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Rosebud
Anibal 2022-03-22 09:01:08
Rosebud is more probably Welles's intuition of the illusory flashback effect of memory that will affect all of us, particularly at the very end of our lives: the awful conviction that childhood memories are better, simpler, more real than adult memories – that childhood memories are the only things which are real. The remembered details of early existence – moments, sensations and images – have an arbitrary poetic authenticity which is a by-product of being detached from the prosaic context and perspective which encumbers adult minds, the rational understanding which would rob them of their mysterious force. We all have around two or three radioactive Rosebud fragments of childhood memory in our minds, which will return on our deathbeds to mock the insubstantial dream of our lives.
Extended Reading
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Charles Foster Kane: Read the cable.
Mr. Bernstein: "Girls delightful in Cuba. Stop. Could send you prose poems about scenery, but don't feel right spending your money. Stop. There is no war in Cuba, signed Wheeler." Any answer?
Charles Foster Kane: Yes. "Dear Wheeler: you provide the prose poems. I'll provide the war."
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Charles Foster Kane: Are we going to declare war on Spain, or are we not?
Jedediah Leland: The Inquirer already has.
Charles Foster Kane: [jokingly] You long-faced, overdressed anarchist!
Jedediah Leland: I am NOT overdressed!
Charles Foster Kane: You are too! Mr. Bernstein, look at his necktie!