X-Nico

16 unusual facts about Citizen Kane


Auteur theory

In Kael's review of Citizen Kane, a classic film for the auteur model, she points out how the film made extensive use of the distinctive talents of co-writer Herman J. Mankiewicz and cinematographer Gregg Toland.

Buddy Swan

Paul Benjamin "Buddy" Swan (October 24, 1929 – March 21, 1993) (also credited as Buddy Swann) was an American child actor, best known for playing the title character of the 1941 film Citizen Kane as an eight-year-old boy.

Chemical Wedding Inc.

The application was named after the cinematographer Gregg Toland, famous for shooting Citizen Kane.

Citizen Khan

The title of the show is a play on the title of the Orson Welles film Citizen Kane.

Fabula and syuzhet

For example: the film Citizen Kane starts with the death of the main character, and then tells his life through flashbacks interspersed with a journalist's present-time investigation of Kane's life.

Harold Fowler McCormick

Orson Welles claimed that McCormick's lavish promotion of his second wife's opera career—despite her renown as a terrible singer—was a direct influence on the screenplay for Citizen Kane, wherein the titular character does much the same for his second wife.

His Majesty, McDuck

The panel in which Cornelius Coot's journal is removed from a vault in the Coot Library for reading is a direct homage to a scene from Citizen Kane.

Internal rhythm

In Citizen Kane, for instance, the internal rhythm of the scene in which Kane, Leland, Bernstein, and the movers take over the offices of the Inquirer differs from the rhythm of the scene in which Kane demolishes Susan's bedroom or from the scene in which Kane and Susan spend an evening at home at Xanadu.

Jack Gwynne

A friend of director and magician, Orson Welles, Gwynne is also credited with a brief appearance (as the “man on the roof”) in Welles’ epic, Citizen Kane (RKO, 1941).

Narcissistic rage and narcissistic injury

The lead character of Citizen Kane has been considered as exhibiting narcissistic rage.

Plasmo

The sled in the second episode Blast Off! has Rosebud on the bumper, referencing Citizen Kane.

The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside the Room

Their reaction turns out to be prophetic when, eight months later, Wiseau secures a release for the film, beginning its cult reputation as "the Citizen Kane of bad movies".

The Fright of Real Tears

In Orson Welles' 1941 classic Citizen Kane, in the scene in which Kane makes his big political speech, Kane speaks before a giant poster of himself.

In Kieślowski's A Short Film About Love, when Magda and Tomek speak to each other through a glass intercom in the local post office, the reflection of the characters' faces in the glass effectively creates the same effect as just described in Citizen Kane.

The Long Christmas Dinner

The Long Christmas Dinner inspired a famous scene in Orson Welles's 1941 film Citizen Kane — the breakfast-table montage in which the nine-year deterioration of Kane's marriage is told through a conversation seen in five vignettes.

This Is My Best

He began with an adaptation of Heart of Darkness, something he had previously adapted for The Mercury Theatre on the Air and The Campbell Playhouse, and which he had attempted to make as his first film in 1940 before turning his attention to Citizen Kane.


Benjamin Ross

From a handful of films since the early 1990s, his most noted works are The Young Poisoner’s Handbook (1995)—based on a real-life poisoning case—and RKO 281, about Orson Welles and the making of Citizen Kane.

Harry Leland

Artist John Byrne based Leland's appearance on actor-director Orson Welles, and the name refers to two characters in Welles' films: Harry Lime from The Third Man, and Jed Leland from Citizen Kane.

The Film Club

The films that David Gilmour watches with his son includes Citizen Kane, Showgirls, Pulp Fiction, Last Tango in Paris, The 400 Blows, Ran, Singin' in the Rain, The Exorcist and Basic Instinct.