Compare and Contrast Meet John Doe” with “Citizen Kane”
Talented director Orson Welles was born in 1915 and encountered a number of hardships during his childhood. In 1919, his parents divorced, and five years later, his mother suddenly fell ill and died. Fortunately, while living in Woodstock, Illinois, young Orson had the opportunity to attend the Todd School for Boys where he received an excellent education thanks to Roger Hill – his teacher and guardian. Orson Welles was greatly interested in arts and humanities, which Mr. Hill encouraged him to explore further by expressing his creativity. As a result of this support from Mr. Hill, the future director graduated from high school at the age of fifteen with a strong sense of maturity that led him to travel around Europe alone.
Then, his first ambitions associated with theatre and cinematography arose. In Dublin, Ireland, he strode into the Gate Theatre, stating that he was a Broadway actor. His expression convinced Gate managers and he received minor roles until he met Thornton Wilder who led him to the New York stage (Anderegg, 1999, p. 36).
Later in his twenties, he became famous in radio for reading various literary works for listeners. Welles created the Mercury theatre in cooperation with other actors and directors. The performances reflected a number of acute political problems like the spread of fascism.
Furthermore, with the advent and spread of cinematography, Orson Welles moved to Hollywood. However, his first projects were rejected by RKO due to their high cost and explicit anti-fascist political context. In an interview, Welles admitted that he did not wish to engage in filmmaking so deeply. When asked about the reasons for his involvement, he responded: “Because movies take too long to make and cost too much money. Because the money takes too long to raise. I’ve spent most of my life just trying to make movies. Think of all the years I could have salvaged if I’d been a little more polygamous” (Bogdanovich, 1998, p.3). Citizen Kane” was also a contradictory film but subsequently became one of Orson Welles’ first successful productions that brought him international success.
The opening scene of the film depicts a partially covered moon and trees from the bottom. A fence with a “No trespass” warning and an old house, where the protagonist is dying, are also shown. As he takes his last breaths, Charles Kane utters the word “Rosebud”, and drops a glass globe from his hand which shatters on the ground. The gloomy music reflects the overall mood of physical expiration from this world: as the moon darkens, “No trespass” means “No way farther”. Therefore, psychologically, this first scene sets up an emotional frame for the rest of the film.
In Citizen Kane”, the use of light and dark, like in all monochrome films, serves to highlight certain aspects or traits during tense moments. In daily life scenes, the imagery is mostly light, meaning individuals are carefully examined in daylight and in the presence of others. In more intimate conversations and strained episodes, contrasting colors of faces and backgrounds are used to make each expression and gesture clearer. The up-angle shot is an important tool for showing size, quantity, and comparing objects. For example, in the final scene where Kane’s belongings are stored, the camera shows the room from above to emphasize how difficult it was to research his life and understand his last words hidden among other things. This technique is also used during Kane’s funeral to show the crowd of guests he interacted with but no one was really close with him.
During the scene with Kane and his first wife at the table, creative imagination allows for showing the same couple at the same table in different periods of Kane’s success. At first, Kane shows his ambition and asserts his willingness to elucidate all political fabrications and manipulations. The scenes change quickly, indicating that time has passed, and Kane shares his plans, victories, and failures with his wife once again. In the final episode at the table, it becomes clear that the two people seem estranged from one another. Therefore, a series of short conversations show that their first marriage can barely be called significant for Kane’s life.
The music reflects both the overall mood of the production as well as the speed of life around it. At certain moments its tempo slows down (e.g., when Kane is dying) or accelerates (e.g., in episodes depicting Charles Kane as a child).
Structurally, the film consists of several stages of investigation aimed at shedding light on the meaning of the main character’s last word. The investigation is conducted by reporter Jerry Thompson. Thompson contacts the most influential people in the life of the deceased but learns very little and is forced to leave obituary newsreel without changes. The newsreel, called News on March,” compares Kane to Kubla Khan, the main character of Coleridge’s famous poem, and depicts his magnificence and authority. However, the director is dissatisfied with it and wishes to add some episodes from Kane’s personal life into it.
Thompson interviews Mr. Thatcher, a banker who became Kane’s guardian when he suddenly inherited a silver mine as a child and was forced to leave his mother.
Emotionally, Mr. Thatcher sympathized with the deceased and sought to relieve his loss and sorrow. However, he did not involve himself in the boy’s life and attempt to raise him, resulting in Kane growing up in a permissive environment. Mr. Bernstein, Kane’s subordinate at Inquirer”, and Mr. Leland, Kane’s college friend, mainly recount their professional interactions with him. They vividly remember their first days at “Inquirer” and how the newspaper transformed into a source of “yellow sensations,” which were initially artificial or even fake.
