http://www.frankwbaker.com/citizen_kane.htmI have seen Citizen Kane several times and I actually own it, so it's kind of weird having never fully dissected it technically or even deeper in terms of meaning. I suppose I'm even guilty of thinking it's simply a movie about a man, a jerk of a man that seemed to have it all at one point and nothing the next.
I must need to work on my watching skills also because it wasn't until after reading the Kane assignment, that I realized the journalist seeking information on Kane and "rosebud" actually had a name (Jerry Thompson). Perhaps that lends itself to my first observation. It seemed as if there was a situation playing out where a faceless man (even nameless I thought) was to dive into Kane's past, and bring some life to him, hopefully solving the man and his last words.
Scene after scene, this Thompson character is either covered in shadows, or filmed from behind, as to hide his face from the audience. He's irrelevant, a tool being used to pry open a treasure chest, that ironically, one that is pretty empty once it's been opened (if you want to call it that).
Kane, a man that was so giant at one point, whose face has been well known, and in the case of his political run, plastered all over cities, was going to be portrayed based on the results of someone that was barely given any face time.
There were, of course, some scenes where Thompson's face could be seen. I mean, he is a paid actor who wants to actually be seen in the film at some point. But I counted several where he was easily just a shadow figure. This could have been an attempt to let the recollections of Kane shine and not to bog down the scenes with too many other things to distract the audience. I thought it was a way for Kane, even in death, to be the center of attention, and like his life, eventually the story will be done and people will leave him or read something else.
Another quirky technique I noticed was the couple or so times that the camera appeared to be addressed directly. The scenes that stood out the most were when Thatcher is reading a letter of sorts from Kane, where he is saying "I think it would be fun to run a newspaper". And then when Kane, Mr. Leland, and Bernstein are finishing up their first copy of the Inquirer, after Mr. Leland asks for Kane's Declaration of Principles, he looks right into the camera commenting on how that piece of paper might mean something big someday.
It was as if they were talking directly to the audience, bringing us into the situation and giving us insight as to what might happen later so we can better be a part of it then. In that moment, the fourth wall was broken down, and we enter the movie full on. It was important to me for that to happen rather early in the film otherwise I'd likely pull away enough to miss several things.
And........finally, one of the better deep focus shots of Kane throughout the movie was the scene where he's walking past some giant mirrors and in the reflection you see old, frustrated Charles Foster Kane standing, many of him actually, all getting smaller and less noticeable. Contrary to Cardullo's take on Kane not being reflective of himself, I truly felt in this scene that he was, for a moment, criticizing himself. And like the images of himself in the mirrors, the thoughts are fleeting and eventually all you have is nothing.
Also, as an outside viewer, by that time, we had heard a few recollections of Kane, and though some might think they know him through and through, it's possible they only know outside, only things people around him would know, but not the real man. We know only know what the mirrors could tell us, a whole bunch of Kane stories.
