1941: King Kane

Citizen Kane (1941)
Produced, co-written, and directed by Orson Welles
119 min.; U.S.A.; Black and White; Mono

Lately I've been focusing on films about World War II made during the 1940s. However, at this point in our story I'd like to pause and take notice of Citizen Kane (1941), directed by Orson Welles, because it is so unusual among its contemporary Hollywood releases, and significant for the ways it breaks with traditional Hollywood narrative and photographic conventions. We'll get back to the war films next time.

Based on a screenplay by Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz, Citizen Kane is a mystery/newspaper drama with a straightforward plot. An editor (Phillip Van Zandt) needs a unique angle to complete a newsreel about the life of recently deceased newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles) and dispatches reporter Jerry Thompson (William Alland) to uncover the meaning behind Kane's mysterious final spoken word, "rosebud," in hopes of revealing something of the man's character. As the story unfolds Thompson interviews the people who were closest to Kane. His friends, business associates, ex-wife, and the memoir of his guardian relate some of the significant moments in Kane's life. Afterwards, the audience is privileged with an answer to rosebud, but Thompson himself is no closer to solving the mystery of rosebud or understanding the equally enigmatic Kane. The cast, largely composed of cinema newcomers from Welles' Mercury Theater, is excellent, but the story isn't exactly revolutionary. Thompson's attempt to define Kane through one particular clue proves problematic, but he learns that power, outside influences and a flawed character corrupted the man.

Charles Foster Kane stands next to the dictator he "supported then denounced" in the News of the March newsreel from Citizen Kane.

Much more interesting than the story of Citizen Kane is the innovative photographic and storytelling approaches perfected by Welles and his team. Among the novel storytelling techniques is a complete newsreel, a March of Time satire titled News on the March, that relates Kane's factual history. Watching the segment I'm reminded of Anatole Litvak's creative use of March of Time-ish docudrama techniques just two years earlier in Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939). However, Welles inserts the newsreel whole into the framework of Kane while Litvak incorporates newsreel-style segments throughout his film. The News on the March newsreel not only provides the reason for Thompson's quest, but the information found in it supplies context for the various moments from Kane's past that Thompson uncovers later. Of course, back in the day shorts and newsreels, including the March of Time, would have accompanied a screening of Citizen Kane. For example, Citizen Kane was accompanied by the March of Time episode "Peace--by Adolf Hitler" when it played in October 1941 at the Gramercy Park Cinema in New York. It's fun to imagine how the News on the March segment worked for audiences who viewed an episode of the actual docudrama newsreel only moments before.

Another unexpected approach is the series of elliptical flashbacks and flashforwards alluded to above that stem from Thompson's interviews with Kane's friends. These temporally disconnected scenes reveal the more intimate details of Kane's life. By inserting the aforementioned newsreel into the movie Welles is free to make great leaps in time without fear of losing the audience because we're already aware of Kane's life story. The film begins with Kane's death and a gumshoe unravels his life story through flashbacks...gotta admit, watching this I'm getting anxious for the advent of film noir.

Let's move on to the remarkable presentation. It's well known that the key visual innovation of Citizen Kane is the deep focus cinematographer Gregg Toland and his crew employ to realize Welles' vision for the film. According to Robert L. Carringer, Welles confided that Toland's contribution to Kane was nearly as important as his own. Though working in black and white, Toland and his camera crew utilized the greater illuminating power of carbon arc lamps (as opposed to incandescent lights) necessary for Technicolor films in order to decrease the aperture on extremely wide angle lenses coated to reduced glare thereby achieving an image that kept sharp focus on objects between the extreme foreground and the distant background.¹

Leland and Bernstein worry while Kane celebrates in a deep focus shot from Citizen Kane.

Immediately after I saw the deep focus shots in this movie I thought about the Lumière Brother's film that I wrote about a looong way back, The Pyramids (1897). Thanks to the extreme illuminating power of sunlight that film maintains focus on the distant Great Pyramid, the somewhat closer Sphinx, and a group of nearby men riding camels. According to the The Oxford History of World Cinema deep focus continued to develop during the silent period until changes in film stock and the switch to quieter, softer incandescent lights necessary for sound films changed the way most studio films looked. Toland and Welles brought deep focus back in order to increase realism. However, if you stand in the center of a room and hold your hand out at arms length, palm facing you, and then try to focus on both your hand and the wall behind it at the same time you'll notice that either the hand or the wall is in focus, but not both at once. Therefore, Welles and Toland's deep focus techniques don't increase the representation of reality but actually distort reality as we see it. Since everything in the shot is in focus (rather than the actors closest to the camera are in focus and everything behind slightly out of focus look of the standard studio film of the 1930s) we get to choose between various locations on the screen to focus our attention.

