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Comparison of Narrative Styles of Citizen Kane and Rashomon
Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941) and Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon (1950) are two of the greatest movies of that era. Despite being made in two different corners of the world both the movies deal with the same style of telling a story: - Narration. Both the movies use the same technique yet are different in their own way. While Citizen Kane deals with the life and times of Charles Foster Kane, Rashomon deals with the incident of a rape and murder. Both the movies use a framing narrative, peripheral narrative and the core narrative in effective ways
Citizen Kane moves from present to flashback and then back to the present. The framing narrative starts with dissolve shots of the “Xanadu”, with each shot moving closer to the palace. Further moving inside the palace and showing Kane’s death. He whispering “Rosebud” and then the snow globe breaking. Then the whole room is shown through the broken glass. After which a newsfeed is shown of Kane’s life. The newsfeed is the peripheral narrative. It gives us a broad idea of the different incidents of Kane. If this newsfeed hadn’t been there then the narration of people about Kane’s life wouldn’t have made sense.
Rashomon also keeps moving from present to flashback and back again. The opening sequence of the framing narrative is similar to Citizen Kane. Dissolve shots of gate house is shown. With each shot the camera moving closer to the gate house where the priest and the woodcutter are sitting. It is also raining very heavily depicting a bad omen. The story actually starts when the commoner comes and asks the priest and the woodcutter about their worries. And then the peripheral narrative starts when a police man narrates how he caught the bandit. After which the core narrative follows.
In Citizen Kane, Welles’ is trying to tell the life story of one man from different perspectives. How different people look at the same man and their different ideas. He brings in this technique through an outsider – news reporter, who goes in search to find out the story behind Kane’s Last word. The reporter then interviews five characters that were either close to Kane or were lower to Kane. The five narrators are Mr. Thatcher, Bernstein, Leland, Susan and Raymond the butler. The story is spaced out in a long period of time and deals with different incidents in the life of Kane. The narratives overlap in some places which gives us a clearer view of how different the idea of people about Kane is.
The first segment of narration is of Mr. Thatcher’s, through his journal as he is no longer alive. The library where the journal was preserved, the librarian and the watchman all depicted a Nazi camp, which is a comment on the way Kane looked at Thatcher. Thatcher has always been strict with Kane. The story starts from the period when Thatcher goes to Kane’s childhood home and stretches to the time when Kane takes over the newspaper – Inquirer. The story never talks about Kane as a person. It is more of an outside view.
The second segment is the narration of Mr. Bernstein. He was a business associate of Kane and had been with him since the time Kane took over the newspaper. The narration also starts there, covers the time when he takes over the staff of the Chronicle (a competitor newspaper of the Inquirer) and ends with Kane’s first marriage. Bernstein’s narration presents Kane as a very lively and positive person, someone who wants to enjoy life and is energetic. This is because Bernstein always idolized Kane and looked up to him as an inspiration.
Third comes Leland’s narration. He was Kane’s best friend and then became a sarcastic enemy. Leland’s story picks up with Kane’s first marriage drifting apart. This is shown through a series of shots of breakfast in Kane’s house, the conversations on the breakfast table start getting shorter and the contrast of Kane reading the “Inquirer” and his wife reading the “Chronicle”. This goes on to Kane standing in elections and his love affair coming out in the open, breaking up of his first marriage and getting married to Susan who becomes the second Mrs. Kane. This part also shows how Kane build an opera house just so that Susan could perform there, then Kane completing Leland’s review about Susan’s performance. Where he writes a bad review just to show how truthful he was. Leland’s narration focused more on the personal life and mistakes that Kane made.
Susan’s narration starts where Leland left, her opera performances. How she was forced to sing, made to do so many shows and given musical training. She also says that “All decisions were his, leaving him was mine.” This shows the dominating behavior that Kane had. The drifting apart of Susan and Kane is also shown through a montage where Susan is playing Jigsaw puzzle and Kane is talking to her through a distance. This shows the growing distance between their married lives. The “Xanadu” also shows how lonely the Kane’s are. When Susan leaves Kane, he is heartbroken, and begs her not to leave.
