Mitchell Berger
March 2003
21L.011
Rockwell
Deep Within the Glass – The Secret Fantasy of Kane
One of the characteristics a film is most frequently judged by is its ending. The
reason for this is that when someone claims a film has a “good” ending, that usually means that it
in some way ties loose ends of the story together, resolves a mystery that has persisted
throughout the work, or exposes some deeper meaning the artist is trying to express.
It's
important that such revelations are withheld until the conclusion of a film because while the
point of the work could simply be stated on its own (much the way proverbs are presented to you
when you open most fortune cookies), its poignancy is greatly enhanced by the way an artist
weaves the conclusion together with the rest of the tale.
In Orson Welles's Citizen Kane (1941), we're told the life story of a monarch of a
media empire – a man who “spoke for millions of Americans, was hated by as many more” -- as
we follow a news reporter who is interviewing people important in Kane’s life in a search for
understanding of his existence. While the driving force of this search throughout the film is
Kane's final utterance, “rosebud,” it appears until the end of the final sequence that our quest to
learn the significance of that word has been a complete failure, as nobody we encounter can tell
us what “rosebud” meant.
It turns out, though, that each of the sequences in the film is
illustrating the meaning of “rosebud.” In particular, the sequence beginning at the Thatcher
Memorial Library and that at the “Inquirer” in Bernstein's narrative when we learn of Kane's first
engagement provide very strong hints, but they don't explicitly mention “rosebud.”
The
significance of the ending is that it provides the missing link, and, through the elements of
cinematic style it makes use of, elucidates what we are supposed to learn about Kane's life from
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all we've been told by his acquaintances.
The Thatcher Memorial Library is a dark place, and when the reporter, Thompson,
approaches the reading chamber, the use of deep focus suggests to us that while action
(discussion with the receptionist) is taking place in the foreground, important meaning is to be
found in the background (inside the chamber containing Thatcher’s memoirs). Once inside, we
find that the room is very dimly lit, and in fact, there's only one broad ray of light, and it is
focused on the edge of the table where Thatcher's memoirs are placed. We later find out that in
being allowed to read from this book, Thompson “has enjoyed a rare privilege” -- he's been
allowed a glimpse through a narrow window into a world known to very few. Indeed it is a view
of Kane's secret world that we are seeking. When his time concludes, the receptionist inquires
whether he's found what he was looking for, and he indicates that he hasn't, unless her name
happens to be Rosebud. The use of overall dim lighting in the room with one beam of light on
the memoirs is a strong hint that examining them closely could have been fruitful because they
contain the information Thompson has been looking for. That, combined with mention of his
rare privilege (which suggests that the reason nobody else seems to know what “rosebud” means
may simply be that they haven’t looked in the right place), and the shallowness of his closing
exchange with the staff are indications that he has simply missed the point despite that the
information he sought was in fact contained within the pages he was reading.
During most of the narrative told by the memoirs, the deep focus technique is again
utilized to hint to us that while Kane's mother is busy signing away his life to Thatcher in the
foreground, and while his father is busy arguing about this decision as he wavers between the
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foreground and middleground, there's some very important meaning to be understood about the
background, which is where Kane himself is playing in the snow, as yet unaware of what's taking
place inside the house. Whereas the book of memoirs was a figurative window into a world most
people don't know about, the boarding house features a literal window into the far frame. In that
far frame is Kane's secret world which he's involuntarily plucked from.
After having finally heard the legalese in the contract Mrs. Kane signs, the feelings
of the child whose guardianship has just been transferred are finally exposed without pretense.
Outside in the snow, in a shot uncomplicated by hidden meanings found with deep focus, he
immediately displays both an unwillingness to go on the trip without his mother, and a disdain
for Thatcher and the impending change he represents to Kane's life. The strength of these
feelings is demonstrated through an attack on Thatcher made with the all-important sled.
Despite his objections, Kane is removed from this carefree world he so desperately wants to
remain a child in. At this point, his reasons for resisting the change in his life obviously aren’t
based on analysis of the way his resultant future will differ from the one he would otherwise
have, but just the same he seems to know that this is not what’s right for him.
In contrast, when we find ourselves at the offices of “The Inquirer” during
Bernstein's narrative, we notice a scene that is much less cinematically complex than we had
seen at Mrs. Kane's boarding house. The lack of deep focus and the lack of much audible action
offscreen indicate that all the meaning we're intended to derive is right in front of us. What's
apparent is that Kane has been collecting statues from all over Europe, and that this is a behavior
that's new to him (at the gala dinner affair, Kane mentioned that he had only been buying for a
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few months, and it was also suggested that the new staffers might change Kane).
