Good Essay On Citizen Kane

Citizen Kane is an outstanding, innovative film in the sense of its narrative technique, style and its characterization (Bergman and Antonioni). The film deals with the theme of inner self of the protagonist and by investigation into the inner self of the hero, the film shakes the foundation of the classical elements of the classic Hollywood cinema.
One of the features of the classic Hollywood cinema is to provide unified narrative so that the audience would easily understand the story. The introduction of “talkies” helps in the smooth transition as well as in the smooth narrative follow to move the audience gradually. The smooth narrative was the essential feature of the classic Hollywood film because it was easy to create but with great acceleration (Bergman and Antonioni).
On contrary, the film Citizen Kane is not a movie with simple narrative but is a movie having non –linear and composite story, narrated from very different perspectives which include the opening newsreels, interviews and flashbacks (Orson). All these different perspectives are used to present the protagonist.
The multi narration in Citizen Kane is the result of the attempt to discover the mystery of man from different perspectives- love, money, power, sex, politics, celebrity and death, as well as birth. The characters lack a heroism and resemble more to the reality of the life which inspire the viewers more as compared to the traditional classic movies.
The style of Citizen Kane makes the film outstanding (Auditing). In the traditional Hollywood movies, the static-mise-en-scene is used to focus on the characters but the Citizen Kane has unprecedented deep focus from the extreme foreground to extreme background besides the characters in almost every scene. Other unprecedented methods that have been used in the movie are the low-angle camera to present a point of view in which the ceiling is apparent and the inventive use of shadows. The use of camera is, indeed, subjective. The plot is very cunningly addressed towards the spectator, and the three-point lightening is used to separate the foreground from the background (Orson).
Further, the movie helps to popularize “film noir” as a sub-genre showing the consequences of the anxiety and suspicion. The outstanding features of film noir are the use of sloped, serrated, or interrupted camera angles and physical distortion of the time and space. We find some of these techniques within the Citizen Kane. The Hollywood movies that were exploiting the technicolor are challenged by this movie (Orson).
The deep-focus cinematography and the use of low-key lightening are very influencing and catch the attention of the spectators. The overlapping repetitive dialogs, the flash-forward, the recurrent use of transitionary curtain wipes, long shots without any interruption and sophisticated camera movements are very unconventional contrary to the established Hollywood classic movies (Orson).
Citizen Kane produced in 1940s is very modern in its usage of the multi-narrative techniques, distorted camera angles and style as compared to other movies that were produced during the same period. By revolting against the traditional methods of filmmaking, Citizen Kane becomes the canon for up-coming movies, and it lays the foundation for a new way of making films (Auditing). In other words, this film paves the path for the films which were to follow it and gives a set of values which are standard in every respect, either in the form of narrative technique or in its style.
 

Works Cited

Audissino, Emilio. John Williams's Film Music. Madison: University of Wisconsin Pres, 2014. Print
Bergman and Antonioni. Observation On Film Art. August 2007. 21 January 2015. <http://www..net/blog/2007/08/page/2/>.
Citizen Kane. Dir. Welles Orson. Perf. Joseph Cotten, et al. 1941.