Citizen Kane (1941) and The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) are two great films that say a very similar statement, but the two films could not be more different. Director Orson Welles’s film, Citizen Kane and Joe Coen’s The Hudsucker Proxy both follow a man’s rise to fame and how they fall because of it. It is very easy to see how Citizen Kane, a film that has influenced countless movies, has influenced The Hudsucker Proxy as well.
Citizen Kane retells the life of Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles) in a series of flashback moments. Jerry Thompson, a reporter, goes on a mission to try and understand Kane’s last word, “rosebud.” Thompson does this by visiting Kane’s old friends and family members. During the interviews, the audience is taken back
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to the period that the interviewees are speaking of, and gets a first hand look at Kane’s former life. Kane takes control of the New York Inquirer newspaper and begins a career of journalism, which propels his success. His success continues to culminate and begins to be his own problem. He begins to destroy relationships and eventually dies alone in his fortress Xanadu. Back in the present, it is revealed that “rosebud” was the name of Kane’s childhood sled, a memory of when he was actually happy. The Hudsucker Proxy follows the experiences of Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins) as he gets a job and is made President of Hudsucker Industries. Norville Barnes is a recent business school graduate and is looking for a job, which he finds in the mailroom of Hudsucker Industries. After the President of the company unexpectedly commits suicide, the board decides to promote an idiot to the position so they can buy controlling interest in the company. Amy Archer (Jennifer Leigh), goes undercover to write a story about Norville, and surprisingly falls in love with him. As Norville unexpectedly succeeds at his job, the board hatches a new scheme to get him fired. Norville is identified as insane, and his world around him collapses. On New Year’s Eve, Norville climbs out onto the ledge of Hudsucker Industries and falls. After a brief experience with Hudsucker himself, Norville survives the fall and gives the board a letter from Hudsucker that states Norville has the new controlling interest in the company. The film’s slow, yet straightforward development fuels the success of Citizen Kane.
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 …show more content…
film full circle. Like Citizen Kane, The Hudsucker Proxy also has a very straightforward progression, but has more of a Dr.
Seuss vibe to it. The world that Norville lives in is a very strange version of the audience’s reality. This difference makes it important for the filmmakers clearly to establish the rules of the world so that the audience can get invested into the story. In The Hudsucker Proxy, design and sound elements sell the world to the audience. The designs of the sets are very cartoony, as are the sound effects and scores that accompany the film. Elements such as the mailroom, the clock room, and the quick paced score all come together to create The Hudsucker Proxy’s world. This culmination is important because the audience must believe what is happening, to fully invest in the story. For example, the ending fall off of the building breaks all laws of physics and time, but because the audience accepts the film’s world, the gag works. Quick editing cuts are also used in certain areas—unlike Citizen Kane—to highlight the straightforwardness of the characters, such as in the scene following the suicide of Mr. Hudsucker. The board members are all talking about what is going to happen next, and the shots cut from one to the next to add a strong, quick pace. This emphasizes to the audience that the characters are quickly moving on from the suicide they just witnessed. When characters fall of the building, editing techniques are used to extend the length of the fall sequence
to build more tension for the audience. These elements of design, sound, and editing all come together to create the tension and world for The Hudsucker Proxy.
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.
The Great Depression is when the film industry boomed with new types of movies like: gangster films and musicals. They were both born in the Great Depression. Most films show the hardships of the time period. Some of the films display this very well for example Modern Times staring Charlie Chaplin. One of the more well-known gangster films was The Public Enemy.. These films have very different views of the time period but still have things in common. This paper will compare Modern Times and The Public Enemy.
