1 A VIEWING JOURNAL OF , , 1941 by Adrian D’Ambra 1) (1), (1941, Kane dies aged 78) Huge poster letters ‘CITIZEN KANE’ fill whole screen, silence

Exterior, mournful music, ‘NO TRESPASSING’

Wire mesh, cyclone fence, camera appears to climb up fence

Iron gates, ‘BENGAL TIGER’ cage, monkeys, distant castle in gothic darkness dominating viewer and skyline

One large lit window seen from far below

Slowly approaching castle, gondolas, draw bridge, black cat/leopard statue facing castle

‘No 16, 365 yds’, private golf course, disused, craterous mound; any significance to the number of days in a year?

Lower stone gate, appears to be bricked up

Oriental gateway

Cathedral windows, diamond leadlight grid on window, the single light we have been travelling towards

Light extinguished

Interior, now looking at same window from inside room

Snow flakes, snow dome with little house, extreme close up of Kane’s mouth with snow flakes superimposed; “Rosebud”, snow dome dropped from outstretched hand, shatters. Death. Nurse covers body, again looking out of window, fade, music resolves, story told.

2

Commentary: Mystery: the mysterious compound with its series of gates, the mystery of the single light in a darkened mansion, the mystery of the apparent decline of this enormous and presumably once lavish property; it looks abandoned but apparently is not entirely so. Are the assortment of observations and collages made by the camera between the outer perimeter and the one lit room cryptic and meaningful or random and incoherent? Fantasy elements of the dark mountaintop castle set against a dark sky and the overbearing gothic gloom (possible fantasy reference to the wicked queen’s castle in Disney’s Snow White).

The mysterious death scene, the death of a lonely stranger. Again, are the collages of images random or are they filled with cryptic meaning? The snowflakes both inside the snow dome and superimposed on the dying man’s face. Is this memory or the collapse of consciousness or both? Is the little house in the snow dome incidental or significant? And what of the single spoken word?

3 2) NEWSREEL

Flags, full screen caption: ‘NEWS ON THE MARCH; OBITUARY: ’S LANDLORD’

Exterior, daylight shots of Xanadu with ‘pleasure dome’ text from Kubla Khan

Collage of numerous, clashing, monumental architectural styles

Aerial shot of Xanadu

Narrative of the construction of Xanadu’s mountain; not only is the estate/castle/mansion manmade, so too is the landscape

Collage images of statues and materials being imported from around the world, “the loot of the world”, crates, freight, stables

Collage of animals of the land and sea and air, “the biggest private zoo since Noah”

“like the pharaohs”, like the pyramids, “the costliest monument a man has built to himself” spoken over collage of topiary gardens, classical statue of boy-archer, lily pond

Full screen caption: ‘In Xanadu last week was held 1941’s biggest, strangest funeral.’

Exterior shot of mourners outside gothic chapel, funereal music, pall bearers carry the coffin of “a potent figure of our century, America’s Kubla Khan, Charles Foster Kane”

Newspaper collage. Front page New York Daily Inquirer, photograph of Kane surrounded by laudatory headlines:  Finds Place in US Hall of Fame

4  CHARLES FOSTER KANE DIES AFTER LIFETIME OF SERVICE  WORLD LEADERS EXPRESS GRIEF FOR PUBLISHER  Entire Nation Mourns Great Publisher As Outstanding American  Kane Called World’s Best Philanthropist

Front page The Daily Chronicle, unflattering photograph of Kane. Headlines refer to ‘STORMY CAREER’  Death of Publisher Finds Few Who Will Mourn for Him  Always Thought Only of Self

Front page Globe. Another reference to ‘STORMY CAREER’ of ‘U.S. FASCIST NO. 1’.  Held Control of Gigantic News Chain

Front page Minneapolis Record Herald. Kane identified in headlines as ‘SPONSOR OF DEMOCRACY’ who ‘Gave Life to Nation’s Service’

Front page Detroit Star. Kane identified as ‘Leader of News World’ and ‘Master of Destiny’

Front page El Paso Daily Journal. Headlines identify Kane as ‘Editor Who Instigated “War for Profit”’ and mention his ‘Loss of Friends, Wives and Prestige’

International newspapers including non-Latin alphabets

Full screen caption about the ‘greatest newspaper tycoon of this or any other generation’

