citizen kane study guide

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Study Guide EMC/JOUR 3000 Edward Bowen

“Ci>zen Kane” (1941) RKO Studios, Execu>ve Producer George Schaefer Mercury Produc>ons Produced and Directed by Orson Welles Original Screenplay by Herman J. Mankiewicz and Orson Welles Cinematography by Gregg Toland Original Score by Bernard Herrmann Edited by Robert Wise Special Effects by Vernon L. Walker and Linwood G. Dunn Sets by Percy Ferguson Est. Budget $ 840,000 Est. Ini>al Box Office $690,00 Eventual Est. Box Office $1,586,000 (US)

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William Randolph Hearst (1863-‐1951)

Hearst Castle, San Simeon, California

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Xanadu, Florida Everglades



With Actress Marion Davies

William Randolph Hearst (1863-‐1951) Roman a clef / Film a clef A fic>onal story comprised on non-‐fic>on elements and veiled characters.

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William Randolph Hearst (1863-‐1951) Roman a clef / Film a clef Newspaper tycoon. At 23, he asked his father to let him run the San Francisco Examiner. Sensa>onal stories and inflammatory editorial content designed to boost circula>on. Hearst to ar>st Frederick Remington regarding Cuba: ”You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war.” Failed bids for Mayor and Governor of New York. Began as a populist; ended as a reac>onary. Consorted with fascists, including Hitler. Built Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California between 1922 and 1947, decorated with an extensive art collec>on. Hearst financed Marion Davies’ movies and publicized her career, pushing her to abandon comedy and take on more drama>c roles.


Roman a clef / Film a clef Born rich, the pampered son of an adoring mother. When Hearst met Marion Davies, she was a famous and successful beauty. Hearst and Davies never married. Twice elected to Congress.

William Randolph Hearst (1863-‐1951) Roman a Clef Samuel Insull (1859-‐1938) From humble origins, he helped build America’s electrical industry and infrastructure and became a u>li>es magnate. Married a Broadway ingénue, Gladys Wallis, almost 20 years younger than he. Built the Chicago Civic Opera House in 1929. Third String New Your Times Drama Cri>c Herman J. Mankiewicz, assigned to review one of her plays, returned to the newsroom drunk and passed out aqer wri>ng only the first sentence of a nega>ve review.


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Roman a Clef Harold McCormick (1872-‐1941) Married into the powerful Rockefeller family. Divorced to marry opera singer Ganna Walska, whose career he lavishly promoted.


Roman a Clef William Randolph Hearst By coincidence, as related by Welles in his autobiography, he once found himself alone in an elevator with Hearst. It was the night of Ci#zen Kane's San Francisco premiere, and Welles invited him to the opening. "He didn't answer. And as he was gesng off at his floor, I said, 'Charles Foster Kane would have accepted.'"


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Cinematography – Gregg Toland

The Technical Dimension

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Opening – “No Trespassing” Effects Shots Match Dissolves


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News on the March Emula>ng a Style


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News on the March The March of Time


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News on the March Sir Basil Zaharoff


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Deep Focus, Wide Angle Lenses, and Blocking


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Deep Focus, Wide Angle Lenses, and Blocking


Deep Focus, Wide Angle Lenses, and Blocking The Fireplace Perspec>ve


Ligh>ng


Montage Breakfast 16 Years = 2 Minutes


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Low Angles


Special Effects – Linwood Dunn


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Special Effects – Original Glass Mabes



Special Effects – Mabe Components



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Special Effects –Mabe Shots



Special Effects – Deep Focus via Special Effects Prac>cally everything here is mabe art (by Mario Larrinaga or Fitch Fulton) with even the reflec>on upon the polished floor. Foreground and background are shot separately so both van be rendered in focus.



Special Effects – Mabe Shots A three part composite -‐ the road and sea are separate plates split screened together, with a Chesley Bonestell painted beach, treeline and sky.



Special Effects – Mabe Shots A full pain>ng with small mid sec>on live ac>on plate and a slow op>cal push in.



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Special Effects – Mabe Shots A mul>-‐part composite with mostly painted theatre, live ac>on elements with stage And standing Observers, and a split screened in Gebes in the near foreground.



Special Effects – Linwood Dunn


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Sound Overlapping Dialogue

The Technical Dimension Sound Design as Illusion Welles' most basic use of sound was to create the illusion of offscreen elements, to make the viewer "see" what is not actually onscreen. This is most striking in the rally scene, when gubernatorial candidate Kane is giving a speech in a huge, packed hall. The speech is loaded with lines that draw thunderous applause. In reality, of course, there is no huge hall, no clapping crowds, just a few mabe pain>ngs and the sounds of applause, just as outside the building aqer the rally we hear a marching band without seeing one.


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Sound Design as Sugges/on A more imagina>ve use of sound was to add depth and power to a scene, to evoke feelings in a sugges>ve, almost subliminal way. This is most evident in the scenes inside Xanadu, Kane's vast "pleasure dome." When Kane and his wife Susan speak to each other, their voices boom. One is tempted to say they echo, but there is no echo. There should be, given the size of the space they occupy, but Welles chooses to just enlarge the sound, giving it a spooky, otherworldly quality, as if Xanadu was not just a palace but another planet. Something similar happens when the reporter Thompson is speaking to the butler Raymond: here the voices have the sound of people speaking in a sepulcher.