When Raymond the butler’s narration starts, it starts with the scene where Susan leaves Kane, how he breaks everything in the room but takes the snow globe, whispers “Rosebud” and walks out. The reporter is left clueless about what “Rosebud” might be but in the end the butler commands to throw away all the junk in the furnace. A wood sleigh with “Rosebud” printed on it is thrown in the fire. This sleigh is Kane’s childhood memory, his toy, his only connection to his mother.
Akira Kurosawa in Rashomon is trying to portray the concept of self image. How different people want themselves to be shown in a way that they prefer. In other words seeing reality the way that suits us. This movie does not stretch over a period of time rather it is retelling one incident in through the perspective of the people who were present either in the incident or were seeing it from outside. Once the police man narrates how he caught the bandit, the bandit then speaks up. His version of the rape and murder is heroic. He says that the samurai’s wife was attracted to him and how he fought bravely with the samurai.
The wife’s narration starts after the rape. She says how loathingly her husband was eyeing her and how innocent and pitiable she actually was. She says that she couldn’t bear her husband’s silence and cold looks is why she killed him.
Samurai is dead in all the versions. Hence his story is told through a medium. Samurai’s version of story portrays him as a helpless husband. He says that the wife asked the bandit to kill him, but the samurai kills himself. According to samurai he is following a samurai code of conduct which says kill thy self in case you are dishonored. In this case his wife was raped in front of his eyes.
The fourth version is of the woodcutter. He isn’t exactly in the incident but just a spectator. In this version all the characters are portrayed to be weak. This version is a combination of all the previous versions. It gives us a gist of what happened.
The closing sequence of both the movies is also a montage of dissolves with camera going backwards as opposed to the opening sequence. The camera moves further away from the palace and gate house respectively.
When both the movies end, they leave the audience with different responses. In Citizen Kane, the movie ends with a view of “Rosebud” given to the audience. The characters in the movie are still clueless of what it might mean but the audience is let in the secret. Citizen Kane is like a puzzle that gets solved in the end with the missing piece being “rosebud” finally revealed.
Rashomon on the other hand leaves the audience as confused about the story as it was in the beginning. The part that is clear is that a rape and a murder happened but how it happened is not clear.
Welles’ has used editing very effectively to narrate his story with montages, short shots, appropriate background score and more natural acting. Kurosawa on the other hand has used really long shots. Like when the woodcutter is walking in the jungle, the shot is actually shown through the eyes of the woodcutter and shows how he walks through the jungle. It is a very long tracking shot. The acting in Kurosawa’s Rashomon is deliberately exaggerated.
Both the movies are trying to narrate a story in different perspectives however the one that I would really prefer is Citizen Kane, not only because the narrative style is catchy but because of the way it has talked about the “American Dream”. The way it has depicted the dream through a man’s life and how fame, money, wealth is not everything in life. Kane had everything a person would ever wish for. He had money, fame and power but what he really lacked was happiness. A person who had a lot of followers but died alone. There are times when all of this get inside your head and you do not behave in a righteous way. The symbolization of the ending sequence where the black smoke is shown coming out of the palace is actually a depiction of Kane’s life. How is ambition, his dream has now turned to smoke.
Rashomon also plays with symbolism in its own way however it talks about deeper meaning in life. In the end of framing narrative there is a child crying and the woodcutter wants to take it home without any self gain unlike the commoner who was taking all the valuables off the child. The priest is happy to see that there are selfless people in this world and that he has gained faith in mankind again. The heavy storm then stops symbolizing the fact that there is good still left on earth. This is a more metaphysical theme while Citizen Kane is more of the core reality of life.
Both movies are great piece of work and have gathered attention in their own way. While Kurosawa’s Rashomon opened west to Japanese movies, Citizen Kane raised the bar higher for English movies.
Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941) and Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon (1950) are two of the greatest movies of that era. Despite being made in two different corners of the world both the movies deal with the same style of telling a story: - Narration. Both the movies use the same technique yet are different in their own way. While Citizen Kane deals with the life and times of Charles Foster Kane, Rashomon deals with the incident of a rape and murder. Both the movies use a framing narrative, peripheral narrative and the core narrative in effective ways
Citizen Kane moves from present to flashback and then back to the present. The framing narrative starts with dissolve shots of the “Xanadu”, with each shot moving closer to the palace. Further moving inside the palace and showing Kane’s death. He whispering “Rosebud” and then the snow globe breaking. Then the whole room is shown through the broken glass. After which a newsfeed is shown of Kane’s life. The newsfeed is the peripheral narrative. It gives us a broad idea of the different incidents of Kane. If this newsfeed hadn’t been there then the narration of people about Kane’s life wouldn’t have made sense.
Rashomon also keeps moving from present to flashback and back again. The opening sequence of the framing narrative is similar to Citizen Kane. Dissolve shots of gate house is shown. With each shot the camera moving closer to the gate house where the priest and the woodcutter are sitting. It is also raining very heavily depicting a bad omen. The story actually starts when the commoner comes and asks the priest and the woodcutter about their worries. And then the peripheral narrative starts when a police man narrates how he caught the bandit. After which the core narrative follows.
In Citizen Kane, Welles’ is trying to tell the life story of one man from different perspectives. How different people look at the same man and their different ideas. He brings in this technique through an outsider – news reporter, who goes in search to find out the story behind Kane’s Last word. The reporter then interviews five characters that were either close to Kane or were lower to Kane. The five narrators are Mr. Thatcher, Bernstein, Leland, Susan and Raymond the butler. The story is spaced out in a long period of time and deals with different incidents in the life of Kane. The narratives overlap in some places which gives us a clearer view of how different the idea of people about Kane is.
The first segment of narration is of Mr. Thatcher’s, through his journal as he is no longer alive. The library where the journal was preserved, the librarian and the watchman all depicted a Nazi camp, which is a comment on the way Kane looked at Thatcher. Thatcher has always been strict with Kane. The story starts from the period when Thatcher goes to Kane’s childhood home and stretches to the time when Kane takes over the newspaper – Inquirer. The story never talks about Kane as a person. It is more of an outside view.
The second segment is the narration of Mr. Bernstein. He was a business associate of Kane and had been with him since the time Kane took over the newspaper. The narration also starts there, covers the time when he takes over the staff of the Chronicle (a competitor newspaper of the Inquirer) and ends with Kane’s first marriage. Bernstein’s narration presents Kane as a very lively and positive person, someone who wants to enjoy life and is energetic. This is because Bernstein always idolized Kane and looked up to him as an inspiration.
Third comes Leland’s narration. He was Kane’s best friend and then became a sarcastic enemy. Leland’s story picks up with Kane’s first marriage drifting apart. This is shown through a series of shots of breakfast in Kane’s house, the conversations on the breakfast table start getting shorter and the contrast of Kane reading the “Inquirer” and his wife reading the “Chronicle”. This goes on to Kane standing in elections and his love affair coming out in the open, breaking up of his first marriage and getting married to Susan who becomes the second Mrs. Kane. This part also shows how Kane build an opera house just so that Susan could perform there, then Kane completing Leland’s review about Susan’s performance. Where he writes a bad review just to show how truthful he was. Leland’s narration focused more on the personal life and mistakes that Kane made.
Susan’s narration starts where Leland left, her opera performances. How she was forced to sing, made to do so many shows and given musical training. She also says that “All decisions were his, leaving him was mine.” This shows the dominating behavior that Kane had. The drifting apart of Susan and Kane is also shown through a montage where Susan is playing Jigsaw puzzle and Kane is talking to her through a distance. This shows the growing distance between their married lives. The “Xanadu” also shows how lonely the Kane’s are. When Susan leaves Kane, he is heartbroken, and begs her not to leave.
