I have been very eager to watch the film Citizen Kane. As one review by James Berardinelli stated, “Citizen Kane has been lauded as the greatest motion picture to come out of America during the black-and-white era (or any era, for that matter).” For being a film created back when technology was scarce, I thought the use of camera angles, shots, and lighting was absolutely amazing.
I didn’t quite pay much attention to the little details in the first scene of the movie, so I had to go back and watch it again. We begin the film by seeing a close up of a No Trespassing sign with a blurred vision of what was behind the gate. We then see numerous cuts, all of which showed this large mansion. I noticed when we had the first view of the mansion; it was rather dark with one window being lit up. Through the next few cuts we always see that window lit up, whether it was a reflection in the water or the use of a low angle looking up toward the house. I feel the dark mansion really signified Kane’s “dark” life. We eventually make it up to the room where the light was coming from, to find Kane laying in his bed dying. We see a close up of Kane’s lips saying the words “Rosebud.” Kane drops the snow globe, which is shot using slow motion, until we watch it shatter on the ground. After knowing the ending and seeing the beginning scene all over again, I realized the shattering of that globe, was basically the shattering of his life ending. That was the one time of happiness he had, the rest of his life was spent as an unhappy successful man.
One of my favorite scenes in this film was when he was trashing Susan’s room. The scene is shot using a low angle, which shows that Kane was in power of her. His shadows were casted around the room as he trashed it. He gets to the area where he sees the snow globe and he suddenly stops and picks it up. We see the close up of the globe, and then we are brought back into the low angle view with Kane in tears. Kane walks out of the room where we see him walking passed mirrors. We see a bunch of reflections of him as he walks through there. It is almost as if it was a reflection of his whole life of being unhappy.
I noticed when we first saw Kane and Susan married; we saw them from an eye level shot at the dinner table. They appeared to be happy and sitting near each other. They both were very illuminated. We then see them after they were married for a while, the scene is again from the eye level view, but this time they are seen at opposite sides of the table, not paying any attention to the other person. In this scene we see them sitting back in the shadows.
I noticed while watching this film the use of flashbacks and flash-forwards quite a bit. The story was told through the eyes of many others. I also saw the use of an establishing shot when Kane was delivering his speech; we see Kane standing in front of a huge photo of himself in the background. Lastly, one scene that really struck me was when Kane was talking to Susan; we see his shadow slowly covering up her face, as if she was in his shadows. In this scene we see the use of a low angle from Susan’s perspective when Kane was talking, and we see the use of a high angle from Kane’s perspective when Susan was talking.
Overall, I thought this film was very good. I now know why everyone talked so highly of this film. I look forward to viewing this film again to find even more details that I may have missed the first time I watched it.
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