Citizen Kane Page #2

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 -

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