Citizen Kane

Citizen Kane is all about Charles Foster Kane's life from different peoples perspectives. Such as his second wife, Susan Alexander, and people involved in his work life (running a newspaper) such as Jim W. Getty. Who was Kane's main rival.

The story is set after Kane's death and follows a journalist who's trying to find out what Kane's last words meant which were 'rosebud'. He does this by interviewing several people involved with him. At the end it's revealed that rosebud was the name of the sled he had when he was a child, it's never said why that was his last word, it's left up to the imagination, many believe it represents that the only time he was truly happy was when he was a child, showing that money and fame hasn't made him happy.


I really like this shot/scene because the way it's shot is very ahead of it's time and stylistic. This is one of the first scenes in the movie so it sets up a good tone and feeling for the rest of the movie.




-YouTube. Last words scene (1/10)Z Movieclips https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFSjHBVx-xk [accessed 8th January 2020]


I also like the scene where it's revealed what rosebud means. It was Charles Foster Kane's sled when he was young. I really like this shot because it's never explicitly said what it means, it's up to interpretation.

-BFi. 20 inspired visual moments in Citizen Kane. https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/20-inspired-visual-moments-citizen-kane [accessed 10th January 2020]




I also like the scene where Susan Alexander leaves Kane for good, I think this is a good representation of Kane never being able to be truly happy, this was the last straw the pushed him over the edge.

- Youtube. Citizen Kane - Room Trashing Scene. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFT083GhycM [accessed 10th January 2020]






I really liked this unique technique they used for the film, where all the ceilings on all the sets were made out of a cloth called muslin, so they could put lights and microphones in the ceiling for clearer audio and more impressive lighting.

-Twitter. Radley Mason. https://twitter.com/RadleyMason/status/885831255845027841 [accessed 14th January 2020]

This is a very impressive shot because it's actually 2 bits of films layered on top of each other, this was done to achieve the lighting the was it is, there's a divide between the two characters on screen. They also needed to use two bits of film to be able to get the man in the background, this wouldn't be possible with just one shot.

-BFI. 20 inspired visual moments in Citizen Kane. https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/20-inspired-visual-moments-citizen-kane [accessed 14th January 2020]



This is a very impressive shot because it was a combination of a drawing and real film, the stage is all real and the crowd is a drawing, the production team poked holes through the picture ans shined lights threw it, this was to make it seem like the crowd was moving, I really like this shot because they were doing something very ahead of their time.

BFI. 20 inspired visual moments in Citizen Kane. https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/20-inspired-visual-moments-citizen-kane [accessed 15th January]