Orson Welles Spring: Citizen Kane

This scene really hit different this time

Orson Welles Spring kicks off with a film so monumental that it seems pretty silly for me to write a commentary on it. It's one of if not the most analyzed films of all time, and the stories behind its making have been turned into multiple films of their own (RKO 281 and Mank). Instead of writing any kind of general overview, I thought I would just offer a few notes for thought that might generate some thoughts of your own. 

When I was growing up I heard about Kane all the time as the film that had been anointed the "best movie ever." I had heard others my age who had sought it out on that basis, and left disappointed. Kane is one of my favorite movies, but to present it to someone on the terms of "best ever" is a bad idea. Luckily for me, I did not see it until my mid-20s, after I had already seen a lot of other films of that era. With that context in mind, Kane absolutely blew me away. It looks, feels, and MOVES like nothing else of its era in the "golden age" of Hollywood. It shows, frame after frame, just what cinema can do. It's hard for modern viewers who don't know old movies to get what's going on because the films they have been raised on live in a post-Kane world. 

Watching it again last night, I was struck by its inventiveness. Practically every shot grabbed my attention. The chopped up timeline combined with the masterful editing kept me far away from scrolling on my phone. It's easy to see why Kane became such a totem among cineastes, since it shows just what can be done with the medium. Things were getting there in the late silent era, where the camera achieved freedom. The advent of sound put the camera within new limits, but Kane found ways to overcome them. 

This time around I watched Kane thinking about the current political situation, and the political nature of the film really came home to me. When I first saw it in the early 2000s I didn't really think about this much, focusing far more on Kane as a person rather than as a political figure or symbol. Because this is a film long praised for its film-making accomplishments, we have tend to miss its message and the historical context it emerged from. 

Kane came out in 1941, in the midst of World War II and at a time when disenchantment with capitalism had reached its highest point in the Western world. Welles himself was on the left and had done work for New Deal theater programs. His famous stage adaptation of Julius Caesar made it into an allegory for the rise of modern fascism. In America the was the age of the Popular Front, the broad anti-fascist coalition that mainstreamed leftist radicalism more than it ever had been. Looking at Kane with fresh eyes, Welles is telling the story of America before the New Deal. Charles Foster Kane is a robber baron raised by a bank, the type of man who when challenged about what people will think of him crows that they will think what he tells them to think. 

Kane is the exemplar of American capitalism after the Gilded Age, and thus is shown rather intentionally as a figure from the past, adrift in the present. Welles was prone to his own arrogance, and he seems to be telling the audience "Aren't you glad that these people don't have ultimate power any more?" It feels like a victory lap for the New Deal and Popular Front, but the aftermath of the film's release showed that the forces of capital were far stronger than suspected. Welles put a thumb in the eye of the mega-wealthy and they retaliated against him. Hearst almost had the film destroyed (shades of Zaslav!) and Welles would never again be able to make a Hollywood film with the financing and freedom he had on Kane. I still admire the man for using his one shot at glory to show how completely craven and dysfunctional the wealthy can be. 

On this last point I feel the film is far more relevant than when I first saw it about 24 years ago. Modern America is dominated by Kane manques (see what I did there?) like Zuckerberg, Bezos, and of course, Musk. Yes there were rich people with massive fortunes back in 2001, but unlike Kane they were not overtly political figures with pretensions of using their wealth to mold public opinion. As the film vividly illustrates, wealth is a corrosive thing that warps the souls of those who possess it. We are now witnessing an attempted revolution from above so sweeping that Charles Foster Kane could not conceive of it. As scary as the moment is, I can find comfort in Welles' film. As much power as these wealthy people seek, they will never be happy, and they too will have to die someday, just like the rest of us. 

Watching Kane again last night with that in mind, the final scene hit differently. There was the usual shudder at watching so many of his possessions being burned after his death, including the childhood sled that represented an alternate life where he would not have been rich and maybe have become a decent human being. I usually feel a heavy sadness in that moment, and a clear warning about how to live my own life, but this time a smile came to my face. In the final shot, watching the smoke of all he had accumulated go through the chimney I muttered to myself with spite, "good."