Charles Foster Kane

This film-related article describes an aspect of the film in a primarily in-universe style. Please help rewrite it to explain the fiction more clearly and provide non-fictional perspective. (October 2009)

Charles Foster Kane II^[1] is a fictional character and the subject of Orson Welles's 1941 film Citizen Kane. Welles played Kane (receiving an Oscar nomination), with Buddy Swan playing Kane as a child. Welles also co-wrote and directed the film.

Biography

Citizen Kane explores the life of the titular character, who is born of humble origins in the fictional settlement of Little Salem, Colorado, circa 1863.^[2] A mine given to his parents -- to settle a bill for room and board -- happenes to be rich in gold, making the family suddenly wealthy. In 1871, Kane's mother put him under the guardianship of a New York City banker named Walter Parks Thatcher, who raised him in luxury until he became an adult. However, Kane held a life-long hatred of Thatcher, for ripping him away from his family. In acts of rebellion, he attended prestigious colleges such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Cornell -- and got himself expelled from all of them.

As an adult, Kane takes control of a Thatcher-owned newspaper called the New York Inquirer^[3], thinking that "it might be fun to run a newspaper". One of his first acts as the paper's new owner is to publish a "declaration of principles" stating his duty to be truthful to his readers. However, he almost immediately begins using yellow journalism tactics to blow stories out of proportion, encourage a war with Spain, and thwart Thatcher's political goals and business interests -- including ones Kane held stock in. Kane also hires staff members away from a rival newspaper, the Chronicle, regarding them as collectibles. To finance the initially-fledgling Inquirer, Kane uses his personal resources; this would allow him to operate it -- even at a million dollar annual loss -- for decades.

Kane eventually marries Emily Monroe Norton, the niece of an apparently fictional president of the United States.^[4] Unfortunately, the marriage sours as his wealth and power feed his megalomaniacal ego. Some time later, as his popularity and fortune increases, Kane runs for Governor of New York against reputedly corrupt boss J. W. Gettys. Kane's election victory is almost certain, until Gettys reveals evidence of Kane's affair with a young "singer" named Susan Alexander. Gettys decides to blackmail Kane, meeting with him and his wife at Susan's apartment. There, Kane refuses to drop out of the race despite Gettys' leverage. As a result, the scandal goes public and Kane loses the election decisively. Furthermore, Kane's best friend, Jedediah Leland, becomes profoundly disillusioned at his friend's haughty arrogance -- first by humiliating his family, and then by treating the electorate like his personal property -- insisting on being transferred to Kane's Chicago paper to stay away from him.

Emily divorces Kane in 1916, and dies two years later in a car crash with their son. Kane marries Susan and forces her into a doomed and humiliating career as an opera singer, even though such performances are seriously out of her depth. This effort costs Kane more than money when Jedediah Leland, the drama critic for the Chicago Inquirer, refuses to follow the company line praising Alexander's performances. Leland becomes too drunk at the difficult task of writing a truthful review against his friend's wishes, falling into a stupor. Kane, while visiting the paper's newsroom, finishes the review with the negative tone intact to prove to Leland that he still has integrity. However, he simultaneously fires Leland for not cooperating in his obsession. In retaliation, Leland refuses his severance package and mails back the torn up check, along with the original copy of Kane's "declaration of principles" to remind him of what he had lost. However, Kane considers the document obsolete and tears it up in anger.

After the despondent Susan attempts suicide, Kane releases her from her disastrous operatic career and retires to Xanadu, his gigantic Gothic chateau in Florida. The monotonous routine inside the cavernous mansion and Kane's increasingly domineering nature prove to be too much for Susan, who eventually leaves him. The business downturns of the Great Depression -- as well as Kane's excessive spending habits on the crumbling and unfinished Xanadu -- costs Kane much of his control of his media businesses, which he is forced to sell to Thatcher. Kane, however, still has considerable wealth. He returns to Xanadu and becomes a recluse, living alone and remaining estranged from all his friends. Kane dies of old age in 1941 uttering the cryptic word "Rosebud."

