2pages film analysis essay

Movie Analysis

Citizen Kane RKO created in 1941 , Orson Welles

Citizen Kane develops two interesting themes. The first concerns the debasement of the private personality of the public figure, and the second deals with the crushing weight of materialism. Taken together, these two themes comprise the bitter irony of an American success story that ends in futile nostalgia, loneliness, and death. The fact that the personal theme is developed verbally through the characters while the materialistic theme is developed visually, creating a distinctive stylistic counterpoint.

Kane's tragedy lies in his inability to experience any real emotion in his human relationships. The apparent intellectual superficiality of Citizen Kane can be traced to the shallow quality of Kane himself. Even when Kane is seen as a crusading journalist battling for the lower classes, overtones of self-idolatry mar his actions. His clever ironies are more those of the exhibitionist than the crusader. His second wife complains that Kane never gave her anything that was part of him, only material possessions that he might give a dog. His best friend, Jedediah Leland, was a detached observer functioning as a sublimated conscience remarks to the reporter that Kane never gave anything away: he left you a tip. In each case, Kane's character is described in materialistic terms. What Kane wanted - love, emotional loyalty, the unspoiled world of his boyhood, symbolized by rosebud, he was unable to provide for those around him, or buy for himself. The intriguing opening is filled with hypnotic dissolves from one sinister, mysterious image to the next, moving forward closer and closer. The film's first sight is a No Trespassing sign hanging on a giant gate in the night's foggy mist, illuminated by the moonlight. The camera pans up the chain-link mesh gate, which dissolves and changes into images of great iron flowers or oak leaves on the heavy gate. On the crest of the gate is a single, silhouetted, wrought iron K initial. The gate surrounds a distant, forbidding-looking castle with towers. The fairy-tale castle is situated on a man-made mountain, obviously the estate of a wealthy man. The same shots are repeated in reverse at the very end of the film. The initial and concluding clash of realism and expressionism suggests in a subtle way, the theme of Citizen Kane. The intense material reality of the fence dissolves into the fantastic unreality of the castle, and in the end, the mystic pretension of the castle dissolves into the mundane substance of the fence. Matter has come full circle from its original quality to the grotesque baroque of its excess. As each flashback unfolds, the visual scenario of Citizen Kane orchestrates the dialogue. A universe of ceilings dwarfs Kane's personal stature. He becomes the prisoner of his possessions, the ornament of his furnishings, and the fiscal instrument of his collections.

 His booming voice is muffled by walls, carpets, furniture, hallways, stairs the vast recesses of useless space. Gregg Toland's camera set-ups are designed to frame characters in the oblique angles of light and shadow created by their artificial environment. There are no luminous close-ups in which faces are detached from their backgrounds. When characters move across rooms, the floors and ceilings move with them. This technique which is highly unusual, tends to dehumanize characters by reducing them to fixed ornaments in a shifting architecture. The choice of camera position was an important factor in getting across artistic and psychological effects. To the photograph a person or object from below, distorts that object. It tends to elongate a person, making him seem more important. It also intimidates the audience, since it is in the inferior position of looking up. The scene gives an added power to the person on the screen. Kane is indeed bloated and enlarged by his material possessions, and in comparison, the audience feels very small. Yet it is precisely his excessiveness, which has distorted him and made him grotesque to our sensibilities. The movie is a visual masterpiece, a kaleidoscope of daring angles and breathtaking images that had never been attempted before. Toland perfected a deep-focus technique that allowed him to photograph backgrounds with as much clarity as foregrounds. Such as the scene where Kane's parents discuss his future while, as seen through the window, the child plays outside in the snow. There's also an extremely effective low-angle shot late in the film where Kane trashes Susan's room. Sound montage is used extensively with the flashback scenes to denote the interval of time within related scenes. A character will begin a sentence and complete it weeks, months, or years later in a different location. On occasion, one character will begin the sentence and another will complete it in the same manner. This sound thread results in a constriction of time and an elimination of transitional periods of rest and calm. 