This scene demonstrates that Kane was the only one who viewed the newspaper as his passion while the other two men approached it as part of their daily routines without any creativity.
Bernstein exhibits genuine admiration for Kane, and it is clear that he sought to learn from the deceased as they worked together. On the other hand, Mr. Leland seems dissatisfied with Kane’s behavior and recognizes that although the deceased was not brutal, he acted quite cruelly. As a result, their friendship began to cool as Kane obtained more success and became even more arrogant and brutal.
Leland also narrates about Kane’s marriage to Emily, which is depicted in the film as a part of his interior life as he had breakfast. He was unable to talk about anything except work, whereas Emily naturally required attention and tried to gain it by showing interest in Kane’s life. However, after her attempts failed, she emotionally distanced herself from her spouse. It also appears that Kane’s first marriage was ruined due to adultery with Susan, who later became his second wife.
During his visit, Thompson interviewed the woman and discovered that she had become an alcoholic and now owned her own club. He also learned that Susan’s relationship with Kane had been destroyed by his domineering nature, specifically his compulsion to make a career as an opera singer which he imposed on her. Although Susan was willing to share in his victories and assist him, she tried the profession herself but ultimately had no success.
After finding Leland sleeping on the unfinished negative review of Susan’s performance, Kane fired his ex-friend. He also attempted to buy her love and surprise her with his generosity, but she did not appreciate gifts like the cavernous Xanadu mansion. These facts reveal Kane as a person primarily married to his work, with weak emotional involvement in the lives of those closest to him. Susan remained his ambition and a part of his work while she was singing for him, but once she quit, he quickly lost interest in her.
Thompson’s face remains hidden throughout the film, likely because he is not the focus of the story. He is simply a researcher and investigator, so events are shown through his eyes. However, viewers cannot physically see themselves at the moment of observation. Therefore, all conversations are actually observations set through the reporter’s subjective lens. The primary theme of the film is closely linked to Thompson’s subjective vision since it deals with the difficulty of interpreting others’ lives. Individuals make judgments based on their inherent values and beliefs from their own perspective, making it difficult to evaluate another person’s life from their point of view.
The second theme of the movie is the American Dream, or more precisely, its reverse side. Apart from financial and social success, Kane lost all of his friends and was not happy in his personal life due to his absolute devotion to work. The final theme refers to unreliable human memory which can fail to remember important events but often fixates on secondary episodes. Since most characters are quite old, their memory undergoes natural degeneration. For instance, Leland is unable to recall the name of Kane’s estate while Susan Alexander provides inaccurate information during a conversation due to her alcoholism.
As the film reveals, Kane was excessively committed to his job and was even willing to betray his own childhood beliefs and closest relationships for this purpose. He failed to notice people who were trying to help him, such as his first wife, Leland, Susan, and Bernstein. Instead, he developed a high sense of self-importance and egocentrism as a result of his success. This ultimately led him to die in loneliness.
His loneliness drove him to repeat the word “Rosebud,” which was the name of the sled he used as a child to protect himself from Mr. Thatcher when he came to take Kane away from his home and into wealth. “Rosebud” became Kane’s last weapon and fortress that sheltered him from the world of high politics and ambition that he needed to involve himself in.
Due to the necessity of manufacturing sensations for his newspaper, Kane became cynical, callous, and tended to use people as instruments in his market competition.
In general, the film suggests that those who strive to achieve their American Dream” by ignoring the “human factor” and forgetting about those who love them, rely on them, and are truly loyal to them will ultimately end up in solitude. Similarly, “Meet John Doe” illustrates that success often requires betraying one’s own values and resorting to lies, fabrication, and manipulation.
According to Meet John Doe,” success is closely linked to the development of unhealthy cynicism, ignoring humanity and playing with human feelings – something that Charles Kane did. However, unlike “Citizen Kane,” in “Meet John Doe,” the two main characters manage to quit their unfair business and remain loyal to their moral values. This is because their mutual love appears to be stronger than professional and career ambitions.
Reference List
- Anderegg, M. (1999). Orson Welles, Shakespeare and Popular Culture. Columbia University Press.
- Bogdanovich, P. (1998). This Is Orson Welles. University of Chicago Press.
- Welles, O. (dir.) (1941). Citizen Kane (film).
- Capra, F. (dir.) (1941). Meet John Doe (film).
