The story of Charles Foster Kane was truly one that could go on as timeless. Born in poverty Kane was given away with the promise of having a better life. In a material point of view Kane lived a very fulfilling life filled with anything he ever wanted. Although throughout the movie, Kane despised the situation in which he was brought up in. Being placed under the care of his mother’s banker really influenced the way he viewed the world. He considered himself a people’s person a sort of hero for those in worse situations than his own. The mass appeal for this character along with the truly original storyline and plenty other factors led many people everywhere to gain a huge appreciation of this movie. Despise its early failure following its …show more content…
Welles who would like to set up lights himself placed a grave importance on the lighting of the film. The lighting helped to compliment many of the films scenes by adding an effect of emotion. In scenes where the shadows would be more apparent there was normally something dark occurring, such as the scene where Kane is seen standing on his own after his second wife leaves him. As said by Roger Ebert “Welles created a gloomy dark visual the film world had yet to see.” The use of these techniques is seen by some as the pioneer or predecessor to the genre of noir that soon followed the film’s release. In addition, Kane had brought a great influence for French critics and filmmakers. Many began to use Welles techniques to create cinematic works of their own. This was known as the French New Wave a movement that combined philosophical and artistic themes in film. Along with the lighting Welles made sure to place musical soundtracks throughout the film a technique that hadn’t been used too often. These soundtracks helped add to the scenes and give them their own atmosphere. The musical soundtrack played a vital role in conveying the emotion of the film. In many of the scenes that contained their own sound a greater message was being conveyed than what the film was showing. Welles was very clever in his way of piecing the scenes …show more content…
Sarah Street said, “in Citizen Kane Welles is criticizing fundamental contradictions within monopolistic journalism and political rhetoric.” He wasn’t only showcasing his talents in film he was conveying a real message to the public. He was criticizing the way people’s agenda can truly affect the world as seen through Hearst these individuals have great power, but often lack honesty in the way of doing things. Another critic Armstrong says the script “asks you to ponder the meaning of someone's life. What makes living worthwhile? What makes a person happy: money, love, power? How do we make sense of that life--by what was said, what was done, or by what is left?” This great description entails many of the other elements Welles wanted to face. Although Kane had all he ever wanted what did he accomplish and what was he missing and searching for all his life. This draws back to the main search in the story for Rosebud. Welles while creating a wonderful visual piece also had the thrilling unique story to go along with
Hitchcock was a tenacious and dedicated director. He received his education at St Ignatius College and London County Council School of Marine Engineering and Navigation, which left him with an outstanding work ethic. Nevertheless, his Catholic upbringing instilled a fear of authority along with complications with intimacy, hence, gives one possible explanation of his opinions about women. He also fantasized about travel and exploration as a child, so his experience, curiosity and fear of the unknown produced his “Master of Suspense” personality.
The film, Vertigo (1958) directed by Alfred Hitchcock, is classified as a genre combination of mystery, romance, suspense and thriller about psychological obsession and murder. Filmed on location in San Francisco and on the Paramount lot in Hollywood, California in 1957, the cultural features of the late 1950’s America were depicted in the films mise en scène by costume and set designs current for that time period. The film was produced at the end of the golden age of Hollywood when the studio system was still in place. At the time Vertigo was produced, Hollywood studios were still very much in control of film production and of actor’s contracts. Hitchcock’s groundbreaking cinematic language and camera techniques has had great impact on film and American popular culture and created a cult following of his films to this day.
While Alfred Hitchcock is most well known for causing his audiences to feel fear, there is more to his movies then that. The themes of inadequateness of the police, control of all details in his films, and long stretches of no dialogue are prevalent in several of his films. He does not just happen to do these things by chance, but they are all related to things that happened to him during his childhood and his early career. No one can escape their past and not let it influence at least part of their life, and Alfred Hitchcock was no exception.
Beside that, Cinematography is also one of the element that play important roles in film noir. This can be seen when Dixon (2005) explained that in film noir shot in black and white, interior setting is always suffused with shadows and exterior settings are usually at night, with wet streets and rain. It is true because most of the film noir are shot in night with wet streets and rain, night scenes are able to create the ‘ darkness ’ mood and feeling while wet streets and rain can create the fear. Furthermore, according to Dixon (2005), he mention that the imbalanced camera set-up in film noir and the camera sweeps in on the protagonists in their most intimate moments. It is true also if the imbalanced camera set up in film noir such as dutch angle and low angle shot, it shows that something are going to happen, but it depends on the director and cinematographer on what visual they want to show to the audiences.
Citizen Kane is a film by Orson Welles. It’s a classic film from 1941 and it still holds up today. It holds up today for its evaluation of what is the value in a mans life. The film holds up because it tells the story of a wealthy man who lives whole life unhappy because he is searching for a time that was much simpler. The film teaches people that all the money in the world can not buy happiness. The whole film is people trying to understand the main character Charles Foster Kane’s last word “Rosebud”. The word “Rosebud” refers to Charles Foster Kane’s childhood sled. This sled represent’s Kane’s youth and innocence. At a young age Charles Foster Kane is uprooted from his life of being a young boy in poor family and is taken in by a wealthy
The film slowly evolves with Kane’s character, and follows him from a young boy, to the end of his life. Charles Kane has a somewhat humble beginning, and eventually evolves into an overly rich man who lives in a fortress. This evolution is shown with the design. The design starts small, with some offices and the interior of the Inquirer. Eventually over time, the audience starts to see more statues to highlight Kane’s growing wealth, fancier locations, and even a large arena that Kane speaks in. As the film progresses, every moment gets larger and larger, eventually peaking with Xanadu, the daunting fortress that Kane spends the rest of his days in. Lighting is also used to emphasize this evolution. The beginning of the film is brighter, crisper, and has a happy tone. As the film continues, however, the lighting begins to get darker and darker. This darkness leads the audience to understand that Kane’s own self is bringing about his downfall and destroying the relationships that he fostered when he was actually happy. The culmination of these design elements is shown at Xanadu. There are endless halls of statues, paintings, and old collectable items throughout the house, the only thing Kane still had to his name. Citizen Kane follows a very straight progression, except for the beginning moments of “rosebud,” which ultimately lay parallel with the ending tones and brings the
Both Motherless Brooklyn and Citizen Kane rely on genre conventions to fulfill a reader’s expectation of the film or novel. The particular genre of this novel and film is mystery and detective fiction. Motherless Brooklyn is stated to have a traditionally structured narrative, while Citizen Kane has a non-linear narrative structure. In every camera movement of Citizen Kane, there is a significant hidden message with different meanings. This film also contains many different genres than just mystery and detective fiction.
