Citizen Kane Versus The Social Network
Introduction
The social network and Citizen Kane both tell a story on how men attained o great deal of wealth in a single lifetime. Citizen Kane is based on a newspaper company that is ran by a man called Charles Foster Kane while The Social Network is based on social website that was developed by Mark Elliot Zuckerberg. Both men worked hard and smart but also made mistakes along the way. They demonstrate that a man’s character and decision determines his success and in order to gain wealth one must lose something in return. Comparison and contrast of the social network to citizen cane. The natural comparisons are obvious. Both films are about men who set out to do something great, accomplish it, and lose something even more important in the process. They are films about how lonely one can become after making great achievements. Citizen Kane and The Social Network are films about men who are giants who can't escape the small truths of their lives.
Neither of them has a single narrator, nor do they have necessarily reliable narrators. The stories are told from multiple angles. Both are told in flashback mostly in, but not always chronological order. Both stories are told by individuals trying to answer a question after the fact. In The Social Network, the question is Zuckerberg's intention to steal the idea of Facebook and force out his partner for the sake of a lawsuit. In Citizen Kane the question is the meaning of Kane's last words "rosebud" for a news story.
The two films are about immediacy. Both men make a living from media which was mostly new media. They create a world in which they both influence and control. In both instances they shape public opinion but are unable to shape it in a way that would favor them. Both men’s talents gave them great influence in the world around them yet this influence did not compel anyone to loving them. Within the worlds that they created, there are also smaller tales of ego-driven misogyny, domination over and objectification of women, of friendships ended with a termination, of defiance in the arms of authority, of paths never taken.
Portrayal of Man Character
The most obvious similarity between the main characters themselves is that Charles Foster Kane and Mark Zuckerberg are both media moguls of their times, who will essentially do anything to make it to the top. Both Kane and Zuckerberg treat the women of their life horribly and only realize their mistake when it's too late, alienating the few friends they have in the process. Zuckerberg is seen to treat women rudely in the film, for instance we see him write an insulting entry about Albright, who was his girlfriend who had recently dumped him, on his LiveJournal blog and then creates a campus website called Facemash by hacking into college databases to steal photos of female students, then allowing site visitors to rate their attractiveness. As for Kane, Susan now consents to an interview with Thompson recalls her failed opera career. Kane finally allows her to abandon her singing career after she attempts suicide. After years spent dominated by Kane and living in isolation at Xanadu, Susan leaves Kane. In a pick nick Susan accused him of trying to buy love, despite never loving anyone but himself, and of never giving her anything that mattered. Kane responded by slapping her. Shortly thereafter she left him. She almost wavered in her resolve to go when he begged her not to, claiming that Susan would be treated the way she wanted. However, he then turned the emphasis back on himself, saying "you can't do this to me. " At that, Susan angrily realized the inherent selfishness behind that statement and walked out on him. Kane’s butler Raymond recounts that, after Susan leaves him, Kane begins violently destroying the contents of her bedroom. Kane is more obsessed with money than Zuckerberg, who simply wants to be "cool, " but their single-mindedness toward reaching their respective goals creates a comparable isolation. Kane is seen to have taken over, with his college friend Jedidiah Leland, the stuffy, unprofitable Inquirer and transformed it into a money-maker, eventually hiring the staff of the rival New York Chronicle according to Thompson’s interview with Bernstein, the general manager of Kane's newspaper empire.
Zuckerberg on the other hand is seen to base his platform enlargement when he realizes that his ex-girlfriend wasn’t aware of it. He needed more recognition nevertheless money still followed him. Both characters are seen to have a character of turning against their friends. Kane’s paper starts attacking Thatcher's traction interests as corrupt and they suffer as a result. Thatcher is Kane's early financial adviser and childhood guardian yet he later became a prime target of the Kane newspapers' trust-busting attacks. As for Zuckerberg, we see Cameron and Divan want to sue Mark for intellectual property theft, but Tyler convinces them they can settle the matter as "Harvard gentlemen" without resorting to the courts. Zuckerberg’s friend Eduardo also discovers the deal he signed with Parker's investors that allowed them to reduce his share of the company from a 34% to less than one tenth of one percent, while maintaining the ownership percentage of all other parties.
Film/editing Techniques
Both "Citizen Kane" and "The Social Network" feature memorable performances. Orson Welles is at his finest as Kane, showing a rare understanding of old age with just 25 years under his belt, and transforms his character into an icon. Jesse Eisenberg, however, reminds us of the hidden species of the bad nerd, surprising with the cold delivery of his lines and acting, but by the end of the movie, he still manages to make us realize that deep-down, he's an emotional being. It has been 77 years since Citizen Kane was made, the reason as to why it continues to top “Greatest Films of All Time” list is because a large part of how innovative it was for its time. one of the editing techniques used in Citizen Kane was the use of montage to collapse time and space, using an episodic sequence on the same set while the characters changed make-up and costume between cuts so that the scene following each cut would look like it took place in the exact same location, but at a time long after the previous cut. The film regularly uses long dissolves to signify the elapsing of time and its psychological effect of the characters, such as the scene in which the abandoned sled is covered with snow after the young Kane is sent away with Thatcher by his parents. Welles was influenced by the editing theories of Sergei Eisenstein by using jarring cuts that caused "sudden graphic or associative contrasts", such as the cut from Kane's deathbed to the beginning of the News on the March sequence and a sudden shot of a shrieking bird at the beginning of Raymond's flashback.
Both films used different locations to replace or simulate the actual locations that the events happened. As for The Social Network they used the campus of Wheelock College to simulate Harvard university. The Social Network used modern advanced cameras like the Red One to achieve modern standards of filming while Citizen Kane used old technology since it was all they could get back then.
Relevancy of the Films
The Social Network gets that once-every-decade crown, as it very importantly speaks for a generation. Considering it was almost universally viewed as a film that came from and speaks to the Generation X and Y-dominated zeitgeist, there would be some consensus on just what it is that makes this movie very important. But the reasons are as disparate as the founding of Facebook as depicted in the film itself.
From children in pre-K all the way powerful CEOs who sit in their corner offices in high-rises buildings, it is known that there are steps we all must go through in order to succeed. At the beginning of the film, Mark is no different. He followed all necessary steps to get to his current position. His then-girlfriend, Erica, seems distanced by this kind of reasoning, but it is the foundation for how one succeeds in this world. You make the right friend, know the right people, talk to the right woman, put the correct amount of work in at the right institutions and you are granted success.
This is a story of success, how one man with an innovation decided to follow the common trend and do what he felt was right, regardless of how others perceived him or his business. He made friends, lost others, severed ties and moved forward, all with a singular vision that inevitably succeeded. The film will remind us of a time when possibilities were unlimited and success could be unfathomable, if one managed to make right choices. Citizen Kane is a timeless movie but The Social Network is time limited as innovation is a dying trend.
Conclusion
The current situation dictates that for one to gain success one must also lose something of greater value like love, honesty, friendship or dignity.