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Sound Design as Emo/on Yet a third use of sound is to convey the emo>onal state of a character beneath the surface ac>on. The most glaring example comes just before the enraged Kane destroys Susan's room aqer she leaves him: we see a cockatoo flap its wings and screech, the noise a subs>tute for the screaming of Kane's wounded ego. A more subtle instance comes when Kane and Susan are arguing in their tent and Kane slaps her. We hear, in the deep background, a woman screaming, as if being abacked. Likewise, aqer Susan abempts suicide, we see her in bed explaining to her husband what drove her. On the soundtrack are faint echoes of the opera singing that made her a laughingstock.


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Music – Bernard Herrmann


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Music – Bernard Herrmann Twisted Nerve – Kill Bill Volume 1


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Make-‐Up


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Flashbacks

The Drama>c Dimension

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Flashbacks “The Power and the Glory” (1933)


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Rosebud The most basic of all ideas was that of a search for the true significance of the man’s apparently meaningless dying words. Kane was raised without a family. He was snatched from his mother’s arms in early childhood. His parents were a bank. From the point of view of the psychologist, my character had never made what is known as “transference” from his mother. Hence his failure with his wives. In making this clear during the course of the picture, it was my aFempt to lead the thoughts of my audience closer and closer to the solu#on of the enigma of his dying words. These were “Rosebud.” The device of the picture calls for a newspaperman (who didn’t know Kane) to interview people who knew him very well. None had ever heard of “Rosebud.” Actually, as it turns out, “Rosebud” is the trade name of a cheap liFle sled on which Kane was playing on the day he was taken away from his home and his mother. In his subconscious it represented the simplicity, the comfort, above all the lack of responsibility in his home, and also it stood for his mother’s love which Kane never lost. Orson Welles (1941) It’s a gimmick, really,’ said Welles, “and rather dollar book Freud. Orson Welles (1963)


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Rosebud – The Unsolved Mystery


Thompson, and the Heart of Darkness


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Mul>ple Narrators I wished to make a mo#on picture which was not a narra#ve of ac#on so much as an examina#on of character. For this, I desired a man of many sides and many aspects. It was my idea to show that six or more people could have as many widely divergent opinions concerning the nature of a single personality. Clearly such a no#on could not be worked out if it would apply to an ordinary American ci#zen. Orson Welles (1941)


The whirlwind surrounding the making of Ci#zen Kane is well known. Orson Welles, the brash prodigy of stage and radio, earned the envy and scorn of Hollywood veterans by striding onto the RKO lot with an unprecedented contract awarding him a three-‐picture deal, a massive budget, and the final cut of his first film—the Holy Grail of filmmaking. The controversial subject of his cinema>c debut riled one of the most powerful men in the world, and upset the delicate balance of the studio system. Orson Welles earned every drop of ink wriben about his impending career in film.

The Auteur Dimension

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A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet. Orson Welles


The Federal Theatre Project The Mercury Players The Mercury Theatre on the Air The War of the Worlds


Orson Welles By 1937, Orson Welles had taken Broadway by storm with a series of innovative and imaginative theater productions.

Orson Welles By 1937, Orson Welles had taken Broadway by storm with a series of innovative and imaginative theater productions

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Orson Welles By 1937, Orson Welles had taken Broadway by storm with a series of innovative and imaginative theater productions And had been featured on the cover of “Time” magazine.

Orson Welles His theatrical achievements include a modern dress “Julius Caesar” set in Fascist Italy, and a federally sponsored production of “Macbeth,” set in Haiti, and with an all African-American cast.

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Orson Welles He was also one of radio’s busiest performers …

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Orson Welles And directed his acting company in weekly literary adaptations for CBS radio, beginning as “First Person Singular,” then as “The Mercury Theatre on the Air,” named for his theatrical company.

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Orson Welles In 1938, “The Mercury

Theatre on the Air” was a critical if not a ratings success. Welles was a master of radio as a dramatic medium. He conducted his programs from a podium, as if the show were a symphony, and his actors and technicians an orchestra. He used the medium with as no one before or since.

The Mercury Theatre on the Air “Treasure Island”

July 18, 1938

The Mercury Theatre on the Air “Dracula”

July 30, 1938

Orson Welles October 30, 1938 The Mercury Theatre’s

version of H G Wells’ “The War of the Worlds,” which imagined an invasion of Earth by Mar>ans, achieved huge notoriety aqer it caused widespread panic and listeners, believing it to be true, abempted to flee the oncoming invasion. Welles is famous and infamous.

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Orson Welles He was 23 years of age.

Orson Welles “The War of the Worlds”

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The contract that gave birth to Ci#zen Kane was an unthinkable gamble by RKO, but the studio had good reason to bet on Orson Welles. At 20, he lorded over Broadway, first with Voodoo Macbeth, a reworking of the "Scossh play" set in the Caribbean and starring an all-‐African American cast. He followed triumphant reviews by establishing the Mercury Theatre and rewri>ng Julius Caesar, sesng it in Mussolini's Italy. The curtain rose to universal acclaim. In a 1938 cover story, Time magazine wrote of Welles, "If the career of the Mercury Theatre, which next week will be six months old, seems amazing, the career of Orson Welles, who this week is 23, is no less so. Were Welles's 23 years set forth in fic>on form, any self-‐respec>ng cri>c would damn the story as too implausible for serious considera>on."


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The Contract


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Orson Welles’ first feature film


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Citizen Kane (1941)

Citizen Kane (1941)

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Citizen Kane (1941)

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Citizen Kane (1941) “Ed Wood” (1994)

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Citizen Kane (2010)

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Citizen Jane (2011)

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Citizen Jane (2011)

citizen kane study guide

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