Citizen Kane - The Snow Globe Scene (9/10) | Movieclips

CLIP DESCRIPTION:
Kane (Orson Welles) trashes his wife's room after she leaves him. During the destruction, he finds something that he lost long ago.

FILM DESCRIPTION:
Orson Welles first feature film -- which he directed, produced, and co-wrote, as well as playing the title role -- proved to be his most important and influential work, a ground-breaking drama loosely based on the life of William Randolph Hearst which is frequently cited as the finest American film ever made. Aging newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles) dies in his sprawling Florida estate after uttering a single, enigmatic final word -- "Rosebud" -- and newsreel producer Rawlston (Phil Van Zandt) sends reporter Jerry Thompson (William Alland) out with the assignment of uncovering the meaning behind the great man's dying thought. As Thompson interviews Kane's friends, family, and associates, we learn the facts of Kane's eventful and ultimately tragic life: his abandonment by his parents (Agnes Moorehead and Harry Shannon) after he becomes the heir to a silver mine; his angry conflicts with his guardian, master financier Walter Parks Thatcher (George Coulouris); his impulsive decision that "it would be fun to run a newspaper" with the help of school chum Jedediah Leland (Joseph Cotten) and loyal assistant Mr. Bernstein (Everett Sloane); his rise from scandal sheet publisher to the owner of America's largest and most influential newspaper chain; his marriage to socially prominent Emily Norton (Ruth Warrick), whose uncle is the President of the United States; Kane's ambitious bid for public office, which is dashed along with his marriage when his opponent, corrupt political boss Jim Gettys (Ray Collins), reveals that Kane is having an affair with aspiring vocalist Susan Alexander (Dorothy Comingore); Kane's vain attempts to promote second wife Alexander as an opera star; and his final, self-imposed exile to a massive and never-completed pleasure palace called Xanadu. While Citizen Kane was a film full of distinguished debuts -- along with Welles, it was the first feature for Joseph Cotten, Everett Sloane, Ray Collins, Agnes Moorehead, and Ruth Warrick -- the only Academy Award it received was for Best Original Screenplay, for which Welles shared credit with veteran screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz.

CREDITS:
TM & © Warner Bros. (1941)
Cast: Paul Stewart, Orson Welles
Director: Orson Welles
Producers: Orson Welles, George Schaefer
Screenwriters: Herman J. Mankiewicz, Orson Welles, Roger Q. Denny, John Houseman, Mollie Kent

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[LNLBD]

He destroyed the whole room which means he destroyed his life(symbolically) but kept only the snowball/memory because it reminded him for the only time he felt happy - his childhood.

[tmrezzek]

Welles is absolutely on-the-money in this scene, physically portraying Kane with the arthritic stiffness and exhaustion of old age. The makeup helps immensely, but it's still a remarkable performance for a guy who's only 26!

[zhengwenyu]

In film class when I saw this scene, I called Charles a child as he was throwing a tandrum. My professor hinted that I am really close to the idea, making me realize, "he really is a child, a man who failed to grow up."

[classics]

This scene symbolizes how he finally realizes the worthlessness of all the wealth he has attained. All the luxurious furniture that he adorned her room with did nothing to change the fact that he was a terrible husband to her and she was miserable. Money truly cannot buy happiness.

[MetalHeadJagger]

This scene is pure gold of a man with a broken shattered heart

[pedrobakale]

Charles Foster Kane can not stand the abandonment. That emptiness that remains in his infancy and that costs so much fill. That's why he wrecks the room. He does not know how to externalize that which is so horrible to him. And he would have been very capable of burning Xanadu in the process.

[bitsoflit]

The mirror shot has to be the best thing ever put to film. Like DAMN

[DoctorNemmo]

That door transition is amazing. Kane goes from this larger-than-life figure to a small, defeated man.

[PatBatemanAtDorsia]

1:33 - Orson apparently cut his left hand badly during the scene & you can see him visibly trying to hide it so it doesn't appear in the shot
(Source Roger Ebert in Audio Commentary)

[arpitdas]

My favorite part of this entire film is that because we have unreliable narrators, there's no telling that any of this actually even happened

[Cosmicx]

I still can't believe that this movie is from 1941! It was so ahead of its time.

[nickasaro]

The thing I love about Kane as a character is that even though Welles/Mankiewicz based him on William Randolph Hearst who they both had a low opinion of, he’s not a one dimensional caricature in any way. Instead they opted to explore what would make a man like Hearst the way he is. What hardened his heart. The heartbreak, the loss of the childhood innocence he can never get back etc. in that way, this movie is really one of cinema’s first great character studies.

[wiisalute]

My life feels like walking down an endless hall, the mirrors symbolizing the same thing over and over again

[austinsmith]

It's a really great scene, I just, CAN NOT take it seriously since I saw The Room first

[wickedshadesproductions]

Saying that this movie is amazing is a grotesque understatement

[tarolope]

"i'm gonna get rid of all my spongebob stuff! all of it! all of it!"

[garrison]

I have never been able to figure how he gets that effect at 2:45, with the multiple reflections in the mirror. Gregg Toland was the greatest cameraman who ever lived. And Welles really hurt himself in this scene but he continued on with the takes.

[binghamguevara]

I find it really interesting that Kane says rosebud off screen [1:53]. We don’t see his face and mouth when he says it.

It’s as if the line was put into his mouth by the storytellers (the butler, who’s narrating this flashback, and the nurse) and that Kane never actually said rosebud. Remember, the opening scene is the nurse’s POV of Kane’s death. She thinks she heard him say this, but how could she when she was so far away and he only whispered rosebud?

[CompelledUsername]

It’s not, for me, just a matter of Kane being happiest as a child. He’s also wasted his resources: time, money, and power. The thing that made him great- his strength of personality and will- robbed him of his opportunity to actually fulfil himself and his potential. He was raised poor, he often did work against the interests of his own class of people after he became wealthy, yet he threw away that direction and his opportunity to benefit people from his own background by refusing to backdown to Gettys.

[geddyleesquire]

2:40 and that folks, is one of the best moments in cinema history.