Analysis Of Citizen Kane By Orson Welles

Citizen Kane has long been regarded as a cinematic masterpiece and one of the greatest movies ever made. One look at the scene “Thatcher Taking Young Charles”, and you can see exactly why. The storytelling style of this film is a “successful fusion of the flashier devices of 1930s films, and techniques adapted from radio, theater, and prose narrative. “There is pro not a single device in Citizen Kane that cannot be found in earlier films, but Citizen Kane synthesizes elements of various traditions in a totally original way.” (Carringer,1978) This sequence makes use of various cinematic techniques to employ the auteur’s narrative.

Citizen Kane is filled with symbolic imagery. In most of the movie you can pick out scenery, character actions, lighting, camera movement, and the composition within the frame of key shots that help tell the story without the character orally telling the full story. However, because of its new and experimental use of mise-en-scene, the movie did not do well in the box office. In time Orson Welles movie would become one of the best movies of all time and would even come to change filmmaking in

Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane is a revolutionary film. Although it might not look like much to the modern viewer, many aspects of the film were the first of their kind to appear and are still used today.

The hero’s journey model, (also known as the monomyth), is a pattern of events and characters that appears in most movies, books, tv shows, etc. In this pattern, the hero leaves her/his mundane world, plunges into the unknown, undergoes test and trials, and returns with new knowledge and power. In the movie Citizen Kane, a rich man and a reporter covering the story after his death learns the power and problems with money and greediness. The movie starts with him being given away from his mother, the only truly happy place he would know. A very rich banker “adopts” him, as he has stakes in a mine that was thought to be worthless but turned out to be priceless. His threshold guardians are his conscience, and make him want to return to the

Why was Citizen Kane so different from the traditional Hollywood Films? Citizen Kane defies the traditional narrative and classic elements of Hollywood cinema by uniquely setting up the story in a different fashion from what the typical storyline would usually follow. It took on an approach of arranging the events of the story as it unfolds in a nonlinear pattern, while using multiple narrators while leaving the suspense of what did the meaning of a dying man’s last word open to the audiences’ interpretation.

The debate over Casablanca and Citizen Kane has been a classic argument between film critics and historians alike, and this is because both of these pieces are timeless pictures that have managed to captivate audiences well after their era. On a broad spectrum analysis this is an apples and oranges debate as the two films both have great cinematographic value but for different reasons. However, the real question at hand is which film is the greatest? Which film transformed the future of American film making? It is these questions that I as many others have, will attempt to answer in the following essay as I explain why I believe Citizen Kane is the greatest film ever made.

Citizen Kane is often criticized as one of the best movies of all time. The 1941 classic is Drama, starring Orson Welles and Dorothy Comingore. In the movie we get to see Charles Foster Kane (played by Orson Welles who also co-wrote and directed film) serve to please others through fall appearances and seek attention in order to have a prosperous and wealthy life. Although Charles Foster lived the American Dream by altering his poor childhood into a lavish and affluent one, cinematography, lighting and music show the sadness and misery of Kane and Susan. The movie also takes a good look at the struggling times in the 1940s, especially for women. Some may say the film was ahead

“There’s only one person in the world to decide what I’m going to do – and that’s me.” – Charles Foster Kane from Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane.

Directed by Orson Welles in 1941, Citizen Kane gave this young, brash, first time movie director unheard of control over the film. The finished result, through the use of flash-back and third- person interview shows Charles Foster Kane's life unfold through the eyes of the people who thought they knew him and those who did not know him at all. Welles used long camera angles, depth perspective, and shadow in the noir style, in new and interesting ways throughout this film, as apposed to standard two dimensional filming . He explored the ideas of wealth, happiness, and consequence through the life of a forgotten boy who grew into a reckless man.

Citizen Kane as a film is highly heralded, its fresh techniques went on to influence film everywhere. A

There are many reasons as to why Citizen Kane has been lauded as one of the best, if not the best, film of all time. Orson Welles's Citizen Kane has had a lasting impact on cinema and continues to influence directors to this day. Visually striking, Citizen Kane helped to usher in a new era of cinema through its innovative techniques and use of mise-en-scene.

Citizen Kane brought the aspects of a newspaper tycoon in the 1940’s to life in a form of a dramatic narrative. This film is based on a true story of a newspaper magnate, William Randolph Hearst and based off of some aspects of Orson Welles(Writer and Director). This filmed has been named, “The best American film of all time” due to the fact that, during the time of its making, it was the first film to take on many new techniques of cinematography. Citizen Kane is a revolutionary film not only in the drama genre, but in filmmaking of all forms.

Orson Wells Citizen Kane (1941), is remembered as one of the greatest American films to be made. Its’ revolutionary story line and its new ideas that Orson Welles introduces in the film is what sets it apart from other films created at the time. The film depicts a young man, Charles Kane, who grew up wealthy and who eventually owns a newspaper. Throughout the movie, as hr grows more wealthy and powerful as he ages, he exhibits a distinct weakness that eventually leads to his downfall. Although the Social Network isn’t as famous or as well-known as Citizen Kane, it represents the same idea. In this film a young man, Mark Zuckerberg, who innovates a website that over the course of the movie gains popularity and support, which leads him to

Understanding movies comes from describing and analyzing the cinematic, theatrical, and literary elements that combine to create meaning. These steps create a basic understanding of the artistic and technical elements found in moviemaking. In addition, the major characteristics of different film genres and classic movies will be analyzed. The purpose of this paper is analyzing the Academy Award winning film Chicago. This paper will describe the six steps that a person should think about when watching a movie. These steps include, (1) analysis of the narrative: story, plot and meaning; (2) theatrical elements, (3) cinematography, (4) editing, (5) sound and the (6) complete package.

To help create his debut film Citizen Kane, Orson Welles assembled a talented group of artists and technicians who together produced a film that redefined cinema forever. During the film’s production process, Welles himself stated that making a film “is the biggest electric train set any boy ever had.” By this he meant that the production studio was his playground and he intended to use every tool at his disposal. Starting from the film’s very first shot; he proves this to be true. As the film begins, the camera silently cranes up over the fences that surround Charles Foster Kane’s mansion and then slowly transitions to a montage of palatial estate. In this unique sequence the viewer understands that they are watching no ordinary film! Since its release in 1941, Citizen Kane consistently is called one of the greatest films ever made. It also is one of the most analyzed films ever created as well. In watching the film, a person can select from a countless number of famous scenes on which to review, comment, admire, and draw conclusions. For this assignment, I chose my personal favorite scene from the film to analyze in depth. The scene occurs near the end of the film just as Kane’s second wife Susan Alexander leaves him for good. The scene lasts about 3 and a half minutes in length, consists of 12 shots, contains almost no music, and just one word of dialogue is spoken. However, even with these limitations, the scene has more impact and film techniques packed into it