hearst empire as the most was billed as "... the greatest newspaper influential publishers in the United States. The tycoon of this or any other generation:' (Kael reporters' decision to concentrate on Kane's 1971 100) Part of the film's popular appeal dying word as the key to understanding his derives from application of journalistic techni­ life marks the symbolic death of a culture in ques to the Kane/Hearst character in the same which the dying have something of importance manner that Hearst sensationalized the lives to teach about the conduct of life. of others. In the film, little remains hidden or Kane dies alone, muttering the word private. Instead, the private merges with the ";' the manufacturer's trade name public context, only to overpower and scandal­ painted on a coaster sled, his plaything in ize it. Kane enters newspaper pUblishing, not boyhood. The word had private and psycho­ with a motive of profit or public service, but logical reference to his severance from his because he thinks that it might be "fun" to childhood home and family, particularly, his run a newspaper. He fails in politics due to a mother. The two images could not have been scandal with a mistress. His makes his second more antithetical. On one hand a great moral wife an "opera singer" because he imagines teacher offers insight into the conduct of life, that he has power to create talent where none even when dying; on the other a corrupt dying exists. All of this is valid in the context of the publicist mumbles a meaningless word. film, and the power of Citizen Kane as a Emphasis on the private in Citizen Kane cultural weapon turns on its capacity to make logically enters the realm of psychology. Luce the viewer think the private and psychological reporter Thompson simply does not dig deeply fully explains the public and the social. enough for his story. Like other characters, he FREE INQUIRY IN CREATIVE SOCIOLOGY Volume 12 No 1, May 1984 36 suspects that the term Rosebud is connected Vocational commitment may provide a safe with a scandal. The film picks up where jour­ outlet for hatred and aggression. Politics can nalism fails, thereby delving more deeply into allow a socially controlled and beneficial quest the private side of life. for power. Patronage of the arts may refine Although depth psychology may offer the the patron's sensibilities. Kane undergoes no most shallow level of interpretation, the struc­ such inner changes as a consequence of his ture of the film encourages the viewer to think communal commitments. In fact, it is his social otherwise. By drawing the viewer into the and ultimately his moral failures that become search for the meaning of Rosebud, the film lost in the film's focus on the determinative implies that Kane's quest for power, as power of childhood character. Citizen Kane expressed through ·his pursuits in business, fails to convey adequately the alternative politics, the arts, and his private life with family possibility, which only begins to open up and friends, can best be explained by refer­ through the character of Leland, that Kane ence to the childhood incident when his cannot escape from his prison of self-love mother sent him away for tutoring under the because he cannot change his basic self­ care of Thatcher, his guardian, and trustee of interpretation. This is another way of denying Kane's enormous estate. According to this the transformative power of communal com­ popular reading, Kane's quest for power may mitments. The film does not reveal the hidden be attributed to the psychological scar that he link between impulsive, infantile behavior carries from childhood. Kane hurts others patterns and moral failure. because he has been hurt. He does to others what others have done to him. He turns them CULTURE AS TECHNIQUE into objects to be manipulated by his will. Objections to what Orson Welles has called Several Citizen Kane scenes depict Kane's the "dollar-book Freud" gimmickry of the inability to escape from his childhood trauma, Rosebud theme are nothing new. One and from childish patterns of behavior. The American film critic, Kael (1971) of Citizen original hatred that Kane expresses as a child Kane says that it simply does not work, and against Thatcher in thought and action when contends that it " ... is not a work of special he struck him with his sled, continues to reveal depth or a work of subtle beauty ... but a itself. Decades later, Thatcher asked Kane: shallow masterpiece:' Yet she clearly thinks "what would you like to have been?" Kane that it is one of the finest American films, replied: "Everything you hate:' (Kael 1971 which qualifies as a masterpiece precisely 302) On a more abstract level, examples of because of its well executed shallowness. It childlike behavior are never clearly linked to is a triumph of technique and a mastery of the trauma. Kane says he feels like a kid in showmanship by director-producer and star­ a candy store after buying away the staff of ring actor Orson Welles. It dazzles the most a rival newspaper. He impulsively buys art critical and sophisticated of audiences. without regard to merit. He refuses to say