ET 19 CITIZEN CANE: MULTIPLE ET’S

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21/11/2012 by zeoncheong91

Citizen Kane, Orson Welles’ masterpiece, was particularly praised for its innovative cinematography, music, and narrative structure. After watching it, I noticed how scenes are organized within them. It’s about Kane’s life consists of these phases; Boyhood, Youthful newspaper editing, life as a newlywed, middle age and also the old age of him.  Also, I discovered that this film is organized as a search; most likely to be a detective-like figure, the reporter; Thompson. He tries to find out the Kane’s last word,”Rosebud”, but before Thompson appears as a character, we as a spectators, are also already invited to ask questions about Kane and to seek the truth.

In the very beginning, the film sets up the mystery. After the camera fade-in a ‘No Trespassing’ sign, the camera travels over a set of fences, slowly approaches Xanadu, moving up the mountain and closer to the castle and it dissolves the link of the shots.  The film opens with a famous word ‘Rosebud’, uttered by the press tycoon Charles Foster Kane. Immediately; reports compile a newsreel to recap the major events of Kane’s life. However, there’s one element is missing, the Rosebud. What did that means to? Who was it? What was it? Why would Kane uttered before the last second when he is dying? However, the film ends with the same scene as the start ‘No Trespassing’ which shows that no matter how much we search, somethings will always remain a mystery, as did the sledge to the reporter.

According to Chairman Rey quoted; “some people divide things into two whereas some people don’t. ” In Citizen Kane, it can be divided into two distinct, which is a set of characteres cause events to happen; a group of reporters seeks information about Kane. On the one hand, Kane and the characters who know him provide the subject of the reporters’ investigations. Thompson is curious about the Rosebud and his newsreel fails to satisfy him, hence he starts to digging about Kane’s past. Therefore his investigation constitutes one main line of the plot.  Another line of action, Kane’s life, has already taken place in the past. Many years before, a poverty boarder at Kane’s mother’s boardinghouse has paid her with a deed to silver mine. The wealth was provided by this mine causes Mrs.Kane to appoint Thatcher as young Charles’s guardian.

One of my favorite scene is Kane’s mother signs her son over to Thatcher. Welles uses deep-focus cinematography to introduce the young Kane. Then the camera tracks back to reveal the window and it becomes an interior view, with the Kane’s mum appearing at the corner calling to him. Then the camera continues track back, showing the adults talking scene. The last part of this scene was Thatcher and Kane’s mother sitting at a table and signing the documents, and Kane’s dad remains remains standing at the corner, and Kane plays in the distance. Also, the reason why I liked this scene is when the Kane’s mother shouted:”KANEEEE!!!”, the voice was very ‘shaky’ and it literally represents the bad future of her child. Moreover, there’s a scene about Kane’s Death, Welles uses the reverse angle (entry to Kane’s bedroom) and it has the visual symbolism (snow on screen). Also, there is a closeups shot of the glass ball and the Kane’s lips. And then the glass ball rolls down the steps slowly and break. Low angle and oblique angle (through shard of glass, when nurse enters room) were also being introduced in this film.

In addition, Welles showed that it’s possible to keeping all parts of the image – the foreground to background – in focus at the same time. Citizen Kane creates an illusion of 3D that is more three-dimensional that most of today’s 3D movies. And it doesn’t require wearing plastic glasses. Also, I like the impact of an image comes from it manipulation of lighting. The lighter and darker areas within the frame help create the overall composition of each shot and thus guide our attention to certain objects and actions. The brighter illuminated draw our eye to a key gesture, whereas the shadows; build up the suspense and mystery. It uses the low light in Citizen Kane to give me a mysterious feel. For example, In the beginning part, when Kane’s mother is about to signs her son over to Thatcher, there’s no any shadow because it needs viewer’s full attention required. Kane’s face is covered in the shadow as his affair is exposed right in front of his wife. She’s dressed in the purest of white he’s in the darkest black. Later, Kane stands in complete darkness as he loses himself alone standing ovation for Susan’s opera performance. No doubt Citizen Kane is a great film to watch again and again because each times I watched I discovered a new things. As Richard Dreyfuss tells the AFI :“There’s never been a film that I’m aware of that if you watch it for the 138th time, you still see something new that you haven’t noticed,” .

References :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jjEhkwCosGs

www.imdb.com/title/tt0033467/

http://cinephilefix.wordpress.com/2009/11/16/strokes-of-light-and-shadow-the-impact-of-citizen-kane/

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Kane