Citizen Kane is one of the best films of all time and is acknowledged for his unique and elegant story. The movie is recognized as distinctive radio film because story telling mechanism is prevalent in the film. Actual characters are given minimal chance to face the camera and speak. These distinguishing characteristics make Citizen Kane most successful movie of the decade. It won an academy award and stayed above the charts for more than 50 years. The story is told in flashbacks of Charles Foster Kane's life and legacy. Jerry Thompson, a reporter portrays the life of Foster Kane by digging into the meaning of last words of Kane- 'Rosebud'. Narrative voices have momentous role in the movie overall (Tomasulo, 1986). Due to its inimitable and exceptional story telling methodology, Citizen Kane is rated among the finest works of Hollywood.
Narrative Voices
Citizen Kane is based upon the narrative voices. There are several characters in the movie that had their respective roles in voice playback. One of them is Jerry Thompson, the reporter who unfolds the story of Foster Kane. Mr. Thompson's face is not seen in the whole back. His face is usually in dark shadows or his body's backside is shown. Thompson is the key figure in the movie because his research work is to explore the meaning of Kane's last word 'Rosebud'. He conducts several interviews of those individuals who had eminent role in Kane's life. His intention is to investigate everything about Kane's life. He meets several people but his face can never be seen. Only his voice is heard which makes Citizen Kane a powerful voice movie (Altman, 1994).
The role of Mr. Thatcher is also prestigious who was basically a banker and then changes into Kane's legal guardian. His background voice carries colossal importance as he unfolds all the major discoveries of Kane's childhood. The written memoirs of Thatcher mostly portray Kane's early life which is told in narrative voices. The movie overall roams around the power of narrative voices. This demonstrates that wonderful movies can be made by spectacular voice cover. Acting by characters is vital in visual movies but dialogues through narrative voices are of immense value. Citizen Kane portrays that everything that can be seen has not that much of significance, background voices is in fact the name of the game (Carringer, 1976).
Rosebud Mystery
According to Tomasulo (1986), the movie rambles around the mystery of Kane's last word 'Rosebud' which has massive magnitude. The investigative reporting of Jerry Thompson is basically in the exploration of Rosebud meaning. He conducts several interviews for this purpose. The prime life of Foster Kane lies in the anonymity Rosebud for which, Thompson quests and strives. He pursues his career jump by investigating Rosebud mystery. Thompson interviews second wife of Kane, Susan, to get insights about Kane and Rosebud. The condition of Susan was not suitable to tell anything as she was an alcoholic and refuses conversation. Thompson then interviews Walter Thatcher, with whom Kane spent his childhood. Thatcher was a banker and tries to show concrete evidences of Kane's early life.
Mr. Bernstein, the business manager of Kane is also interviewed so that some clues about Rosebud could be discovered but no promising results are obtained. Jedediah Leland, former best friend of Kane, Mr. Raymond -butler of Kane is also interviewed to explore the meaning of Rosebud. Thompson attempts to find Rosebud mystery but his voyage for solving this obscurity never achieves triumph. Although he is able to retrieve tiny details of Kane's life but Rosebud ambiguity prevails till last (Altman, 1994).
Conclusion
Mr. Kane lived a lonely life and dies with the secrecy of Rosebud. Movie depicts a strong message that even man achieves everything in life; some pictures are still blurred and have tremendous significance in their entire living. Citizen Kane shows that narrative voices are the backbone of movie's triumph. The movie revolves around the findings and explorations of Jerry Thompson. The face of Jerry Thompson is not shown in the movie once, but still he is the person of greater significance. The research, exploration efforts and journeys of Thompson are also depicted in such a manner that his narrative voice has actual depth and power in it.
The movie meander around background voices, as story telling in visual form is the theme of movie. Citizen Kane was shot in 1941 when visual and voice effects were not pretty much evolved by the Director of the movie ensured to plug in the best features of technology advancement at that specific time. Background voices specially have impressive and influential role in the movie, as whole story of Kane is shown in flashback, where characters did not speak; narrative voices actually covered the whole aspect. On a wider spectrum it can be concluded that the power of voice is unparallel.
