Reader-Response Question: Citizen Kane as a “Failure Story” What I believe Orson Welles means by Citizen Kane being a “failure story” is, despite Charles Foster Kane’s immense amount of wealth and status due to his career as a newspaper tycoon, he is a man who is very unhappy in life. The story shows how prosperity and power is ultimately useless in the absence of genuine love from others. Being put under the guardianship of New York City banker Walter Parks Thatcher by his mother in order to live a more luxurious life, Charles Kane is removed from his mother’s affection at an early age. This removal from the family could also be seen as a loss of innocence, a lack of childhood and freedom from responsibility. Since Kane associates Thatcher as being a part of his separation from his family, he resents him and acts out against Thatcher by attending prestigious schools (Harvard, Yale, etc) and gets himself expelled from all of them. Another way that Kane rebels against Thatcher is by taking control of Thatcher’s newspaper the New York Inquirer and runs it in a manner that would lose t...
One of the main themes throughout the book is the title of the book “Night”. There are references from Eliezer about night during the book, which are full of symbolism. The word “night” is used repeatedly, and Eliezer recounts every dusk, night and dawn through the entire book. For instance, Night could be a metaphor for the Holocaust—submerge the family and thousands of Jewish families in the darkness and misery of the concentration camps.
In cinema, lighting, blocking and panning drastically influence what an audience will notice and take away from a scene. Orson Welles’s 1941 Citizen Kane has numerous examples of effectively using these aspects within mise-en-scène, cinematography and editing to portray the importance of specific events and items in the film. The scene where Kane writes and then publishes his “Declaration of Principles” (37:42-39:42) in the New York Daily Inquirer after buying them focuses on important elements of the film, aiding the audience by combining lighting, blocking and panning to define significant roles and objects that further the movie as a whole.
In our book club we discussed “Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children 's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death” a short anti-war novel in which Kurt Vonnegut, the author, presents an important aspect of war through his tragic war experience in Dresden, which killed thousands of Germans mostly civilians, and destroyed one of Europe’s most beautiful cities. Vonnegut’s main character, Billy Pilgrim, is used to explore the various themes about life and war. He has became a prisoner of war to show the senseless destruction, pointlessness, and hate of war.
Citizen Kane, is a 1941 American film, written, produced, and starred by Orson Welles. This film is often proclaimed by critics,filmmakers, and fans as one of the best if not the best film ever made. Citizen Kane is an unbelievable film becuase of how advanced it is compared to other films of its time. In the film, the producer used many different narrative elements to capture the audiences imagination. It truly is astounding how the filmmakers used certain editing techniques, sounds, and different narrative elements to illustrate the story and the plot. Although the plot isnt exactly captivating to the present day audience, this film is still amazing due to how much work and effort went into making it.
In your view, how does Welles’ portrayal of the complex nature of happiness contribute to the enduring value of Citizen Kane?
Baruch Spinoza once said “Experience teaches us no less clearly than reason, that men believe themselves free, simply because they are conscious of their actions and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined.” He compared free-will with destiny and ended up that what we live and what we think are all results of our destiny; and the concept of the free-will as humanity know is just the awareness of the situation. Similarly, Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five explores this struggle between free-will and destiny, and illustrates the idea of time in order to demonstrate that there is no free-will in war; it is just destiny. Vonnegut conveys this through irony, symbolism and satire.
