Citizen Kane: Framing Power
0:03 Charles Cane represents a lot of people in American history. The biggest inspiration that director Orson Welles had when he developed Cane as a character was the contemporary newspaperman William Hearst, known for both the early 20th century media phenomena known as yellow journalism and also for stimulating public opinion against Spain around the same time, and thus provoking American belligerence in Cuba, which is something Kane also does in the movie. He similarly had the support of one of the most corrupt political organizations in American history, New York's Tammany Hall, but in public he was the friend to the working man, running for New York mayorship with running mate James Stokes, one of the founding members of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society.
This was also at a time of great corruption in U.S. politics. Figures like Hearst today represent the upper classes' desire to use the lower classes to their advantage
1:03 for the sake of power Citizen Kane takes this class conflict masquerading as class collaboration and transforms it into a personal visual conflict between Charles Kane's desire for power and his surroundings the entirety of the film represents Kane's rising from rags to riches than to metaphorical rags once more and the visual composition of the film reflects that understanding the whole movie itself is staged as a frame narrative a literary device painting a story within a story the outer story is what we get when the film opens a newspaperman trying to uncover the meaning behind Kane's last work rosebud we don't get into the actuals of Kane himself until later on in the film when the inner story actually begins and the corresponding framing surrounding Kane ends here in Cain's story opens with Kane in the background his youth contrasted against the tenseness of contemporary economics this shot here is one of the most prolific throughout the entirety of the movie even in the outer story as well Welles loves to pit ideas against each other through the use of deep space composition putting two or more things on screen at the same time thus
2:05 contrasting one movement against the other a practice made possible by keeping everything and focus at once referred to as deep focus and this is how Welles conveys the eeeh that Keynes story is a story of Cain desire for power and that this results in conflicts versus himself and the world there's a struggle for power that's taking place in every scene and it's one not only taking place within the narrative characters themselves struggling for power but it's literal as well contrasting movements on-screen struggling against each other for the eyes attention obviously that which is bigger and more pronounced has more power visually in thus more power narrative Lee because the eyes are going to tend to focus on it more so in the beginning Cain here doesn't have much power his family wields power specifically his mother does because she's in the foreground signing papers dealing with Cain's entire future while his father is in the background powerless the composition is then repeated here where Wells reveals his technique to showing the audience who has power Cain's young and he's short he's being looked on by everyone else in the scene being in the center of the screen he has power over the other characters insofar as focus is concerned but pertaining to the narrative Cain has
3:06 no power at all he's at the mercy of his mother and mr. Thatcher here to the left this idea that King being both small and looked on by others in the scene relates a sense of powerlessness is used throughout the movie and it contrasts against wells secondary technique for conveying Cain's power putting him in the foreground and having him look on other people in the beginning of the film this is represented by Cain's palace is an Adu overlooking a worker and the rest of the estate's surroundings off-topic but this is also another reference to Hurst who actually built his own mansion but I digress the manifestation of Cain's ego in this case overshadows Cain's surroundings and when we finally get to the newspaper shop that Kane owns Cain as individual again overshadows those around him you noticed that while Thatcher is standing in the foreground in the beginning of the scene as it progresses the camera tilts under the two characters gradually positioning Cain above Thatcher until eventually they stand up and we find Cain now taller than Thatcher who previously was his guardian and previously but no longer wielded power over him when Cain first enters the newspaper shop a scene
4:07 which takes place chronologically before the last one but within the film is shown later again he stands over and against everyone else in the scene especially this chief editor whose science is initially rather large in comparison to Cain but as he approaches his comparative power diminishes a moment later another bottom up angle shot is used to emphasize the powerlessness of the editor again Kane's wishes as the to talk you also notice in all of these scenes where Kane stands over people he's standing really close to them and along with composition this character blocking throughout the film is used to illustrate Kane's attempted acquisition of power you notice in this scene how Kane has surrounded himself with people and how again Kane maintains a central authoritative position throughout the entirety of this sequence as a matter of fact and because of this King's not opposing anyone and no real conflicting forces at play but once Cain gets back from a trip to Europe all of this changes he's still in power but his interests are now his own represented through a clear central position in a color contrast that distinguishes him from everyone else on screen this scene begins Wells use of distance to signify Cain's growth of ego
5:08 and thus beginnings of his struggle to maintain his power over others a clear realignment can be made in Cain's character because now the woman who he's to marry is signifying Kane's dissatisfaction with his status quo and his desire for more power this foreshadowed idea that Cain's egoism has begun to take over him is then realized in the following sequence where an initially close couple emotionally and physically becomes distance mrs. Cain a woman paling in comparison to Cain's ego framed against a statue of what appears to be the Virgin Mary symbolizing alleged divinity in the same sequence Cain's ego is fighting miss Cain and from here on out Cain's ego does much the same when Susan Alexander the future mrs. Cain is introduced Cain is again shot looking over her as his ego now fights to claim her as his own when Cain's giving a speech for a gubernatorial election Welles visualizes the mass that is Cain's ego via a big
