Citizen Kane



By



Herman J. Mankiewicz



&



Orson Welles







PROLOGUE



FADE IN:



EXT. XANADU - FAINT DAWN - 1940 (MINIATURE)



Window, very small in the distance, illuminated.



All around this is an almost totally black screen. Now, as

the camera moves slowly towards the window which is almost a

postage stamp in the frame, other forms appear; barbed wire,

cyclone fencing, and now, looming up against an early morning

sky, enormous iron grille work. Camera travels up what is now

shown to be a gateway of gigantic proportions and holds on the

top of it - a huge initial "K" showing darker and darker against

the dawn sky. Through this and beyond we see the fairy-tale

mountaintop of Xanadu, the great castle a sillhouette as its

summit, the little window a distant accent in the darkness.







DISSOLVE:



A SERIES OF SET -UPS, EACH CLOSER TO THE GREAT WINDOW, ALL

TELLING SOMETHING OF:



The literally incredible domain of CHARLES FOSTER KANE.



Its right flank resting for nearly forty miles on the Gulf

Coast, it truly extends in all directions farther than the eye

can see. Designed by nature to be almost completely bare and

flat - it was, as will develop, practically all marshland when

Kane acquired and changed its face - it is now pleasantly

uneven, with its fair share of rolling hills and one very good-

sized mountain, all man-made. Almost all the land is improved,

either through cultivation for farming purposes of through

careful landscaping, in the shape of parks and lakes. The

castle dominates itself, an enormous pile, compounded of several

genuine castles, of European origin, of varying architecture -

dominates the scene, from the very peak of the mountain.



DISSOLVE:



GOLF LINKS (MINIATURE)



Past which we move. The greens are straggly and overgrown,

the fairways wild with tropical weeds, the links unused and

not seriously tended for a long time.



DISSOLVE OUT:



DISSOLVE IN:



WHAT WAS ONCE A GOOD-SIZED ZOO (MINIATURE)



Of the Hagenbeck type. All that now remains, with one

exception, are the individual plots, surrounded by moats, on

which the animals are kept, free and yet safe from each other

and the landscape at large. (Signs on several of the plots

indicate that here there were once tigers, lions, girrafes.)



DISSOLVE:



THE MONKEY TERRACE (MINIATURE)



In the foreground, a great obscene ape is outlined against the

dawn murk. He is scratching himself slowly, thoughtfully,

looking out across the estates of Charles Foster Kane, to the

distant light glowing in the castle on the hill.



DISSOLVE:



THE ALLIGATOR PIT (MINIATURE)



The idiot pile of sleepy dragons. Reflected in the muddy water -

the lighted window.



THE LAGOON (MINIATURE)



The boat landing sags. An old newspaper floats on the surface

of the water - a copy of the New York Enquirer." As it moves

across the frame, it discloses again the reflection of the

window in the castle, closer than before.



THE GREAT SWIMMING POOL (MINIATURE)



It is empty. A newspaper blows across the cracked floor of

the tank.



DISSOLVE:



THE COTTAGES (MINIATURE)



In the shadows, literally the shadows, of the castle. As we

move by, we see that their doors and windows are boarded up

and locked, with heavy bars as further protection and sealing.



DISSOLVE OUT:



DISSOLVE IN:



A DRAWBRIDGE (MINIATURE)



Over a wide moat, now stagnant and choked with weeds. We move

across it and through a huge solid gateway into a formal garden,

perhaps thirty yards wide and one hundred yards deep, which

extends right up to the very wall of the castle. The

landscaping surrounding it has been sloppy and causal for a

long time, but this particular garden has been kept up in

perfect shape. As the camera makes its way through it, towards

the lighted window of the castle, there are revealed rare and

exotic blooms of all kinds. The dominating note is one of

almost exaggerated tropical lushness, hanging limp and

despairing. Moss, moss, moss. Ankor Wat, the night the last

King died.



DISSOLVE:



THE WINDOW (MINIATURE)



Camera moves in until the frame of the window fills the frame

of the screen. Suddenly, the light within goes out. This

stops the action of the camera and cuts the music which has

been accompanying the sequence. In the glass panes of the

window, we see reflected the ripe, dreary landscape of Mr.

Kane's estate behind and the dawn sky.



DISSOLVE:



INT. KANE'S BEDROOM - FAINT DAWN -



A very long shot of Kane's enormous bed, silhouetted against

the enormous window.