Aside from the aesthetic dividends of pacing and high lighting, Citizen Kane's sound montage reinforces the unnatural tension of the central character's driving, joyless ambition. One brilliant use of sound montage, is when Kane and his wife are arguing in a tent surrounded by hundreds of Kane's guests. A shrill scream punctuates the argument with a persistent, sensual rhythm. It is clear that some sexual outrage is being committed. When the parakeet screams at the appearance of Kane, the sound linkage in tone but not in time, further dehumanizes Kane's environment. In the baroque world that he had created, Kane is isolated from even the most dubious form of humanity. In all respects, the techniques used in Citizen Kane are a reflection and projection of the inhuman quality of its protagonist. In the way the techniques are used to distort and magnify the characters in the film, we understand what the film is trying to get across. Citizen Kane represents an intense vision of American life, a life in which materialistic elements are distorted and magnified at the expense of human potentialities. The implied absence of free will in the development of Kane's character is thematically constant with the moral climate of his environment. As the techniques used have not been limited in form, so too, Kane's magnitude unchecked by limiting principles or rooted traditions, become the cause of spiritual. 

Welles’ uses deep focus to present the distance between Kane and the people that love him, camera angles to display his abuse of power, and different types of shots to display the characters’ facial expressions in response to Kane’s inability to love others properly. These stylistic elements serve to illuminate the idea that Kane’s obsessive strain for the American dream of financial affluence and control over people fails to give him a fulfilling life of security and emotional stability, but one of isolation and loneliness.

Setting: Kane’s estate Xanadu

Largeness of mansion –fog –close up of estate gates –depression –darkened fences lit by moonlight –K in gate = power

Deep focus

Charlie seen through window as his parents sign his life away –trapped under Thatcher’s custody –close up of sled in the snow

Marriage w/ Emily, president’s niece = montage

@ beginning, couple sitting closely together in intimate atmosphere

Cross cut medium close ups of Emily & Kane, camera angle at eye level, diametrically opposing sides –conversations become more attacking

Physical distance –“what I tell them to think”

Campaign speech

Shows Emily, son, Leland, Bernstein far away from him –Chronicles people right behind him

Deep focus shows diff in physical proximity –negative his pursuit of power

Gettys exposes his affair with Susan, spiral downward @ high angle

Kane forces Susan to sing opera

High camera angle showing Kane standing directly over her = dominance

Force her to live out his ideals

close up reveals the weariness and sickness on her face, depicting Kane’s unhealthy fixation on success.

Montage of Susan putting together puzzle pieces –Kane = puzzle –unhappy w/ him –slow passage of time

Sits across room in big chair –house nothing but statues –deep focus = physical distance

Picnic = towering over her –slaps her, music stops, screams in background

Susan walking away from him = pity for Kane –Kane in mirror = separate images of his morality fallen away

Following shot of Thomson = crates of belongings

Stylistic elements

Deep focus is most effective in scenes that depict Kane’s loss of control and his personal isolation because it gives the audience a clear view of the space Kane commands as well as the space over which he has no power

Kane playing as a child -Mother signing white papers

Susan plays with puzzle pieces

Kane walks past mirror, image repeats infinitely –deep focus used to enhance repetition, adds to Kane’s loneliness & isolation

Susan commits suicide: empty bottle of medicine, the glass, the spoon, Susan in bed in shadow

 Their stage training, rather than being overpowering, helped them to place themselves firmly in each scene, which complements the use of deep focus.

Flashbacks –perspectives of characters who are aging & forgetful –doubt of memories discussed –unreliable narrators

Camera angles: extreme close ups, panoramic long shots, deep focus

Use of shadows and light –shadow used to express ethnical value of character, cast doubt on character’s integrity –absence of shadow = character’s innocence / good intensions

Kane cast into shadow when he reads “declaration of principles” –cast back into light as he finishes reading –although his idealism is genuine, does not have strong enough character to persist with such principles –shadow foreshadows how Kane & Inquirer = antithesis of declaration

Gettys’ confrontation –Getty & kane in shadows, while Susan Alexander is in light –she is the victim of both men’s ambition

When Kane forces Susan to keep singing, she’s covered by his shadow

Lighting –film reporters casted in shadows = condemnation of media

Susan walks through several doors when she leaves Kane –emotional impact

Themes

Difficulty of interpreting a life:  man isn’t necessarily the sum of his achievements, possessions, or actions, but that something deeper must drive him

Myth of American dream: Thatcher removes Kane from this place, he’s given what seems like the American dream—financial affluence and material luxury. However, Kane finds that those things don’t make him happy, and the exchange of emotional security for financial security is ultimately unfulfilling. The American dream is hollow for Kane. As an adult, Kane uses his money and power not to build his own happiness but to either buy love or make others as miserable as he is. Kane's wealth isolates him from others throughout the years, and his life ends in loneliness at Xanadu. He dies surrounded only by his possessions, poor substitutions for true companions.

