Citizen Kane *Spoilers*

Monkey

only read this if you've seen it


















I just saw it for the first time. It was good but I have a question: How does the sled end up in Xanadu ? It was supposed to be lost along with his childhood was it not ? doesn't it lose it's symbolic value (as a symbol of Kane's lost childhood) if it's he has it in his basement ?

sceptre

I'm not going to claim to be a Kane expert or anything but I'll offer this:

The sled presumably represents Kane's lost childhood as well as what he might have become if he'd not become Charles Foster Kane Media Magnate. Kane never really had control over his own life or the lives of those he sought to influence (he did manage to dominate people but that's not the same thing). The buying of all the statues following his failed attempt to influence a sufficient number of real people is a great piece of cinema.

The sled has been down in the basement in the same way that the lost child has been inside Kane all along. In this way it strongly retains its symbolic value.

It's handy to remember that for all the random timing of the interviews in the movie, the whole thing moves from letting us know about Kane the Public Man (in the News on the Move montage) to kane's financial side, to Kane's ideals and views (Kane the Publisher) to Kane the Friend (from the interview with Jedediah Leland) to the core of Kane with the interview with his second wife (who realistically should have known him better than anyone else). None of these people, regardless of how long we look, truly knew Kane. It's something we finally realise at the moment where we see the sled at the end - that no-one really knew him. And if the sled is important (which except as an image of a lost Kane it isn't) we realise that no-one will ever know. So the entire point was merely to show that regardless of how well-known someone is, we'll never understand their heart and mind. Jorge Luis Borges praised Orson Welles for the "labyrinth without a center" structure.

I think that Rosebud represents for Kane the last time he was truly happy. No provisos, not exceptions, just happy.

As to how the damn thing ends up in the basement, that's a really interesting question. On a symbolic level Rosebud has always been with Kane, buried in the deep labyrinth of his mind. On a practical level any suggestions will be just that. I'd suggest that either it was packed with his stuff after he left and has travelled with him ever since (as he began to amass stuff he'd never find it - I have stuff in my middle room I haven't seen in years, including a number of childhood mementoes (hopefully)) or it followed a pattern like Mr Burns' bear in the Simpsons but came to be picked up by chance when he bought property. I'd suggest the former - why would some crappy sled be in his basement if it had merely been picked up as part of a job lot.

Robbo

I was under the impression that the Rosebud that was burnt in Xanadu was a replica, which ties in with Kane's false hapiness?

Pigman

I thought the whole point of CK was that he wanted everyone to love him but he himself was incapable of love for anything except Rosebud (or a person that it might have represented)?