Editing Citizen Kane (section)

===Storytelling techniques===
''Citizen Kane'' rejects the traditional linear, chronological narrative and tells Kane's story entirely in flashbacks using different points of view, many of them from Kane's aged and forgetful associates, the cinematic equivalent of the [[unreliable narrator]] in literature.<ref name="watched">{{cite book |last=Fabe |first=Marilyn |title=Closely Watched Films: an introduction to the art of narrative film technique |publisher=University of California Press |location=Oakland, California|date=2004 |isbn=978-0-520-23891-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/closelywatchedfi00fabe_0}}</ref>{{Rp|83}} Welles also dispenses with the idea of a single storyteller and uses multiple narrators to recount Kane's life, a technique not used previously in Hollywood films.<ref name="watched"/>{{Rp|81}} Each narrator recounts a different part of Kane's life, with each story overlapping another.<ref name="politics">{{cite book |last=Gianos |first=Phillip |title=Politics and politicians in American film |publisher=[[Greenwood Publishing Group]] |location=Santa Barbara, California |date=1999 |isbn=978-0-275-96766-6 |pages=170–184}}</ref> The film depicts Kane as an enigma, a complicated man who leaves viewers with more questions than answers as to his character, such as the newsreel footage where he is attacked for being both a communist and a fascist.<ref name="watched"/>{{Rp|82–84}}

The technique of flashbacks had been used in earlier films, notably ''[[The Power and the Glory (1933 film)|The Power and the Glory]]'' (1933),<ref name="Robbin Coons">{{cite news |last=Coons |first=Robbin |date=May 1, 1941 |title=Hollywood Sights and Sounds |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1755&dat=19410501&id=yOIcAAAAIBAJ&pg=3353,2902994 |newspaper=[[Sarasota Herald-Tribune]] |location=[[Associated Press]] |access-date=April 3, 2016 |archive-date=October 22, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201022121934/https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1755&dat=19410501&id=yOIcAAAAIBAJ&pg=3353,2902994 |url-status=live }}</ref> but no film was as immersed in it as ''Citizen Kane''. Thompson the reporter acts as a surrogate for the audience, questioning Kane's associates and piecing together his life.<ref name="politics"/>

Films typically had an "omniscient perspective" at the time, which Marilyn Fabe says give the audience the "illusion that we are looking with impunity into a world which is unaware of our gaze". ''Citizen Kane'' also begins in that fashion until the ''News on the March'' sequence, after which we the audience see the film through the perspectives of others.<ref name="watched"/>{{Rp|81}} The ''News on the March'' sequence gives an overview of Kane's entire life (and the film's entire story) at the beginning of the film, leaving the audience without the typical suspense of wondering how it will end. Instead, the film's repetitions of events compels the audience to analyze and wonder why Kane's life happened the way that it did, under the pretext of finding out what "Rosebud" means. The film then returns to the omniscient perspective in the final scene, when only the audience discovers what "Rosebud" is.<ref name="watched"/>{{Rp|82–83}}