Citizen Kane Essay

An extremely wonderful, but definitely not a icon I would ever watch again because I wouldnt be able to handle it a second time, Citizen Kanes very title has become a masterpiece. The Citizen Kane of its genre is about as capacious of praise as any film might hope to achieve. Citizen Kanes unique status in the world of American cinema is held in its place in Hollywood hi trading floor. At the height of the Hollywood studio system, when studio bosses controlled every aspect of filmmaking from production to exhibition, this film was make by a handful of brilliant artists who were given freedom to do whatever they wanted.The examples in the film of why Citizen Kane is arguably the superlative film of all time Introduction to Xanadu.Kanes Death. News on the March. Introduction to Susan Alexander. Kanes childhood, Kane Buys his jump Newspaper. Introduction to Mr. Bernstein. Visual symbolism Mr. Bernsteins image reflected in table. Visual symbolism Mr. Bernstein stands beneath movie o f Kane. The Early Days, the Happy Days. Declaration of Principles Scene. Kane Celebrates Birth of His Newspaper Empire. Kane Returns from Paris with Wedding Engagement. Leland Recalls the Breakdown of Kanes sum to Emily Norton. Kane Meets Susan Alexander. Gettys Springs His Trap. Kane Marries Susan Alexander Her hatchway Night at the The Missing Review. Susan Alexander at the El Rancho. Susan Alexander Rehearses for Opening Night. Susan Alexanders Opening Night at the New Opera House.Argument over the unwholesome Reviews. Susan Alexander on Tour. After Susans Suicide Attempt. Life is Boring in Xanadu. Susan Leaves Kane. As Susan confronts Kane. As Kane pleads with her. As Susan realizes Kane just doesnt get it. Kane, watching Susan walks down long corridors and out of his life. Susan walking extraneous from tv camera. Visual symbolism, Susan walking out of his life, and Kanes Rampage After Susan Leaves a Symbolic action, Kane picks up the trash ball. Symbolic dialogue, Kane say s Rosebud metaphor Kanes reflections in the mirrors Answer to the Riddle of Rosebud. Visual symbolism, fence, No Trespassing Sign, K sign in fence in foreground, Xanadu looming in the backgroundVisually, Welles and legendary cinematographer Gregg Toland beat a dramatic style combining such techniques as extreme deep focus, varied camera anglesincluding low angles revealing set ceilings, and unconventional use of lighting and deep shadows anticipating the film noir style. Individually, most of these techniques had been pioneered in other films, but Citizen Kane masterfully brought them together with unprecedented acumen and maturity.Narratively, Welles and veteran writer Herman J. Mankiewicz together with crafted a storytelling tour de force combining non-linear narrative, composite storytelling from multiple points of view (a technique that would later be indelibly associated with Kurosawas Rashomon), varying narrative forms including the famous opening newsreel segment as tumefy as interviews and flashbacks, and a dramatic span of decades with characters aging from young adulthood (or even childhood) to old age. Their characters are interwoven and ambiguous, and their dialogue crackles with wit and insight.Thematically, the film tackles the mystery of man from nearly every conceivable angle leave off religion love, happiness, money, power, sex, marriage, divorce, politics, the media, celebrity, despair, death in a sweepingly ambitious study that asks anew the 2000-year-old question, What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?Whats more, Kane accomplishes all this not as a rarefied art film for the ambitious few, but as a popular story for the masses, a distribute picture with the most famous twist ending in Hollywood history.This ending, of course, is the exposition of Charles Foster Kanes dying word, Rosebud. The twist behind the twist is that while the final shot satisfyingly resolves the question with which the picture beg an, the whole notion that that the answer to that question would somehow provide the key to Kanes life was only a journalistic conceit. The film answers the question, but refrains from offering any final invoice or judgment of its complex protagonist, suggesting that a mans life is more than a riddle to be explained or resolved.Thats not to say that Rosebud isnt significant. It is. It signifies innocence lost, regret, the failure of the American trance of rags-to-richessuccess. It also represents what Kane lost at an early age when he was taken from his mother and father and increase by an unloving guardian.Deprived of love, burdened by too much money and power, Kane grows up with a ravenous desire to be loved despite being incapable of love himself, as well as an arrogance and sense of entitlement to getting his way. The tragedy of his life epitomizes the dark side of the pursuit of happiness, with failed marriages, low-spirited friendships, dashed political aspirations, rapaci ous acquisitiveness, isolation, and despair.Controversy surrounding the release of the film has become an enduring partially of its legend. The character of Charles Foster Kane was widely recognized at least in part as a fictionalized version of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, and Hearst furiously did his best to suppress the picture and have it destroyed.While functional on Citizen Kane, Welles joked that If they ever let me do a second picture, Im lucky. He was only half right. He was lucky enough to make many additional pictures, some of them masterpieces in their own right. That super awesome level of control and magic was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and Welles made the most of it. This is Citizen Kane.