Unreliability of memory:

Isolation: happy child playing in snow –in Xanadu alone

Old age: degeneracy of storytellers = loneliness –Kane becomes devitalized & mechanical in movements

Materialism –Kane = collector –statues, can’t move around –camera pans across massive rooms filled w/ unpacked crates - After his disappointments in the political arena and with Susan’s opera career, Kane builds his estate, Xanadu, to isolate himself and Susan from those who spurned his attempts at manipulation, and he fills the castle with inanimate objects. He wields complete control over the world he’s created, and nothing can challenge his authority in this realm. Through his materialism Kane attempts to ameliorate the insults of the real world, where he couldn’t control his mother’s abandonment, Susan’s failed attempt at opera, the failure of his political career, and the souring opinions of his friends. He ends up at Xanadu alone, with his possessions as his only companions. By purchasing so many extravagant goods, Kane attempts to fill a void created by all the people who left him throughout his life. Yet the only two possessions that carry meaning for Kane on his deathbed are a simple snow globe and Rosebud, the sled he remembers from his youth.

Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder 1950

History

Paramount made in 1950 , Billy Wilder, cynical approach to the work

Old movie star try -TV coming up as a threat -Reflective changes in Hollywood -Decaying movie star

20’s, coming of sound, in late 40’s coming to TV

Symbol of change in Hollywood –theme: desire for fame, never realizing times have changed & left her behind –Norma’s hunger for fame destroys her

Black comedy/drama –darkest film-noir: depression, insanity illusions, hypocrisy, jealousy –self deceit, spiritual, spatial emptiness, price of fame/greed/narcissism/ambition –immoral –femme fatale

Joe dead = Flashback structure

First person narrative –inner psyche of male character trapped in fear -He become her dead monkey

Joe invades house

Deteriorating, rotting mausoleum-like estate –deserted –massive, grotesquely magnificent

Norma is a relic forgotten –pictures of herself, framed mirrors, vast staircase –objects from her past –illusion of spider web; entangling victim

Ornately decorated bedroom –all satin & ruffles –bed like gilded rowboat –perfect for silent movie queen

I am Big, it’s the pictures that got small

Norma Desmond walking towards Joe Gilles, foreshadows his helplessness to resist

Norma’s dramatic hands as they sculpt & sweep -Joe wants to cut out a scene with her in it = offended

Have they forgotten what a star looks like

Clutch his arm, intimacy –her pictures displayed, surrounded my picture frames of her

Tone of voice, bitter –stands up, face highlighted by the projector, hair fiery, hands clutching out –looks maniac, bathed in radiance –music -“we didn’t need dialogue. We had faces”

She puts her hands up in the air as if grasping for something –light behind her = villain look

The waxworks

Comparison of towing away of Joe’s car to Norma’s worry about the ash tray

There are no other guests @ new year’s party

Sad embarrassing revelation –orchestra playing only for them –dance, spacious around them –distance that he keeps from Norma –Max picks up her headband veil; symbolizes their first marriage

Medium shot: portrays Joe’s discomfort

Norma & Joe kiss -Keep touching him –possessive –hands envelop him –bony hand

Meeting with Cecil DeMille @ Paramount studios

Norma sits on set, pushes away microphone = symbolizes the advent of sound –spotlight

Couple ppl rush around her –“turn that light back where it belongs”: DeMille

Montage of Norma under beauty treatments

Blindingly bright lights –like athlete training for olympic games

Compared to Betty, who is realistic about the importance of illusion in Hollywood system –with Norma, Joe sold his self-respect for wealth

No one ever leaves a star

Joe packs his things –delicately holding gun –eyes open up super big –joe tells her they only wanted to rent her car, standing over her ; truth dominates her fantasy

“I am a star” looks into air, nothing –“no one ever leaves a star” menacing voice

High angle going down the stars, her going after him

Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close up

Spotlight, surrounded by cameras, policemen, news reporter –ironic come back –whir of cameras & radiant lights of popping flashbulbs