In the example above right (from my favorite scene in the movie), Welles and Toland's in-depth composition combines with creative sound composition (music, wild sound and overlapping dialogue) in a way that allows the audience to choose where to focus our attention--on the conversation between Kane's associates, Jedediah Leland (Joseph Cotten) and Mr. Bernstein (Everett Sloane), about the corrupting influence Kane's newly hired scandal sheet writers might have on him, on Kane's excitement over the prospect of the country declaring war on Spain (thanks in-part to the war-mongering of his paper), or the song and dance routine of a bevy of chorus girls.

Thompson consults a manuscript provided by the overprotective staff of the Thatcher Memorial Library--don't you just love that angled shower of light?

The screengrab above illustrates both deep focus and Welles' penchant for using expressive chiaroscuro and silhouette techniques. It's strongly reminiscent of the 1920s German Expressionist cinema I spent two weeks looking at last year. In fact, one of the criticisms other filmmakers leveled at Kane around the time of its release was the notion that it was too artsy, too UFA-style. According to Robert L. Carringer, "traditional film history has it that UFA-style expressionism survived in a kind of underground existence in the Hollywood horror film until it was revitalized once again by Welles in Citizen Kane." Carringer then goes on to argue that Toland's experiments in expressionism in John Ford's The Long Voyage Home are a missing link in that version of film history. I'd add that expressionistic compositions in Alfred Hitchcock's Sabotage (1936) mark it as another so-called missing link in that version of film history.

Kane's myriad possessions look like pieces from a giant jigsaw puzzle in the long overhead dolly shot.

Another of Kane's well remembered shots is the overhead dolly near the end of the picture (image above). After his death, Kane's belongings are cataloged and crated up in his cavernous home. The fallacy of trying to understand a man's life from just one of his belongings is driven home with a slow overhead dolly that encompasses the tens of thousands of items Kane collected during his lifetime. I've read that this shot influenced a similar one appearing near the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). I recall that both shots were preceded on film by G.W. Bitzer's groundbreaking overhead dolly shot (with some help from an overhead crane) in the Westinghouse Works series (1904). Click here to see one of Bitzer's Westinghouse films.

Not all of Welles and Toland's experiments work so well. Ever notice the weird jump cut in Citizen Kane? I noticed it when I saw the film years ago and it stood out when I watched the movie again today. I should add that Welles, Toland and others have noted that they were intentionally breaking standard studio filmmaking rules so the strange-looking cut probably is intentional, but it looks like a bad edit on the screen. Let me try to break it down...

In the photo above left, Jedediah (light suit on the left) and Kane (dark suit on the right) enter the New York Inquirer. The shot is composed at a low angle allowing us to see a ceiling--something very unusual in a studio picture, it was made of muslin and concealed microphones. A pole stands in the middle of the shot and the room. As Kane continues into the room, Jedediah notices the pole, stops and places his left hand on it (photo above right).

In the screengrab above left Jedediah uses the pole to swing himself around from the left side of the screen to the right side. Then comes the jump cut (photo above right). Crossing the stage line, the camera suddenly sees Jedediah on the left side of the screen complete his swing while Kane is now on the right. Since the pole isn't in the same place in the second shot the edit doesn't even match (imagine the tough task Robert Wise faced editing this picture) and the sudden jump of the actors is out-of-place. I remember writing about Mervyn LeRoy successfully crossing the stage line in Gold Diggers of 1933, but it makes for an awkward experiment in this film.

Despite glowing reviews and a controversy over Kane's similarity to William Randolph Hearst, this remarkable picture fared poorly at the box office in 1941 (RKO lost $160,000 on Citizen Kane and $620, 000 on Welles' follow-up, The Magnificent Ambersons).² Various reasons have been attributed to the weak showing including the machinations of a vengeful Hearst (detailed in the documentary The Battle Over Citizen Kane (1996)) and the disdain some in Hollywood felt for Welles and his unprecedented deal with RKO, the limited market appeal of Welles' celebrity status as an artist and filmmaker, the lack of any genuine movie stars to promote the movie and drive public interest, the cynical story and unsympathetic central character, the creative storytelling and unusual photographic approach. In my opinion, the answer is a combination of all of these factors because they contributed to a cinema experience so very different from the conventions movie-goers expected of Hollywood product.