Artwork often depicts fantasy worlds, and statues are a three-dimensional form of
artwork intended to be lifelike and allow one to construct his own scene. Leland expresses
mixed feelings of excitement and frustration that he doesn't know what to do with all the statues
as the collection seems to be growing without bound. Kane, now with the means to do so, is
trying to gather enough artwork to make himself happy by constructing a fantasy world, but his
search for the right characters to build it out of seems insatiable.
Next, Kane himself appears with the announcement of his engagement to Ms.
Norton (the other collectible spoken of by Bernstein). Though the “Inquirer” staffers appear
thrilled to see him, and attempt to present him with a trophy bowl to welcome him home, Kane's
demeanor betrays that something important is amiss. He behaves very awkwardly, appears to
feel out of place, and ends up running away from the office to flee with his new fiance. The
immediately obvious and shallow interpretation is that Kane isn't comfortable around his old
newspaper acquaintances anymore now that he's beginning his new life with Norton.
While that might be true, a more symbolic reading points out that there were two
worlds in the shot while he was in the office: his fantasy world in the making with all the statues,
and the real world with Leland, Bernstein, and the other animate characters. We already know
that Kane had, as a child, been removed from the world he wanted to be a part of, and that
having aged, he could never go back to it. A yearning to try to return to that world may have
been what drove him to attempt to construct a fantasy world. It was, however, not real, and the
awkwardness seen in Kane's behavior when he entered the office, which appeared to come as a
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shock to him, may have been due to the overlaying of reality with that world (in the same way
that juxtaposition can show us a connection between two seemingly independent things,
overlaying them in the same space can make the point even more forcefully). The two worlds
don't coexist well, and while Kane might have wanted to be part of the fantasy, he in fact was
part of reality.
Of course, while the arguments made so far may well seem plausible to someone
who has seen all but the ending sequence of the film, it's far less likely that these ideas would
occur to that person. At the conclusion, Raymond tells his tale at Xanadu, which itself is a
fantasy world constructed by Kane – a fact that was pointed out to us in the “News on the
March” segment that opened the story. When Kane's rampage finally ends, he is pensively
holding a snow globe. These cute little objects we can buy at gift shops depict inanimate winter
fantasy scenes, and highlight the fact that there's a barrier between fantasy and reality; the glass
prevents reality from getting in and fantasy from getting out. As he walks down the hall with the
globe, once again deep focus is used, and when he enters the far frame with the globe, just as he
had been in the far frame during Thatcher's narrative, there is a strong hint that he's holding the
secret we've been looking for all along in that globe. Its connection to him is reaffirmed by the
shot where he passes by several mirrors that reflect him back and forth, and it's a visual hint that
he is reflecting upon himself during his final walk. He finally does break the barrier between the
two worlds, when he drops the globe and shatters the glass, but as he may have first suspected
upon his return to “The Inquirer” offices, he doesn't succeed in bringing the worlds into
coexistence; the fantasy world is ruined, reality persists, and Kane is dead.
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March 2003
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As we leave Xanadu, we pass through the great mass of statues and other artifacts
of a fantasy world (jigsaw puzzles included, as Alexander used them to construct scenes of
worlds she may have wished to be a part of) that had been accumulated, and it is reminiscent of
the scene at the newspaper's offices. Finally, we see the sled with Kane's final word, “Rosebud”
on it, and we remember the scene in the snow where Kane pushed Thatcher to the ground with a
sled as a protest against being taken away from his carefree world. This ending sequence isn't
special because of new meaning to be found in it; likely just seeing the mounds of statues and a
sled with the name “Rosebud” on it would be unrevealing on its own. The truth is that we've
learned the secret about Kane already, several times over, and it's the cinematic elements such as
deep focus and overlaying reality with fantasy, which when used together allow us to make the
connection between the various narratives that came before, and showing us the sled with the
word “Rosebud” finally tells us why Kane summed up his troubles with that word alone. As if to
guard against the possibility that the point had not been made with enough impact, when the sled
enters the furnace, we first see the word “rosebud” melt and fade away because of the heat, and
then the sled ends up in flames. Just as the turning over of Kane to Thatcher was an irreversible
action which made Kane’s return to his carefree childhood impossible, the combustion of the
sled is an irreversible action and the sled can never be recovered.