In cinema, lighting, blocking and panning drastically influence what an audience will notice and take away from a scene. Orson Welles’s 1941 Citizen Kane has numerous examples of effectively using these aspects within mise-en-scène, cinematography and editing to portray the importance of specific events and items in the film. The scene where Kane writes and then publishes his “Declaration of Principles” (37:42-39:42) in the New York Daily Inquirer after buying them focuses on important elements of the film, aiding the audience by combining lighting, blocking and panning to define significant roles and objects that further the movie as a whole.
Mise-en-scène, what the audience sees in a film, is crucial to the movie’s development. Lighting and props are two of the many important aspects of this category. The previously mentioned scene has the goal of representing Kane’s early ideology of what the New York Daily Inquirer will become and provide for its readers. While writing the document, Welles constantly uses lighting to illuminate it for the audience, naturally drawing eyes to the paper even before it is introduced in the film. The lighting of the scene helps viewers identify the document’s value, especially in comparison to Kane as he tends to be less lit then the paper for the majority of scene. The other three cast members, Leland, Bernstein and briefly Sully, continue to be lit but almost never to the magnitude of the paper itself. The first cut of the scene shows Kane writing the document from outside; where a burning gas lamp is the key lighting, allowing the audience to easily notice both the flame and the paper. In the following cut, Kane continually looks at the paper and the gas flame as to signify their imp...
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...able. After following Kane’s movement the eye naturally moves to the glowing piece of paper that appears almost legible. Panning shots such as these allow an audience the ability to follow significant attributes in scenes.
Mise-en-scène, cinematography and editing are used in all forms of cinema. Within the “Declaration of Principles” scene of Citizen Kane, lighting, blocking and panning are three of the main sub aspects that work in unison to consistently demonstrate important aspects of the film. Welles uses these attributes to portray to the audience how this younger Kane is an important newspaper owner, with an even more important document. He creates a scene that has a heavy emphasis on panning to continuously preserve a frame that centers Kane while also lighting the document so viewers can constantly see the important plot and characters of the movie.
mise-en-scene in any film, everything we see has a meaning. But the thing about lighting is we see it,
Beginning the mid 1920s, Hollywood’s ostensibly all-powerful film studios controlled the American film industry, creating a period of film history now recognized as “Classical Hollywood”. Distinguished by a practical, workmanlike, “invisible” method of filmmaking- whose purpose was to demand as little attention to the camera as possible, Classical Hollywood cinema supported undeviating storylines (with the occasional flashback being an exception), an observance of a the three act structure, frontality, and visibly identified goals for the “hero” to work toward and well-defined conflict/story resolution, most commonly illustrated with the employment of the “happy ending”. Studios understood precisely what an audience desired, and accommodated their wants and needs, resulting in films that were generally all the same, starring similar (sometimes the same) actors, crafted in a similar manner. It became the principal style throughout the western world against which all other styles were judged. While there have been some deviations and experiments with the format in the past 50 plus ye...
The nature of ego is a fundamental concept in Orson Welles’ 1941 film ‘Citizen Kane’. Through presenting the life of Charles Foster Kane, Welles explores how time and place are critical in the development of an individual’s ego. The ideas of childhood and adulthood life and Kane’s need for control in his public and private environment assist in shaping audience’s understanding of the nature of ego. Essentially, Welles uses Kane’s life to explore how time and place are crucial elements to consider when exploring the nature of ego.
After viewing the film Citizen Kane, it is clear the director, Orson Welles, created a picture unlike any other during this era on its release in 1941. The film is about the dying last words of Charles Foster Kane, a man who rose to fame from nothing. A journalist is on a mission to find what these words mean, and through stories from main characters, the audience is taken on Kane’s journey. Whether it’s the use of shadows and lighting, camera angles, or sound, Welles creates a picture comparable to noir films from this era. One of the noticeable similarities when comparing Citizen Kane to other films during this era is the use of shadows and lighting.
Orson Wells’ film Citizen Kane received terrific reviews as soon as it opened in 1941. While the average movie buff would not value Citizen Kane as much, for the critics, directors and film students: it provides a technical handbook as to the nuts and bolts of how a film is to be assembled. It has now been chosen as the greatest American film in a number of polls due to the many remarkable scenes and performances, cinematic and narrative techniques and experimental innovations in photography, editing and sound.
Citizen Kane is often recognized as one of the greatest films ever created because of how advanced it was compared to other films of its time. The producer, cinematrogropher, actros, and editors should all be equally credited for how well constructed this film was. Orson Welles used many different aspects of editing,sound, and Mise-en-Scene to create the world of the film. After watching this film and the scene "Breakfast Montage" its pretty obvious as to why the film was nominated for nine Acadamy Awards.