The story of Charles Foster Kane was truly one that could go on as timeless. Born in poverty Kane was given away with the promise of having a better life. In a material point of view Kane lived a very fulfilling life filled with anything he ever wanted. Although throughout the movie, Kane despised the situation in which he was brought up in. Being placed under the care of his mother’s banker really influenced the way he viewed the world. He considered himself a people’s person a sort of hero for those in worse situations than his own. The mass appeal for this character along with the truly original storyline and plenty other factors led many people everywhere to gain a huge appreciation of this movie. Despise its early failure following its
Throughout the course of a lifetime, a common phrase heard is “don’t judge a book by its cover”. This phrase indicates the fact that it is nearly impossible to truly evaluate the life and feelings of a person just by what can be seen about them. This is the case in the film Citizen Kane, directed by Orson Welles. Charles Foster Kane is a man who would appear to the general public as having it all. A very popular man, Kane owns a successful newspaper company for which he is known worldwide. He builds a gigantic mansion for his second wife and himself, surrounded by intricate and expensive statues. Kane seems to be perfect in every single way, and one may think that he is the happiest man alive. However, Charles never had the things that
Its ironic how in the story ‘The Hit Man”, the main character whose name we do not know, was only hired once, that we know of, to do some killing. Throughout the story we get to visualize who he is through his actions rather than the details of his physical appearance besides the black hood he wears. The story makes many references to the way society views him. This story is structured in a chronological format of critical points in his life. Many events take place in which he ends up wasting someone because they wronged him in some way. We can all infer that T.C. Boyle means kills when he says wastes throughout the story. Why does the hitman kill anyone who does him wrong or that he doesn’t like? He doesn’t believe in giving people second
Well’s uses lighting to represent who has the power and also shows the shift in power from Thatcher to Kane. In the scene where Wells montages Thacher, Kane’s legal guardian and financial advisor, Kane shows the power he has over Thatcher using his newspaper, The Inquirer,through high-key lighting.The scene begins with a letter written by Thatcher, immediately showing
The Minority Report by Philip K. Dick tells the story of a dystopia society that apropos the concept of a post-crime system called Precrime. This successful short story follows the protagonist, John A. Anderton, Precrime Commissioner, living in a futuristic society, Precrime police officers prevent homicides with the aid of precog mutants; precrime methodology has boldly and successfully abolished the post-crime system of jails and fines. However, Precrime has created an unfavorable recalcitrant idea: Citizens believe they are constantly under surveillance. Anderton: “We seldom get actual murder or treason. After all, the culprit knows we 'll confine him in the detention camp a week before he gets a chance to commit the crime.” Dick, Philip
Throughout his career, Kurt Vonnegut has used writing as a tool to convey penetrating messages and ominous warnings about our society. He skillfully combines vivid imagery with a distinctly satirical and anecdotal style to explore complex issues such as religion and war. Two of his most well known, and most gripping, novels that embody this subtle talent are Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five. Both books represent Vonnegut’s genius for manipulating fiction to reveal glaring, disturbing and occasionally redemptive truths about human nature. On the surface, Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five are dramatically different novels, each with its own characters, symbols, and plot. However, a close examination reveals that both contain common themes and ideas. Examining and comparing the two novels and their presentation of different themes provides a unique insight into both the novels and the author – allowing the reader to gain a fuller understanding of Vonnegut’s true meaning.
One of the main themes in “The Green Mile” is death. It encapsulates the whole novel, leaving the reader to think deeply about their fate. It’s an obvious theme, considering the story takes place on death row. However, further analysis reveals a deeper meaning than men dying in the electric chair for their crimes. “And I think about all of us. Walking our own green mile; each in our own time.”(Pg 434) Paul said. The reader will discover that the Green Mile itself is a metaphor for death. Paul compared life at the Green Mile to life for a free citizen, because both lifestyles will end in the same way. Death is inevitable. For the prisoners, they have a set number of days until their execution, so their “Green Mile” is relatively short. A free citizen is uncertain about the time of their death, some people never even think about it, like they’re going to live forever. But when the day of reckoning comes, both prisoner and free citizen face the same fate. Life is uncertain -anything can happen in life - but death however, is not. One must live a righteous life, so one can die a righteous death. Nobody wants to have the same fate as a prisoner at E-Block, and live the life of regret, misery, and despair.
Through materialism, Kane became a self-invested individual. The highly acclaimed Citizen Kane creates drama and suspense for the viewer. Orson Welles designed this film to enhance the viewer’s opinion about light and darkness, staging, proxemics, personal theme development, and materialism. Creating one of the most astounding films in the cinematography world, Welles conveys many stylistic features as well as fundamentals of cinematography. It is an amazing film and will have an everlasting impact on the world of film.
The narrative structure in Slaughterhouse-Five is nonlinear. One of the greatest distinctive and unique aspects of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five is the structure to which it is written. All through the novel, Billy Pilgrim journeys irrepressibly to non-chronological moments of his life, or as Vonnegut verbalizes, “paying random visits to all events in between.” (23). The structure of the novel is eccentric and does not actually have a well-defined beginning, middle, and end in the progression of the narrative. There is continuous movement amongst the future, past, and present in erratic ways. Vonnegut’s narrative consist of rapid brief paragraphs which do not follow a straight timeline, but as an alternative jolts forward and backward