Flashback to “humble beginnings” of Inquirer. Exterior, street strewn with rubbish, Negros, note hammer and sickle graffito near door

Unmarked political map of USA with radiating circles representing the reach of Kane’s news and business empire

Dissolve from exterior and interior shots of Colorado Lode goldmine, “famed in American legend as the source of the Kane fortune” to cameo photograph of Charles and Mother. Mary Kane is left a deed to a supposedly worthless mineshaft by a defaulting boarder. Molten being poured

Dissolve to exterior and interior shots of Washington Congressional Inquiry. Witness, Walter P Thatcher, a perpetual target of Kane’s anti-trust editorialising, explains that Mary Kane appointed him as trustee of the Kane fortune and guardian of Kane. Questioned about being struck by young Charles with a sled. Thatcher reads statement denouncing Kane as a communist

Exterior, crowd in Union Square, speaker denounces Kane as a fascist

Full screen caption, Kane’s response: ‘I am, have been, and will be only one thing – an American.’ Before and after this caption we see but do not hear footage of Kane speaking into a microphone

Full screen caption: ‘1895 to 1941 All of these years he covered, many of these he was.’ Triumphalist military music. Cut to 1898, mounted troops, Kane urges US to go to war against Spain. Cut to 1919, Kane urges US to stay out of WWI. Collage of images of political campaigning, Kane being burned in effigy and the newspaper being printed. Numerous political images including Kane on balcony with Hitler whom – according to the newsreel soundtrack - he first supported and then denounced

5 Full screen caption: ‘Few private lives were more public.’ Cut to first wedding “to a president’s niece, Emily Norton who left him in 1916” and died with their son in 1918. Cut to second wedding to singer, Susan Alexander. Chicago Opera House built for her to perform in Salammbo, “cost; three million dollars.” Xanadu purportedly built for her, “still unfinished.” Exterior flashback shot of Xanadu still surrounded by forest rather than the wasteland of the Rosebud sequence, “cost; no man can say.”

Full screen caption: ‘In politics – always a bridesmaid, never a bride.’

Kane campaigning for governor in 1916, surrounded by patriotic bunting, aspired to presidency. Collage of rallies, bonfires, fireworks. Cut to front page The Daily Chronicle, ‘CANDIDATE KANE CAUGHT IN LOVE NEST WITH ‘’SINGER’’… ‘Entrapped by Wife as Love Pirate…’ Newsreel narrator describes defeat of Kane’s political career as a major setback for reform in the US

1929. ‘CLOSED’ signs seen on fence, door, driveway. Kane papers close during the

Full screen caption: ‘But America Still Reads Kane Newspapers and Kane Himself Was Always News.’

1935. Kane interviewed on return from unsuccessful business trip to Europe. “Don’t believe everything you hear on the radio, read The Inquirer… You can take my word for it; there’ll be no war.” NB: These are the first words spoken by Kane in the film other than his deathbed “Rosebud.” His grossly inaccurate prediction and his pompous attitude make him appear foolish

Laying foundation stone, spills mortar from trowel; again, makes him appear foolish. The newsreel narrative moves from the public to the private persona of the man who has “outlived” his power, living alone in old age in his unfinished “already decaying” pleasure palace. Wheelchair images shot through lattice fence reminiscent of the dying Lenin (leader of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution in Russia). Series of wheelchair shots from different angles are handheld from hidden vantage points as if Kane is being filmed in secret by the paparazzi. Final tilt shot from above; Kane a diminished man. Dissolve to exterior news flash on building: ‘CHARLES FOSTER KANE IS DEAD’

3) ROSEBUD DEAD OR ALIVE Viewer realises we have been watching newsreel in a studio viewing room rather than as cinema or documentary. Blackout room, shafts of light from projector room, projector light, cigarette lighters, cigarette smoke. We are not just looking at, we are looking into something. Powerful film noir elements

Rawlston delays the release of the newsreel and gives Thompson two weeks to fulfil a quest; to discover the meaning or identity of Rosebud and thereby unlock the secret of Kane’s life. Rawlston – lit from behind in silhouette – dominates Thompson who is lit from below and looking up. The power of the media baron. Thompson turns back to camera and complies. His quest will become the dominant frame of our point of view

