Citizen Kane Movie Review

756 Words4 Pages
Citizen Kane In the movie, Citizen Kane, Orson Welles depicts William Randolph Hearst as a dominating and powerful character. This movie was a 1941 classic that is well known for its production and different techniques used in that time period. It follows the life of William Hearst, also known as “Charles Kane” in the movie, as it reveals fictional accounts of his life and was used to portray Williams real identity. Orson Welles reveals his thorough character by using different angles to show how dominant William Hearst was over his peers and how his personality was powerful and demanding. Orson also used key lighting and shadow to create a dark and mysterious mood to set place for the events that occurred. Another key that is well known in Citizen Kane is the deep focus photography. Deep focus photography is a scene that captures the whole surrounded and has focus on all aspects of the shot. Citizen Kane was the first movie to use deep focus which created a whole new atmosphere for the violent plot it follows. Examples of the different angles used in Citizen Kane were high and low angle shots. Throughout the movie, Orson Welles wanted to depict William Hearst as a powerful and demanding man, and Orson used low angle shots to do so. Low angle shots are used to make the audience feel like they are “looking up” to someone and overpowered. They also use high angle shots to show how powerless Susan Kane was with Charles Kane. These angles were constantly used throughout the movie to give more insight on the different characters and portray the dominance of Charles Kane and innocence of Susan Kane. Lighting was also a key element to the movie Citizen Kane. Even though the movie was in black and white, lighting was used to set a dark mood to the movie. Most of the lighting used was dark and mysterious because the plot was mysterious and edgy. He used shadows to set
Open Document