When I first saw this clip of Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941) my first instinct was that it was comic relief. The extremely frustrated director, Jedediah trying so hard not to fall asleep and of course Bernstein reclining back in his seat more interested in playing with the playbill then watching Susan on stage. While this scene may be rather humorous a lot about both Susan and Kane is revealed through emotions and actions of the two. As the clip progresses it begins to become less and less humorous and then more and more painful. The singing soon becomes irritating and us the viewer becomes as sick of it as the patrons do. Then when it’s all over and we see the expression on Kane’s face, and hear Susan’s heavy breathing that we finally realize exactly what this scene represents.
We enter this part of the movie not really knowing what to expect. We know that Kane’s life is beginning to fall apart, having left his first wife for Susan and loosing some of his political pull in the process. The scene begins with a close up of Susan; she is singing but is quickly interrupted by the director who is trying to correct her mistakes. The camera then tracks to him, slowly zooming out to show the hectic movements of actors and stage hands frantically running around setting up, just before the camera tilts up to focus on a stage light just overhead to further. We are then treated to a nice backstage shot right as the curtains go up, then the lights flicker on and all eyes are on Susan. This beginning is meant to mimic Kane and Susan’s relationship. The viewer knows how great a moment this must be for Susan and for a second everything seems like it’s alright. This idea is continued when the next shot shows us Kane watching from his seat, a smile slowly appearing on to his face. But behind the scenes, before the curtain goes up everything is wild and frantic. This shot is of Kane’s smile is one of the more important shots in the clip. We must keep in mind Kane rarely smiles during the film, especially towards the end. It’s a shot where we can see how important Susan is to Kane. He has done all this just for her, having built the opera house, and paid for the production. Kane’s smile is one of satisfaction of finally seeing his wife on stage just as he planned for her. There however lies the problem, Kane planned all this. When Kane first met Susan she had a toothache, she was vulnerable and her overbearing nature was overshadowed by painkillers. She didn’t know who Kane really was, thus he thought he finally found someone who loved him unconditionally. As time passed and Kane discovers Susan isn’t the girl he thought she was he tries to change her. Thus while things may seem nice and happy, the false smiles simply hide the madness that goes on when the curtains are down. For about the first minute everything seems to be going all right but then we are shown the expressions of all the others. First we get a quick cut to Bernstein sitting in his chair examining his playbill, next we see the director himself cringing at the actresses singing, and then cut to Jedediah finding himself distracted, completely ignoring the stage. This shot then dissolves into the next showing the passage of time. The men become even more annoyed and bored, the director now enraged over Susan’s mistakes, a now sleeping Jedediah suddenly awoken by a sour note, and Bernstein playing with a now torn apart playbill. This shows their emotions towards Kane’s life. Kane wants his friends to be impressed by his wife, but there just not caring. They see her for who she actually is, not the person Kane imagines her too be. More important then the men’s expressions; however is the changed expression on Kane’s Face. From the shot of Bernstein the camera cuts to an over the shoulder shot showing the stage from Kane’s point of view, we look on and watch Susan murder her notes and over act on stage seeing what Kane sees and hearing what Kane hears. We can see how horrible Susan is on stage even when the camera is focused on someone else we still hear her singing. Kane is not blind to this and when the camera then cuts to the same shot of his face, his smile has disappeared a look of disappointment now in its place. Susan’s mistakes are the result of Kane pushing her too hard, thus they represent the little bits of her Kane is trying to correct. Susan’s mistakes are peeks into the way she has been treated, we realize how hard she is being pushed and how the poor girl stressed is. We as the viewer are brought into this scene. Up until this point Kane tried to ignore his wife’s flaws and her overbearing nature, trying to remember the women whom he first met while walking on the street that one evening. It is then we hear the criticism “Practically Dreadful” from some off screen women. Kane is distracted by this comment, realizing that this has been a failure. He then turns looking to find the source of the comment then quickly looks back to the show determined that she is perfection, ignoring her flaws. If Kane’s perfect vision of his wife was seeing her preform on stage then her mistakes were like his failures. By ignoring these mistakes and holding Susan to so high of standards only hurts her more leading up to her suicide attempt in the next scene.
As a man longing for love Kane is disappointed that no one sees Susan the way he sees her. He wants her to be seen as the perfect wife, to be seen as the women he wants her to be. We then turn back to the stage, the opera is coming to a close, and Susan is taking her bows. Soon the crowed begins to clap even though they knew Susan was horrible. Its almost as if Susan had just told them how hard it is to live up to Kane’s high standards and they replied “good for you, your dating a rich man”. Kane becomes so busy thinking about the way he just saw his wife that when the opera finally comes to a conclusion it takes a while for him to clap. Upon realizing he starts clapping excessively giving her a standing ovation, once again ignoring all her flaws and holding her as a perfect wife.
When the Scene fades it fades to black and all we hear is Susan’s heavy breathing, the scene continues and we find that Susan has tried to kill herself. Now here is the crazy thing, the attempt is passed off as Susan believing she is a failure as an actress when in reality it was because she believes she is a failure as Kane’s wife. What really makes it sting is the fact that Kane knows this. He sees the attempt as a flaw and ignores it. Placing his wife right back on a pedestal, even though she had just fallen.