This is evident when marshal Kane returns to his office to write his will. The director decides to use black and white instead of colour because it is a sad text and this is really emphasized in Kane's office. There is also a very little use of props which emphasizes that marshal Kane is in a bad situation. The acting is very defeated with the camera focusing on the marshals face which expresses his defeated attitude and almost tells us that he knows that the end is near. This is a correct assumption because we next see the Marshall writing his will.
Orson Welles ' introduced innovating editing and sound design in the 1940s with Citizen Kane (1941). Welles uses editing and sound to show the audience the passing of time, this is seen the breakfast montage. Welles uses sound bridges during the transitional wipes of fast moving images which fade into the next shot. The sound bridges act as links between the two scenes and make the time difference apparent to the audience. At the beginning of the montage Welles uses a slow zoom combined with romantic music to show the love between Kane and Emily. Both characters appear in the frame together with deep focus and slow paced editing which shows the closeness of the couple in the early years. This is juxtaposed by the end of the montage showing
In the beginning, Thatcher believes that obtaining the newspaper company ‘The Inquirer’ is seemingly useless however Kane believes that this newspaper company can be used to “look after the underprivileged”. Emphasising the purpose and the ideals of Kane, however, this belief doesn’t last. As his paper grows in stature these morals begin to degrade. He starts to lie in the newspaper, which is shown in a line that was adopted from Hearst “you provide the prose poems, I’ll provide the war”. This parallelism provides the start of yellow journalism where the news is supposed to shock and therefore sell the paper even if the story is false. The start of the degradation of morals is shown by the chiaroscuro lighting as Kane signs the “Declaration of Principles”. As he signs this he is shown to move from the light into the shadows, foreshadowing Kane 's descent into corruption due to the hunger for power. This is coupled with the camera shooting Kane from a low angle symbolising Kane 's escalation in power which is shown to be the cause of the fall into corruption. The corruption of Kane is also shown in his relationship with Emily and the deterioration of their relationship. This is conveyed mainly through the montage scene which depicts Kane and Emily being close in proxemics implying initially the bond that they share however as time
Citizen Kane, directed by Orson Welles, was an exemplary and ground-breaking work. In narrative structure and film style, Welles challenged classical Hollywood conventions and opened a path for experimentation in the later 1940s. Gregg Toland’s deep-focus cinematography and Welles’ use of low-key lighting are often discussed aspects of the movie. True, these were areas of innovation, but when watching the movie in class I was particularly struck by the use of camera movement, or “mobile framing” as described in Film Art. In this historical analysis, I will take a detailed look at how Welles and Toland use camera movement to develop and challenge the Hollywood style. By referring to other movies viewed in Professor Keating’s class, including The Cheat, Wings, Applause, Double Indemnity, The Last Laugh and Bicycle Thief, this paper traces one aspect of innovation and diffusion in the movie many call the greatest film ever, Citizen Kane.
Benjamin’s essay, Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, and Vertov’s film, Man with a Movie Camera, both propose that through film we have more control over how we are able to tell a story. Prior to film, stories were only able to be told in four ways: spoken verbally, painted in works of art, written in books, or performed on stage as a play. Although artistic in their own way, they all lack a component of presentation that film possesses. Oral stories and books are each capable of telling detailed stories but lack the ability to engage the sense of sight; whereas film is primarily told through its visuals. Paintings and plays both have the ability to visually tell a story, but they are not able to control the dimension of time in their story telling.
Movies you might have heard like “The Graduate” starring Dustin Hoffman, “Scarface” movies starring Al Pacino to “In Cold Blood” directed by Richard Brooks. These older movies are “textbooks” for Cinematographers in this day in age because of the extraordinary techniques used for these more recent cinematographers to use as inspirations. Movies like Citizen kane was a textbook to these directors in the movie. In the documentary they talk about how times have changed a lot.
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 continue to until death. Welles conveys many stylistic features as well as fundamentals of cinematography through use of light and darkness, staging and proxemics, personal theme development and materialism within the film, Citizen Kane.
“Entertainment has to come hand in hand with a little bit of medicine, some people go to the movies to be reminded that everything’s okay. I don’t make those kinds of movies. That, to me, is a lie. Everything’s not okay.” - David Fincher. David Fincher is the director that I am choosing to homage for a number of reasons. I personally find his movies to be some of the deepest, most well made, and beautiful films in recent memory. However it is Fincher’s take on story telling and filmmaking in general that causes me to admire his films so much. This quote exemplifies that, and is something that I whole-heartedly agree with. I am and have always been extremely opinionated and open about my views on the world and I believe that artists have a responsibility to do what they can with their art to help improve the culture that they are helping to create. In this paper I will try to outline exactly how Fincher creates the masterpieces that he does and what I can take from that and apply to my films.