Comparison Of Citizen Kane (1941) And The Hudsucker Proxy

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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 …show more content…

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…

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

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