Lenguaje Audiovisual-Citizen Kane

1.- Which story events are directly presented to us in the plot, which must we assume or infer? ( Give three examples of each) Is there any nondiegetic material in the plot?

The first event that is directly presented in the plot is the death of Kane in Xanadu and his last word “Rosebud”. Then the reporters discuss in the projection room about Kane’s last word. Thomson decides to investigate about it. He reads about Kane’s life in Thatcher’s manuscript. As a grown up, Kane buys the Inquirer and attack on big business. By the time of the big depression Kane sells Thatcher his newspaper chain.

Thomson talks with Bernstein who remembers events related with Kane managing the Inquirer. He remembers the growth of the Inquirer. It is shown a party in which it is celebrate the Inquirer getting the Chronicle staff.

Other series of events that are directly presented in the plot are events related with Kane’s relationship with Susan Alexander. There is a brief montage in which it is shown how Kane’s and Emily’s marriage deteriorates. Kane meets Susan and marriage her. Kane insist on Susan singing, and she starts an opera career. She attempts suicide and Kane promises she can quit singing. Susan is bored at Xanadu. There is a montage of Susan playing with jigsaw puzzles. Susan remembers a picnic where Kane slaps her. Back at Xanadu Susan leaves Kane. Kane destroys Susan’s room.

We must assume that Kane was an educated ambitious man who, who bought or try to get everything he wanted. He had a strong personality and used his newspaper to attack his enemies or to create a good image to his friends and wife Susan. He was subjective in the news of his newspaper. He liked to be glamorous. We infer he lost a big part of his fortune after  the big depression, that’s why he sells his chain to Thatcher. He liked to control everything including Susan’s life. She was a scared trapped woman living in a castle. She was a frustrated actress that lost many years of her youth following the whishes of a whimsical old man that had a fake moral. She lived in Xanadu with extreme comfort, but a very boring life. She had nothing better to do that let pass the time by plying with puzzles. We assume that Kane passes through difficult moments when Susan leaves him.

We infer that Kane could have been a great, rich and powerful man, but he wasn’t. By the time he is about to die, he is lonely, his dreams fell apart, and has nothing better to turn to than his memories of the past, from there come his last word “Rosebud”. We infer that Rosebud was his slide, a toy of his childhood, but Rosebud is implied in every important moment of Kane’s life. Rosebud is the Leitmotiv of the story. It implies his ambitions, his love, his childhood. Rosebud left on him a gap that he couldn’t fulfill nor with his castle, pieces of art, newspaper nor with Susan.   Kane was a man whose way of love and live were misunderstood and finally at his deathbed he recognizes those meanings in Rosebud.