Reporter Jerry Thompson is assigned to track down the meaning of "Rosebud" shortly after Kane's highly-publicized death. Despite interviewing all of Kane's living acquaintances, he never finds it. In truth, the word "Rosebud" was written on the sled Kane was given by his parents as a little boy, and left behind at his mother's boarding house when he was sent away to live with Thatcher. It is implied in the film that Kane finds the sled in a warehouse around the time he first meets Susan. That sled is burned in an incinerator after Kane's death, along with other possessions seen as trash by the bank. It represents the innocence and love stolen from Kane when he was taken from his parents.

Relationships

Susan Alexander

Susan Alexander Kane (Dorothy Comingore) was Kane's second wife. She is evidently low class and did not recognize Kane when they first met in the mid-1910s. While Gettys found evidence that implicated Susan as Kane's mistress, the film does not make it clear whether or not she really was. However, a mere two weeks after his first wife divorced him in 1916, Kane married Susan.

Susan was an aspiring opera singer when she and Kane first met, but is not particularly talented. Despite this, Kane tried to force her into a career as an opera singer, even building an opera house specifically for her, but he was unsuccessful. Susan is the last of Kane's friends to leave him as well as the original owner of the snow globe he drops after saying "rosebud". As of 1941, she is still living and running a nightclub ("El Rancho") in Atlantic City, which is where she is interviewed by Jerry Thompson.

Jedediah Leland

Jedediah Leland (Joseph Cotten) was a close friend of Kane and is generally acknowledged to represent the morality and idealist beliefs Kane himself loses as the film progresses. According to Mr. Bernstein; he came from a wealthy family that lost all their money and met Charles Foster Kane in college. In 1941 Jedediah lives in a nursing home in Manhattan, where he was interviewed by Jerry Thompson.

Walter Thatcher

Walter Parks Thatcher (George Coulouris) is a banker described by the opening newsreel as a "grand old man of Wall Street". He became Kane's legal guardian in 1871, but Kane resented him and used the Inquirer to harass him. In a scene in the newsreel set around 1925, Thatcher tells a congressional investigation that Kane is a Communist. When Thatcher asks Kane what he would have liked to have been, Kane replies "everything you hate". Clearly getting on in years during Kane's youth, Thatcher was still alive in 1929 and was dead by 1941.

Mr. Bernstein

Mr. Bernstein is a business executive and now Chairman of the Board of Directors of Kane's business interests. Having served as Kane's personal assistant since at least when he took over the Inquirer, Bernstein proved the most loyal to the man. For instance, Bernstein willingly participated in indulging Kane's obsession in his wife's operatic career despite the fact that it was ill-considered by everyone else. However, he is not without scruples such as when he advised his employer not to make insincere promises in his Declaration of Principles. Furthermore, although the character has been described as a stereotypical Jew, he is breaks with the stereotype by being far less materialistic than Kane, noting "It's no trick to make a whole lot of money, if all you want is just a whole lot of money."

Political views

Kane's political views are complex and difficult to define. This is epitomized in the film's opening newsreel where Thatcher calls Kane a "Communist" followed directly by a scene at a workers' rally where Kane is denounced as a "Fascist". Kane's reply reveals another element of his political beliefs; his patriotism. He says "I am, have been, and will be only one thing - an American." Later in the newsreel, he says that he is firstly an American and secondly a reporter.

As implied by his support of the Spanish-American War and Theodore Roosevelt, Kane seems to believe in the concept of a benevolent American Empire. However, given his opposition to U.S. involvement in World War I, he apparently favors isolationism in regards to conflicts abroad. These convictions suggest a conservative viewpoint on his part. Kane's social views, on the other hand, are decidedly liberal for his time given his attacks on big business and that he holds up the "working man" as a model for society. His election campaign billed him as the "the fighting liberal", perhaps suggesting that he prefers to be viewed as a liberal.

