Orson Welles delights us visually and mentally, both in front of the camera, and behind, in his1941 classic film, Citizen Kane. Welles plays newspaper mogul Charles Foster Kane, protagonist of the film, and most often, his own antagonist. The film begins with Kane’s death and takes us on a trip through time, revealing the life of Charles Foster Kane, as it was seen by those very few who were close to him. We, along with reporter Mr. Thompson, who we only hear, never see, are challenged with the mystery of Rosebud and in the end, left to our own devices as to why this was Charles Foster Kane’s last word.
Kane’s mother runs a boarding house and comes into sudden wealth through a deed to an old gold mine that begins producing. On my first viewing I missed this and thought they sold the boy. Mr. Thatcher is a banker who becomes Charles’ guardian and takes him to Chicago to be raised with only the best. In a flash, we see Charles’s father was abusive and the mother is saving him from that abuse by sending him with Mr. Thatcher. While this may be the case, it is a very cold moment for the mother and distraught moment for young Charles. Charles assaults Mr. Thatcher with his sled and knocks the man to the ground.
In the scene where Kane is confronted by his first wife Emily at Mistress Susans boarding house, Emily tells Kane the decision (to come home and drop out of the race) has been made for him. She is cold. Kane is obstinate. He refuses to leave with Emily. He refuses to drop out of the governor’s race. This is a full circle moment. Kane was forced to leave his own mother years earlier. He had no voice, no choice, and thus never overcame his abandonment as a child, or as an adult. I feel this is an “I’ll be damned” moment for Kane, and he surely is.
The wipes of Charles and Emily, having breakfast through the years, parallels the wipes of his life with Susan, both women lonely. We see Charles and Emily’s relationship devolve to aloneness for Emily and coldness for Charles. Is Charles capable of actual togetherness, intimacy? Seemingly no. Fast forward to Xanadu castle where we see Susan go through the same wipes through time that Emily did, as she is playing her jigsaw puzzles, year after year. Like Emily, Susan leaves Charles, but not before his temper, much like his father, overcomes him and he hits her, then tells her he is not sorry. Once again, Charles Foster Kane is being abandoned.
I focused on the relationship parallels in this film, because they were very telling in the evolution and devolution of Charles Foster Kane. In the end, he died alone. Rosebud, the word on his tiny sled from another life, represents everything money could not buy. It represents the road not taken. Welles leaves us asking who Charles Foster Kane would have been if he had not become Charles Foster Kane.