6

4) SHE WON’T TALK (Atlantic City) Exterior, poster, storm, camera moves up from Susan Alexander’s image to rooftop lit neon advertising SUSAN ALEXANDER KANE’s floor show at the El Rancho

Omniscient god-like camera enters restaurant accompanied by lightning and thunder through skylight and drops down to Susan Alexander slumped on table. Once Thompson enters room, camera tracks his movement and point of view. We see Susan Alexander as he does. She’s drunk and refuses to speak to him. Sleazy speakeasy music. Thompson goes to phone booth. Deep focus shot across Thompson (foreground), past John the manager (middle ground), to Susan Alexander at table (background). John informs Thompson that she always spoke about Kane up until his death. On the phone to Rawlston Thompson gives us his itinerary. JOHN: She never heard of Rosebud

5) THATCHER LIBRARY () Interior, marble statue of seated thinker-like Thatcher under glass dome. Again, camera pans down from elevated position to Thompson’s point of view as he comes into view

7 Interior, cold, featureless, colonnaded marble room of monumental stature, more like a mausoleum than a library. The librarian is also cold and featureless. The collection is accessed through a large vault door and the manuscript of Thatcher’s memoir appears to have been brought from another, deeper vault. It is brought to an empty table by an armed, uniformed guard. Shafts of light and the guard convey the sense of a prison-like environment in which Thompson is enclosed. Camera looks over Thompson’s shoulder and we read with him the handwritten memoir about Charles Foster Kane. Extreme close up of handwritten “I first encountered Mrs Kane in 1871.”

6) LEAVING HOME (1871) Exterior, snow falling, a lone boy riding his sled. Lighter music highlights boy throwing snowball at the sign above his house: ‘MRS KANE’S BOARDING HOUSE’

Interior, three adults. Our point of view is currently framed through Thatcher’s memoir. The three adults are discussing the boy. At one point we have Mrs Kane in foreground, Thompson in Middle ground and Mr Kane in background. This represents their relationship. The mother is in charge, the father will have no say and Thatcher is coming between them. As Thatcher and the father, Jim, move towards the camera we see the boy through the window in deep focus in extreme background, still playing loudly and alone in the snow. The disagreement unresolved, the papers signed, Mary Kane opens the window her husband has just shut and calls out to Charles. Tone is terse and unemotional and she is visually unappealing to the viewer; an unsympathetic representation. She has had the boy’s bag packed for a week. We see her and beyond her back into the room as if looking in from the vantage point of the open window

8 Exterior, three adults exit, surround Charles and pressure him to accept their decision to send him to Chicago with Thatcher. Jim tells the boy he will be wealthy (correct). Mary tells him he won’t be lonely and Thatcher tells him they will have fun together (both incorrect). Charles pushes Thatcher to the ground with his snow sled and Jim threatens him with “a good thrashing.” At last we are given Mary’s motive. She is sending her son away “where you can’t get at him” suggesting prior episodes of domestic violence and rendering her at least better understood if not much more sympathetic. The tension between the two parents and Mary’s apparent lack of feeling have been given a deeper, more sinister context

Exterior, sound of train going to Chicago in the distance. The Kane porch and Charles’ snow sled covered in snow

7) I THINK IT WOULD BE FUN TO RUN A NEWSPAPER Interior, brief scene of a childhood Christmas, Charles sitting at the base of a Christmas tree unwrapping a new, larger, fancier sled, The Crusader, towered over by the tree and by a cold, unemotive Thatcher. Flash forward to the New Year on the eve of Charles’ 25th birthday, marking his independence from Thatcher who is dictating a letter to the young man about to inherit “the sixth largest private fortune in the world.” In turn, Thatcher’s secretary reads aloud from Kane’s reply which in part reads, “I think it would be fun to run a newspaper”

Dissolve from Thatcher’s angry response to commuters reading The Inquirer, banner headline: ‘TRACTION TRUST EXPOSED.’ Thatcher looks directly at camera as if being interviewed and reads headlines aloud from The Inquirer’s campaigns against trust funds, slum landlords and copper swindlers. The last one Thatcher reads aloud is in front of seated Kane drinking tea: ‘GALLEONS OF SPAIN OFF JERSEY COAST!’ suggesting America is about to be invaded by a new Spanish Armada

