Line #57 Headscratchers/CitizenKane


1	Headscratchers for ''Film/CitizenKane''.
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3	* Why didn't the worker at the end of the film see the word "Rosebud" on the sled?
4	** He's paid to dispose of Kane's junk, not catalogue his antiques. Even if he did see it, the only people who put any importance on the word "Rosebud" were the press.
5	* If the main character dies alone, how in the world does anyone know that his last word was "rosebud"?
6	** Later, in the film, the butler says that he was in the room when Kane died.
7	*** According to legend, one of the actors (perhaps Joseph Cotton?) mentioned this point to Creator/OrsonWelles. Welles allegedly stared at him wide-eyed for a minute, then pulled him in close and muttered "NEVER tell ANYONE what you just told me."
8	** It's been a while, but does it say he dies "alone," or does it say he dies "without anyone else around"? The former is more ambiguous, and could easily mean that he died without friends or family, his wife left him, everyone hated him, he was all alone in the world and just happened to have a servant over on the other side of the room. Probably the butler mentioned above.
9	*** Which raises a more human-nature-related question that Just Bugs Me: why did anyone actually ''care'' so much what "Rosebud" meant, if everybody hated the guy's guts and nobody worried about about him when he was alive? Sure, his dying may invite a certain amount of press interest, but it's not like anyone will care what the last words of those idiots whose screw-ups kicked off the recent banking crisis might mean. So why all the fuss over some senile old corporate shark's last mumble?
10	*** Somebody in the media wanted a 'human' angle that nobody else had in their obits? The man who apparently never cared about anybody but himself, with his dying breath suggests that he did care about someone after all?
11	*** The power of celebrity. Kane wasn't just a successful businessman, he was an extravagant spender, grand self-promoter, and major political candidate. Joe Public knew his name because he damn well wanted them to. You don't have to be well-liked to be legendary.
12	*** And hey, he was majorly rich. What if "Rosebud" was a clue to where he hid his secret cache of moolah? That could sure sell some papers.
13	*** I don't think he was hated by "everybody". The newsreel painted him as a polarizing figure, so apparently ''some'' of the public liked him.
14	*** "Everyone", in the original post (original poster, here), was hyperbole. Even if nobody liked him, he couldn't have been universally hated. Maybe everyone who knew him personally actively disliked or just barely tolerated him, but a lot of people would only know of him as an abstract figure, and most wouldn't know of him at all.
15	*** You have to think of it this way if a polarizing celebrity of today died (lets say Lindsay Lohan) the press would still want to run a story on her and possibly find an angle that no one else would have of the same story being print all over.
16	*** The newsreel at the beginning goes out of its way to say Kane was loved by millions and hated by an equal number. The most similar modern analogue to Charles Foster Kane is UsefulNotes/SteveJobs; think about all the recent biopics that have try to explain him, his life, his psyche and motivations.
17	*** An even better comparison would be UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump: industry magnate across several fields; responsible for failed ventures as well as massive successes; runs for political office; often mired in scandal; ''hugely'' divisive, but despite (or because of) that, generates huge interest from the press and the public. If Trump uttered cryptic last words, just imagine the press sensation that would result.
18	*** “Despite the constant negative press covfefe”
19	** I always just assumed the nurse heard from just outside, since she stepped in right after he said it. Xanadu's got some pretty awesome acoustics and the sound could have traveled. (Or she could have been responding to the sound of a glass ball falling to the hard floor and shattering. Still.)
20	*** I agree with this troper. I believe that Kane's whisper made her pause at the door, and the glass ball prompted her to enter the room.
21	** This issue was discussed in one of Spider Robinson's Callahan novels. One theory posited is that because Kane had been under federal investigation, his house was bugged at the time of his death. The transcript from the bug then got leaked to the press.
22	** Another possibility involves some inference on the part of the butler and/or the staff; Charles Kane undergoes extreme destructive rage after Susan Alexander leaves him, halted only by the rediscovery of the snow globe - saying for the first time (at least by the shown chronological order of the movie) "Rosebud". Presumably if his grief and guilt made him go a bit batty, then perhaps he kept on repeating "Rosebud" continually until he died - which means that the butler could infer what his final words were and Kane could still die alone.
23	*** Which also neatly answers the question of "Why does anyone care" -- "Rosebud" isn't Kane's last word, which could have been inspired by any thought: it was the obsession that overshadowed his twilight years.
24	*** I sometimes get the feeling Kane himself can't remember what Rosebud is, only that he associates it with pleasant rural winter scenes.
25	** It's easy to imagine that Raymond is lying about having heard it personally; he is getting a payoff for his information, after all. There's an outside chance that, based on the earlier incident, he simply guessed that Rosebud was his word -- but that guess was correct.
26	* In the opening newsreel, the year 1868 is mentioned. The narrator then says "57 years later" to introduce the next scene which shows Thatcher complaining about Kane before a Congressional investigation. Now, 57 years from 1868 is 1925, which was two years before the first "talkie". However, the clip, which should be old news footage if it's included in the newsreel, has sound.
27	** Deforest Phonofilm dates back to 1923. The newsreels could have been that.
28	* How much does Kane have? Xanadu looks downright impossible to maintain and would probably cost billions alone.
29	** The newsreel said that Xanadu was never finished and that it was already starting to crumble towards the end of Kane's life, so clearly he did not actually have enough money to build and maintain it. Of course, this raises the question of why he embarked on such an impossible project in the first place.
