by Feed your head with a play by Pamela Olson

Created on: August 27, 2008

The Films Rashomon And Citizen Kane

It's all in the point-of-view which is why eye-witness testimony in court trials is so often defeated by being determined as specious.

Comparing Citizen Kane with Rashomon reveals why the choice was made in each case to tell the story from many characters points of views, how each point of view reveals more about the characters and their motivations.

Most films use an "objective" or "dramatic" point of view, which allows the audience to find out information only from what the characters do and say. Directors, Orson Welles in Citizen Kane, and Akira Kurosawa in Rashomon, maximized the use of point of view to describe the space and way, in which the story in each of their respective films was viewed and considered. The mental location of observation of the characters is astonishing in its complexity. Both these men used it to convey not only the mental attitude and opinion of their characters; but also, of Orson Welles and Akira Kurosawa.

Orson Welles' choice to use the individual point of view of selected people who were involved one way or another with Charles Foster Kane, conveyed Welles' consuming belief in the corrupting influence of power and money, especially on love. The film clearly revealed Kane as a disillusioned, hectic portrait of power and its misuses.

In 1941, Welles consciously told the story of Kane to answer moral questions. What happens to a man when power and money destroy any love in his life? What, if anything, went wrong specifically with Charles Foster Kane? What destroys a man's youthful hopes and excitement? Since as much of Welles as Hearst was woven into Kane, how much of this was Welles own inner turmoil being brought to the screen? In addition, how much of Citizen Kane is another success through scandal such as Welles previous "The War of The Worlds" radio broadcast? By brilliantly sensationalizing aspects of William Randolph Hearst's life, Citizen Kane exploits public interest in a controversial man who himself exploited yellow journalism.

Welles' obsession with the relationship between wealth, power and love, reveal Kane as an immense human being with immense power. This allowed Welles to pursue his theme of the corrupting influence of power and money. Welles carries us through each characters point and exposure of Kane's manipulation of human beings as mere pawns in a cruel game, with a human's choice between a selfish commitment to himself and a responsible commitment to others. The result was a

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