that Kael (1971 5) argues for the superiority of he is sorry after slapping· his second wife in Citizen Kane on the basis of esthetic criteria, the tent scene. These examples suggest that by which, I refer to modes of communication, psychology offers the deepest explanation of to the shaping of sensation, rather than to Kane's thought and action. what constitutes beauty, which represents a Yet Kane is not an isolated individual think­ more recent understanding of the term. ing and acting in a social vacuum. He may Citizen Kane ranks high esthetically not simply also be defined by his relation to society, by because of its use of innovative techniques, reference to his social and moral self. The such as deep focus and fadeouts, but from the psychological view of Kane offers only a par­ theatrics of Welles, who managed to create tial explanation. Worse, it ignores the capaci­ a popular masterpiece, "comic-strip tragic ... ty of religion, politics, business, and other and overwrought in style:' For Kael, Citizen communal commitments to transform the Kane is an esthetic masterpiece primarily psychological into a meaning entirely different. because it works, not because it produces Marriage and friendship may transform a understanding or insight. person's motives, helping to cure self-love. To value efficacy while conveniently ignoring FREE INQUIRY IN CREATIVE SOCIOLOGY Volume 12 No 1, May 1984 37 illuminative aspects of culture accords well admit that not all symbols are reducible to with the film's spirit, which devalues acts of instruments of coercion. interpretation and critical reflection in favor of immediate impact and response. Kane shares DENIAL OF FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE a similar view of culture. The hidden link be­ Like all films, Citizen Kane succeeds large­ tween the newspaper age and the film age is ly because it enchants audiences and draws not only emphasis on publicity, but also the them into a fantasy world. Technical effects view that ideas, images, and symbols which abound. The film is melodramatic rather than we call culture ultimately depend on function dramatic. It applies popular formulas, such as and utility rather than on meaning for their the notion that the rich are lonely and unhap­ importance in human affairs. py, calculated to confirm the more typical In the context of the film, Kane's inability to viewer's pet illusions. But the fantasy world believe in anything or anyone except himself of Citizen Kane cuts more deeply because it illustrates well the problems associated with tends to invert our common and accepted a purely instrumental "understanding" of the sense of character and culture. It implies that world. The newsreel segment in which Kane the individual is best understood qua is accused of being a Fascist and a Com­ individual, not as a social being. To suggest munist before he declares himself to be an that culture is reducible to a war for power, " American" underscores the utility-of-belief holds the fantasy that personal and collective theme. What the Nazis, Fascists, Com­ worlds must submit to no authority, and that munists, and Americans all have in common, human existence is infinitely malleable. despite popular misconceptions, is the The history of western culture leads one to absence of fixed beliefs (Arendt 1973 476). suspect that human nature and human culture Kane holds no traditional convictions or prin­ incorporate safeguards which limit the ciples. His "Declaration of Principles" freedom of humans to invert their world. Thus, becomes an "antique" because as an every culture depends for survival on the idea American, he values performance instead of of forbidden knowledge - that certain things a highly developed sense of purpose. cannot be done except at the cost of self­ Such a perspective squares entirely with the destruction. Following Philip Rieff (1972 98) sensationalist journalist's cavalier attitude I shall refer to these cultivated limitations as toward the truth, because in his world there interdictory motifs and to exceptions to these is no truth, either factual or moral. Kane's interdicts as remissions. Interdictory motifs paraphrase of the famous Hearst quip about may coexist with the structure of reality, or "providing the war" in Cuba exemplifies his they may be buried so deeply within us that disregard for the factual truth, and his claim we cannot escape them even as fantasies, to be both a committed capitalist and a public particularly in the collective fantasy of a film. crusader for the downtrodden demonstrates The psychological and esthetic levels of his contempt for moral truth. Citizen Kane represent remissive motifs which The assumption that the world of ideas and obscure but do not eliminate the hidden inter­ images derives from instrumental uses implies dictory structure of the film. Rosebud may be a coercive view of culture, without moral order, understood as a psychological reference to in which the world becomes merely political the idyllic home of Kane's childhood, or alter­ and subject to those best able to manipulate natively, as an esthetic reference to the life