Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is an American drama film based upon the fictional character; Charles Foster Kane.
It is loosely influenced by a newspaper magnate and leading newspaper publisher, named William Randolph Hearst.
Kane is a fictional character born in Little Salem, Colorado in 1863.
This film was directed by Orson Wells who also played the starring role, Kane.
This particular film, which was recorded in 1941, was especially known for it’s excellent cinematography, music and narrative structure. It is commonly known as one of the greatest films ever to be made.
The film is known as being called ‘Roman a clef’ which is the French meaning for ‘novel of life’. This is therefore explaining that the film is about Kane’s life and legacy.
The fictional character, Kane, is known to be an impersonation of a famous newspaper magnate named William Randolph Hearst.
The film is mainly narrated through flashbacks of Kane’s life and a newsreel reporter is trying to discover what was meant by Kane’s dying word, ‘Rosebud’.
Kane’s childhood was spent in poverty as his parents owned a boarding house. In the midst of Kane’s childhood his mother was left a gold mine, said to be the third largest goldmine in the world at that time. She was given this because of a lodger that was not able to pay her. As soon as Kane’s parents discovered their fortune they decided to send their son to be educated. He attended four prestigious schools in America named Harvard, Princeton, Yale and Cornell and eventually was expelled from all four.
Following this Kane decided to gain his possessions from his mother at the age of 25. From his possessions he began to start a New York newspaper named ‘The New York Inquirer.’
‘The New York Inquirer’ was known as a ‘yellow newspaper’, this meant that the stories used within these newspapers were with little or not legitimate well-researched news stories.
The yellow journalists also used large font eye-catching headlines that were short and snappy to create a larger circulation in New York.
The news stories printed were sensationalised and exaggerated to a point at which some stories were not even true.
This is often used today when newspapers present unethical or unprofessional stories, for example, The Sun.
As Kane’s character is based upon William Randolph Hearst’s rise to power, the inclusion of the press battle between him and Joseph Pulitzer is vital. Pulitzer owned the ‘New York World’ which was a major competitor for Hearst’s the ‘New York Journal’, this was apparent because of the major similarities between the two newspapers as they were both known as being ‘yellow journalism’.
Citizen Kane is a film that focuses on the journalistic rise and fall of ‘yellow journalists’.
Alexandra Shipman
In 1941, Frank Luther Mott, an American historian and journalist wrote these main factors that contributed to the ‘yellow journalism’ movement;
Scare headlines in huge print often of minor news.
Lavish use of pictures or imaginary drawings.
Use of faked interviews and misleading headlines.
Emphasis on full-colour Sunday supplements, for example, comic strips.
Dramatic sympathy with the ‘underdog’ against the system.
Charles Foster Kane is a self-made wealthy media distributor.
As his popularity and wealth increases, he starts to lose his family and loved ones.
His first wife to Emily Munroe Norton, who was a president’s niece was documented within his newspapers, Kane was also having an affair, and as his marriage disintegrated he later married his mistress, Susan Alexander, whom he encouraged to become an operatic singer even though she was talentless. This therefore led to Kane destroying his relationship with her and pushing his loved ones further away.
In his first publication of his newspaper, he created a ‘Declaration of Principles’ stating that he would be truthful to all his readers.
And it is seen that he may have had some influence and manipulation towards the Spanish American War of 1898.
This stirred up feuding between newspapers as both Hearst and Pulitzer’s newspapers creating a boom in the journalism industry.
He then built his own estate in Florida, naming it Xanadu and became a recluse living alone and died in 1941.
It was known that the word he uttered when he died was ‘Rosebud’ and it is revealed to the audience at the end of the film, that it is actually another word for a sled from his childhood. The employees at his estate burnt the sled in a furnace and this is therefore said to represent the loss and innocence Kane felt when his parents sent him to be educated.
Chris Horrie’s Tabloid Nation
Birth of the Daily Mirror and the death of tabloids.
Charting the rise and fall of the Mirror.
Launched in 1903 as a ‘gossip sheet for gentle women’
Reached heights in the 40’s as the nation’s favourite newspaper
Downfall was under the leadership of Robert Maxwell
The Sun is the arch-rival of the Mirror.
Horrie writes of the changing role of advertising and the effects of TV on the print media.
