Citizen Kane: Reflections on Money, Power, and Masters

Okay, I just saw Citizen Kane again for the first time since High School. Back then, I watched it simply because AFI told me to, and although I understood the general gist of the pursuit of power and possibilities of corruption therein, I really didn’t get it, and found it rather a chore to endure. But still, I got bragging rights. “You seen Citizen Kane?” “Sho ‘nuff, I seen it. Booyah!”

This time around, it was not nearly the chore I remember it being. In all honesty, I found it to be quite captivating simply on an entertaining level. There is a cynical, witty but subtle sense of humor that underlies the entire film. The acting, although at times I must say a little contrived, is still impressive (and really, I dig Joseph Cotton – I have since Niagara, although I’m sure most people will remember him from The Third Man). The movie is incredibly nuanced and subtle, and pays exceptional attention to detail, and so almost demands to be watched again as soon as possible, so that you can see it all again through the lens of a knowledgeable viewing. And the directing…ooh, I love it. There are some shots that were just brilliant to me. Welles’ use of angles and shadows, creating silhouettes and obstructions, long frames on one person in a dialogue between two – oh, I ate it up! One of my favorites was the shot of the reporter in the phone booth at the “Singer” gal’s joint.

But I found the juxtaposition between poor/rich, happiness/unhappiness, etc etc , to be most interesting. The “rosebud” twist/MacGuffin obviously stands as a reference to the days when Kane was poor and happy (as the only scene with him and the sled illustrates – the kid never shuts up in the background, squeals of joy reverberate nearly to the point of annoyance while his mother in the house legally sign his life away[1]), while the rest of the movie portrays a Kane who desires money and power and image and drives away all of his loved ones in the process. Kane begins as a sort of semi-social, liberal reformer. He has contempt for his “birthright” of riches, gleefully runs a paper that loses about a mil a year exposing corporate scandals, and means to serve the “common man.”[2]

Somewhere along the line, that changes. This is most illustrated when his first wife asks if his paper is still really about serving the people, and Kane replies, “People will believe what I tell them to believe!” Of course, again and again, this is proved to be wrong, as his futile attempt to have the public respect his second wife’s “singing” showed. And so the film ends and begins with a man who ultimately is broken and sorrowful, and his dying word remembers the one time in the whole film that he was poor, and was happy.

Kane found that you cannot serve both the people and money. You can’t serve them and dictate to them “what’s good for them” at the same time, so to speak. Kane’s backing of the Spanish-American War, his refusal to give up a governor ship at the expense of shattering his family (and losing the chance at office anyway), his parlays and meetings with the world’s most influential people, they do not gain him the lasting influence that is true power. Nor do they afford him the kinds of change that he sees as good and proper. Kane becomes involved in silly games of saving face and manipulation, and the original, good goal is lost somewhere in the midst. In the end, Kane constantly resorts to the only power he knows, even when trying to convince his wife to stay, and it only grants him to die alone with his selfishness, the last words on his lips the memory of a bygone time filled with light, overshadowed by a very dark, brooding life.

Someone once said somewhere that you cannot serve two masters. You can’t serve God and money, you will either hate the one and love the other, or adore the one and despise the other. Mayhap Kane illustrates this very well. At the end of the movie, we are left wondering what a man with so much “power,” with so much “influence,” really achieved. He never really liberated anyone, and actually ended up building more prisons. Thus, Citizen Kane at least illustrates what true power is not, and offers us the lone image of a simple, wooden sled to contemplate what it really might be.

5/5

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[1] This point is brilliantly emphasized, I think, by the father closing the window, and then the mother opening it again. And remember, it’s like a blizzard outside.

[2] I am reminded of Barton Fink’s own search to illustrate, examine, and ultimately speak for (though perhaps inaccurately) the “common man.” Perhaps Fink and Kane have both misunderstood the “common man,” because at the end of the day, they really aren’t the “common man,” and have made no real attempts to be one of their number.