I chose to analyze a scene from the film Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, US, 1941). The scene was the one where Mrs. Kane signs her son away to a wealthy banker from Chicago. The film was done in 1941 which was at the end of the Great Depression. Throughout the movie it shows us the wealth that was going to begin spreading in the US, and this movie probably gave hope to many after suffering from hard economic times. The different types of music throughout the film made the movie entertaining and not to add to the depression that many still probably felt. The intro music to News On the March reminded me of how the end of the Great Depression might have been announced over the radio.
The scene starts off with a POV shot of the mother looking out at Charles. The camera pulls out to show us a larger view of the room and the other two adults that were in the scene. When the mother and the banker sit down to sign the adoption papers; they appear sharp and so does the husband who is off to the side. The most interesting part of the scene is that while they discuss the amount of money they will receive for sending him off u can see Charles outside through the window. This was a frame within a frame shot, and if this film was a silent one we as the viewers would still be able to tell who it is the adults were talking about. Orson uses close up shots of the mother and the banker as she signs the papers; which was more important than what the father was talking about. He also uses a close up of Charles’ face at the end of the scene, and I think he does this to allow the viewers to see and feel the emotions of the characters. This scene is crucial to understanding the movie. The film starts off with his death but later reveals how he came to be who he was. If his parents didn’t make the decision they made he would have grown up in that small town and never been as successful as he was. You get the sense that Charles’ family wasn’t very wealthy by the front of the house that had a hand painted sign, what they were wearing which were dark and old looking, and how gloomy it looked on the inside along with the old furniture. The banker on the other hand was dressed in fur and an expensive suit which displayed his financial status. The decision to send him off seemed heartless but if we think about the time that Orson made this movie it seems like a decision that made sense. The banker offered the family money in exchange for their son until he turned twenty five years old.
When the scene switches from the three adults walking from inside to outside I was able to see that Orson used continuity editing. The camera went from inside and panned around the side of the house to film them walking out of the doorway into the front yard. While the camera went from inside to outside it didn’t seem to jump but it flowed into the next scene. The young child remains at the center of the frame in the outside shot which also helps us to know that he is the topic of the dialogue going on in the scene. The banker was halfway in and halfway out of the frame while the parents were in-frame with their son. Another thing that I noticed is that the father always remains in the foreground throughout the scene which shows that he really didn’t have much of a say in what happened. The mother is seen closer up and there are close-ups of her face; which signified to me her authority in the situation. Orson uses non-diegetic instrumental music to set the mood and to evoke certain feelings from the viewers. The scene ends with his sled that he called “rosebud” almost completely covered in snow.
This scene helps us understand the opening scene of this movie when Charles is in his death bed with a snowglobe that had a model of his old house in it and right before he dies he utters “Rosebud”. If it wasn’t for this scene we wouldn’t understand the connection that he had with rosebud. Orson included this flahback to help explain why the beginning of the film started the way it did. Charles still remembered his childhood and where he was born despite his wealth and huge mansion he lived in. At the end of the film after he died there are men throwing all of his belongings into a furnace along with the sled. This made me feel like he was only valuable and important to everyone while he was alive and if he would have stayed back in the country he would have been appreciated more.