What's the meaning of the cockatoo in "Citizen Kane"

Well I have an answer to my question...I had googled this before and it didn't come up so there you go!

I don't agree with Welles about "Rear Window" or "Vertigo" but I'm sure that Hitch probably didn't like Welles' later films.

http://www.indiewire.com/article/or...-a-comedy-and-more-from-my-lunches-with-orson

 

He had mixed views of Alfred Hitchcock: "I've never understood the cult of Hitchcock. Particularly the late American movies … Egotism and laziness. And they're all lit like television shows … I saw one of the worst movies I've ever seen the other night [Rear Window] … Complete insensitivity to what a story about voyeurism could be. I'll tell you what is astonishing. To discover that Jimmy Stewart can be a bad actor … Even Grace Kelly is better than Jimmy, who's overacting."

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/jun/29/orson-welles-criticism-hollywood-stars-tapes

Didn't know about these tapes.

 

I think in the last 25 years of his life, Welles became a very angry, bitter man who was very unhappy over what he felt were less-talented people who were much more financially successful. A year or two before he died, I remember Welles griping that Steven Spielberg was willing to spend $100,000 to buy one of the prop "Rosebud" sleds from Citizen Kane, but as Welles put it, he couldn't even get a meeting with Spielberg to sell a script.

 

Yes I agree this probably informed some of his rants. His criticism about Rear Window seems like sour grapes to me and even Vertigo. I have to also wonder how Hitch supposedly regarded actors as being a bone of contention and, perhaps, evens bit of jealousy that there are elements of theDennis Weaver character in a Touch that show up in Psycho. It's also telling that head admired Hitch's work prior to America. Hitch was a much more politically astute director than Welles and knew how to play the Hollywood game.

I do think its sad that Welles' later work gets overlooked. Although they aren't always masterpieces they are always interesting particularly the faux documentary F for Fake a perfect example of misdirection in a movie.

 

Wouldn't it be ironic if Spielberg ended up making an Unproduced Welles script?

 

The cockatoo is foreshadowing for the opera singing scene.

 

Actually, it was foreshadowing for the tv show Baretta. The bird belonged to Fred Trowbridge, a minor actor who played the guy singing at the party in Kane. Fred's nephew is Robert Blake. Baretta's cockatoo's name is Fred in honor of his uncle.

 

There's a bunch of them sitting on a shelf... As far as I know, I don't think Welles' daughter ever finished putting the pieces of Orson's last film, The Other Side of the Wind:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Other_Side_of_the_Wind