Orson Welles you are good, man!
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Rosebud
Evangeline 2022-03-20 09:01:09
Welles claimed that the Rosebud motif was merely a plot gimmick, intended to hook the audience on a dramatic question that's really a wild goose chase. But the gimmick works. Like the hopeful reporter, we too think that Rosebud will unlock Kane's ambiguous personality. Without this gimmick, the story would have remained rambling and unfocused. The search for the meaning of Rosebud shapes the narrative, providing it with a forward thrust, with a dramatic question we all want answered. This is what foreign critics mean by the American genius for storytelling.
Orson Welles you are good, man!
Orson Welles you are good, man!
Extended Reading
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[Susan is leaving Kane]
Charles Foster Kane: [pleading] Don't go, Susan. You mustn't go. You can't do this to me.
Susan Alexander Kane: I see. So it's YOU who this is being done to. It's not me at all. Not how I feel. Not what it means to me.
[laughs]
Susan Alexander Kane: I can't do this to you?
[odd smile]
Susan Alexander Kane: Oh, yes I can.
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[On Kane finishing Leland's bad review of Susan's opera singing]
Mr. Bernstein: Everybody knows that story, Mr. Leland. But why did he do it? How could a man write a notice like that?
Jedediah Leland: You just don't know Charlie. He thought that by finishing that notice he could show me he was an honest man. He was always trying to prove something. The whole thing about Susie being an opera singer, that was trying to prove something. You know what the headline was the day before the election, "Candidate Kane found in love nest with quote, singer, unquote." He was gonna take the quotes off the singer.