Although he uses his incredible fortune to buy statues in Europe, build Xanadu, etc., Kane does not appear to care about making money given that he chooses to run the Inquirer over more lucrative means and that he specifically attacks his own business interests in the paper. In a 1935 interview depicted in the newsreel, Kane said that war would not happen in Europe since its leaders were "too intelligent to embark on a project which would mean the end of civilization as we now know it". He, of course, is mistaken as World War II had already begun at the time the film was written. In the same newsreel, there is footage of Kane talking casually with Adolf Hitler.

Much of Kane's 1916 campaign for New York governor, at least what is seen of it in the film, is based on the notion that he will look out for the working class over his own interests. Despite this, he loses the election. Jedediah Leland suggests this is because Kane offered the working class their rights as his personal gift rather than as what they were due. Specifically, Leland said that Kane believed he "owned" the people and that he was offering them their rights as a "reward for good behavior". All this fits in with Leland's view that Kane was using his newspaper and his attempted political career to earn the people's love. If true, this would suggest Kane's politics were based on his desire to find love, or perhaps regain the love he lost when Thatcher took him from his parents, rather than on any particular political ideologies.

Inspiration

The general consensus is that William Randolph Hearst is the primary — but not the only — inspiration behind Charles Foster Kane. (Welles himself is considered the other main inspiration.) Though Citizen Kane is often considered one of the best films ever made, Hearst was allegedly not amused by how he—or his mistress Marion Davies, widely (but wrongly) considered the inspiration for Susan Alexander—were depicted, and he attempted to destroy both the film and Welles' career.

Welles was quoted as saying, "It is not based upon the life of Mr. Hearst or anyone else. On the other hand, had Mr. Hearst and similar financial barons not lived during the period we discuss, Citizen Kane could not have been made."^{[citation needed]} However, in the film, Kane is given the line "You provide the prose poems; I'll provide the war," undeniably similar to "You furnish the pictures, and I'll furnish the war," a quote widely attributed to Hearst. Also, an overhead shot of Hearst's ranch is shown in the film as Xanadu, which is where Kane resides, which reveals more than anything Kane is based solely upon Hearst.

In addition, Kane's unsuccessful attempt to make his second wife an opera star parallels Hearst's effort to make his Davies a serious dramatic movie actress despite critics's complaints that she was miscast and better in light comedy roles. The connection with Hearst is strengthened by the fact that Mankiewicz was a frequent guest of Davies at Hearst Castle.

Some biographies of Welles posit that Welles himself was a source of inspration for the character; some of the character's dialogue on how to run a newspaper are direct quotes from Welles's comments on how to make a motion picture (though this was his first), and Welles's co-writer, Herman J. Mankiewicz, included dialogue about Kane's voracious appetite, also meant to echo Welles's character.

Other men who have been suggested as models^{[citation needed]} for Kane include:

• Howard Hughes
• Samuel Insull
• Jules Brulatour
• Basil Zaharoff

In recent years, Kane has been compared unfavorably to contemporaries such as Rupert Murdoch^[5] and Ted Turner.^[6]

References

1. ^ Since his son is named Charles Foster Kane III, at least according to the film's end credits, and Kane has the same name, it logically follows that Kane's full name must be Charles Foster Kane II, although this is never actually stated in the film.
2. ^ This is estimated from Kane being eight years old in 1871. This is also the same year William Randolph Hearst was born.
3. ^ Some reviewers have spelled the name of Kane's newspaper "The New York Enquirer," but it's always spelled "Inquirer" within the film itself.
4. ^ Kane refers to the President as being "Uncle John" from his wife's perspective, but there was not a president with the given name of John during the period this portion of the film is set.
5. ^ "Rupert Murdoch: Bigger than Kane" from BBC News
6. ^ Citizen Kane a Masterpiece at 50 from Roger Ebert

External links

• Charles Foster Kane at the Internet Movie Database