30	*** Isn't it obvious? Kane was completely full of himself. He built Xanadu as a monument to himself, and he didn't care if anybody told him it was impossible. Hell, just look at the fact he entirely ignored that his second wife was a horrible singer and made her perform, and subsequently embarrass herself, in front of thousands of people.
31	*** Also consider the real-life inspiration for Xanadu: Hearst Castle, which ''really is'' fantastically enormous.
32	*** Not to mention that building Hearst Castle pretty much bankrupted William Randolph Hearst himself.
33	* Why wasn't the death of Kane's son brought more into detail? That's kind of a big deal for a man who only wanted to be loved.
34	** Recall that they weren't necessarily trying to portray Kane as a man who wanted to be loved and were only interested in searching for the meaning of "Rosebud." The reporters believed a more recent feature of his death is perhaps more interesting then his relationship with his deceased son decades ago. If anything, Kane shows genuine affection for his son, but when Kane chooses to abandon Emily for Susan, it was probably clear that his egoist assertions were more important to him than his fatherhood. Note that when Emily and Susan bring up concern for the welfare of Kane's son, Kane cares more for the election and his image losing all human side of a story about his family relationships.
35	** It's also likely that it wasn't intended to be a part of the story; the Hays Code, in effect at the time, frowned upon divorce and adultery. That's why it's never confirmed that Susan and Kane were physically involved while he was married, for example. It's possible that Emily and their son's death was written in to appease censors by having Kane be a widower rather than a divorcée, and wasn't further explored because it wasn't something that was ever intended to be significant.
36	* Why didn't Kane chose the third option when he got cornered by the extortion by declaring that he was looking for talent in form of a singer and why didn't he asked her to sing to prove that he actually has a point and all this problem its just a meaningless misunderstanding and make Gettys look like an idiot while winning the ladies trust back.
37	** You may also wish to consider that the film does not really show us the late stages of Kane's gubernatorial campaign. Kane does indeed promise to "fight this thing" but were are not shown just how he tries to do it, just that it ends up failing. Could be his publicity engine tried any old thing to rescue his reputation, but nothing did.
38	** It's likely Gettys DID have some evidence such as witnesses or even covertly made photos (harder with the 1916 cameras than nowadays, but not impossible) - otherwise Kane would simply have sued the newspapers for libel and probably won the case. After all, Gettys had to somehow learn of Kane's visits to Susan in the first place.
39	* Is it only this troper who was wondering why everyone considered Susan's singing so terrible?
40	** You are not alone! See the main page's entry for HollywoodToneDeaf -- even while watching the film I couldn't get why all the people around were acting like she was so awful, when her voice was perfectly nice. I figured that it was a matter of scope -- if Kane had decided to set her up as a singer of lesser note, or a musical theater star, she would have been perfectly suited to it. But he wanted to put her in ''opera'', because nothing is more impressive or grand, and in opera, either she couldn't meet the standards set by the professionally trained singers, or her stamina gave out.
41	*** True. Some really excellent singers just do not have operatic voices. And even if she did, there are different types of voices, and she gives the impression of a lightweight "lyric", not the type called "dramatic" who can tackle hugely epic stuff like we presume''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salammbô Salammbô]]'' was to be. She wasn't singing bad, just way overmatched.
42	* Here's an even bigger question: How exactly did Kane die? It seems like his last moments were him wrecking up his ex-wife's room, then after that he just died. How did Kane die, exactly?
43	** He didn't die right after wrecking her room. His divorce was listed in the obituary report years before his death. Like anyone else, he got too old.
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45	* The main plot point of Kane being taken from his family doesn't make a lot of sense. First of all, it is implied that Kane's mother wanted to get him away from an abusive father based on the fact that his father talks about giving Kane a "good thrashing." This was the year 1871... a good thrashing was standard parenting back then...this was not considered abusive by the standards of the time. Besides...how bad could his dad have been if Charles spends the rest of his life lamenting being taken from his parents? He wished he had never been taken from his childhood home so obviously it wasn't the horrible environment his mother seemed to think it was. He doesn't seem to have any PTSD from abuse, so I doubt his father was really so horrible. And why does his mother sign him over to some random banker instead of a family member or friend? She seriously did not know one other person who could take Charles in? Not one? No brothers or sisters or close friends? What would be the banker's incentive to raise some random kid he didn't even know? Thatcher doesn't seem to be the warm and fuzzy type of guy who loves kids. What was his motivation anyway? This scene also implies this is the last time that Charles sees his mother. Why? She couldn't pop in once a year to see hello to her son? What's the problem here? She has plenty of money to travel now. This is a great film but these crucial details are never really explained.
46	** She probably ''did'' visit him, just obviously not often enough. I also feel that she wanted to send him away less because of what his father did and more what his father ''was''; she wanted him to be raised by a "proper" upper-class guardian to prepare him for a lifetime of riches rather than herself and her husband who she internalized as being worse because they were lower class.
47	* Kane's father was named Jim Kane, so why is his son named Charles Foster Kane III? Who's the second Kane?
48	** Kane could have been named after a parental uncle or grandfather.
49	** "Jim" Kane's real name could be Charles Foster Kane Sr., but he insists on being nicknamed "Jim" for some reason.
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51	* That campaign poster of Kane from his run for governor is very creepy. He looks like a dirty old man/possible sex offender. Who would vote for someone who looked so disturbing?
52	** How creepy people view him is a matter of opinion.

Context Headscratchers / CitizenKane