Throughout the course of a lifetime, a common phrase heard is “don’t judge a book by its cover”. This phrase indicates the fact that it is nearly impossible to truly evaluate the life and feelings of a person just by what can be seen about them. This is the case in the film Citizen Kane, directed by Orson Welles. Charles Foster Kane is a man who would appear to the general public as having it all. A very popular man, Kane owns a successful newspaper company for which he is known worldwide. He builds a gigantic mansion for his second wife and himself, surrounded by intricate and expensive statues. Kane seems to be perfect in every single way, and one may think that he is the happiest man alive. However, Charles never had the things that
to the film early on but makes the viewer want to make sense of what
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
Citizen Kane is a 114-minute film school providing lessens after lessons in deep focus and rear projection, extreme close-ups and overlapping dialogue. Although appearing as a biographical movie (Biopic), it refused to follow the conventional
Citizen Kane, is a 1941 American film, written, produced, and starred by Orson Welles. This film is often proclaimed by critics,filmmakers, and fans as one of the best if not the best film ever made. Citizen Kane is an unbelievable film becuase of how advanced it is compared to other films of its time. In the film, the producer used many different narrative elements to capture the audiences imagination. It truly is astounding how the filmmakers used certain editing techniques, sounds, and different narrative elements to illustrate the story and the plot. Although the plot isnt exactly captivating to the present day audience, this film is still amazing due to how much work and effort went into making it.
Dreyer frequently shows actions by shadows cast by the characters we already know. This fits with the film's style of indirection with plot by inference rather than by direct narrative. The film is filled with memorable images: a skull turning to watch; a shadow walking over to join its subject sitting in repose; point-of-view filming from inside a glass-topped coffin as the lid is nailed down and then carried out to the churchyard for burial.
In your view, how does Welles’ portrayal of the complex nature of happiness contribute to the enduring value of Citizen Kane?
Often regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, Citizen Kane written and directed by Orson Welles is a classic film that defied the conventional styles of the Hollywood Cinema. Welles was committed to the Mise-En-Scene of his movies by using his characters, props, settings, and even the camera to tell the story of his characters. The Lighting, the camera shots, and the character 's actions to depict the life of Charles Foster Kane. The Mise-En-Scene of this narrative creates a film that is ahead of it’s time and a genius innovation to the cinema.
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 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. Welles prominently portrays his figures with a specific amount of light or darkness, stunningly affecting whole scenes stylistically. The scene at Xanadu establishes Mr. Kane as an overbearing, controlling character.
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
But that is not the only notable camera work use in the film, the placement of the camera plays a vital role in the perception of the scene. Replacing camera cuts with long camera takes adds realism and a sense of space to the picture; wherever the camera pans is where the realm exists, and even beyond that. A good example of this is again the coffee shop scene at the start of the movie. As Theo walks out of the shop the camera follows, and pans around the city just like a person stepping out and staring at every detail, similar to how a viewer would if he/she were warped into the film. Then the camera pans over to what Theo is doing rather than cutting to his face, again simulating how a person would react. After the explosion happens the camera runs towards the aftermath and shows the destruction. This whole sequence shows how the director chose the camera to be placed from the viewpoint of a person following Theo, A.K.A the viewer. Another result of this is a feeling of real time, of knowing exactly how much time has elapsed since Theo left the shop and not missing anything that has happened in that time
Another example of a movie that shares such aspects is Citizen Kane. There are many references in this fictional movie to a non-fictional man. This man would be William Randolph Hearst. He was a self made millionaire quite like the main character of the movie. Hearst was also was in the business of journalism. He lived a very eccentric life like that of Kane’s. He was politically involved in the 1930’s as a pro-Nazi and in the 40’s as an anti-communist. This was similar to Kane’s character that ran for office in New York. While Kane enjoyed the luxuries of Xanadu, Hearst had his own castle at San Simeon. These are the similarities on screen between the two, but behind the scenes there was a heated debate over the making of this movie.
In the 21st century, the media still has power over the public, even more so than what is seen in Citizen Kane, as there are many more forms of media than just the newspaper. Citizen Kane is largely concerned with exposing the deceit and manipulation inherent in the media. Welles’ statement on ‘truth’ in the media is perhaps best summed up in Kane’s line: “Don’t believe everything you hear on the radio. Read The Inquirer.” Other than the obvious self-aware irony of this line, given by the founder of The Inquirer with a cheeky smile, the line is also a sly nod to Welles’ own history on radio, and particularly the War of the Worlds prank. The 1940s audience would have recognised this intertextuality and appreciated its comment on the untrustworthiness