When Raymond the butler’s narration starts, it starts with the scene where Susan leaves Kane, how he breaks everything in the room but takes the snow globe, whispers “Rosebud” and walks out. The reporter is left clueless about what “Rosebud” might be but in the end the butler commands to throw away all the junk in the furnace. A wood sleigh with “Rosebud” printed on it is thrown in the fire. This sleigh is Kane’s childhood memory, his toy, his only connection to his mother.
Akira Kurosawa in Rashomon is trying to portray the concept of self image. How different people want themselves to be shown in a way that they prefer. In other words seeing reality the way that suits us. This movie does not stretch over a period of time rather it is retelling one incident in through the perspective of the people who were present either in the incident or were seeing it from outside. Once the police man narrates how he caught the bandit, the bandit then speaks up. His version of the rape and murder is heroic. He says that the samurai’s wife was attracted to him and how he fought bravely with the samurai.
The wife’s narration starts after the rape. She says how loathingly her husband was eyeing her and how innocent and pitiable she actually was. She says that she couldn’t bear her husband’s silence and cold looks is why she killed him.
Samurai is dead in all the versions. Hence his story is told through a medium. Samurai’s version of story portrays him as a helpless husband. He says that the wife asked the bandit to kill him, but the samurai kills himself. According to samurai he is following a samurai code of conduct which says kill thy self in case you are dishonored. In this case his wife was raped in front of his eyes.
The fourth version is of the woodcutter. He isn’t exactly in the incident but just a spectator. In this version all the characters are portrayed to be weak. This version is a combination of all the previous versions. It gives us a gist of what happened.
The closing sequence of both the movies is also a montage of dissolves with camera going backwards as opposed to the opening sequence. The camera moves further away from the palace and gate house respectively.
When both the movies end, they leave the audience with different responses. In Citizen Kane, the movie ends with a view of “Rosebud” given to the audience. The characters in the movie are still clueless of what it might mean but the audience is let in the secret. Citizen Kane is like a puzzle that gets solved in the end with the missing piece being “rosebud” finally revealed.
Rashomon on the other hand leaves the audience as confused about the story as it was in the beginning. The part that is clear is that a rape and a murder happened but how it happened is not clear.
Welles’ has used editing very effectively to narrate his story with montages, short shots, appropriate background score and more natural acting. Kurosawa on the other hand has used really long shots. Like when the woodcutter is walking in the jungle, the shot is actually shown through the eyes of the woodcutter and shows how he walks through the jungle. It is a very long tracking shot. The acting in Kurosawa’s Rashomon is deliberately exaggerated.
Both the movies are trying to narrate a story in different perspectives however the one that I would really prefer is Citizen Kane, not only because the narrative style is catchy but because of the way it has talked about the “American Dream”. The way it has depicted the dream through a man’s life and how fame, money, wealth is not everything in life. Kane had everything a person would ever wish for. He had money, fame and power but what he really lacked was happiness. A person who had a lot of followers but died alone. There are times when all of this get inside your head and you do not behave in a righteous way. The symbolization of the ending sequence where the black smoke is shown coming out of the palace is actually a depiction of Kane’s life. How is ambition, his dream has now turned to smoke.
Rashomon also plays with symbolism in its own way however it talks about deeper meaning in life. In the end of framing narrative there is a child crying and the woodcutter wants to take it home without any self gain unlike the commoner who was taking all the valuables off the child. The priest is happy to see that there are selfless people in this world and that he has gained faith in mankind again. The heavy storm then stops symbolizing the fact that there is good still left on earth. This is a more metaphysical theme while Citizen Kane is more of the core reality of life.
Both movies are great piece of work and have gathered attention in their own way. While Kurosawa’s Rashomon opened west to Japanese movies, Citizen Kane raised the bar higher for English movies.