When Does "Citizen Kane" (1941) Take Place?
"Citizen Kane" is a historical fiction film written by Herman J. Mankiewicz with Orson Welles and released September 5th, 1941.
We know this because the frame story includes the newsreel segment which has the title card: "In Xanadu last week was held 1941's biggest, strangest funeral." so the present of the reporter Thompson's journey to understand Charles Foster Kane takes place in 1941 AD.
It takes place in the year:
1941 AD
We know this because the frame story includes the newsreel segment which has the title card: "In Xanadu last week was held 1941's biggest, strangest funeral." so the present of the reporter Thompson's journey to understand Charles Foster Kane takes place in 1941 AD.
Though the story jumps back and forth around the years of Kane's life and the week after his death (with stops in 1871 AD, 1900 AD, 1916 AD, 1929 AD, and 1941 AD), it covers the character's life from childhood in 1871 AD to his death in 1941 AD.
The diary of Walter Parks Thatcher that Thompson consults for research clearly reads, "I first encountered Mr. Kane in 1871." and the ensuing flashback shows the earliest chronological point we see, in 1871 AD.
The final flashback from this part of the film, references the Great Depression resulting from the famous and tragic major stock market crash of 1929 and includes a date from the diary of 1929 AD.
Kane's second marriage is dated only to "16 years after his first marriage, two weeks after his first divorce" by the newsreel segment. However, the end of Kane's first marriage, to Emily Monroe Norton, happens in 1916 AD, one of the few events the newsreel clearly dates.
1900 + 16 = 1916.
So the flashbacks told from the point-of-view of Kane's business manager, Mr. Bernstein, cover sometime in the 1890s AD to 1900 AD and Jed Leland's flashbacks take the viewer on to 1916 AD.
There are more flashbacks from the perspective of Kane's second wife, Susan Alexander, but they are unplaceable.
