The Movie Citizen Kane written 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.

The structure in the film Citizen Kane is non-linear in that it does not follow any planned order. The story is well formulated and presented using flashbacks that pertain different times in the life of Kane (Welles). These flashbacks are unplanned search that they offer the viewer an incomplete glimpse of Kane’s life and essentially adding more suspense. It takes the form of the memory when a person tries to remember an event that took place a long time ago. The use of the non-linear structure helps to portray how complicated the life of Kane was. It is vital to note the film uses several narrators. The mystery of Kane’s life is also being put together like a puzzle (Welles). The audience is with the journalist in the quench to find what the mystery word meant to Kane. The layout of the story is also planned with

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

Citizen Kane has many good examples to show Mise-on-scene usage. The scene that I believe is the most significant and powerful mise-en-scene that I have this seen this semester exists in this movie. This occurs when the parents of the young boy are speaking with a gentleman in the house. As the people are speaking we see the boy playing in the snow as we look into the background through the window. This scene represents the innocence that is stolen from

The 1940s film industry favored films that were based on reality, such as Citizen Kane. Orson Welles is the director of the 1941 film, Citizen Kane, which uses the cinematic techniques of long takes and deep focus shots. Long takes and deep focus shots are associated with space and time. I will be writing about scene D where Susan, the second Ms. Kane, is in the middle of a singing lesson. Scene D contains examples of long takes, deep focus takes, and camera movements.

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.

     In the movie Citizen Kane , young Charles Foster Kane is very energetic, optimistic and has a very positive outlook on life. At the same time he hates his old and bitter guardian, Mr. Thatcher, who has secluded himself from the everyday man and the only thing he is after is money and stature. Later on in life Charles Kane turns into an exact carbon copy of Mr. Thatcher, even though that is exactly what he wanted to get away from. In this essay I will prove how the used of sound, in the scenes in Thatcher¡¦s library and Xanadu, as compared to the earlier scenes in young Kane¡¦s newspaper office, help establish this development in Kane¡¦s character.

Orson Welles’ 1941 classic film Citizen Kane tells the story of Charles Forster Kane. The turning point of the film is when Jim Gettys attempts to blackmail Kane. The scene demonstrates Kane’s fall from grace through pride. His reactions to the other characters in this scene (Mrs. Kane, Susan Alexander, and Mr. Gettys), the angles that are shown in his perspective, and the lighting of the scene helps to demonstrate this point. It is after the blackmail scene that, in desperation, Kane tries to regain his credibly with the public and

The film, Confessions of a Sociopath, was made by the critically acclaimed director Joe Gibbons. Joe Gibbons is famous for his experimental films, and this film is perhaps his best project to date. The film is an hour long and takes the viewer through real life events that have occurred in Joe’s life. In the film, Gibbons acts as a fictional version of himself where he finds a room full of footage from his life with events that he can no longer recall. The film describes his earlier film experiments, his descent into constructive behavior and his bottoming out on drugs and alcohol. It is intriguing to see a side of a well-known film maker that no one would have thought existed. The film is also greatly intriguing because it is not made in the traditional professional way. The viewer is taken through a series of events that seem normal and completely unscripted. It is also clear that most of the events in the film were shot without the assistance of professional cameramen and directors save for Gibbons himself.

The aspect of the Citizen Kane’s mise-en-scene that stood out to me the most were the sets. The first scene showing the once amazing and repugnant Xanadu now in disrepair helps to portray the psychological disrepair Kane experiences over the film. The giant oversized office of Mr. Thatcher portrays the cold decrepit old men who are in it. The huge interiors of Xanadu show the isolationism of his relationship towards Susan and his own loneliness in the world. Each of the sets in the film help to show the progression of the character. The sets along with the other aspects of mise-en-scene create the effect of reality by its change. The mise-en-scene of the film is a reflection of the character progression throughout the movie. The scene where

This wish for control is also seen in his love life. His first wife is Emily Monroe Norton (Ruth Warrick), the niece of the current President of the United States. This connection itself gives Kane more power, even an opportunity to become governor. One can even say that is only reason he marries her: for influence, not love. When Emily starts to realize this, their marriage continually deteriorates until they are hardly speaking at all. Kane’s second love interest is Susan Alexander (Dorothy Comingore). The first time they met, he proceeds to control her. He insists that she sing professionally, even when she argues against it. Their relationship is uncovered, causing Emily to get a divorce. Kane marries Susan soon after. However, it is the same cycle over again. He tries to control everything, she gets annoyed, the marriage deteriorates. After he builds Xanadu, the palace, she is so fed up that she leaves him as well. His desperation for attention and control costs him a family.

When discussing the greatest films of all time, Citizen Kane, directed by Orson Welles, usually comes up. It’s influence in American cinema can still be felt today, but at the time the film was not released without controversy. The main character in the movie, Charles Foster Kane, is undeniably based of the real life figure of William Randolph Hearst, a famous American newspaper publisher. Hearst was very aware of this fact and tried to hinder the success of Welles’ picture by denying it any sort of press in his newspapers. Despite the smear campaign Kane’s influence lives on through Welles’ revolutionary filmic techniques and its presence in pop culture.

The absolutely stunning film, Citizen Kane (1941), is one of the world’s most famous and highly renowned films. The film contains many remarkable scenes and cinematic techniques as well as innovations. Within this well-known film, Orson Welles (director) portrays many stylistic features and fundamentals of cinematography. The scene of Charles Foster Kane and his wife, Susan, at Xanadu shows the dominance that Kane bears over people in general as well as Susan specifically. Throughout the film, Orson Welles continues to convey the message of Susan’s inferiority to Mr. Kane. 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

In Citizen Kane, Welles is attempting to expose the great influential political and social power that someone has as the head of many newspaper chains. This narrative drama explains the life of Kane and how different people viewed it. From the way the way the characters were telling the story to the way shadows, lighting and the laco of color was used, this film fits into the drama genre. Being the “greatest film of all time”, Citizen Kane brings the the world of newspaper tycoons to

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