As we know, the critical and public opinion of this picture has reached a point where it's been labeled the best film ever made. Frankly, I don't know if I believe such a distinction is really possible. There's no criteria by which to rate all the different types of films ever made against one another and no one has ever seen every single film ever made anyway--which seems like a necessary prerequisite to determining which is the best of them all. In any case, I'm with those who feel that Kane is an outstanding picture particularly because of the creative ways that it tells a story. In my mind, Citizen Kane is a stepchild of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) because it carries on Caligari's tradition of a commercial release that incorporates developments in theatre, art, and experimental and narrative filmmaking. Maybe these seemingly disparate filmmaking approaches--experimental filmmaking and narrative filmmaking--don't have to be so different after all but rather, are linked together in a broader understanding of cinema. The question that now arises for the chronological exploration of cinema history (and history) on this blog is: given the artistic success but commercial failure of Citizen Kane will I see it influence the look and style of other films as I progress through the 1940s?

That's all for now. I'll be out-of-touch with the blogosphere next week, but please don't let that prevent you from discussing Citizen Kane in the comments section here. Two weeks from now I'll return to pick up the ongoing exploration of World War II-era films with a studio feature (and more) from 1941.

Notes
1. A history of Welles' collaboration with Toland is found in Robert L. Carringer, "Orson Welles and Gregg Toland: Their Collaboration on Citizen Kane," Critical Inquiry 8.4 (Summer 1982), 651-674.

2. RKO revenue information from Richard B. Jewell, "RKO Film Grosses, 1929-1951: the C.J. Tevlin ledger," Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 14.1 (1994) 45.

This post written by Thom Ryan
Copyright 2007 Thom Ryan Some rights reserved

Comments

[AR]

You make a really good point. How is it possible to judge a film as the best ever when there have been so many damned films made? Seeing every film in existence to judge anything as such is a next to impossible task.

Your thoughts sum up a lot of opinions regarding this film, including my own. Welles thoughtfully combined a lot of existing technologies and innovations to create a very distinctive film. I would say that Kane did influence a lot of films to follow, despite the low ticket sales and negative press. The influence to noir is perhaps the most obvious.

[Brian]

Excellent post, as always. Your observation about deep focus distorting reality, something I'd never seen put quite that way before, has been reverberating in my thoughts ever since reading this Monday. It particularly was on my mind while watching a stunningly beautiful video piece called the Roe's Room by Lech Majewski. He uses a lot of shots that are simultaneously close-up on a human face, and showing another person or object clearly in focus in the distance, with a difference in scale greater than I've ever seen using film cameras before (with the possible exception of split-diopter shots.) The effect is wholly unreal, and added to the poetic nature of the work.

[Thom]

AR, Brian, thank you for sharing your comments.

AR - Speaking of film noir I just finished watching The Maltese Falcon (1941) because both it and Citizen Kane are regularly cited as strong influences on noir style in the 1940s. I need to brush up on that subject (film noir) and it looks like your blog is the perfect place to do it.

Brian - I'd love to see Kane in a theater to really experience the full effect of the deep focus shots in it. I'm glad you brought up the term "poetic" with deep focus because I tried hard to describe deep focus in poetic terms while writing the post--how deep focus produces an image that's impossible to perceive all at once so we experience it a section at a time. Meaning a whole image exists on the screen but it's never really seen as a whole image even though everything is in focus--but couldn't quite figure out how to express it. Where's Jmac when I need her? :)

If Majewski is working in video for Roe's Room I wonder if he layers two different shots to get the extreme deep focus shots you describe?

[Thom]

Some more thoughts about deep focus...Since everything on the screen is in focus a director has to relinquish quite a bit of control. He/she can't easily control where members of the audience focus their attention (if only part of the screen is in focus we pay attention to that part). I notice that Welles and his audio team creatively use sound to direct our attention to particular parts of the screen to overcome this phenomenon.

[ticketeditems]

Enjoyed this. Makes me want to dig the Kane dvd out of the pile again. Feel like joining in on a couple of points though.

"Therefore, Welles and Toland's deep focus techniques don't increase the representation of reality but actually distort reality as we see it."

Not sure that deep focus distorts reality any more than using a tight focus on an actor in a scene. They're just different approaches to representation. Instead of mimicking the phenomenon of focusing on a particular object, using deep focus reproduces the freedom of the observer. I can choose to look at anything in my field of vision, as in daily life, because it's all in focus.

