Citizen Kane

In Citizen Kane, Charles Foster Kane exhibits an unusual obsession with statues, which represents his desire to control and possess people and objects. He collects statues and fills his home and office with them. Because Kane’s own mother abandoned him at such crucial age, he was never able to form normal relationships with other people. He could never let anyone in and was always closed off, even in his marriages. He uses these statues to fill the void in his life. He pretends that by having all these statues, it is as if they are all his friends and family. Even his closest friend, Jed Leland, is put on the same level as the statues in the scene where Leland is alone in the office surrounded by tons of statues. It shows that Kane will not even let in his closest friend but instead wants to be able to have power over him. Kane has always strived to have control over every aspect of his life, but he often fails to control other people. For example, he first introduces Emily to the movie as a big diamond, a piece of beauty he can buy and possess. But he soon realizes he can no longer control her. So instead, Kane buys statues, which he has complete power over. He can possess these statues in a way that he can never possess friends or family. In the whole palace that he built, no people live there besides him and Susan. He does not have friends in his life so he fills his palace with meaningless things in their absence. As seen in the shot where Kane is sitting all the way across the huge room from Susan, she is miniscule compared to the massive statue that completely overshadows her, illustrating the extremity of their marital problems. Susan comments that her playing with puzzles “makes a lot more sense than collecting statues.” Which shows the distance in their relationship, as well as his inability to actually love her. The quote illustrates how Kane alienated Susan and she simple does not understand him. You can see how nonsensically he collected things in his house when they pan over all of his belongings in Xanadu. Many of the items that Kane has bought have never even been touched or unwrapped. Kane gets to the point where he begins to buy duplicates of his statues. When scanning through his belongings, they note that he has two statues of Venus, the goddess of physical beauty. This shows his desire to possess something beautiful. The final scene pans over Kane’s life collections of meaningless junk and you can see just how much stuff he has filled his house with. Yet only one item among all of the junk has any real meaning—Rosebud. Rosebud, a cheap little sled, holds more meaning to Kane than all of the other thousands of objects he collected over his lifetime. Rosebud represents his childhood innocence and naivety before he was exposed to the cruelty of the world. Kane’s sentiment towards his old sled over all his expensive goods reinforces the old cliché money cannot buy happiness. 

--Haley Gray