Citizen Kane

Coleman DeFilippo

Citizen Kane Blog

Blog 2

           Citizen Kane was a movie that I had heard of previous to this class, and how revered it was. When you hear anyone speak to some of the greatest movies of all time, Citizen Kane is always at the very least number three.

            Obviously the first scene that you get with Charles Kane is one where he is in his deathbed. Very apparently, Welles wanted his audience to take in that scene. The substantial nature of the scene itself puts the initial question into your head… “Who or what is rosebud?” that scene sets the stage for the audience thematically. However, in that scene I did not seem to get a very high amount of extreme camera angles, which was something that Welles prided himself on.  Now this is not say that I believe that there should have been different camera usage, but I just wanted to point out that fact that not much could be link to our reading material systematically.

              One scene that I took a particular liking to was the one where Mr. Thatcher adopts Charles. Right off the bat I didn’t see much that I thought was very substantial. Then after watching the videos posted on D2L, and saw how much different usage of cameras angles were used to get that shot exactly the way Welles wanted it, I found myself sold. I went back and watched that scene again just to highlight specifically what it was that was being shown.

              For example, the scene when Charles’ mother and father are in the house with Mr. Thatcher and Charles is outside in the snow. The amount of clarity that is produced in that scene is mind-boggling. You could make out Charles perfectly as well as his parents and Mr. Thatcher in the foreground. This impressed me the most due to the time that this movie was made and functionality that Welles was able to extract from his cameras and their lenses.

               After watching it, generally I would say my response is one of enlightenment. Welles was trying to drive home how money isn’t everything, a message that I believe is lost in societies of all generations.  I generally understand why Citizen Kane is considered to be one of the best movies of all time. Even if it wasn’t your kind of movie, watching the film more than once paints an extremely clear picture of how easily it is for human beings to succumb to weakness.