In the movie Citizen Kane, there are so many important facts to remember such as, when Charles Kane was eight years old, his own mother signed custody of him over to a banker named, Walter Thatcher. Because his mother signed custody over, Kane did not have a normal childhood and he built up a sense of animosity towards Mr. Thatcher and as a result everything Charles did was an attempt to antagonize Mr. Thatcher. At a young age Charles Became extremely wealthy; when he was twenty-five years old he was set to inherit a fortune; none the less, he only wanted the struggling New York Daily Inquirer because he thought it would be fun to run a newspaper. Charles never truly cared for his wealth and in one scene said that the purpose of money is
In the film Citizen Kane, Charles Foster Kane was the head of the Inquirer newspaper empire. As Mr. Kane grew more powerful in his life, he began to use his newspapers as a written propaganda machine. This went against his initial principles of leading a newspaper that reports the news both truthfully and honestly. One example of Kane using the newspaper to sway the ideas and opinions of the readers of the Inquirer is in relation to Susie Alexander and her opera. Susie’s opera received poor reviews by the different newspapers, including the Inquirer, but Kane demanded that she continue to sing. He published many newspapers that gave the impression that the opera was one of the best, even though he himself knew it was not true. His titles and articles made people...
Orson Welles’ career took place in the mid-thirties to late eighties in the twentieth century. He began his career at age fifteen, starting in Ireland, making his acting debut in the Gate Theater in Dublin. By eighteen, Welles started to appear in off-Broadway productions. It was then that he also launched his radio career. By age twenty, he had presented alternate interpretations of certain well-known plays and movies. At age twenty-two he was the most notable Broadway star from Mercury Theater and, because of this, BBC radio gave him an hour each week to broadcast whatever he pleased. That’s when, at age twenty-five, he broadcast War of the Worlds, which caused panic due to the “Martian invasions”. By the time he came into Hollywood, Welles could write, direct, cast, star, and edit movies without disturbance from the studios. It was during this time he created Citizen Kane- the only movie he completely finished. He retired from Hollywood at age thirty-three in 1948, but still continued to create his own films.
Hitchcock has characteristics as an auteur that is apparent in most of his films, as well as this one.
Citizen Kane was a conundrum. I could not decipher my feelings towards the film. I went in expecting the greatest film of all time, as deemed by most U.S. film critics, however, I felt the film did not live up to the title. On the other hand I had to consider that the film was made in 1941 a far flung from today’s time. The film in itself was an innovation on various aspects of film making. It was keen on both use and demonstration of “new” cinematographic techniques as well as the use of various sound effects to heighten the mood of the film, even the film editing with the screen transitions and cuts was very well tied in the movie. The film was a masterpiece in a technical standpoint, however, I just did not enjoy it.
His way of leaving the audience on their seats while still telling a good story was what made Hitchcock an outstanding director and writer. His 50s films are known for their interesting cinematography. This includes people hanging off Mount Rushmore and The Statue of Liberty. Or the classic scene of Cary Grant being chased by a airplane. The only way to get rid of my fears is to make films about them,” is what Hitchcock said about his film making. He had this to say “Always make the audience suffer as much as possible.” These movies would lead Hitchcock in to one of his most classic film, Psycho. These are also the movies that pave the way for horror and suspense films. Hitchcock said this once about building suspense, “Four people are sitting around a table talking about baseball or whatever you like. Five minutes of it. Very dull. Suddenly, a bomb goes off. Blows the people to smithereens. What does the audience have? Ten seconds of shock. Now take the same scene and tell the audience there is a bomb under that table and will go off in five minutes. The whole emotion of the audience is totally different because you've given them that
Through materialism, Kane became a self-invested individual. The highly acclaimed Citizen Kane creates drama and suspense for the viewer. Orson Welles designed this film to enhance the viewer’s opinion about light and darkness, staging, proxemics, personal theme development, and materialism. Creating one of the most astounding films in the cinematography world, Welles conveys many stylistic features as well as fundamentals of cinematography. It is an amazing film and will have an everlasting impact on the world of film.
The film is in black and white so Welles had the opportunity to play with overexposure and shadows to make up the atmosphere of the film. The lighting techniques set a mysterious mood throughout the film, which complements the plot and the sound elements. “By the use of low-key selective lighting and patterns of staging and framing, Thompson is made virtually unidentifiable.” Welles manipulated the lighting in Citizen Kane to enhance the realism that was brought forth by the use of deep focus shots and the use of sound. This was done so the audience would not focus on Thompson but on the action of the scene. Reiterating that Welles wanted the spectators to “become” the detective. “Welles chose to use light and shadow to specifically tell the audience what to focus on.” His dark choice of lighting added a feeling of suspense and realism, which supported his plot and complimented his camera techniques and sound