symbols for their own ends. In this vein, Kane of self-realization and self-expression which runs for political office, and relies on esthetic he never achieves. But both understandings effect instead of a systematic set of beliefs. assume that what Kane's life lacks is possibili­ Politics is a matter of style and ceremony, ty, and opportunity for change. The alternative bolstered by ideas understood as purely func­ to both understandings emphasizes not tional. Hence slogans prevail which do not possibility but necessity, suggesting that really mean anything, but are calculated to Rosebud refers not to past or future life, but arouse strong feeling and uncritical response. to the present life which Kane fails to Kane understands his own public crusades as recognize because of his rebellion against all propaganda. If he did not, he might have to self-limitation, and his preoccupation with FREE INQUIRY IN CREATIVE SOCIOLOGY Volume 12 No 1, May 1984 38 doing rather than not doing. CONCLUSION Kane remains a willful, destructive and self­ Kane is best understood in terms of form immolating individual without the inwardness rather than content, and in style rather than of character that the internalization of cultural in psychology or economics. He is a breaker limits would engender. Not even what the critic of cultural interdicts, where the enchantment calls Orson Welles' "charming, wicked rap­ with generating news detroys any ethic of port with the audience" (Kael 1971 50) can newspaper responsibility. He is both capitalist disguise the transgressiveness of his actions. landlord and public crusader for the downtrod­ Kane's confrontation with the corrupt political den who recognizes no conflict of interest. He boss offers a case in point. Even after it is is a transgressor against binding commit­ clear that he will be ruined by scandal if he ments of family and friendship. As one of stays in politics, Kane refuses to quit, and Toqueville's defaulted democratic citizens consequently insures his own humiliation and exercising privilege without responsibility, the destruction of his family. Like a "profes­ Kane retreats into his private fantasy, com- sional magician:' as his second wife, Susan plete with "No Trespass" signs, and thus Alexander, jokingly calls him, Kane values the externalizes his failure to internalize any effective performance, which is merely cultured limits. another method of getting one's way. On the Kane is an archetypal transgressive rare occasions when Kane does not get his American because his symbolic offerings to way, he becomes demented with rage. This everything that is not himself, like the Cain of is most spectacular in his fit of meaningless old, are merely masks for his own elaborate temper, triggered when Susan deserts him. self-aggrandizements. No binding tradition, no The havoc he wreaks with the furnishings in inhibiting guilt feelings, no constraining ethic the bedroom scene provides an image of what restricts his disarming boldness or thought life would be like if we were completely and action. He lives in no moral universe. The uninhibited, and able to express everything. psychological scars, which supposedly Psychological understanding of Kane's drive prepare for the abuse of economic privilege, for power, expressed in his pursuit of political failure, and social misfortune, do not business, politics, the arts and his private life reduce a young man's charm to an old man's cannot sustain the interpretive weight of the loneliness. Rather, repeated infractions of filmic details of his life involvements. His . cultural interdicts, and institutionalized expulsion from the Eden of his childhood is trespassing cause the very problems that more myth than reality, because it too is the Kane uses as excuses. It is precisely this creation of his radical contempory expression reading of social and personal life that the of journalistic imagination. This easily justifies film systematically obscures. his failure to recognize in any serious way that not everything is permitted, and that even the rich and the powerful must live in a world of REFERENCES interdicted possibilities. Kane recognizes no Arendt Hannah 1973 The Origins of Totalitarianism. forbidden knowledge. Just as reporter Thomp­ New York. Harcourt Brace Janovich son thinks that he can crack the case of Barsam Richard M 1975 Pilgrimage to Triumph of the Will. Bloomington. Indiana U Press Kane's life by discovering the meaning of the Kael Pauline 1971 The Citizen Kane Book. London. publisher's dying word, Kane fantasizes that Seeker Warburg the real meaning of life is trapped in the Rieff Philip 1972 Towards a theory of culture. artificial past of his glass snowball, which he Imagination andPrecision in the Social Sciences: Essays in memory of Peter Nettl. T Nossiter, A cannot recapture. He likes to imagine that Hanson, S Rokkan eds. London. Faber Faber' even if he had not been rich, he could have ___ 1981 By what authority? Post­ become a great man. Freudian reflections on the repression of the repressive in modern culture. The Problem of Authority in America. J Diggins, M Kann eds. . Temple U Press