DISSOLVE:



INT. KANE'S BEDROOM - FAINT DAWN - SNOW SCENE.



An incredible one. Big, impossible flakes of snow, a too

picturesque farmhouse and a snow man. The jingling of sleigh

bells in the musical score now makes an ironic reference to

Indian Temple bells - the music freezes -







KANE'S OLD OLD VOICE

Rosebud...



The camera pulls back, showing the whole scene to be contained

in one of those glass balls which are sold in novelty stores

all over the world. A hand - Kane's hand, which has been

holding the ball, relaxes. The ball falls out of his hand and

bounds down two carpeted steps leading to the bed, the camera

following. The ball falls off the last step onto the marble

floor where it breaks, the fragments glittering in the first

rays of the morning sun. This ray cuts an angular pattern

across the floor, suddenly crossed with a thousand bars of

light as the blinds are pulled across the window.



The foot of Kane's bed. The camera very close. Outlined

against the shuttered window, we can see a form - the form of

a nurse, as she pulls the sheet up over his head. The camera

follows this action up the length of the bed and arrives at

the face after the sheet has covered it.



FADE OUT:



FADE IN:



INT. OF A MOTION PICTURE PROJECTION ROOM



On the screen as the camera moves in are the words:



"MAIN TITLE"



Stirring, brassy music is heard on the soundtrack (which, of

course, sounds more like a soundtrack than ours.)



The screen in the projection room fills our screen as the second

title appears:



"CREDITS"



NOTE: Here follows a typical news digest short, one of the

regular monthly or bi-monthly features, based on public events

or personalities. These are distinguished from ordinary

newsreels and short subjects in that they have a fully developed

editorial or storyline. Some of the more obvious

characteristics of the "March of Time," for example, as well

as other documentary shorts, will be combined to give an

authentic impression of this now familiar type of short subject.

As is the accepted procedure in these short subjects, a narrator

is used as well as explanatory titles.



FADE OUT:



NEWS DIGEST NARRATOR

Legendary was the Xanadu where

Kubla Kahn decreed his stately

pleasure dome -

(with quotes in his

voice)

"Where twice five miles of fertile

ground, with walls and towers were

girdled 'round."



(DROPPING THE QUOTES)

Today, almost as legendary is

Florida's XANADU - world's largest

private pleasure ground. Here, on

the deserts of the Gulf Coast, a

private mountain was commissioned,

successfully built for its landlord.

Here in a private valley, as in

the Coleridge poem, "blossoms many

an incense-bearing tree." Verily,

"a miracle of rare device."



U.S.A.



CHARLES FOSTER KANE



Opening shot of great desolate expanse of Florida coastline

(1940 - DAY)



DISSOLVE:



Series of shots showing various aspects of Xanadu, all as they

might be photographed by an ordinary newsreel cameraman - nicely

photographed, but not atmospheric to the extreme extent of the

Prologue (1940).



NARRATOR

(dropping the quotes)

Here, for Xanadu's landlord, will

be held 1940's biggest, strangest

funeral; here this week is laid to

rest a potent figure of our Century -

America's Kubla Kahn - Charles

Foster Kane. In journalism's

history, other names are honored

more than Charles Foster Kane's,

more justly revered. Among

publishers, second only to James

Gordon Bennet the First: his

dashing, expatriate son; England's

Northcliffe and Beaverbrook;

Chicago's Patterson and McCormick;



TITLE:



TO FORTY-FOUR MILLION U.S. NEWS BUYERS, MORE NEWSWORTHY THAN

THE NAMES IN HIS OWN HEADLINES, WAS KANE HIMSELF, GREATEST

NEWSPAPER TYCOON OF THIS OR ANY OTHER GENERATION.



Shot of a huge, screen-filling picture of Kane. Pull back to

show that it is a picture on the front page of the "Enquirer,"

surrounded by the reversed rules of mourning, with masthead

and headlines. (1940)



DISSOLVE:



A great number of headlines, set in different types and

different styles, obviously from different papers, all

announcing Kane's death, all appearing over photographs of

Kane himself (perhaps a fifth of the headlines are in foreign

languages). An important item in connection with the headlines

is that many of them - positively not all - reveal passionately

conflicting opinions about Kane. Thus, they contain variously

the words "patriot," "democrat," "pacifist," "war-monger,"

"traitor," "idealist," "American," etc.