I wonder about the effect this has on the viewer. It frees us from the iron grip of the director and allows us to chose what we want to look at in a scene. But, as you point out, the director is still pulling our eye around the frame just in different ways. But maybe that sense of freedom of choice is enough to change our relationship with the film and increase the illusion of reality. Reminds me of the move away from the omniscient narrator in literature. The narration stops telling you what it thinks and instead arranges the scene so you can piece the meaning together yourself from the characters thoughts and actions.

Interested in your take on the overhead dolly or crane shot at the end too. I think there's a larger point being made here. The vast hoard of treasures that Kane has acquired haven't made him happy, or given him any self-knowledge. The scene shows not so much that you can't understand a man's life by uncovering one object; it's that you can't understand him even if you find and catalogue every object.

Love your screengrab of the scene. Doesn't it look just like a cityscape?

[Thom]

Thanks for adding your thoughts on Citizen Kane.

Hey, that screengrab from the overhead dolly shot is reminiscent of a cityscape; never looked at it that way before but I do now, thanks :) I don't think our points of view on that scene are mutually exclusive. If Kane's life cannot be understood by cataloging everything he collected and built into Xanadu the inquiring reporter character comes to realize that neither can it be defined by uncovering the identity of a single object--the narrative device that pulls us through the movie. More significantly, perhaps, Welles and his team create a resolution to the film with an unexpected series of shots and (thankfully) no expository VO.

I like your literary analogy for the way deep focus shots affect our viewing experience too--a unique method to explain how having everything in sharp focus at the same time opens up the frame for our roving eyes to explore and gather meaning without necessarily being directed (coincidentally, I arrived at a similar conclusion in a comment above). However, visually speaking, deep focus is a distortion of reality in my estimation because though we certainly can move our eyes about, look at objects that vary in distance from us, and change focus to make each object clear, deep focus shots put everything in sharp focus at the same time regardless of distance--something the eyes just can't do. Try the experiment I wrote about in the post above and you'll see that the eye can't put something as close as Jedediah and Bernstein and as far away as Kane in sharp focus at the same time but has to change focus from one to the other. Therefore, a shot in which everything is in sharp focus at the same time, regardless of how close or far away the various objects lie from our position, is a distortion of reality as our eyes perceive it.

Most of all, thanks for writing that reading the post might inspire a re-viewing of Kane. If anything I write gets someone looking and thinking about movies then I'm satisified.

[ticketeditems]

Thanks for the response. Okay, I'll have another shot at explaining my take on deep focus and the represention of reality. Not because we disagree but because I think we're making parallel points.

I agree with you that deep focus is less true to how the eye works. If I'm sat in a park with a friend, I can't keep his face and the dog scampering behind him and the girl jogging along the path all in focus at the same time. But I believe that by abandoning this fidelity to the visual experience, instead of making you the eye, deep focus makes you the viewer. Sat in the park I can certainly choose whether to look at my friend or keep the jogging girl in focus instead while my blurry buddy rumbles on about how his boss doesn't value his imput. That's the reality of the viewer.

And that's a reality that perhaps tight focus in a scene denies us. What's happening in that train carriage behind the tearful heroine? I'll never know because the director has focused my eye on the girl. I don't have the freedom to view an alternative; to create my own 'focus' for the scene. Tolland, however, let us choose what to watch and Welles trusts himself to draw our attention to what is important. Or he has the freedom to put several points of focus in, like the scene with Kane's mother in the house and the young Kane playing in the snow outside the window. (My favourite scene, I think.) It's that twitchy worry about what to watch that represents a reality of the viewer rather than the eye.

Also bear in mind the difference between watching the film on a large tv and seeing it on a 40ft cinema screen. In the cinema, the size of the screen means that actually you can't pay attention to the whole frame anyway. You have to pick what you watch, although the deep focus means everything in shot is made available to you.

This isn't to knock using tight focus. They're both just different methods of representing reality. I'm saying neither of them 'distorts reality' just chooses different ways to represent the experience of it. I was about to attribute a quote to Jeff 'The Dude' Lebowski, but now I think about it I'm sure it's that other great stoner philosopher Zaphod Beeblebox: "You heard the man, Ford. What is reality anyway?"

[Thom]

Your point is well stated, ticketeditems. I agree that we're talking about two related but different things: deep focus images themselves, and the experience of watching them put together and projected on the screen over time. They operate together to produce an effect on the screen. Welles and Toland's manipulation of the image and the viewing experience still provides much fodder for discussion.