Rosebud

I'm reading "The Making of Citizen Kane" by Robert L. Carringer and enjoying it immensely. Basically his thesis is that Kane was a collaborative effort, despite the shift in film circles towards focusing on the director as sole auteur.

To quote Carringer directly:

"James Naremore's The Magic World of Orson Welles, the first certifiably academic book on its subject, made what had become a familiar claim: 'Citizen Kane is the product of an individual artist (and a company of his associates) working at a particular movie studio at a particular historical moment.' In contract, this study [Carringer's] attempts to show that the collaborative process provides the best framework for understanding the remarkable achievement this film represents." (Preface, ix)

The book proceeds to demystify the film with chapters on scripting, art direction, cinematography, and post-production.

One thing I've learned is just how much pre-production work is created and subsequently discarded, as issues regarding the scope and budget of the film are thrashed out. This scrapping of work, which at first glance appears to be so wasteful, invariably results in a more tightly written, and compelling, narrative.

The whole process is a combination of hard work and luck, and there's always a collaborative feel.

Roger Ebert commentary

Roger Ebert's DVD commentary is well worth a listen. One of the points he raises is that there's as much special effects in Citizen Kane as in Star Wars.

Ebert mentions something I'd noticed on watching the movie again: the opening sequence is strikingly similar to Rebecca (1940), which was based on the 1938 novel by Daphne du Maurier. The memorable opening of that film takes the viewer through the grounds of Manderley, whilst du Maurier's opening text provides a narrative frame. For Kane (1941), a series of matte prints were used to show the gates and grounds of the fictional Xanadu. It's a good use of special effects to create an atmosphere, aiding the storytelling rather than distracting from it.

The opening to Kane could have been influenced by Rebecca, and this illustrates a sort of magpie dynamic going on here with Kane. Carringer notes that the use of the glass snowball when Kane dies may have been inspired by another RKO picture, Kitty Foyle (1940) (Scripting, pg. 19).

As my Art History professor used to say, "Art grows from art."

Another gem on the commentary: at one point, Ebert quotes someone else's assessment that, "Citizen Kane is a shallow masterpiece." I think that's a fair statement, and something that I've always felt but never been able to say out loud.

There's also a sort of textual/aural special effect, perhaps the most stunning special effect of all: the use of one word to provide continuity and interest in the story:

Rosebud.