Citizen Kane’s Summary

Citizen Kane was a film released in 1941 and it it was voted #1 in history of American film. It was written by, directed by and acted by Orson Welles. The story was set in Xanada in Florida and started with an introduction about that place. Citizen Kane has a strange opening as it opened with the camera panning a spooky haunted mansion and then the camera lingered and zoomed in closely to the sign saying Ў§No Trepassing, ЎЁ then the camera took us to the room in the house, we saw a person was lying on the bed and that was the main character of the story Ў§Charles Foster Kane.ЎЁ (Orson Welles) We could see that he was dying and his last word was Ў§RosebudЎЁ, and then he dropped the ball, and it shattered. Because of the word Ў§RosebudЎЁ, people wanted to find out what it was, so it was a rising action which the story will began. After CharlesЎ¦s death, the next scence was a newsreel Ў§News on the March,ЎЁ which announces the death of Charles and giving a summary of CharlesЎ¦s colorful life and career and surely will introduced some of the important people and events in CharlesЎ¦ life. As this a summary of CharlesЎ¦s life, this was just an introduction of him, so that we got a sences of how he was like. Later on in the film, we will deeply understand his relationships between him and his wife and about his career. The newsrell was played in a small projection room filled with reporters. He noted CharlesЎ¦s last word Ў§rosebudЎЁ would make people suspicious. He decided to send a reporter, Ў§Jerry Thompson,ЎЁ to search the meaning behind the word Ў§rose bud.ЎЁ JerryЎ¦s first interview was CharlesЎ¦s 2nd wife Ў§Susan Alexander Kane, who worked as a dancer and singer in a bar, thinking she would know something about rosebud. For the reason, she was drunk, she was not willing to tell anything about him, so the waiter told Jerry that she spoke of him often when he was alive, but she said she had never heard of rosebud before. After that, Jerry went to Hall and he read a diary of Charles. As Jerry began to read this memoir, the image of the page dissolves into a flashback to KaneЎ¦s childhood. The flashback showed how Thatcher, CharlesЎ¦s guardian until 25 years old, meet Charles. This was set in Colordo, and Charles was still a young child. CharlesЎ¦s mother, Mary knew that itЎ¦s not going to be better if Charles was growing up in that place. ItЎ¦s better for him to go to some big city, so she decided to send him away and to entrust Thatcher to raise his son for her. As a result, Charles was completely upset and disappointed by that. Over many years, CharlesЎ¦s relationship with Thatcher still never improved. Charles constantly made Thatcher very angry, as he was wasting his money to open a newspaper company. Back to reality, Jane found the next two pages was blank and he was asked to leave, as he only had time until 4:30 pm. Jerry went to find other people who were close to Charles and these character related their memories of the man through flashbacks as well. Jerry first interviewed CharlesЎ¦s employees Mr. Bernstein. As Mr. Bernstein began to tell CharlesЎ¦s life story, a flashback of how they both met the first time appeared. He also talked about his 1st and 2nd wife and his personalities in the film. After meeting with Mr. Bernstein, Jerry ran to interview CharlesЎ¦s closer friend Hedediah Leland. He told him about the events how they met each other, but he also talked about his point of view about Charles. As Jerry wanted to know more about CharlesЎ¦s relationship with Susan, he decided to interview her once again. This time, Susan told him the reason why he left Charles and again there was a flashback there. Before Jerry left, Susan told him to find the butler, Raymond, because she knew there will be more information from him. Jerry immediately ran to interview this butler, Raymond. He said he surely knew about the Ў§rosebudЎЁ, but he wanted to bargain before heЎ¦s going to tell. He asked for 1000 dollars and they agreed. Then he told Jerry that he remembered Charles saying Ў§RosebudЎЁ all the times following a violent episode after Susan left him, but he didnЎ¦t know who or what is about that. After his talking, Jerry refused to pay, because it wasnЎ¦t something exclusive or it was nothing special. When Jerry giving up the question, was leaving CharlesЎ¦ castle, Xanadu, the camera then lead up to the scene where the workers burning some of CharlesЎ¦ possessions. In the fire, we saw the sled that Charles was riding the day his mother sent him away, was painted the word Ў§RosebudЎЁ

The film Ў§Citizen KaneЎЁ was shot excellently as it was a story of mystery and narrative. As in the beginning of the story, the narrative was introducing the city of Xanadu and CharlesЎ¦ colorful lifetime. The story were telling from 5 different points of view. It was ThatcherЎ¦s point of view about Charles, but it