TITLE:



1895 TO 1940 - ALL OF THESE YEARS HE COVERED, MANY OF THESE

YEARS HE WAS.



Newsreel shots of San Francisco during and after the fire,

followed by shots of special trains with large streamers: "Kane

Relief Organization." Over these shots superimpose the date -

1906.



Artist's painting of Foch's railroad car and peace negotiators,

if actual newsreel shot unavailable. Over this shot

sumperimpose the date - 1918.



NARRATOR

Denver's Bonfils and Sommes; New

York's late, great Joseph Pulitzer;

America's emperor of the news

syndicate, another editorialist

and landlord, the still mighty and

once mightier Hearst. Great names

all of them - but none of them so

loved, hated, feared, so often

spoken - as Charles Foster Kane.

The San Francisco earthquake.

First with the news were the Kane

papers. First with Relief of the

Sufferers, First with the news of

their Relief of the Sufferers.

Kane papers scoop the world on the

Armistice - publish, eight hours

before competitors, complete details

of the Armistice teams granted the

Germans by Marshall Foch from his

railroad car in the Forest of

Compeigne. For forty years appeared

in Kane newsprint no public issue

on which Kane papers took no stand.

No public man whom Kane himself

did not support or denounce - often

support, then denounce. Its humble

beginnings, a dying dailey -



Shots with the date - 1898 (to be supplied)



Shots with the date - 1910 (to be supplied)



Shots with the date - 1922 (to be supplied)



Headlines, cartoons, contemporary newreels or stills of the

following:



1. WOMAN SUFFRAGE



The celebrated newsreel shot of about 1914.



2. PROHIBITION



Breaking up of a speakeasy and such.



3. T.V.A.



4. LABOR RIOTS



Brief clips of old newreel shots of William Jennings Bryan,

Theodore Roosevelt, Stalin, Walter P. Thatcher, Al Smith,

McKinley, Landon, Franklin D. Roosevelt and such. Also, recent

newsreels of the elderly Kane with such Nazis as Hitler and

Goering; and England's Chamberlain and Churchill.



Shot of a ramshackle building with old-fashioned presses showing

through plate glass windows and the name "Enquirer" in old-

fashioned gold letters. (1892)



DISSOLVE:



NARRATOR

Kane's empire, in its glory, held

dominion over thirty-seven

newpapers, thirteen magazines, a

radio network. An empire upon an

empire. The first of grocery

stores, paper mills, apartment

buildings, factories, forests,

ocean-liners - An empire through

which for fifty years flowed, in

an unending stream, the wealth of

the earth's third richest gold

mine... Famed in American legend

is the origin of the Kane fortune...

How, to boarding housekeeper Mary

Kane, by a defaulting boarder, in

1868 was left the supposedly

worthless deed to an abandoned

mine shaft: The Colorado Lode.

The magnificent Enquirer Building

of today.



1891-1911 - a map of the USA, covering the entire screen, which

in animated diagram shows the Kane publications spreading from

city to city. Starting from New York, minature newboys speed

madly to Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Los Angeles, San

Francisco, Washington, Atlanta, El Paso, etc., screaming

"Wuxtry, Kane Papers, Wuxtry."



Shot of a large mine going full blast, chimneys belching smoke,

trains moving in and out, etc. A large sign reads "Colorado

Lode Mining Co." (1940) Sign reading; "Little Salem, CO - 25

MILES."



DISSOLVE:



An old still shot of Little Salem as it was 70 years ago

(identified by copper-plate caption beneath the still). (1870)



Shot of early tintype stills of Thomas Foster Kane and his

wife, Mary, on their wedding day. A similar picture of Mary

Kane some four or five years later with her little boy, Charles

Foster Kane.



NARRATOR

Fifty-seven years later, before a

Congressional Investigation, Walter

P. Thatcher, grand old man of

Wall Street, for years chief target

of Kane papers' attack on "trusts,"

recalls a journey he made as a

youth...



Shot of Capitol, in Washington D.C.



Shot of Congressional Investigating Committee (reproduction of

existing J.P. Morgan newsreel). This runs silent under

narration. Walter P. Thatcher is on the stand.
arrow
arrow
    全站熱搜

    大景堂 發表在 痞客邦 留言(0) 人氣()