Chapter 9 - Visual Being: Citizen Kane

Summary

Orson Welles interrogates the three irreducible functions of the cinematic image in their essence: to spatialize, to temporalize and to imitate. Each of these three functions is made the object of a use deduced from the properties of the cinematic image (as distinct from the photographic image), that is, the shot. The way Welles uses shots is not based on a difference with the photographic, but on the intensification and multiplication of the possibilities of representation, realized most spectacularly in sequence shots.

Impossible Master Shot

The first function—to spatialize—encompasses two phenomena. First, the representation of a space, which we will call absolute spatialization. This means space as a shot, a dialectics of emptiness and fullness, and the work of framing and use of off-screen space as a dialectics of the infinite and the finite.

In Citizen Kane, only one space is treated on its own: Xanadu. On the one hand, it is the site of a summation or rather, a series of decorative and architectural additions, a sort of asymptote toward a summary of the world and on the other hand, a synthesis of time, since it is forever unfinished and already destroyed. Ultimately, Xanadu represents a paradoxical political synthesis: Built for the average American, it is a monarch's kingdom. As Leland explains, “He was disappointed in the world. So, he built one of his own. An absolute monarchy.”

A summary of the world, time and life (which is political), Xanadu appears as an absolute of spatialization, a totalizing enterprise and its endlessness. Placed at the start of the film, this representation of space heavily influences our understanding of the film's other locations: It prevents us from paying attention to possible limitations in the shots. Every space is measureless a priori, at once massive and limitless. For instance, the theater where Kane makes his electoral speech: At the start of the sequence, it seems to fit entirely within the frame. It is a location whose proportions are of course variable (the dialectic between the characters, the room and the giant poster), but limited. And yet, in the final shot, this illusion falls away: Jim Gettys suddenly appears, bringing with him an off-screen space that removes all limits from the location.