Interior, The Inquirer office, Bernstein and Leland introduced to Thatcher. In terms of his newspaper career these will be the three principal narrators of Kane’s story. Note that Kane appears handsome, youthful and is leisurely dressed. Responding to an urgent message from a journalist in Cuba Kane says, “Tell Wheeler, you provide the prose poems, I’ll provide the war.” Evidently, running a newspaper has nothing to do with the pursuit of truth

Interior, Thatcher challenges Kane’s campaign against the public transit authority reminding him of his own significant holdings in it. “The truth is,” responds Kane, “you don’t realise you’re talking to two people.” One is the shareholder. The other is “the publisher of The Inquirer. As such it’s my duty… it’s also my pleasure to see to it that decent, hard-working people in this community aren’t robbed blind by a pack of money-mad pirates.” How ironic is the use of the word pirates here given Kane’s incendiary nautical headline about the Spanish Armada? Yet Kane is apparently trying to suggest to Thatcher that journalism is indeed about ethics and decency in public life on behalf of the decent and the underprivileged. Kane also tells Thatcher that it’s better for a man of property and wealth to espouse the interests of the poor and underprivileged than to let someone else (the communists and/or the fascists?) do it.

9

8) I MIGHT HAVE BEEN A REALLY GREAT MAN Dissolve back to Thatcher’s handwritten manuscript: ‘The winter of 1929.’ The Great Depression. Dissolve to business interior, Bernstein, Kane and Thatcher discuss the demise of Kane’s publishing empire. Thatcher attempts reassurance, describing the Depression as temporary and telling Kane that he will still die richer than he is. “It’s a cinch,” quips Kane, “that I’ll die richer than I was born… Well,” he then says on having been raised by his banker trustee, “I always gagged on that silver spoon… If I hadn’t been very rich, I might have been a really great man.” Thatcher asks Kane what he would have liked to have been. “Everything you hate.” We have passed form moments of reflection on his life and of potential goodwill between Thatcher and Kane back to the central, galling problem of Kane’s life; his mother’s choice to send him away from home, to entrust him to the care of the banker Thatcher, to abandon him

Thompson concludes his reading of the Thatcher memoir. He, the librarian and the guard are dwarfed by an enormous portrait of Thatcher. Thompson hasn’t found what he’s looking for

9) BERNSTEIN REMEMBERS Interior, Bernstein seated in comfortable office. High-backed business chair, fire blazing, Kane portrait above the mantelpiece, fluted marble wall feature. “I’m the chairman of the board. I’ve got nothing but time.” Responding to Thompson’s Rosebud question: “A fellow would remember a lot of things you wouldn’t think he’d remember.” Bernstein recounts a fleeting glimpse of a girl in a white dress on a ferry in 1896. Camera moves in closer to Bernstein, now a small old man leaning on a large polished table. Note magnifying glass; the importance of investigating memory and of looking out for the unexpected. Bernstein’s capacity for introspection, his sympathy for Susan Alexander and his willingness to help Thompson provide rare moments of humanity in this film and render Bernstein as perhaps the most sympathetic character although we also see him in dogged, unquestioning devotion to Kane over a lifetime’s service. Bernstein recommends that Thompson interview Kane’s closest friend Leland and tells us that he came from an old-money family but “he never had a nickel.” He also tells Thompson that “it wasn’t money” that motivated Kane

10) FLASHBACK: THE NEW YORK DAILY INQUIRER (1888) Exterior, Kane and Jedediah Leland arrive in coach, Bernstein on cart with Kane’s furniture, including bed

Interior, the newspaper that Kane is about to take over currently operates like a medieval or Dickensian scriptorium with the word SILENCE displayed on the wall. Comic relief as Bernstein falls into office with furniture. Mr Carter represents the old world view of journalism and of The Inquirer’s role: “We’re a morning newspaper Mr Kane. We’re practically closed for almost twelve hours a day… We’re running a newspaper, not a scandal sheet… the gossip of housewives…” Kane represents progress as flashy commercialism and rapid change: “The news goes on for twenty four hours a day… If the headline is big enough, it makes the news big enough…” Kane instructs Carter to construct a front page murder story

11) DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES Exterior, looking in at open office window. Leland leaning out smoking, Kane holding paper against upper pane and writing on it. Is Leland troubled by the front page murder story now being shouted out by Inquirer newsboys in the streets?

