Tim Connor Citizen Kane

Citizen Kane utilized so many different techniques to make the movie have such a hard hitting impact in the audience. The part that set the tone for me was with the lighting. The lighting in this movie helped elaborate every aspect of the movie by exposing the true colors of every person. Tim Dirks talked about the “unconventional lighting, including chiaroscuro, backlighting and high-contrast lighting, prefiguring the darkness and low-key lighting of future film noirs.” The revolutionary use of lighting is expressed when Kane is signing the Document that says how he will remain a defender of the masses and never betray them. As he is preparing to sign the document, Kane is lit well and everything seems fine, but when he leans down to sign the document, his face becomes shroud in darkness. The foreboding lighting of this scene is representational of a future that is dark. The use of Layering and deep focus was also tremendously important to this movie because every aspect of the movie had a layer to it, from plot to shot. In the shot with Kane Senior talking to Thatcher, the entire scene is tightly shot and layered so well. The contrast of the child in the snow and his dark snow suit draw your eye almost instantly, but the fact that the child is trapped in the window pane shows that all the freedom that he is experiencing is just a fabrication of youth. Another great use of deep focus is when Kane drove Susan to the point of trying to take her life. She’s in the room and wee can see the medication that she consumed and a glass of water, then we can see Susan in the middle at a medium shot, barely breathing, wheezing on the bed, and the door as Kane tries to come through and save her, even though he is the one that drove her to this point in the first place. Giannetti describes Susan’s tour with “the camera starts to rise, as if to ascend into the heavens. While she continues to sing, her thing, watery voice grows progressively more feeble as the camera continues its upward journey, past sandbags, ropes, and platforms, until it finally comes to rest on two stagehands on the cat walk, looking down at the performance. They listen for a moment longer, then turn to face each other .One stagehand waggishly pinches his nose, as if to say, ‘She really stinks.’” This description demonstrates the use of a crane in the shot in an upward panning motion. At first, the rising seems like a good thing, because upward motions are usually interpreted as positive and uplifting in films, but when we get to the two stagehands looking down at Susan, the entire feel of the shot changes. Sound, one of Welles’ specialties coming from a radio background, was also an important part of this movie that helped give it more depth and realism. Giannetti says, “ With the help if his sound technician, James G. Stewart, Welles discovered that almost every visual technique has its sound equivalent. Each of the shots, for example, has an appropriate sound quality involving volume, degree of definition, and texture.” Because of this, we can feel the scenes as if we are a part of them. When the shot is close to the person’s face, their voice is louder as if we, ourselves, were getting closer to the person. When the scene is farther away from the actors their voices aren’t quiet so loud. The sound qualities also change with the scenes, for example, when in the auditorium, the voices echo as if going through a loud place. All of these things brought this movie to life and made it an instant classic.