Citizen Kane Film Analysis

Orson Welles 1941 film, Citizen Kane, depicts the American dream through the protagonist Charles Foster Kane. In the film, Orson Welles relies heavily on his understanding of the audience by using pathos and ethos in order to convince them of his purpose for writing the film.

Citizen Kane by Orson Welles is a cinematic classic, released in 1941. Citizen Kane challenged traditional narrative and technical elements of classic Hollywood cinema. Kane was narrated by several people that include their take on Kane’s life. The story unfolds by many flashbacks and is told by different perspectives over the years through different narrations. Charles Foster Kane was a millionaire, head of newspapers and died saying “rosebud”. The story focuses on telling about Kane but is about a reporter trying to seek what and why his last words meant. A reporter, Thompson was trying to seek why Kane’s last words were rosebud and what it was. The reporter interviewed people such as Mr. Jedediah Leland who was his friend until he was fired from the newspaper after transferring to Chicago to take care of that newspaper. Jedediah was fired after he was found to be face down on his typewriter writing a review of Susan and her horrific performance. Kane’s

Shot Analysis: Citizen Kane Orson Welles, director of “Citizen Kane”, is well known for his unusual directing methods that defied conventional cinematic techniques. Welles provided his audience with original forms of cinematography, narrative structures, and music. The scene I chose to analyze is extremely important to the plot of the film because Kane begins to realize that he is going through some serious financial problems. During the scene, Kane maintains a sarcastic mood, until he finally decides to surrender and signs the papers that transfer the ownership of his media empire to Mr. Thatcher.

The Film “Citizen Kane” challenged the traditional narrative and technical elements of traditional Hollywood by providing an illusion of movement and expressive use of light in multiple scenes. In this film the narrator expressed that Charles Foster Kane utilized his strengths which was media, newspapers that is how he reached the people, how he could manipulate the readers to read whatever story he wanted to showcase.

Citizen Kane tells the story of Charles Foster Kane, a millionaire newspaper tycoon, who had recently passed away. The story unfolds in a sequence of overlapping narratives told by different narrators, all with different views of Kane. Their opinions of Kane give the audience different perspectives of the man thought to be one of the most powerful figures in America. The events recalled are told by the narrators to reporters trying to decipher Kane’s famous last words “rosebud”, but because of their advance older age they seem to be contradictory and unreliable. Their accounts are out sequence and often coincide with themselves. Kane brings together non-linear and composite storytelling from multiple points of view unlike traditional Hollywood

Normally, films will use shallow focus in order to show importance. This was not the case for Citizen Kane. In this film, they used deep focus to show importance to multiple figures. This can be difficult because mise-en-scene becomes so much more important since the audience can clearly see everything. Also, the director has to strategically use deep focus in order to convey information to the audience without leaving the audience confused.

Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941) challenged traditional narrative and technical elements of classic Hollywood cinema through techniques in cinematography, mise-en-scene and lighting. The mise-en-scene build of Citizen Kane is the pivoting point of the narrative forthcoming and Welles uses every technical element encompassed in this build to span his narrative across 60 years of Charles Foster Kane, the main character 's life.

Directed by Orson Welles, the 1941 motion picture “Citizen Kane” is the story of the rise and fall of a great, influential man. The opening scenes of “Citizen Kane” are quite different from what follows during the rest of the film. Fading in and out of different landscapes instilled mystery. This mysterious vibe was carried on during Charles Foster Kane’s death through the use of shadows, quiet music, and close up shots. Isolated in his vast empire of a home, Kane uttered only one word before he passed: “rosebud.” The whole country knows about this news publisher’s life, but for some, his life story is not enough. For the duration of the film, a reporter called Thompson (William Alland) tries to debunk what this last word, “rosebud,” could have meant. Could it be a person? A place? Maybe an item he held close? The mood of the movie at this point shifts from dark and solemn to alive and talkative. The active dialogue and intonation used by the actors made the storyline interesting. For example, the news reporters exemplified the very image of a news reporter back in the day: curious, chatty, and amusing. Their somewhat boisterous nature is countered by unconventional lighting, as the audience hears their conversation but sees mostly shadows or just glimpses of their faces.

