there is a man, a certain man...
Citizen Kane is the greatest movie ever made, but you already knew that. Written, directed, and produced by star Orson Welles, the movie depicts the life and times of Charles Foster Kane, a newspaper mogul and America’s richest man. Loosely based upon the life of the newspaper giant, William Randolph Hearst, Citizen Kane is the story of a reporter’s quest to decipher the cryptic final word of Kane, “Rosebud.” What follows has been hailed as the finest piece of film making of all time, and that is a fact. First time director Welles did everything right to create a masterpiece of unparalleled importance. If not just for the plain old brilliance of the film, Citizen Kane is great because of its cinematography, structure, and intricate story.
From the very first scene of the movie, the viewer is able to see Orson Welles’ mastery of the camera. The audience is on the outside of a gate, looking at one lighted window in a massive, palatial mansion and is brought inside through a slow, calculated zoom. It is almost as if Welles is allowing the viewer to look into world sheltered from the public eye. This intimate moment in Kane’s final, but the cinematic prowess does not end there. In Welles’ deft hands, the camera becomes an essential tool in weaving his intricate story. Depending on where the camera is placed in a scene, the audience is given deeper insight into what Welles really feels about these characters. Kane is always shot in an upward fashion, making him appear to be the largest person in any given room. The man is larger than life whereas any other character is shown as small and insignificant compared to Kane. In the scene where Kane fires his long time friend Jed Leland, there is a sharp contrast between the two made by Welles’ choice of camera angle. Kane’s leg is in the foreground, taller than the entire person of Leland, making Jed diminutive and submissive to his powerful boss. This is also attributed to Welles’ skill in composing hauntingly meaningful shots. In the final scene of the movies, all of Kane’s worldly possessions are shown in one beautiful aerial shot, but they are not the focus. The real point of the shot is a lone sled, relegated to the trash heap, the true meaning of the word “Rosebud.” This could have been revealed many different ways, but Welles’ way of showing everything else as insignificant adds to the mystique of Charles Foster Kane, even after he has been systematically stripped down to the bare minimum throughout the film. This stripping down of Kane is another reason why Citizen Kane is such an outstanding film.
The narrative structure of Citizen Kane is unique in that is employs essentially the same flashback told through the perspectives of the people who were with Kane for his entire life. On many events in the movie, we are given two slightly different accounts of what actually happened. We see how the second Mrs. Kane views her departure from Xanadu, but immediately following her recollection we are presented with the events as told by one of Kane’s servants. This bit of parallelism gives the film unprecedented depth, but also an air of mystery. You do not know who has the most accurate depiction of Charles Foster Kane and that is never resolved at the end of the film. It is mainly up to the audience to try and infer what Kane was actually like, and that is part of the genius of Orson Welles’ script. Nothing is explicitly told to the viewer, but all the information is there. This approach was highly unconventional at the time and cements Welles’ place as a pioneer in film. Movies then had an extremely basic structure, but Welles defied convention, going so far as to kill off his main character within the first five minutes of the film. This narrative structure affords itself to an intricate story with many examples of subtext.
On the surface, Citizen Kane is a movie about a man who had everything, but in the end died unhappy and alone. It is the rags to riches story of the American dream, but it is more than just that. It is the loss of innocence that comes with a childhood cut short by the corrupting power of money. It is the isolation that power lends itself to, even when you are respected and looked up to by millions of people. None of them really knew Charles Foster Kane and for a while, not even Kane knew Charles Foster Kane. The main theme of this movie is that no matter how close you are to a person, you can never really know them. There is always going to be something that they keep inside, something so painful or damaging that they keep it locked away in the darkest corner of their psyche. It is because of this that the audience truly feels bad for Kane when he loses it all. When he had nothing, he was happy, when he had it all, his life was marred by loneliness, rejection, sadness. “Money can’t buy happiness” is the tired old cliché, but in Citizen Kane, it is strikingly relevant. Kane had the largest home in the country, more statues and artifacts than many museums, two wives, and enough clingers to make up a football team, but none of this brought him any joy. He longed to get back to the childhood he was robbed of, but that was something money could not buy.
Orson Welles created a masterpiece with Citizen Kane. It contains elements that many directors emulate to this day and at the time it was produced, marked the beginning of a new age of cinematic experimentation. Welles was unconventional in his approach to film, and the cinematography clearly shows this. It showcases Welles’ skill in creating a shot and also helps to drive the story by adding an additional commentary on the characters. The nonlinear structure of the film serves to break down the walls of convention and provides a fresh look at the way a story can be told. This in particular has influenced a number of directors looking to spice up their movies. The core of Citizen Kane, though, is the story and that is its best feature. Welles has crafted something of legend and for that, the entire movie-going populace is eternally grateful. Citizen Kane is not just a movie, but it is the movie.