Going down stairwell –follow shot –she is dazed

How happy I am to be in the studio again –walks closer to camera, close up = irony –arched eyebrows, glaring eyes, insane looking facial expression

Boundaries b/w reality and dreams shift as Norma walks directly towards camera –illusory dream to be a star –image goes into blurry soft-focus, Norma slips back in time to her glory days

Narration

Dead man telling story –can we believe him? -Shots seem like news photos from front page of tabloid newspaper

Mise en scene, play of light & shadow = metaphors of dominance

Rich shadows, uses low-key lighting, create claustrophobic atmosphere, enhance sense of entrapment of male protagonist

Lighting and skewed camera angles are used in such a way as to create dark shadows and silhouettes.  These shots add to “an oppressive atmosphere of menace, pessimism, anxiety, and suspicion that anything can go wrong” (Dirks).  Low lighting is portrayed when scenes are shot inside and the urban night is the usual exterior setting. 

The lighting in Sunset Boulevard is used as a symbol that represents loneliness and a yearning hopefulness to become successful.  Billy Wilder uses the black and white colors to the film’s advantage.  The bright lights represent fame and success as for the darkness symbolizes lost hope and loneliness

Citizen Kane vs. Sunset Boulevard

MEMORIES OF THE PAST –black & white films

On “American Dream,” corruption of dream, vanity, & power –arresting moods, visual fascination, sharply-etched scripts, beautiful composition

Charles Kane & Norma Desmond possessed by illusions –Susan has opera house failure, Norma her unwitting futility on the set –both attempt to commit suicide –Kane retires to Xanadu, Norma retreats to mansion –both have iconoclasm, myth, satire, loneliness, failure, unending dream –Kane: “Rosebud” –Norma: “Salome”

Both achieve their dream in the end –Kane in death; Norma in madness

Citizen Kane	Sunset Boulevard
RKO, 1941, Orsen Welles	Paramount, 1950, Billy Wilder
The American Dream –live in the past –misses childhood	Rotting star
Setting: Xanadu –oppressive, mysterious, powerful	Mansion –alone, pictures/mirrors, gothic decorations
First person narration: able to believe the speakers that are interviewed?	Doubting the dead narrator -
Montage: marriage scene –deterioration of Kane’s morality	Norma, deterioration of her sanity & sense of reality
femme fatale : Fooled by Susan Alexander, who represents someone who can love Kane unconditionally	Entrapped by Norma, who gives him money
Shadows to represent goodness	Shadows to highlight her insanity
Materialism: Kane collects statues	Norma collects pictures & her own movies
Deep focus: distance b/w Kane & his loved ones
	Lighting: oppressive atmosphere of menace, anxiety, suspicion –represents loneliness & yearning hopefulness to become successful
Flashbacks –hook used to grab attention	Dramatic effect

Vertigo, Alfred Hitchcock , mystery/suspense , 1958

Femme fatale: Madeleine bringing Scottie to his doom

Intro: close up of eyes & face –spirals

The film starts off with a close-up shot of a women's mouth and pans up to the women's eye. The screen turns red while focused on the eye and the music hits a eerie climax. At this point we get a wide-eyed reaction shot of fear without being able to see what this women is scared of. A Gaze-Object-Gaze that's missing the object. This shot showcases the fantasy vs. reality aspect of the movies' theme. If you look at the mouth close-up you will notice her attempt to move her lips but she can't. It's like one of those dreams you have when you're scared and you want to yell or scream but your mouth won't open. The first scene also has a dream sequence feeling to it. With the wide shot on the rooftop and the dolly zoom shot of the street when Scottie experiences vertigo on the ledge, the film sets a tone that is outside the realm of reality.

