About a boy

Rating: 10/10 (16 February 2005)

A word of warning: The following review and critique contains "spoilers" (dialog and plot-points which may - and in this instance - will give away scenes and surprises in the film), but it is unlikely that this will be the first time you have read or heard this information. After all, what can really be said or written about this film that hasn't be said or written before? Everyone who writes about film (from it's release in 1941, to me tonight, to someone else tomorrow) has written something either about or in reference to "Citizen Kane". It is a true classic. "Citizen Kane" is not only one of the most talked about films ever, it is also one of the most influential films ever. And, perhaps, singularly the best film American cinema has ever produced. Art is a very subjective thing, and this film is clearly filled with it. Only great art or great tragedy can produce such lengthy and long-term discussion. So what can be said that has not been said previously? Let me start by saying I did not like Charles Foster Kane, nor do I believe I was meant to. I do not take for granted that characters must be sympathetic. They do not. There is such a thing as the dark and mysterious (sometimes dangerous) character; someone who, simultaneously, will shock and infuriate us, yet from whom (for some reason) we can not turn away. In other words, it is possible to care about and become involved in the life stories of less than idyllic people. This is especially true with regards to Charles Foster Kane. Mr. Kane is a tyrant. He's as hated as he is feared. By the second act we see Kane as a hostile, detached and driven man. But time offers the unique gift of insight to those who are willing to wait for it. Something did not occur to me until recently (I did not see or hear it in any speech or interview, nor have I read of it in any of the too-numerous-to-count reviews, write-ups and critiques of the film): Charles Kane is not a man at all. He is still the same scared little boy taken away from his home and his family, lost in the wilderness, scarred for life and seemingly irreversible damaged. Now, I am positive that I am not the first to come to this conclusion (simply based on my personal knowledge that I am not that bright), but I am the first (that I know of) to write it down tonight. What do we see in the beginning of the picture (which we don't realize until the end)? The end of innocence. Lost youth. Separation. These are the things that plague Kane as an adult and shape the broken soul who tried to purchase virtue, marry youth and fight for any kind of connection throughout his "adult" life. He needed a connection. To anyone. Or anything. Do you remember in the beginning of "Citizen Kane" when he says "Rosebud" and then drops the snow globe? The butler tells the reporter at the end of the film that Mr. Kane said it twice. You only hear him say it once in the beginning. But at the end of the film, when he tears apart the room after his wife walks out, destroying practically everything, he picks up the snow globe, and is about to break it, but notices the sled encased in it. He is crying and says "Rosebud". He then walks past several employees, including the butler (who clearly heard him) and then lies down, says it again, drops the globe and dies. Here is my point: He is redeemed. Regret equals redemption. Kane regrets everything. Susan Alexander, this wife that left him (whom he left his first wife and son for); Kane met her while on the way to the warehouse that contained his youth (including his childhood sled "Rosebud" which was his last physical bit of material possession that held any connection to his long-deceased mother). He never made it to that warehouse (that night or any other) because he met Susan. Because of this he never regained, retained or made peace with that lost youth. So instead he tried to buy happiness and marry the youthful Ms. Alexander, in an attempt to hold onto some sort of ideological notion of what childhood could have been. Only after the second Mrs. Kane walks out, and he sees that sled in that snow globe, does he recall what he would have or could have been had he never accepted that "hot water" that Susan Alexander offered him on that sidewalk that first night they met. He becomes a man in that instant. Charles regrets everything. Then, he makes peace with everything by remembering everything. And he dies with redemption.