From the very first scene of the movie, the viewer is able to see Orson Welles’ mastery of the camera. The audience is on the outside of a gate, looking at one lighted window in a massive, palatial mansion and is brought inside through a slow, calculated zoom. It is almost as if Welles is allowing the viewer to look into world sheltered from the public eye. This intimate moment in Kane’s final, but the cinematic prowess does not end there. In Welles’ deft hands, the camera becomes an essential tool in weaving his intricate story. Depending on where the camera is placed in a scene, the audience is given deeper insight into what Welles really feels about these characters. Kane is always shot in an upward fashion, making him appear to be the largest person in any given room. The man is larger than life whereas any other character is shown as small and insignificant compared to Kane. In the scene where Kane fires his long time friend Jed Leland, there is a sharp contrast between the two made by Welles’ choice of camera angle. Kane’s leg is in the foreground, taller than the entire person of Leland, making Jed diminutive and submissive to his powerful boss. This is also attributed to Welles’ skill in composing hauntingly meaningful shots. In the final scene of the movies, all of Kane’s worldly possessions are shown in one beautiful aerial shot, but they are not the focus. The real point of the shot is a lone sled, relegated to the trash heap, the true meaning of the word “Rosebud.” This could have been revealed many different ways, but Welles’ way of showing everything else as insignificant adds to the mystique of Charles Foster Kane, even after he has been systematically stripped down to the bare minimum throughout the film. This stripping down of Kane is another reason why Citizen Kane is such an outstanding film.
The narrative structure of Citizen Kane is unique in that is employs essentially the same flashback told through the perspectives of the people who were with Kane for his entire life. On many events in the movie, we are given two slightly different accounts of what actually happened. We see how the second Mrs. Kane views her departure from Xanadu, but immediately following her recollection we are presented with the events as told by one of Kane’s servants. This bit of parallelism gives the film unprecedented depth, but also an air of mystery. You do not know who has the most accurate depiction of Charles Foster Kane and that is never resolved at the end of the film. It is mainly up to the audience to try and infer what Kane was actually like, and that is part of the genius of Orson Welles’ script. Nothing is explicitly told to the viewer, but all the information is there. This approach was highly unconventional at the time and cements Welles’ place as a pioneer in film. Movies then had an extremely basic structure, but Welles defied convention, going so far as to kill off his main character within the first five minutes of the film. This narrative structure affords itself to an intricate story with many examples of subtext.
On the surface, Citizen Kane is a movie about a man who had everything, but in the end died unhappy and alone. It is the rags to riches story of the American dream, but it is more than just that. It is the loss of innocence that comes with a childhood cut short by the corrupting power of money. It is the isolation that power lends itself to, even when you are respected and looked up to by millions of people. None of them really knew Charles Foster Kane and for a while, not even Kane knew Charles Foster Kane. The main theme of this movie is that no matter how close you are to a person, you can never really know them. There is always going to be something that they keep inside, something so painful or damaging that they keep it locked away in the darkest corner of their psyche. It is because of this that the audience truly feels bad for Kane when he loses it all. When he had nothing, he was happy, when he had it all, his life was marred by loneliness, rejection, sadness. “Money can’t buy happiness” is the tired old cliché, but in Citizen Kane, it is strikingly relevant. Kane had the largest home in the country, more statues and artifacts than many museums, two wives, and enough clingers to make up a football team, but none of this brought him any joy. He longed to get back to the childhood he was robbed of, but that was something money could not buy.
Orson Welles created a masterpiece with Citizen Kane. It contains elements that many directors emulate to this day and at the time it was produced, marked the beginning of a new age of cinematic experimentation. Welles was unconventional in his approach to film, and the cinematography clearly shows this. It showcases Welles’ skill in creating a shot and also helps to drive the story by adding an additional commentary on the characters. The nonlinear structure of the film serves to break down the walls of convention and provides a fresh look at the way a story can be told. This in particular has influenced a number of directors looking to spice up their movies. The core of Citizen Kane, though, is the story and that is its best feature. Welles has crafted something of legend and for that, the entire movie-going populace is eternally grateful. Citizen Kane is not just a movie, but it is the movie.
posted by Justin at 12:02 AM
1 Comments:
Plus, it was the subject of a song by one of the world's most influential rock bands, The Whites Stripes; almost all of the lyrics of "The Union Forever" are taken directly from Citizen Kane, while the invented lines are still relevant to the film.
Great article!
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