Charles Foster Kane’s childhood sled is right up there with Dorothy’s ruby slippers and Dirty Harry’s .44 Magnum handgun in the pantheon of iconic film objects, according to a new book.
In “Rosebud Sleds and Horses’ Heads: 50 of Film’s Most Evocative Objects,” Daily Telegraph critic Scott Jordan Harris looks at items ranging from the billowy white dress Marilyn Monroe wore in “The Seven Year Itch” to Harrison Ford’s weathered hat in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
As the book’s title indicates, Harris pays notice to the sled from Orson Welles’ classic 1941 film “Citizen Kane.”
“No object fascinates those of us who are fascinated by films as much as “Citizen Kane”’s Rosebud sled. By coming to symbolize Orson Welles’s debut feature, which is probably the world’s most acclaimed film, the Rosebud sled has come to symbolize the best that movies can be. It is an emblem of the unspoiled innocence of childhood and quite possibly the most evocative object ever featured in a film,” Harris says.
For the famed director’s take on the meaning of Rosebud, read Orson Welles: The meaning of Rosebud in ‘Citizen Kane.”
Harris’ book is earning fine notices.
The Boston Globes stated, “’Rosebud Sleds and Horses’ Heads’ weds the sophisticated visual dreaminess of some great children’s books to the prose of an unusually smooth scholar. Scott Jordan Harris isn’t speaking for the objects. The objects are speaking through him.”
The New York Daily News wrote, “A wonderful book, as essential as it is entertaining.”
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