Early in the film Charles Kane’s mother (Agnes Moorehead) signs the papers handing over her eight-year-old son (Buddy Swan) to Mr. Thatcher, a Wall Street banker. There is something chilling in Kane’s mother’s willingness to send her young child off into the world in the hands of a stranger, but evidence later in the film suggests that Kane’s father is abusive and that the mother gives her son away, at great personal cost, in order to protect him. The mother’s feelings about handing over her son, like almost everything in Citizen Kane, are left ambiguous, and the complex way this scene is photographed allows multiple interpretations of it, as well as adding dramatic resonance to this crucial moment in the film (Mulvey 1992, pp. 73).
The shot lasts over two minutes. It begins with young Charles Kane in long shot, playing with his sled in the snow. The camera then pulls back to reveal that it has been shooting through a window. This effect creates a visual metaphor. The boy playing in the snow is not as free as he at first seems. Just as his image is suddenly confined by a window frame, so his life will be circumscribed by a decision that is being made for him inside the house. Kane’s mother appears at the window calling out to her son to “Be careful, ” and “Put your muffler around your neck, Charles. ” As the camera tracks backwards from the window into the space of the house, it reveals Mr. Thatcher standing at the right of the window. He says, “We’ll have to tell him now.” Ignoring this comment, the mother replies, “I’ll sign those papers now, Mr. Thatcher” (Carroll 1996, pp. 267).
From frame left Kane’s father appears, saying, “You people seem to forget that I’m the boy’s father.” The camera tracks backwards as Mrs. Kane walks over to a desk in the foreground of the image and sits down to sign the papers, with Thatcher seated next to her. An argument ensues in which the father, who appears in the middle ground of the image, strongly protests the mother’s decision to hand his son over to a bank and threatens to take the case to court (Gottesman 1996, pp. 56-59). The mother is icily adamant in honouring the agreement she has made with Thatcher. In exchange for the bank’s full assumption of the management of the gold mine (the Colorado Lode), the bank which Thatcher represents will assume full responsibility for all matters concerning the boy’s education and place of residence. Mr. and Mrs. Kane will receive fifty thousand dollars a year as long as they both live. This last bit of information, which Thatcher reads aloud, silences the father, who mutters, “Well, let’s hope it’s all for the best” (Gottesman 1996, pp. 63).