Interior, Bernstein knocks and enters, camera adopts his point of view

KANE: There’s something I’ve got to get into this paper besides pictures and print… Declaration of principles… I’ll provide the people of this city with a daily paper that will tell all of the news honestly… I will also provide them with a fighting and tireless champion of their rights as citizens and as human beings…

10

Commentary: At the beginning of this series of speeches Kane is elevated above the other two men and framed by the window, as if he has been graced by a vision above their capacity or comprehension. This is Kane’s ascension to grandeur, his aspiration to something beyond mere mortality. Leland and Bernstein’s cautions about Kane’s egocentricity and the danger of making promises you cannot keep are brushed aside. Kane moves into the room from the window to the table, now backlit and powerful in his moment of realisation or epiphany as Leland looks towards him and Bernstein looks towards the document. Despite his misgivings, Leland insists on keeping the original. Dissolve to front page print version and pull back to see bundles of papers ready for distribution

12) NEWSPAPER PARTY The Inquirer’s circulation is 26,000. The Chronicle’s is 495,000. Kane, Leland and Bernstein stand outside their opposition’s office window. Bernstein attributes The Chronicle’s success to the calibre of their staff. It took them twenty years to assemble such a line up of journalists, zoom in on staff photograph, dissolve and pull back to the same image in real life but at a later date. Kane now owns/employs every one of them. “Six years later I got my candy, all of it.” Kane throws a party to celebrate his coup and the increased circulation of The Inquirer, now 684,000. Note ice statue busts of Leland and Bernstein and an ice statue ‘K’ for Kane, the stranger, the unknowable figure

Marching band and dancing girls. “You buy a bag of peanuts in this town, you get a song written about you.” The vaudeville song repeats the lines, “What is his name? Who is this one?” Kane’s identity is still a mystery

Kane’s megalomania. Leland’s unease about the wholesale purchase of The Chronicle’s staff. Can people’s loyalties be so easily bought?

11 13) SOCIAL ANNOUNCEMENT (1900) Bernstein has cable from Kane in Paris. Leland unpacking and arranging Kane’s collection of Florentine statuary. Leland responds to Bernstein’s question about why he didn’t travel with Kane to Europe with questions about his own integrity. Kane, it seems, has a love interest and wants to buy her the world’s biggest diamond. Dissolve to Kane’s return in white suit and moustache. He doesn’t allow Bernstein to turn his return into a formal greeting, grabs the silver trophy that Bernstein has had engraved for him and rushes back down to carriage after asking the social columnist to announce his engagement to Emily Monroe Norton, the president’s niece. Bernstein predicts that his boss will one day be US president.

Dissolve back to older Bernstein reminiscing with Thompson. “Miss Emily Monroe Norton was no Rosebud.” He speculates about Rosebud: “Maybe that was something he lost; Mr Kane was a man who lost almost everything he had.”

14) LIFE WITH EMILY; PORTRAIT OF FIRST MARRIAGE Exterior, Leland’s hospital dwarfed by massive pylons, arch and span of bridge. Bernstein has just reflected in the previous scene on the curse of old age. On a hospital sun roof Leland reflects on “one of the greatest curses inflicted on the human race: memory.”

“I was his oldest friend and as far as I was concerned, he behaved like a swine.” As usual, Thompson faces interview subject from lower right of screen as we adopt his point of view. “Charlie was never brutal. He just did brutal things… I suppose he had some private sort of greatness, but he kept it to himself. He never gave himself away, he never gave anything away… He never believed in anything except Charlie Kane.”

Leland frames the story of Kane’s first marriage as a progressive estrangement which is then matched by Welles’ cinematic representation of it. Dissolve to series of breakfasts through which Emily competes with her “co- respondent” and “rival”, the newspaper. Finally, once all communication appears to have ceased, Kane reads The Inquirer and Emily The Chronicle. Dissolve back to Leland.

Cutting from Kane’s domestic life to his political aspirations, Leland suggests a motivation common to both: “All he really wanted out of life was love. That’s Charlie’s story, how he lost it. You see, he just didn’t have anything to give.”

