The Great Gatsby and Citizen Kane

It is no small statement, yet at the same time no stretch, that the Great Gatsby and Citizen Kane can be the undisputed kings of their respectful American media; less so for their stature (which is monumental but in the case of the Great Gatsby, not totally dominant) in their media but rather for their nature as masterful depictions of a quintessentially American theme.  This theme is the pursuit of perfection despite great success, of the emptiness of wealth, and of striving for an ideal that may not exist.  This is prevalent in both, with similar characters Gatsby and Kane embodying this quintessential American persona, this idealist, striving for something he has never known.

In craft both are excellent; Citizen Kane uses incredibly creative (especially for its time) camera techniques to tell an extremely moving story with interesting images, as well as focus on multiple plains of vision to allow the eye to focus on any character or object in any scene with complete clarity.  This allows the viewer freedom in choosing what to look at, what is more important to them in the scene.  In a similar way, the Great Gatsby, a masterpiece of modernism, uses vague yet seemingly specific and familiar language to allow the reader to wrestle with the text and find a unique meaning in it without actively trying.  Both find a way to make the experience of enjoying the piece of art more meaningful and personal to the audience member, and both succeed in doing so within the means of the art form.  It is interesting, then, that in this personal style, we find two of the same characters; one might call them part of an archetype if they are brave.

Both Kane and Gatsby are millionaires rich in money and nothing else.  What unites them so completely and absolutely is their lack of a very essential part of being human: love.  Neither truly receives love from anyone; Gatsby does not receive true love, permanent or realistic love from Daisy (before and after she knew of his living in West Egg), and Kane never received love from any of his "lovers", had no friends (Jed remarks in the movie that if Jed hadn't been Kane's friend, then Kane had never had any), and he was never loved by his mother who quickly, unapologetically, and, in fact quite cruelly, sends him to live with a billionaire in the city for a deposit of $50,000 a year ("I've had his bags packed for a week").  It his the latter shameful act of neglect and lack of love that sends Kane into his lifelong sense of emptiness and longing for the loving childhood he never had.

It is because of this lack of love that both Gatsby and Kane actively pursue it.  But one does not know how to attain what one has never had.  They get it wrong.  Instead of seeking out love the correct way, through mutual understanding and care, they both use the one thing they have too much of, money, to attempt to attract it.  Gatsby throws his incredibly lavish parties to attract Daisy.  It doesn't work, as he is forced to meet Daisy in Nick's home.  He then spends lots of money on Daisy, or at least is able to.  But eventually Daisy just goes back to Tom, the horrible man with money, and the two take off, leaving Gatsby staring at the green light at the end of the dock, knowing he will never attain that ideal he dreamed of with Daisy, and perhaps wondering if it was ever attainable at all.  Kane does the same thing.  Although he does not know love, he understands when he is not loved.  After his first loveless marriage, he spends millions upon millions of dollars building first an opera house for his second wife, an "aspiring" singer (she is actually horrible and does not want to sing; he knows it), hires a tutor for her voice, and when that fails after she forces herself into sickness to avoid singing, thus vanquishing his obsessiveness, Kane spends an even greater sum of money buying her a palace, which she hates.  Kane also allows random borders to visit the palace and have fun.  Sound familiar?  This is exactly what Gatsby does to attract Daisy.  And like Gatsby, Kane gets it completely wrong.  His second wife is annoyingly unimpressed with his gift, and comments very rightly to Kane, "you don't really love me, you want me to love you!".  This is precisely the problem.  Kane wants to be loved.  But he has never been loved, and therefore does not know how to.  He is chasing an ideal that, in his mind, might not actually be possible, or exist; just like Gatsby.  Kane's wife eventually leaves him, causing him to snap and destroy everything in her room, before concentrating his thoughts on an ideal that could have been and personifying them in the classic quote "rosebud".

It's almost beautiful how well the two characters fit together, and how they both personify the authentically American theme of the pursuit of perfection.  At the end of Citizen Kane, the journalists conclude that the mystery of "rosebud" is unsolvable...that it will always be a missing piece in a jigsaw puzzle.  That jigsaw puzzle was the man's life, both Gatsby's and Kane's.  And that crucial missing piece, which might have completed the picture, was love.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZOzk7T93wE - intro/"Rosebud"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzhb3U2cONs - Kane running the newspaper

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAHaRDlUrLw - Kane sent away with billionaire

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozkEl1Ah8TI&feature=related - Kane destroys room after his second wife leaves him