Welles, Orson. "Citizen Kane Is Not about Louella Parsons' Boss." Friday 14 Feb, 1941: 9.

After the premier of Citizen Kane, reviews of the film and coverage of the premier were published in the journal Friday. Orson Welles was displeased with the misinterpretations the he felt had been published. This piece is Welles’ response to the initial publications. his first concern is with their portrayal of him as a pleasure-seeking man lacking adequate work ethic. He responds briefly to this that if this were the case he surely would have been fired, and that he has been doing his job for RKO. The majority of the piece is dedicated to correcting several assumptions that Friday had made about Citizen Kane. Welles had been quoted in Friday as saying that the picture was in fact about Louella Parsons’ boss, William Randolph Hearst. He calls this unfair to both Hearst and Kane. He then goes on to clarify the goal of the movie as something other than a portrayal of William Randolph Hearst. He describes Citizen Kane as a mans [Thompson] search of the significance of Kane’s final word. This search provides him with five perspectives about the man, provided by five people that knew him well. Most importantly, Welles states that “He is never judged with the objectivity of an author, and the point of the picture is not so much the solution of the problem as its presentation.”

This conclusion provided by Wells supports Carringer’s view that ‘Rosebud’ should not be viewed as an answer to a puzzle, but as the process by which we can answer a question. It applies directly to my thesis by relating ‘Rosebud’ to a MacGuffin, or a plot device used in film to motivate the characters or advances the story. The details of this device are of little or no importance separate from the plot. ‘Rosebud’ motivates Thompson to interview people who were close to Kane, and in doing so assembles the pieces necessary to paint the most accurate portrait of him. However, aside from it’s motivational force, ‘Rosebud’ does not hold much importance.

Carlson, Jerry. "Citizen Kane." PMLA Vol. 91, No. 5 (Oct, 1976): 918-20.

               In his piece titled Citizen Kane, Jerry Carlson provides support for the ideas of Robert Carringer, and adds an additional level of meaning to his interpretation of ‘Rosebud.’ He begins the piece establishing support for the idea that ‘Rosebud’ is a MacGuffin, used to forward Thompsons investigation of the life of Charles Foster Kane. He adds to this by claiming also that the destruction of ‘Rosebud’ the sled acts as a device to provide closure for the audience. Because the audience knows that ‘Rosebud’ is indeed a MacGuffin, they can take satisfaction from that fact that it is destroyed before it can be used to try and explain Kane as a man. He states, “the significance of Rosebud is not as a symbol or ‘symbolic imagery,’but as a rhetorical ploy to provide a sense of closure for a narrative generated upon epistemological concepts of incompleteness.” The destruction of ‘Rosebud’ makes it okay that the film leaves open the question that Carrington describes, as to whether or not Kane can actually be understood.

              This article not only provides direct support for my thesis and the ideas suggested by Robert Carrington, but it also demonstrates that other aspects of the film makes sense in relation to this proposed thesis. Because the ending of the movie and the destruction of the sled follow seamlessly from the idea of the use of ‘Rosebud’ as a MacGuffin, this argument is strengthened.

The word Rosebud is arguably one of the most famous words ever uttered on the big screen, yet it's significance in the film Citizen Kane, is much debated. While it is clear that Rosebud is a necessary piece of the puzzle that is Citizen Kane, almost seventy years after the films' debut, it is still unclear how it fits together. There are many common explanations for Kanes dying word, which range from Rosebud as an allusion to William Randolph Hearsts personal life, to Freudian explanations about Kanes attachment to his mother. None of these, however, supply the audience with the resolution that they crave. Therefore, in this bibliography I will examine a less intuitive idea put forth by Robert Carringer. This Bibliography tells a story which concludes with the thesis that Rosebud holds no meaning beyond itself. It is a MacGuffin; a mechanism used not to explain the man Charles Foster Kane, but to explore different perspectives about him. 'Rosebud' provides an association to the central symbol of the film (the snow globe, according to Carringer) which shows the audience a more accurate portrait of Kane. I begin by emphasizing that Rosebud is indeed a vital component of Citizen Kane, as is illustrated in an essay by Tony Jackson. I will also illustrate that is seems quite ambiguous to many viewers, including film critic Bosley Crowther. I then show that while Welles himself supplied contradictory explanations for Rosebud in response to media pressures, this inconsistency makes sense in the context of Carringers argument. If Rosebud is indeed a MacGuffin, then Welles would have no real explanation for it independent of the theme of the film. It would therefore be logical that in response to pressures he felt from the audience and the media, he would create meaning that would appease each specific complaint. In the opening of the movie, Rawston creates a premise that Rosebud will explain everything; that Kane is a simple man whose life can be summed in a single word. Thompson provides an opposing view, in which Rosebud is only one of the missing pieces to the portrait of Kane that he is trying to reassemble. In doing so, the film leaves open the question of whether or not Kane can actually be understood by the audience. Had he provided a consistent response for questions concerning Rosebud, Welles would have undermined this central conflict in Citizen Kane. By instead supplying varied responses, Welles leaves the question as an open one. Finally, I will provide additional support for Carringer's theory, taken directly from the words of Orson Welles, and from articles written by other authors. NOTE: This project is most clear if viewed in the order indicated by the numbers in the titles of the sources.

 

 

Carringer, Robert L. "Rosebud, Dead or Alive: Narrative and Symbolic Structure in Citizen Kane." PMLA Vol. 91, No. 2 (March, 1976): 185-93.             

    In this analysis of Citizen Kane, Robert Carringer opens with the idea that to assign any meaning to ‘Rosebud’ is to ‘reduce Kane’s life to a Freudian epigram.’ Furthermore, all attempts to explain the symbol away have ended in it being viewed as a cheap Hollywood gimmick. To Carringer, the confusion about the theme of Citizen Kane is created by the fact that everyone insists on including ‘Rosebud’ as a key component of it. Instead, Carringer asserts that ‘Rosebud’ is a MacGuffin with no thematic significance on it’s own, used to develop meaning beyond what it stands for. It is present to create an association with the central symbol of the film, which according to Carringer is the snow globe that shatters in the opening moments of the film. Because ‘Rosebud’ lacks meaning on it’s own, it makes sense that Welles did not provide consistent answers when asked about it’s significance. Instead, he would provide answers that smoothed over whatever criticism the reviewer was presenting. The inconsistency is added support for the idea of ‘Rosebud’ as a MacGuffin.

              ‘Rosebud’ is made to seem important because Rawlston suggests it as the premise of his newsreel, which the audience then interprets as a suggested premise for the film Citizen Kane. In Carringer’s opinion, however, the film revolves around the conflict between this premise, and the opposing one proposed by Thompson that a “word can explain a man's life. No, I guess Rosebud is just a piece in a jigsaw puzzle—a missing piece.” This conflict is the open question that Citizen Kane explores, and it seems to arrive at a conclusion more in line with Thompson’s idea. The importance that Rawlson places on ‘Rosebud’ creates a reason to interview multiple people and to explore Charles Foster Kane from so many perspectives.

              ‘Rosebud’ is the means by which we can reach the end conclusion about Kane. Carringer says, “The film set up Rosebud as the one to be pursued and noisily constructed a quasi-detection plot around it. But, quietly, all the stories functioned to fill in the meaning of the other clue. The little glass globe, not Rosebud, incorporates the film's essential insight into Kane. It is a crystallization of everything we learn about him-that he was a man continually driven to idealize his experiences as a means of insulating himself from human life.”