Citizen Kane - Review
Tom Zarnick “Big Tom,” Slippery Rock University Film Student Blogger, Wednesday, 26 June 2013 22:00 EST
Its Big Tom back for another review of a Classic Hollywood Cinema style of film making in Director Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane.” This is another classic movie that Slippery Rock film students have the opportunity to view and respond to in this blog, writing some aspects of technical analysis that we have learned and that Orson Welles created in his filmmaking style for “Citizen Kane.” Our film professor Dr. Rachael Permenter wrote that “Every film student in the world learns filmmaking by watching this film (Permenter.)”
One of the technical aspects I want to blog about is Welles ‘extended uses of deep focus photography. Deep-focus photography shots as defined by Louis Giannetti in “Understanding Movies” 12th edition, as a technical term and it is “a technique of photography that permits all distance planes to remain in focus, from close-up ranges to infinity (Giannetti).” Orson Welles is a master at the art of deep-focus shots. “Citizen Kane” is jam-packed with scenes that are in sharp, deep- focus. The mind-blowing depth of field and deep-focus shots photographed from the closeness of the foreground to the outermost background and everything in between, Welles was able to film in deep-focus.
Orson Welles’ visual symbolism of the fence, the snow globe and the no trespassing sign in the opening scenes, the camera movement, the mise-en-scene foreground versus background elements are all deep-focus shots. Deep-focus photography shots use a wide-angle lens which tends to exaggerate the distances between people. They are also referred to as short lenses, having short focal lengths and wide angles of view, preserving a sharpness of focus on virtually all distance planes. The deep focus technique requires the cinematographer to combine lighting, composition, and types of camera lens to produce this desired effect. With deep focus, a filmmaker can overlap actions, and mise-en-scene, which is the physical environment in which a film takes place, causing them become more essential. Successful manipulation of the mise-en-scene for deep focus assertively and boldly engages the whole space of the frame without leaving the viewer confused.
Welles’ uses of editing dissolve shots and how with each shot we get closer to the castle. Giannetti defines dissolve as a technical term in which “the slow fading out of one shot and the gradual fading in of its successor, with a superimposition of images, usually at the midpoint(Giannetti).” The visual metaphor of the window in the castle, is visible seen in each shot of this portion of the film. The low angle shot of Xanadu and the low-key lighting are all important editing elements used in this style of proficient editing which informs content and meaning. If you have never seen what I am describing in a film, find a library, rent or buy “Citizen Kane” and watch the opening scene looking for these technical aspects from a brilliant director using both deep-focus shots and dissolve shots. You will not be disappointed.
Welles's achievements in this film marked a new direction in cinema. Welles’ telling Kane’s life story completely and descriptively in flashbacks was another innovative approach to this film being successful and was also a ground-breaking style of storytelling, familiar to the audience, pulling them in, but perhaps not familiar in films. Giannetti says “Orson Welles’s masterpiece, ‘Citizen Kane’ applies all of the various language systems of movies explained in his textbook and call this synthesis(Giannetti.)” Synthesis is the art of systems of photography, mise-en-scene, camera movement, camera angles, editing, sound, music, lyrics, lighting, color or lack of color, space, design, acting, drama, story, writing, ideology, and theory to a film. Without one of these elements synthesis does not total occur. Tim Dirks states, “The fresh, sophisticated, and classic masterpiece, “Citizen Kane” (1941), is probably the world’s most famous and highly rated film, with its many remarkable scenes and performances, cinematic and narrative techniques and experimental innovations (in photography, editing and sound) its director, star, and producer were all the same genius individually, Orson Welles (in his film debut at age 25!)… (Dirks.) When I read this I thought at first there was a misprint of the year 1941. How could a film from 1941 still be viewed as “…probably the world’s most famous and highly rated film,… (Dirks.), especially with all the recent breakthroughs in technical aspects of filmmaking. Well, you have to see to believe. I did and I do now.
Dirks, Tim. "Citizen Kane (1941)." Citizen Kane (1941). American Movies Classics Company's
LLC., 2013. Web. 23 June 2013. http://www.filmsite.org/citi.html.
Giannetti, Louis. Understanding Movies. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall,
2011. Print.
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