Jasmine Soule
Professor Hammond
Elements of Film
14 May 2012
Final Exam
1)
“Citizen Kane”
is one of the most influential ever made. Discuss this statement.
Orson Welles creating and making Citizen
Kane can be seen as the pinnacle point of his career in filmmaking. This film was made during the black and white
era, and Welles took different aspects of the film and made it visually
stunning and consuming to the audience.
Through the cinematography, storytelling techniques and special effects,
Welles created an influential movie that was ahead of its time. Louis Giannetti
(2001) explains that Welles used a technique called deep-focus photography
which “involves the use of wide-angle lenses, which tend to exaggerate the
distances between people- an appropriate symbolic analogue for a story dealing
with separation, alienation, and loneliness” (490). This gets the audience
involved in the information that is being given to them during a certain shot. Giannetti
uses the example of Alexander’s suicide attempt, to explain what deep focus
actually means. Ginannetti (2011) clarifies this term by saying “the layering
of the mise en scene is a visual accusation: (1) the lethal dose was taken
by (2) Susan Alexander Kane because of
(3) Kane’s inhumanity” (491). The cinematography in Citizen Kane allowed the audience to be engulfed by the how the
scenes were shot and the different features that went into it. Another
influential part of the film was how the story was told and the special effects
used during this era. Giannetti explains, “the flashback structure of Citizen Kane allows Welles to leap
through time and space, cutting various periods of Kane’s life without having
to adhere to a strict chronology” (507). The sound and storytelling combined together
made the movie entrancing for the audience, the older Kane got, the darker the
music became, leading the audience to understand the story in a visual stunning
way. In the end, “Welles was one of the great lyricists of the cinema, and his
stylistic rapture is best illustrated by the ornate visuals, the dazzling
traveling shots, the richly textured soundtracks, […] the highly fragmented
narrative, and the profusion of symbolic motifs” (514). This is the reason why
so many movie producers, writers, directors, etc believe that “Citizen Kane” is
the most influential movie ever made.
2)
What
had Orson Welles done in his first 23 years of life to warrant the Hollywood
Film Industry offering complete creative control to a first time filmmaker?
Welles first travelled to Europe in
search of artistic creativity throughout Ireland. It wasn’t until he was casted
in Jew Suss, that his name and acting
skills became really known. He got the role in playing the Duke by saying that
he was an actor and a star; therefore, Gates decided to put him in this film.
Fortunately, his acting in the movie paid of actually making him known in the
cinematic and entertainment industry. From there, Welles returned to the United
States and was offered a writing project with Everybody’s Shakespeare. He also starred in a couple of off
Broadway productions getting his foot even more into the entertainment
industry. Besides being an actor, Welles
also was a radio actor where he eventually became instantly famous. He did the
adaptation of The War of World by H.G. Wells, where his creativity with the
story of using fact and fiction to gain the attention of the listeners, which
he easily did. He was so successful with this performance that he actually had
the public believe these were true events occurring. Consequently, because of
his famous performance of the radio show, he gained numerous offers from the
Hollywood industry. Now that he was introduced to Hollywood because of his
creativity and acting abilities, he would eventually make his first movie Citizen Kane, which would be
overwhelmingly successful.
3)
Pick
an extended scene or sequence from “Citizen Kane” and discuss the storytelling
technique by analyzing any combination of its component parts (direction,
writing, performance, cinematography, production design, art direction,
editing, sound, score, etc).
The opening of Citizen Kane, I believe
has a unique style to because you don’t really see this type of visual
creativity during this particular movie era. The movie starts in darkness with
the start of eerie music, leading the next screen shot of an old ramshackle
fence. The camera slowly glides up the fence where there is a close-up of an
old “no trespassing” sign. The little lighting combined with the cold and
mysterious music, allows the audience to want to see what behind the fence, and
question the reasons for why the place looks like this. The camera continues to
dissolves into even more images of what lies behind the old fence. When the audience
finally gets to see what is behind the fence, it is an image of Xanadu, which
is Kane’s rundown house. The scene shot
is of the rusted gates and in the far back, the house is seen as dark, gloomy
and with fog covering. This creates the atmosphere of uncertainty of what lies
within the house. As the music grows more intense and the images keep
suspending into each other, the camera uses crane shots to focus closer on the
castle. Once there is any extreme close-up on the house with one light on in
the window. Everything else in the scene is shown through low-key lighting
except for the light in the window until it is quickly turned off for a brief moment.
The window is quickly relit but the shot is from inside of the castle and not
outside. Now the audience is curious to see what exactly going on. Moments
later, the scene is now of snow falling transforming into a snow globe in the
hands of a man. The special effects used within this brief scene have great
significance of things to come. The snow globe drops and there is a close-up of
Kane saying “Rosebud” as it falls and breaks. The audience is now feeling
uneasy and trying to figure out the significance of rosebud. From there, there
is a focus on the reflection of the broken glass where the audience can see the
nurse walk in the room and pronounce him dead. This brief opening sets the
dramatic plot for what is to come. The dramatization, special effects,
different screen shots, and the music create and entrancing plot for the
audience.
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