12

15) SUSAN ALEXANDER, ‘SINGER’ (1916) Dissolve to Kane’s first, inauspicious meeting with Susan Alexander (“a cross-section of the American peple”). Exterior, curbside outside drugstore, Susan’s tooth ache, Kane splashed and dirtied by a passing car, her offer of hot water, an ironic offer given the political and personal hot water Kane ends up in over Susan

Interior, Susan Alexander’s apartment. Kane framed by doorway, closes it. Inside, we see the snow dome, one of Susan Alexander’s belongings on a shelf in front of a childhood photograph of herself. Kane attempts to charm her like a child with wiggling ears and charades. He is fascinated to be liked without having been recognised. “I guess we’re both lonely.” Kane confesses that he was on his way to look at his mother’s possessions in storage. (We will learn in the last scene at Xanadu that he does in fact retrieve and keep them.) Susan Alexander talks about her singing, her voice – she knows her limitations - and her mother. “Well, you know what mothers are like.” This draws a pained, muted expression from Kane. Susan Alexander sings for him. Dissolve from the original small parlour representing her humble status to a larger, more opulent one indicating the progress of their relationship over time. Note the teddy bear in the bottom right hand corner. Susan Alexander is much younger than Kane, an innocent

16) KANE’S GUBERNATORIAL CAMPAIGN SPEECH (1916)

Kane introduced as “the fighting liberal, the friend of the working man” to a tiny backstreet audience. Dissolve to massive rally overseen by enormous poster of Kane who denounces “the dishonesty, the downright villainy of Boss Jim Gettys.” Note the movement of the camera to the back of the full auditorium, then moving forward and under Kane like an observer walking towards the stage. Emily and Junior in audience. Kane is a commanding orator but his gestures are arrogant and his promises are hollow: “The working man and slum child know they can expect my

13 best efforts in their interests, the decent ordinary citizens know that I’ll do everything to protect the underprivileged, the underpaid and the underfed.” All populist sentiment, no political policies. The one promise he does make is entirely self-serving, to have Gettys arrested and tried. Alone in the wings, Gettys puts his hat on and walks away

17) LOVE NEST CONFRONTATION (1916) Kane is treated rapturously by supporters and journalists but Emily sends Junior home in a cab and then gets into a second cab. Kane accompanies her to Susan Alexander’s. Showdown between Gettys and Kane. Gettys attempts to blackmail Kane into abandoning his political campaign. Susan Alexander is unable to get a word in. This supposedly political contest is entirely personal and completely vindictive. Late in the confrontation the camera moves between Kane’s and Emily’s points of view. Kane refuses to stand down and to leave with Emily. “There’s only one person in this world to decide what I’m going to do – and that’s me.” As Gettys leaves, Kane resumes the resounding voice he used for his campaign speech, but it is entirely out of context and sounds bombastic. “I’m Charles Foster Kane. I’m no cheap, crooked politician.” His words are both ironic and devoid of meaning. We see The Daily Chronicle love nest front page shown earlier in the newsreel. Leland walks into bar. Bernstein pulls the KANE WINS front page for The Inquirer and runs FRAUD AT POLLS! instead

14

18) TO LOVE ON MY TERMS (1916) Leland walks the streets littered with bunting and newspapers and enters The Inquirer building. Bernstein and other leave. Camera shot from floor, upward tilt from bunting-covered floor of office as defeated Kane and drunken Leland confront each other. “You don’t care about anything except you. You just want to persuade people that you love them so much they ought to love you back. Only you want love on your own terms… your way… your rules.” Note how Leland’s speech is both political and intensely personal. We have a strong sense that Leland understands much about his lifetime friend. “A toast Jedediah,” responds Kane, “To love on my terms. Those are the only terms anybody ever knows, his own.” Disillusioned with Kane’s betrayal of his principles and his wife, Leland gets Kane’s approval to move to the Chicago office. Dissolve to full screen caption: KANE MARRIES ‘SINGER’

15 19) NIGHT AT THE OPERA (1) (1919) “We’re going to be a great opera star.” Note Kane’s possessive use of the plural we. Full screen caption: KANE BUILDS OPERA HOUSE

Last minute pre-performance panic shot from just inside curtain looking back at action revolving around Susan Alexander. Flashing light to cue commencement of performance. Camera ascends to two workers in the gods. Susan Alexander’s performance stinks

20) NEGATIVE REVIEW Kane enters Chicago Inquirer office in black tie outfit from opera house. Bernstein is organising reviews of Susan Alexander’s debut performance from every angle: dramatic, social, news, musical. Leland’s dramatic notice is not yet ready. As Kane goes to Leland’s office, Bernstein explains to colleagues and viewer that Kane and Leland haven’t spoken for years. Leland drunk and asleep over typewriter. His notice describes Susan Alexander as “a pretty but hopeless amateur.” Kane demands a typewriter and types in extreme close up the word “weak”, a word that could equally describe Kane, Leland and Susan Alexander. Kane concludes the negative notice of his wife’s operatic debut as Leland intended, as a thoroughgoing critique of Susan Alexander’s performance.

