Citizen Kane, directed by Orson Welles, debuted in 1941. It is a detective story about the rise and fall of newspaper mogul, Charles Foster Kane. Citizen Kane follows a journalist named Thompson, who conducts a series of interviews to find out what Kane’s last word meant before he died. “Rosebud,” was the last word muttered by Kane and Thompson takes the audience on a journey to find its meaning. Within this voyage, the spectators relive sixty-five years of Kane’s life. Citizen Kane was one of the first films to break away from the classical principles of cinematic storytelling. The film follows a unique and complex structure where the story unfolds in an intricate matter. Citizen Kane was also innovative with its use of visual and sound elements. …show more content…
Where conflicts are resolved and mysteries are solved. However, the ending of Citizen Kane does not offer concrete closure to the story being told. Welles weaves a maze-like story, where the audience becomes a detective and tries to solve the mystery of Rosebud, with Thompson. When the story comes to the end, Rosebud is revealed only to the audience but with no real explanation as to why this word has been driving the story. Conversely, Rosebud is never exposed to Thompson, so it leaves the story of Citizen Kane quite open-ended. Audiences in the 1940’s found this ending leaving them with too much uncertainty. Welles artistic design of Citizen Kane was ahead of its time. His decision to end the film with no clarification of the meaning of Rosebud was deliberate. Welles dares the spectators to question if Rosebud holds the same importance to the story, as they believed it did throughout the film. “Rosebud serves a very important motivating function in the film. It creates Thompson’s goal and thus focuses our attention on his delving into the lives of Kane and his associates. Citizen Kane becomes a mystery story; but instead of investigating a crime, the reporter investigates character. So the Rosebud clues provide the basic motivation necessary for the plot to progress.” Instead of giving audiences an exact answer to the ending, Welles invites spectators to come to their own …show more content…
The film is in black and white so Welles had the opportunity to play with overexposure and shadows to make up the atmosphere of the film. The lighting techniques set a mysterious mood throughout the film, which complements the plot and the sound elements. “By the use of low-key selective lighting and patterns of staging and framing, Thompson is made virtually unidentifiable.” Welles manipulated the lighting in Citizen Kane to enhance the realism that was brought forth by the use of deep focus shots and the use of sound. This was done so the audience would not focus on Thompson but on the action of the scene. Reiterating that Welles wanted the spectators to “become” the detective. “Welles chose to use light and shadow to specifically tell the audience what to focus on.” His dark choice of lighting added a feeling of suspense and realism, which supported his plot and complimented his camera techniques and sound
People are constantly being judged and pressured to change to fit society’s standards. In Tim Burton films, there is always one character that does not fit the mold. These outcast characters in the movies Charlie and The Chocolate Factory and Edward Scissorhands are strange and isolated from the world. Despite the outcast’s difficulties, misfit characters like Edward and Wonka go on to be the hero of the story. Therefore, Burton uses many different cinematic techniques to illustrate that one does not need to conform to society in order to have a happy and successful life.
Mise-en-scène, what the audience sees in a film, is crucial to the movie’s development. Lighting and props are two of the many important aspects of this category. The previously mentioned scene has the goal of representing Kane’s early ideology of what the New York Daily Inquirer will become and provide for its readers. While writing the document, Welles constantly uses lighting to illuminate it for the audience, naturally drawing eyes to the paper even before it is introduced in the film. The lighting of the scene helps viewers identify the document’s value, especially in comparison to Kane as he tends to be less lit then the paper for the majority of scene. The other three cast members, Leland, Bernstein and briefly Sully, continue to be lit but almost never to the magnitude of the paper itself. The first cut of the scene shows Kane writing the document from outside; where a burning gas lamp is the key lighting, allowing the audience to easily notice both the flame and the paper. In the following cut, Kane continually looks at the paper and the gas flame as to signify their imp...
Orson Welles is a legend in itself. He is a dedicated director, actor, and artist. An artist in the sense he directed, produced, and was the star in the film Citizen Kane.' The film won an award for best screenplay that was co-written by Welles. Citizen Kane' brings into light many social problems between countries, relationships, and also between competing newspaper companies. The film was a big controversy when it was first released on a delay (because of personal conditions with W.R. Hearst). It brings into light how a newspaper should react and also brings the corruption of politics. War was breaking out in Europe and throughout the entire film Kane states there will be no war. He ignores the fact people are being killed, tortured, and rounded up like livestock because of Adolf Hitler. The film was released on May 1, 1941 a few days before Joseph Stalin becomes premier of Russia, a day before Nazis took over Netherlands, and eight days before the English army breaks the German codes.
Before Citizen Kane, filmmaking was easily predictable and virtually all the movies used the same stagnant camera angles, same lighting, and similar sets. Citizen Kane broke all the settled rules and introduced exceptional storytelling and Cinematography methods to the Hollywood.
Citizen Kane is often recognized as one of the greatest films ever created because of how advanced it was compared to other films of its time. The producer, cinematrogropher, actros, and editors should all be equally credited for how well constructed this film was. Orson Welles used many different aspects of editing,sound, and Mise-en-Scene to create the world of the film. After watching this film and the scene "Breakfast Montage" its pretty obvious as to why the film was nominated for nine Acadamy Awards.
In your view, how does Welles’ portrayal of the complex nature of happiness contribute to the enduring value of Citizen Kane?
Often regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, Citizen Kane written and directed by Orson Welles is a classic film that defied the conventional styles of the Hollywood Cinema. Welles was committed to the Mise-En-Scene of his movies by using his characters, props, settings, and even the camera to tell the story of his characters. The Lighting, the camera shots, and the character 's actions to depict the life of Charles Foster Kane. The Mise-En-Scene of this narrative creates a film that is ahead of it’s time and a genius innovation to the cinema.
