Rypro 525

twards the end of the movie, a big crow or bird is on the screen and screatches very loudly, scaring the crap out of me, then flies away. does any one know what the purpose of this is.

ScandalUMD

It's a cockatoo, and its meaning a subject of a lot of discussion, though I'm reasonably sure the fact that you can see through its eye is widely accepted as a special effects mistake.

Simpson Purist

The crow screaming loudly and leaving is symbolic of Susan's screaming and departure from Kane and Xanadu. Perhaps the crow flew to the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant.

paratize

No, Welles simply meant to wake up his audience with the screeching because he thought the film was moving slowly. Seriously, this was mentioned on the excellent DVD.

ScandalUMD

I am reasonably certain that this explanation is a joke. Welles wanted the shot enough to lay out the bucks for the necessary special effect. The significance has been widely debated, and that facile "explanation" seems entirely unacceptable to me.

greatjedi

Here's a link to an interesting article comparing similarities between the movies Mad Love(1935) and Citizen Kane. Both were photographed by cinematographer Gregg Toland, and both feature similar makeup and a white cockatoo.
http://alt.tcm.turner.com/essentials...p_citizen.html