21) TRYING TO PROVE THINGS In his interview with Thompson the elderly Leland remains unimpressed with Kane. He is equally unimpressed with Xanadu. Camera views this part of interview from above and from Thompson’s angle. “He was disappointed in the world so he built one of his own, an absolute monarchy.”

Commentary: As elderly men, the two men whose lives were most affected and influenced by Kane have very different views of life and death. Bernstein feels secure in his understanding of life in general and his in particular and he does not want the only cure available to old age, i.e. death. Leland, on the other hand, begs Thompson to smuggle in some cigars for him. He has little interest in the doctor’s attempts to keep him alive. Life for him has been an empty and disillusioning experience.

22) SINGING LESSONS Exterior, return to El rancho, neon lights off, skylight broken, camera intrudes in same way as before. Susan Alexander is drunk but she is talking: “Everything was his idea, ‘cept my leaving him.” Dissolve to singing lesson. Kane watches from ten foot doorway, enters and confronts singing master who spends remainder of scene watching Kane more than Susan Alexander.

23) NIGHT AT THE OPERA (2) (1919) Dissolve back to Susan’s debut at the Chicago Opera, again immediately prior to commencement of performance but shot now from behind the curtains and the central action of the stage. Curtain opens to footlights and spotlights just as Susan Alexander would have seen them. She stands alone on stage. Kane alone is determined to enjoy his wife’s performance (even though we know – from his completion of Leland’s review - that he knows just how bad it is). Leland is so bored and unimpressed that he shreds his program. Bernstein nods off. Kane hears and is wounded by laughter and criticism. Susan Alexander’s acting and gestures are as thin as her voice. Muted applause. Susan Alexander fumbles with the bouquets and retreats behind curtain with a single rose. Kane stands to applaud alone.

24) THE $25,000 REVIEW AND THE SUICIDE ATTEMPT Susan reading Leland review (mostly written by Kane), furious at Kane for his friend’s critique. Discord. Letter delivered to Kane. Leland has torn up his severance cheque of $25,000 and returned Kane’s original handwritten Declaration of Principles which Kane tears up. Kane completely overshadows and dominates the kneeling Susan

16 Alexander. She tours five cities culminating in New York, each appearance framed by that city’s Inquirer front page. The music becomes a thumping crescendo. The flashing light bulb that has signalled the beginning of each performance, now slowly extinguishes as Susan attempts suicide. Deep focus suicide scene. Medicine, glass and spoon in foreground, Susan on bed in mid and door through which Kane bursts in back. Kane constructs an alternative version of the truth to account for Susan’s condition and commences his vigil. When she awakens he releases her from his insistence that she sing

25) LIFE AT XANADU Having released her from one obligation, Kane now incarcerates Susan in another way. Exterior, Xanadu, the half- built gothic monstrosity shot in darkness, portentous music as at beginning of film

Interior, Susan with jigsaw puzzle. Kane enters through gothic cathedral doorway and crosses cold monumental room to Susan in front of lit walk-in fireplace. Gargoyles, statues. “Forty-nine thousand acres of nothing but scenery and statues.” Series of jigsaw puzzles suggest passage of time as well as Susan’s sense of entrapment.