Welles who would like to set up lights himself placed a grave importance on the lighting of the film. The lighting helped to compliment many of the films scenes by adding an effect of emotion. In scenes where the shadows would be more apparent there was normally something dark occurring, such as the scene where Kane is seen standing on his own after his second wife leaves him. As said by Roger Ebert “Welles created a gloomy dark visual the film world had yet to see.” The use of these techniques is seen by some as the pioneer or predecessor to the genre of noir that soon followed the film’s release. In addition, Kane had brought a great influence for French critics and filmmakers. Many began to use Welles techniques to create cinematic works of their own. This was known as the French New Wave a movement that combined philosophical and artistic themes in film. Along with the lighting Welles made sure to place musical soundtracks throughout the film a technique that hadn’t been used too often. These soundtracks helped add to the scenes and give them their own atmosphere. The musical soundtrack played a vital role in conveying the emotion of the film. In many of the scenes that contained their own sound a greater message was being conveyed than what the film was showing. Welles was very clever in his way of piecing the scenes
Throughout the film, the question that lingers is who or what is Rosebud, and what does it mean in the life of Charles Foster Kane. The word itself proves Welles’ message that it is nearly impossible to recognize and identify with the meaning in a man’s life. Thompson even says “I don't think any word can explain a man's life” as he searches for the meaning of Kane’s life. However, to Charles, the word Rosebud means everything. Rosebud represents the only thing that Charles ever truly wanted. To him, Rosebud is the loving childhood that he once had that was replaced by a sad, business-like lifestyle. This resulted in not only in a loss of Charlie’s childhood, but it also caused him to loss his ability to love or be loved ever again, which was his only true desire. To Charlie, Rosebud was the explanation for his miserable life that he keeps hidden in secrecy. The physical “Rosebud” is simply a sled from Kane’s past, but the symbolic significance of the word captured a large part of the life of Charles Foster Kane. Thompson spends the entire film searching for the meaning of this word, and his failure proves that one person cannot successfully interpret the life of another. To Thompson, Rosebud is just an unfortunate missing piece of a puzzle that prevented him from finding out the true Charles Foster Kane. In reality, it represents Kane’s private, isolated
'Shawshank Redemption' directed by Frank Darabont is a compelling film about the life of one of its prisoners, Andy. many film techniques were used through out the film as a clever way of conveying main themes. This essay is going to examine how Darabont used camera angles and colour effectively in this film to portray the idea of power.
Orson Welles ' introduced innovating editing and sound design in the 1940s with Citizen Kane (1941). Welles uses editing and sound to show the audience the passing of time, this is seen the breakfast montage. Welles uses sound bridges during the transitional wipes of fast moving images which fade into the next shot. The sound bridges act as links between the two scenes and make the time difference apparent to the audience. At the beginning of the montage Welles uses a slow zoom combined with romantic music to show the love between Kane and Emily. Both characters appear in the frame together with deep focus and slow paced editing which shows the closeness of the couple in the early years. This is juxtaposed by the end of the montage showing
Orson Welles’ career took place in the mid-thirties to late eighties in the twentieth century. He began his career at age fifteen, starting in Ireland, making his acting debut in the Gate Theater in Dublin. By eighteen, Welles started to appear in off-Broadway productions. It was then that he also launched his radio career. By age twenty, he had presented alternate interpretations of certain well-known plays and movies. At age twenty-two he was the most notable Broadway star from Mercury Theater and, because of this, BBC radio gave him an hour each week to broadcast whatever he pleased. That’s when, at age twenty-five, he broadcast War of the Worlds, which caused panic due to the “Martian invasions”. By the time he came into Hollywood, Welles could write, direct, cast, star, and edit movies without disturbance from the studios. It was during this time he created Citizen Kane- the only movie he completely finished. He retired from Hollywood at age thirty-three in 1948, but still continued to create his own films.
Most of the film was filmed at night since that’s when Lou went on his crime scene chases. This allowed to keep the dark effect with minimal lighting tools or incorporating other aspects.During the day time shots there were mostly greys and dull colors there was never bright colors that stood out, besides the blood and the police lights which were used to contrast against the bland colors. The setting for the most part was urban industrial L.A which is a typical setting for crime to happen. As the movie progresses the setting starts changing to upper class homes and buildings it portrays how the main character is taking bigger risks and how his drive for recognition is more important than the stakes. There wasn’t really any CGI going on simply because it wasn’t needed for a live action film, and as far as special effects go there was only bloody crime scenes and random car fires used in the
Pro-filmic codes within horror movies have been used to often set the mood for the viewers. The lighting in horror movies is often very dull, most horror movies are sot in the dark so there is not much light in horror movies and I often think the lighting in those type of movies really sets the mood. Although some horror movies work up to the horror element of the movie so it might be very warm happy lighting for the first part of the movie but when it gets to the part that is supposed to scare the audience it often then changes to a darker element of lighting, for example the ...
Also, Welles furthers the image of how demanding Kane is of Susan and many others. Mr. Welles conveys the message that Kane has suffered a hard life, and will continue until death. Welles conveys many stylistic features as well as fundamentals of cinematography through use of light and darkness, staging and proxemics, personal theme development and materialism within the film, Citizen Kane. Welles prominently portrays his figures with a specific amount of light or darkness, stunningly affecting whole scenes stylistically. The scene at Xanadu establishes Mr. Kane as an overbearing, controlling character.