Daily Dialogue — January 2, 2018

“I’ve got his trunk all packed. I’ve had it packed for a week now.”

— Citizen Kane (1941), screen play by Herman J. Mankiewicz and Orson Welles

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Flashback.

Trivia: Orson Welles gave an example to the movie industry with this film, that “there is no need of preparation”. Welles learned techniques (such as looking up for important characters and down to secondary ones) and was influenced by John Ford’s Stagecoach (1939), which it’s said he watched almost 40 times during production of this movie. The “unnecessary preparation” cost Welles his career, according to director Robert Wise, who edited this film and The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) also from Welles: “Simply, after that magnificent start, he never took advantage of his talents. It was his fault, his lack of discipline”.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Everything you need to know about why Charles Foster Kane became the adult Kane is right here in this flashback. We don’t realize it until the end when we make the connection to “Rosebud”, the sled, and the snow globe, but then it becomes clear: Charles was happy in Colorado. Yanked away from his home, he was filled with rage… and that rage fueled his choices as an adult, whether he realized it or not.