Susan now doing jigsaw on floor of hearth in front dead fireplace as Kane enters from monumental stairway. They talk at a great physical and emotional distance from each other

17

26) EVERGLADES PICNIC Exterior, massive entourage of cars descending on deserted beach. Like his removal of Susan from the stage and her incarceration at Xanadu as a means of liberating and listening to her, this is also a measure of Kane’s incapacity to do anything intimate or personal. Everything has to be on a megalomaniacal, monumental, egocentric scale. Negro singer that night at massive beachside encampment: “It can’t be love, there’s no true love.” Kane and Susan Alexander argue in their opulent picnic tent. “You don’t love me,” Susan accuse Kane, “You only want me to love you.” Once again, Kane stands over a kneeling Susan, this time his trousers unbelted and he slaps her. Despite a further representation of his power and his incapacity to understand the needs of others, Kane is made up and costumed in whites and washed out colours to make him look impotent and aged well beyond his years. The music and sensuality of the party outside stops and is replaced by the sound of a woman screaming

27) SUSAN WALKS OUT (1935-36) Raymond the butler calls Kane to Susan Alexander’s room. Her room is a girlish, doll-like nursery room decorated with animal pictures. She’s packing to leave. Kane slams door – reminds us of him closing the door of her apartment on the night of their first meeting: “I won’t let you go… You can’t do this to me.” Note that nothing is said by Kane about what he might value in Susan other than her obedience; her departure – as she will rebuke him – is interpreted by him on his own terms only as an affront to him, with no regard for her point of view. Susan Alexander exits through her bedroom door and through further oriental-style arch. Dissolve to El Rancho, Susan talking with Thompson

28) DESTROYING SUSAN’S ROOM Dark shadowy Raymond lights cigarette and responds to Thompson’s question about Rosebud by first demanding $1,000 and then describing Susan Alexander’s departure. Superimposed image and sound of screaming cockatoo. Raymond does not intervene as Kane smashes up Susan’s child-like enclosure of a room. Kane’s complete loss of self-control is only resolved when he picks up and does not destroy Susan’s snow dome which we remember from the objects on her shelf on the night of their first meeting. “Rosebud.” Kane exits room past Raymond and assembled servants. As he walks between two mirrors we see numerous profiles of him repeated in doubles, raising again the questions of who he really is and of what his identity is really composed and reminding us of his earlier words to Thatcher about talking to two people at the same time

18

29) JIGSAW PUZZLE Dissolve back to Raymond and Thompson. Raymond claims to have witnessed Kane on his deathbed. Kane’s treasures and belongings are being photographed and catalogued including items from Mary Kane’s boarding house – which he was planning to go through on the night he met Susan Alexander - and the welcome home trophy from Kane’s first European trip (associations with The Inquirer, Bernstein and Emily Monroe Norton). The massive room in which we witnessed the decline of Kane’s second marriage is now filled with crates and objects, the memorabilia and collections of Kane’s lifetime. Thompson admits to colleagues that he hasn’t discovered very much. His two-week quest to unravel the mystery and meaning of Kane’s life hasn’t yielded anything up to his investigation. He picks up one of Susan Alexander’s jigsaw boxes; his final speech is didactic and stylised as the camera pulls back and he says, “Mr Kane was a man who got everything he wanted and then lost it. Maybe Rosebud was something he couldn’t get or something he lost… I don’t think any word can explain a man’s life.”

30) ROSEBUD (2)

Interior, camera moves over seemingly endless expanse of crates and belongings. Some items we recognise such as Kane’s bedframe that he set up in his first office at The Inquirer. Near a photo-portrait of Mary Kane with her son Kane’s original childhood sled is picked up by a worker and thrown into a furnace. Raymond is overseeing the incineration of his dead master’s personal effects. The word Rosebud is revealed on the sled and is then destroyed by the fire in the furnace. Is this the last piece in the jigsaw puzzle of the meaning of Kane’s life?

19

Exterior, Xanadu, dark smoke rising from the giant chimney, the incineration of Kane’s personal belongings. Dissolve to the NO TRESPASSING sign and fence from the beginning of the film

Commentary: The fact that so much of what Kane bought and collected was never unwrapped or displayed says something to us about both the nature of the man and the nature of conspicuous consumption; in both instances what we seem to be being told is that Kane’s quest for power and desire for possessions could never satisfy him because what they were supposed to compensate for could never be replaced or satisfied. A mother’s love? A childhood interrupted and ended? Thompson, we should remember, insists at the end, though, that no one’s life can be reduced to a single meaning or a simple explanation. The irony of Raymond destroying Kane’s personal effects is that we are at the end of a quest to understand the meaning and mystery of a man’s life which surely is more likely to be found in the personal effects than in the public artefacts.

- - - - -

20