Scene where Scottie observes Madeline; follows her

Cross cut between their two faces Visits grave of Carlotta Valdes -Stares at portrait of Carlotta Verdes: zooms in on similar hairstyle

Scottie follows Madeline to Fort Point, she jumps in

Windy roads –dumps flowers into the San Francisco Bay -Madeline in white sheets

He keeps staring at her –touches her hand, interrupted by phone -tense

Madeline goes back to his house

Endless turns when he follows her, makes him seem like she’s controlling him, making him lost

Intimate conversations -Go to the woods: “always green, never living” sequoia trees

She doesn’t like it, knowing she has to die -Hides herself in the trees –Panic attack

Nightmare

Nothing but darkness at the end of the corridor –walk into darkness, then die –afraid of dying Always alone –open grave –stand by gravestone, my grave is new, clearly waiting

Tower in Spain -I’m mad; I don’t want to die -Kiss –waves splash in the back

Scottie visits Midge -He’s been “wandering” -Midge paints herself over the painting of Carlotta

Stares in front of her -Madeline runs up spiral of bell tower of church & commits suicide

Madeline’s death = suicide -Scottie has nightmares –eyes open, change to flowers, green

Different colors on his faces -Carlotta’s painting -Spirals –nightmare of him falling off the bell tower

White blank room –face looks skinnier Scottie can’t talk ; suffering from acute melancholy & guilt complex -Imagines that he sees her where Madeline used to go -Crosscutting between him and Madeline -Zoom out from flowers

Scottie sees woman that looks like Madeline; stalks her into the Empire Hotel

More makeup and different dress -Judy Barton from Kansas –stares at her

Her reflection in the mirror –guesses that she’s dead -Scottie asks her to dinner –stuck in the past

Flashback of her falling off the bell tower -Medium shot of Judy’s shadow, outline of Madeline?

Judy goes shopping

For Scottie, so she looks like Madeline -Mirror images -Changes her image so he’ll love her

Extreme close ups of hands, eyes, lips, changing into Madeline -Zoom in on the necklace that Carlotta wore in the picture

Takes Judy to the mission

Him in the shadows, Judy’s body is covered by him -Him standing over her -Made to the top of the stairs

Film elements

Dreamlike “detective work” –reality vs. real world –soft-focus camera work & swirling music create Scottie’s growing obsession with Madeleine –audience enchanted by couple -Lost in world of illusion & fantasy

Physically moving camera away from stairs while also zooming in the lens = dizziness and confusion

Nightmares, colors in background

Shadow

 one of the last scenes Johnnie listens to Judy explain herself and profess her love for him. Each time the camera cuts to Scottie his face is engulfed in darkness. The low key lighting places a shadow around his face. This signifies his mental position while listening to her. He is half in and half out. He doesn't know if he should give her another chance, leave, or turn her in. Eventually they embrace and kiss until Judy notices a shadowy figure appear in the darkness

Hitchcock’s famous forward zoom/reverse tracking method to provoke the most heightened sense of agoraphobia

Using a model of the inside of the tower, and zooming the lens in while at the same time physically pulling the camera back, Hitchcock shows the walls approaching and receding at the same time; the space has the logic of a nightmare

 The darkened images, relating to ghosts, sexuality, and clouded thoughts, are opposed to the daytime shots illustrating a relatively normal and realistic state.

As Scottie embraces “Madeleine,” even the background changes to reflect his subjective memories instead of the real room he's in. Bernard Herrmann's score creates a haunting, unsettled yearning. And the camera circles them hopelessly, like the pinwheel images in Scottie's nightmares, until the shot is about the dizzying futility of our human desires, the impossibility of forcing life to make us happy

Theme of wandering –relation to Kane & Norma, searching for nothing –instability of identity

Madeleine: Judy copies her motivations, dreams, memories –representation of perfect romance; projetion –Judy is real person, complete with imperfections, complex feelings, motivations

Midge: practical, competent, realistic, well adjusted –tries to work on Scotte’s acrophobia –antithesis of romantic illusion –able to give Scottie a mature kind of love

Spirals:

Woman’s eye in intro –when Scottie is on edge of building –Carlotta’s hair in spiraling bun –winding stairs of bell tower as he chases Madeleine

The real and the unreal co-exist and bleed into each other, boundaries between reality and fantasy collapse and the imagined becomes more real than reality. This is illustrated in particular in Scotty’s remarkable dream sequence which includes a cartoon animation of a bouquet falling apart and other animated montages in which Scotty falls into an open grave or falls into the centre of the screen

Even the manipulation and duplicity of the film is duplicated: Scotty is maniulated by Elster and Madeleine in the film’s first half; in the second half, Scotty himself manipulates Judy. The circularity motif echoes also in the hairstyles of Madeleine and Carlotta in her portrait, and in the flower bouquet which Madeleine buys and which appears again and again in the film.

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