Citizen Kane is an American drama film based upon the fictional character; Charles Foster Kane.
It is loosely influenced by a newspaper magnate and leading newspaper publisher, named William Randolph Hearst.
Kane is a fictional character born in Little Salem, Colorado in 1863.
This film was directed by Orson Wells who also played the starring role, Kane.
This particular film, which was recorded in 1941, was especially known for it’s excellent cinematography, music and narrative structure. It is commonly known as one of the greatest films ever to be made.
The film is known as being called ‘Roman a clef’ which is the French meaning for ‘novel of life’. This is therefore explaining that the film is about Kane’s life and legacy.
The fictional character, Kane, is known to be an impersonation of a famous newspaper magnate named William Randolph Hearst.
The film is mainly narrated through flashbacks of Kane’s life and a newsreel reporter is trying to discover what was meant by Kane’s dying word, ‘Rosebud’.
Kane’s childhood was spent in poverty as his parents owned a boarding house. In the midst of Kane’s childhood his mother was left a gold mine, said to be the third largest goldmine in the world at that time. She was given this because of a lodger that was not able to pay her. As soon as Kane’s parents discovered their fortune they decided to send their son to be educated. He attended four prestigious schools in America named Harvard, Princeton, Yale and Cornell and eventually was expelled from all four.
Following this Kane decided to gain his possessions from his mother at the age of 25. From his possessions he began to start a New York newspaper named ‘The New York Inquirer.’
‘The New York Inquirer’ was known as a ‘yellow newspaper’, this meant that the stories used within these newspapers were with little or not legitimate well-researched news stories.
The yellow journalists also used large font eye-catching headlines that were short and snappy to create a larger circulation in New York.
The news stories printed were sensationalised and exaggerated to a point at which some stories were not even true.
This is often used today when newspapers present unethical or unprofessional stories, for example, The Sun.
As Kane’s character is based upon William Randolph Hearst’s rise to power, the inclusion of the press battle between him and Joseph Pulitzer is vital. Pulitzer owned the ‘New York World’ which was a major competitor for Hearst’s the ‘New York Journal’, this was apparent because of the major similarities between the two newspapers as they were both known as being ‘yellow journalism’.
Citizen Kane is a film that focuses on the journalistic rise and fall of ‘yellow journalists’.
Alexandra Shipman
In 1941, Frank Luther Mott, an American historian and journalist wrote these main factors that contributed to the ‘yellow journalism’ movement;
Scare headlines in huge print often of minor news.
Lavish use of pictures or imaginary drawings.
Use of faked interviews and misleading headlines.
Emphasis on full-colour Sunday supplements, for example, comic strips.
Dramatic sympathy with the ‘underdog’ against the system.
Charles Foster Kane is a self-made wealthy media distributor.
As his popularity and wealth increases, he starts to lose his family and loved ones.
His first wife to Emily Munroe Norton, who was a president’s niece was documented within his newspapers, Kane was also having an affair, and as his marriage disintegrated he later married his mistress, Susan Alexander, whom he encouraged to become an operatic singer even though she was talentless. This therefore led to Kane destroying his relationship with her and pushing his loved ones further away.
In his first publication of his newspaper, he created a ‘Declaration of Principles’ stating that he would be truthful to all his readers.
And it is seen that he may have had some influence and manipulation towards the Spanish American War of 1898.
This stirred up feuding between newspapers as both Hearst and Pulitzer’s newspapers creating a boom in the journalism industry.
He then built his own estate in Florida, naming it Xanadu and became a recluse living alone and died in 1941.
It was known that the word he uttered when he died was ‘Rosebud’ and it is revealed to the audience at the end of the film, that it is actually another word for a sled from his childhood. The employees at his estate burnt the sled in a furnace and this is therefore said to represent the loss and innocence Kane felt when his parents sent him to be educated.
Chris Horrie’s Tabloid Nation
Birth of the Daily Mirror and the death of tabloids.
Charting the rise and fall of the Mirror.
Launched in 1903 as a ‘gossip sheet for gentle women’
Reached heights in the 40’s as the nation’s favourite newspaper
Downfall was under the leadership of Robert Maxwell
The Sun is the arch-rival of the Mirror.
Horrie writes of the changing role of advertising and the effects of TV on the print media.
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