6:10 brother esque poster relating Kane's name and while it appears Kane wields power because he looks over everyone in the crowds he's extremely insignificant because the crowds are not only looking on him but his ego is as well Kane the individual is in competition with Kane the ego and clearly the ego overshadows him it's no mistake that as the camera zooms in Kane is framed directly against his poster once this scene is introduced the conflict becomes Kane against political boss Jim Gettys Kane's failure foreshadowed by the shriveling up of his go against the massively larger Gettys going forward King struggles with the world around him are marked by his size being overshadowed literally in this scene and his closeness to others replaced with an unmistakable distance the defeated Kane now overshadows his once bloated ego that poster now not overlooking cane but blending into the background of failure that Kane as individual must now struggle against the entirety of this sequence seeks to contrast the initial sequence early on in the film when Leland this guy and Kane entered the
7:10 newspaper shop with ideals of control and grandeur marked by their closeness Leland and Kane now standing a good distance apart in silence denotes the isolation that has created by Kane's ego the discussion now as opposed to a bright future turns to the demagogue that the prospect of such a future has turned Kane into distance is used again in framing the new mrs. Kane and the struggles that many are going through to see her stage productions follow through the complexity framed within this wide shot relates the confusion at Cain's ego has now taken on and now he's displaced this personal confusion onto mrs. Kane making her a prize of sorts something that he personally can wield power over and fix Welles makes this concrete first as Kane the overlooker peers on the lessons he's paid for and makes an intervention when they aren't up to his standards and in the most famous scene from the movie or Kane claps for his wife after her admittedly bad stage performance he's again blocked with
8:11 distance from the surrounding actors and maintain center stage his isolation conveyed in the following shot through a bare background and a top-down angle he struggle in regard to the Opera now is one against public opinion Kane's belief that he personally can shape society manifested in his affairs with the Opera has overtaken him by this point leading to a clear struggle between himself and mrs. Kane about his personal aggrandizement when he makes completely clear Tommi Susan you see my evil on his camera not tell him to you again that he is in control after mrs. Cain tries to take back control through a suicide attempt Wells transitions into the final repercussions of Cain's desire for control and power ultimate personal isolation through the taking of his ego to extremes Xanadu the first shot we see of Cain during this final portion of the film articulating his complete destruction displays him as a decrepit feeble force seeking to maintain his control through
9:12 material possessions his often remarked on statue collection consisting in this scene of Pharaohs the wideness of Cain's ego is further articulated through the panning that Welles employs making clear the sheer distance that needs to be traversed just so Kane can talk to his wife clearly as the shot ends Kane is once more framed in the background just as solid cold and lifeless as the statues framed beside him parallel to this earlier shot evoking the beginnings of Kane's demise here we see how Kane the individual has become completely overtaken by and enveloped in his desire for power not only has this further distance him from Susan but compared to the complexity surrounding her it's left him personally barren and little more than a commanding power-hungry force distance is then inverted in the following scene or Cain's use of tents to signify an attempt by him to physically bring himself and Susan together but therein he continues to
10:13 stand over and dominate her he seeks this domination a final time when Susan leaves him and the framing from Pryor is continually in place to relate that he maintains control because in his own mind he does despite this Susan leaves Kane in his world of power just as his previous wife and the whole of public opinion did before him despite her in this scene being in a compositionally low position of power this break in composition reflecting narrative power is highly significant to Cain's psychology and the resulting breakdown that he experiences in the following sequence is its manifestation the final shot of Kane we see in the movie shows him as insignificant as ever surrounded by both people and his material possessions but distant and isolated still believing himself in some sense to be the God who built the Eden that surrounds him the story of Charles Cain is a story of demagoguery and how Western society and its inability to provide true comfort and in its recommendation that we pursue power and wealth to compensate for society's own
11:14 failures makes demagogues all the more possible despite conflicts between himself society and his ego Cain was able to transform a newspaper shop into a bustling national economic Empire despite the very same William Hearst was able to do the very same despite a bulking conservative force down south political magnate Huey Long with speeches just as fiery as Cain's was elected governor of Louisiana with plans for the presidency running on a platform promoting a universal basic income completely socializing most of the United States economy Chicago Tribune owner Robert mcCormick vehemently tried to dissuade the public from support of President Roosevelt's New Deal and earrin a DuPont and John Davis one-time Democratic candidate for president then senior attorney for JP Morgan joined forces with numerous other industrialists to overthrow President Roosevelt and Institute a corporate puppet state need I even mentioned the present state of US politics filled with lofty personalities that have manipulated public opinion into believing their panacea and policies
12:14 Citizen Kane reminds us that the demagogue is not only internally weak, but constantly at conflict with himself and with the world, constantly desiring that which he cannot have and filling a void in hopes of achieving it.
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