"The cinematic world invites---even requires---concept-ualization. The images presented to us, their arrangement and juxtapositioning, are narrational blue prints for a fiction that must be constructed by the viewer's narrativity." This essay will discuss this quotation in relationship to Citizen Kane.
Orson Welles and co-writer, Herman J. Mankiewiez, created
a complexly structured story. Welles invites the viewer to
piece together the various segments of Kane's life rather like
the jigsaw puzzles that Kane's second wife, Susan, plays with
in Kane's castle. The film begins outside the castle, Xanadu,
at the "No Trespassing" sign, then moves through the dark eerie night to the castle, then on into the bedroom. The camera moves slowly toward the bed, where an ugly old man lies dying, Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles). The camera moves in to hear the man's dying word, "Rosebud." The glass snow scene falls to the floor, as Kane loses hold of the world (he died); in slow motion the glass ball falls to the floor and shatters. Through the glass, we see a nurse enter the room to care for the dead Kane. The wide angle of the shot through the broken glass distorts the view of the nurse and is also symbolic of a distorted life. This distortion is a clue for the viewer. Blaring music and the unrelenting voice of a newscaster takes us from the expression-istic death scene to a smoky projection room, where a newsreel is being shown. The overexposed newsreel, "The March of Time," comments on the public life of Kane. The newsreel gives the audience an overall view of Kane; we learn of his power, (newspaper chains), his wealth, his marriages, his political aspirations and his obsessions (collecting). We realize that the man we saw dying was Kane. The news producer wants more infor-mation on Kane; he suggests that the reporter find out what "Rosebud" meant as a means of finding out what motivated a man like Kane. The news reel (extern...