Techniques And Narrative Styles In The Film Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane, one of the greatest film masterpieces in history is a movie produced, acted, and even co-written by the director of the film, Orson Welles. This American movie has been nominated in countless academy awards and has won numerous awards in several award ceremonies. Citizen Kane has its great fame because of its innovative skills of cinematography, sound and the way of narration. At that time, different techniques Orson Welles revealed throughout the film was such a shock to the audiences because it was nothing like what they have seen before. Using unique ways of lighting, usage of lens focus, and realistic details in the set, Orson shows a perfect harmony of skills of Montague and Mise-en-scene.
Citizen Kane is Orson Welles’ debut film, and is one of his greatest pieces in his portfolios. The movie is about a wealthy journalist named Charles Foster Kane who is found dead in his house with a mysterious message ‘Rosebud’. So much suspicious questions were thrown to this message. To find the meaning of this text, news journalists track down Charles Kane’s life. The movie is about a journalist name Thompson investigating on Kane’s life and revealing the dark secrets of Kane’s life. Today in the film industry, many of his great inventions of film techniques were developed and are still used such as the deep focus skill. If it were to choose the most significant technique in this movie, it is the deep focus skill. The deep focus skill is when you focus the close ups and the far shots in one frame. When the screen is showing a deep focus it means that it is showing a close-range view, distant view and a medium view that become a multiple scene. So the audience can choose which character or object they would want to focus and want to know more about.
Citizen Kane is a movie where deep focus skill is used actively throughout the movie. Among the many scenes in the movie, deep focus is applied most frequently in the scene where young Charles Kane, Charles’ parents and his guardian cope is in his home house. From the right side in a close-range view, Kane’s mother and the guardian is signing on the paper where Kane’s future is going to be decided while on the left side with a medium view you see Kane’s incapable father falling into flutter in this situation where he is about to lose his son. At the same time in the far back, we see a distant view through the window in the middle where young Kane is joyfully running around in the snow not knowing about his close up future. In one scene, there are three different stories that shows this unexplainable complex feeling towards young Kane. At this same scene, it starts off from out of the window and comes slowly into the room which gives this unpleasant feeling of this situation. The way the cinematographer uses the movement of the camera persuades the audience a sober expression, which helps the scene become denser.
“Deep-focus filming technique, which allowed action and characterization to develop simultaneously in the foreground, middle range, and deep background of any one scene” (Foertsch). When Orson uses deep focus skills, sometimes he expands the distance between the characters using wide angle lenses. This is method is applied when showing isolation of the character. “After an initial close-up of ‘No Trespassing,” the camera climbs slowly up a black, forbidding, chain link fence. The sheer height of that fence, accentuated by its varied patters of wire mesh, is one measure of Kane’s isolation” (Rasmussen). Wide angle lenses are useful when showing loneliness of the character. Using this kind of mis-en-scène, it can give the audience the chance to figure out what is happening in the shot. An example of this would be the scene where Susan is trying to commit suicide. After the scene where it shows the cause and effect of the case, Susan lies down on her bed after swallowing a poisonous substance. To show this on screen, a bottle of poison along with a glass is up on front in the bottom and then shows Susan in the middle hardly breathing in and out. In this same shot there is Kane who broke into the room after desperately knocking on the door. “By staggering our exposure to those elements …he emphasizes their individuality and the happenstance way in which they intersect and affect each other” (Rasmussen). Through this placement of camera using deep focus, we can learn a lot about the story even without several different shots. Now we can connect the story that a woman is overdosed with poison which turns out to be Kane’s wife who took over the limit because of him. The scene is a series of explanation where first the camera focuses on the poison, to show reason why the woman in the middle is passing out and the woman in the middle passing out is the reason why Kane is terrified in the top of the shot.
“Welles shatters the dark mood of death [in the opening scene] with the blaring music, and glaring, overexposed images of the newsreel documentary… a scene played entirely in shadow, drenched in smoke, backlit by shafts of light from the projection booth…” (Foertsch). Another aspect of this film is lighting. During Kane’s childhood and youth, it seems like a start of an energetic journey. During the scenes of Kane’s child hood Orson uses high key lighting near the characters that shows his position in the society. However, as Kane reaches his senescence, he becomes a more cynical person. To show this characteristic, Orson uses the contrast between light and shade. He makes the lights become darker and sharp as his cynical characteristic grows towards the end of the movie. His house that was considered to be impressive and fancy seems to be leaning towards the darkness of the night. Only the spotlights shine between the darkness showing only the outline of the chairs, sofa and hero statues. The atmosphere becomes bleak and mysterious.
Sound is also an aspect of Citizen Kane and is a big part of the montage of the story. “The film is hailed for its visual and sound innovations” (Foertsch). Orson uses sound montage to combine the dialogues, sound effects, and soundtrack into a one like a radio station. So whenever a scene is changed the volume level is also changed as if it were a transition. “Herrmann’s music sloughs off the aura of mystery and plunges headlong into the thrill of discovery, in intimate close-up, about Thatcher’s first encounter with Kane, back in 1871. That music contains one of many variations on the Rosebud motif” (Rasmussen). In the strong shout of ‘Rosebud’ was a sound track of a powerful march song. Contrasting to this when Kane was close his death the sound was a gloomy brass. These two kinds of sound track repeat in the movie with changes in rhythm and tune melody. In the movie music is a series of connection that sometimes is a comment on the character instead of the focuses on the screen. Another interesting portion in the sound track of Citizen Kane is that the music gives perspectives to give a feeling of distance when characters are speaking at a far distance. Probably the usage of music in Citizen Cane let the future films a possibility of using music as a montage.
Flashback is a feature seen thoroughly during the film. Flashback is remembering scenes in the past or a method used in film. It is often a tool in movies that is held in the present but refers back to the memories or events in the past. The story of Charles Kane’s life story is shown throw a series of memories in the past of other people’s lifetime memoirs. To the end, not only is the techniques and perspectives Orson attempted in Citizen Kane, but also the innovative and modernism storytelling was a key to the success of the movie. He challenged the chronological order that every audience might expect happening next. Instead he mixed up the orders using the character’s inference and mentality. He uses different narratives instead of one perspective of a character. He overlaps different character’s experiences with Kane to narrate the whole story. Along with this new approach in storytelling, the perfect combination of montage and mis-en-scene skills was a huge attainment. The expressionism set and realism lighting was also a harmony to the whole. The world of Citizen Kane is realistic, but one of the main characters that lead the film, journalist Thompson’s face is covered by the shadow throughout the whole film. Also the usage of mirrors and windows was also an interesting new aspect in Citizen Kane. Each element of new techniques and narrative styles were systemized well to create a perfect balance to create the greatest movie of all times, Citizen Kane.
Works Cited
- Foertsch, Jacqueline. American Culture in the 1940s. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2008. Print.
- Rasmussen, Randy Loren. Orson Welles: Six Films Analyzed, Scene by Scene. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2006. Print.
