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Citizen Kane Meaning

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Citizen Kane is definitely a complex movie with all of the contextuality that is beyond preliminary comprehension. Mulvey’s article expressed how important it was to go back and look for hints and hidden meanings throughout the mise-en-scène of the movie. These multiple layers of narrative serve a psychologic purpose to retain the viewer in the diegetic world of the film while feeding continuously an enormous amount of information.
One of the interesting things the article mentioned was how the camera’s movement which “functions both literally and figuratively” (101). This actually plays out quite well considering we are at times in the viewpoint of reporter in search of the true meaning of “Rosebud”. In the beginning of the movie we have a more mysterious look at the death of Kane which stems out the events of the movie. The camera in this particular sequence sometimes hide behind the snow globe like a peeking eye into the scene. And sometimes, like the article has …show more content…

The article mentioned the glass paper-weight which is visible on Susan’s dressing table but did not make any impact on that particular scene. It was just there, waiting, prompting to make an explosion. And this idea was also prominent by the end of the movie when everything was burned down and we see the sled with the name Rosebud written on it, just to show how detail-oriented and subtle the visual storytelling really was in this movie.
All in all, Citizen Kane is definitely a complex product for both the very observant mass and the psychoanalysts. The many layers of meaning and iconography in the storyline contributes to its overall message and Kane’s characteristics himself. People can definitely tell Citizen Kane is appealing but cannot really quite dissect all of its

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