There are many things that make “Citizen Kane” considered as possibly one of the greatest films every made; to the eyes of the passive audience this film may not seem the most amazing, most people being accustomed to the classical Hollywood style, but to the audience with an eye for the complex, “Citizen Kane” breaks the traditional Hollywood mold and forges its own path for the better. Exposition is one of the most key features of a film, it’s meant introduce important characters and give the audience relevant details and and dutifully suppress knowledge in turn. “Citizen Kane” does not follow this Classic Hollywood style exposition, instead going above and beyond to open the film with revealing as little information as possible and confuse/intrigue

hurt with Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, and Bill Murray in the comedy Caddyshack, and see life from the eyes of mob henchmen, Tom Hanks, in the crime and gangster film Road to Perdition. American cinema has used Alfred Hitchcock to create fear for many years like it was displayed in the horror film Psycho, has allowed us to sing in dance with the cast in the musical Chicago, and check out, momentarily, from reality in many science fiction films. American cinema has taken us back in time as we rode horse-back with our western heroes John Wayne and Clint Eastwood or put on the badge with the brothers of the law in Tombstone.

Death of a Salesman has been extremely influential in regards to theatrical performance and it has been performed by multiple different theatre groups. It has also been made into a movie, which has actors such as Dustin Hoffman as Willy Loman, John Malkovich as Biff Loman, and Kate Reid as Linda Loman. All of these actors’ performances were true to the character and were extremely realistic. It was easy for the audience to get caught up in the characters that these actors portrayed. Throughout the movie, Dustin Hoffman, John Malkovich, and Kate Reid all provided an outstanding performance by ensuring that their facial expressions, body language, and emotions always shined through all the while they were creating realistic characters that were easily believable by the audience.

When most people feel like they are close to God; they usually make good moral decisions. In Doubt by John Patrick Shanley; Sister Aloysius tells Sister James that “In the pursuit of wrongdoing, one steps away from God. Of course, there’s a price.” When stepping away from God someone is committing sins and they are doing things that are usually not accepted. As the main characters stepped away from God, they had to pay the price of making wrong choices and the price of being pressured by those choices. Stepping away from God to do things that are wrong is not worth it.

The novel Monster by Walter Dean Myers is half written as a movie script, and it uses cinematic effects in order to emphasize certain things in the story. These effects include but are not limited to: close ups, medium shots, low shots, high shots, and cuts. For example, during Bolden’s testimony, Briggs takes up a line of questioning that makes little sense for Bolden to answer and is altogether not moving the trial along. (Myers 54) Normally the inanity of this line of questioning might be lost on the reader.

O Brother Where Art Thou? is a film that will take you on a perilous journey with Ulysses Everett McGill and his simpleminded cohorts. This film may be set amidst the early 1930’s Great Depression era, but it still has a Homer’s Odyssey feel to it. Down in the dusty and highly racial south, Everett recruits a couple of dimwitted convicts, Pete Hogwallop and Delmar O’Donnell, to help him retrieve his lost treasure and make it back home before his wife marries another suitor. These three convicts manage to stay one step ahead of the law while finding themselves in all sorts of trouble. It was nominated for 35 other awards, one of which was for best screenwriting. Released in December of 2000, this film won 7 awards, some of which for best soundtrack and score, album of the year, as well as best cinematography.

The show Band of Brothers was produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks who, at the time, recently had success with a World War II film entitled Saving Private Ryan. Spielberg and Hanks used their expertise on war films to craft the exceptional television series Band of Brothers which originally aired on HBO in 2001. The show follows “Easy” Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, of the 101st Airborne Division, from the moment they begin their training to the moment their deployment ends. Throughout the show we see the men of “Easy” Company mature a thousand times over. The men experience love, loss, and death at rate that is inconceivable to someone that has never experienced the theatre of war. Band of Brothers is a perfect example of the saying, “Out of the greatest tragedies come the best stories.” Through beautiful cinematography, storyline, and historical accuracy Band of Brothers is the ultimate glimpse into the lives of the brave men of “Easy” Company.