Often regarded as the greatest film ever made, because of the use of cinematography, narrative structure and music etc. that was innovative of the time it was made in, Citizen Kane (Orson Welles 1941) is a film á clef that peers into the vicissitudes in the life of a newspaper tycoon, Charles Foster Kane, through the accounts of the people in his life that was close to him in order to solve the mystery of his dying word, “Rosebud”. The sequence that will be analysed is the sequence where in Xanadu’s butler’s account of when he heard “Rosebud”, Susan Alexander, Kane’s second wife, leaves him for good, sending him into a fit of rage which results in his silent departure. This analysis will pick apart the sequence and put it back together again to extract the main themes that arise from it. In the opening scene of this sequence, the dissolve from the exterior view of the day takes us to a large ‘K’, accompanied by dramatic non diegetic music. The change in music completely interrupts the calm emphatic music that was playing before it, which foreshadows a dramatic scene later on in the sequence. The ‘K’ imposes itself on us; almost looming over us like Kane does to Susan in the previous jigsaw sequence. This reinforces his overbearing, self-centred and narcissistic nature that has increased with his age, and that Susan has had enough of. The first word uttered after this opening is “Rosebud”, and as the camera cuts to Mr Thompson and his interviewee, the light behind them shining in through the windows illuminates the staircase. This light symbolises Mr Thompson’s quest to find the meaning of Rosebud, as he is literally shedding light on Kane’s life by peeking through it. This is similar to the scene where Mr Rawlston told Mr Thompson to find out what Rosebud meant, where the room was shrouded in darkness apart from the light streaming in through the windows. That symbolised the mysteriousness of Kane’s life, in the sense that Mr Thompson was in the dark as he had no answers, whereas in this sequence the room is illuminated more, showing that Mr Thompson has found out more about Kane and is getting closer to completing his assignment. The scene dissolves into a completely unexpected squawking bird that seems to just be thrown into the frame haphazardly, but this is not the case, as the bird symbolises Kane and his current situation. All the frustration and emotions he has kept hidden over the course of his marriage, such as the sadness of not feeling any emotional warmth from Susan which led him to seek warmth from the fireplace during the jigsaw sequence has boiled to the surface and overflowed, resulting in his inner scream that the squawk represents. Susan leaving him is the last straw for him, and as she walks away, the backdrop of what could have been appears. This backdrop of the ocean and the beach serves as nostalgia for Susan and Kane, because it shows them how happy their life was early on in their marriage. Even though the backdrop is really a view of what’s outside Xanadu’s walls, it’s a mirage to Kane as anything happy or good in his life has disappeared; it’s not really there, like an exhausted traveller seeing a pool of water in the desert. He has spent his wealth on possessi