Alright, I’m going to start this blog with admitting that I am a film student and before this week I had never seen Citizen Kane. I obviously have wanted to because even if you aren’t able to watch the film, it’s what every professor talks about and what every text book can’t go without mentioning. In particular, the film’s use of deep focus, the unusual narrative structure, and Welles’ vision and performance are always discussed and analyzed. Needless to say, going into this film, my expectations were very high. I had recently seen Touch Of Evil and The Third Man and loved them both. I was anxious to see Orson Welles’ directorial debut and masterpiece. Having said all of this and set everything up… I thought Citizen Kane was... good.
While watching Citizen Kane a second time, I began to notice (and admire) so many more of the film’s technical aspects, including the various camera techniques and the film’s overall style of editing. Citizen Kane is a beautiful looking film. The first three minutes should be watched over and over again. Welles’ series of dissolves (which typically show the passage of time between two shots) introduce us to a world that is equally mysterious and magical as it is dramatic and solemn. Citizen Kane immediately establishes itself as being a film that will force us to think about not only what we are viewing but how we are viewing it.
A series of shots dissolve into one another, appearing to show different angles of Kane’s mansion Xanadu. However, there is something slightly skewed about what we are seeing. In every shot of Xanadu, we see that Kane’s bedroom window is lined up in the upper right corner of the frame, the exact same spot as it was in the previous shot (This effect, I’m guessing, must have been achieved through using some sort of projection or placing a painted background behind a series of changing foreground elements). While this forces our eye to a key location that we are ultimately brought closer to, it also forces one to wonder what exactly is going on in the frame. How can we possibly see what we are seeing? Can we believe everything that we are being shown to be the truth? These are questions that one will ask throughout the entire film, whether it be regarding the literary storytelling or the visual.
Another impressive thing about the first three minutes of Kane is that it is entirely visual storytelling. The only line of dialogue in this introduction is the word “Rosebud”. Interestingly enough, even without this line, Welles would have still been able to tell us everything that happened simply by using visuals. This mysterious introduction is contrasted and in some ways dwarfed by the ten minute long news reel, which, while necessary, comes across both boring and preachy.As I mentioned above (and we briefly discussed in class), Orson Welles uses deep focus cinematography throughout the entire film. While this technique certainly brings out Welles’ unique compositions and complex set designs, I struggled with the logic behind the decision to use it entirely throughout. After watching Citizen Kane, one sees that the film is primarily made up of subjective viewpoints. Each part of the film represents a different facet of Charles Foster Kane, as seen through different people in his life. My question is, “Why does Orson Welles use deep focus cinematography, a technique one would use to show objectivity, throughout a film composed of and in many ways about subjectivity?”
Deep focus keeps the shot’s foreground, middle ground and background all in focus. Shallow focus on the other hand, often shows a certain subject within the frame in focus while everything else is out of focus. Filmmakers frequently use shallow focus to guide the viewer’s attention to various parts of the frame, adding a certain level of camera subjectivity. It seems like it would have been more fitting for Welles to use shallow focus whenever we listen to the stories of Kane’s colleagues and close friends, for they all have had different experiences and formed different relationships with Kane, and used deep focus for the scenes when we are experiencing things solely through the eyes of reporter Jerry Thompson. Bert Cardullo touches on this subject in his article “The Real Fascination of Citizen Kane.” Regarding the film’s use of deep focus, Cardullo states, “the image continually teases us, by seeming to include us within its confines, that we will be able to know Charles Foster Kane completely, even as we know his 'space,' his entire domain, completely. For this reason, we never leave ‘Charlie,’ unlike virtually everyone else who knew him.” While at first I didn’t agree with Cardullo at all, I’m now beginning to accept that this could have been what Welles had in mind. If this is the case, Kane is in no way a realist film (which I find interesting due to the frequent use of news and documentary style footage).
There’s something about the film though that I can’t seem to get past. I feel as if I never really get a chance to know who Kane is. I realize that this is somewhat the point but for some reason I don’t buy that. Why would someone want to watch a movie where we feel next to no emotional attachment or engagement? I think the beauty of cinema, and the power of good film, from its most literal and narrative approach to its most surreal and experimental, is that we can experience something real and honest and gain a better understanding of ourselves through watching it. I get that Charles Foster Kane is a tragic figure who yearns to experience the innocence of a childhood he was forced out of. But I can’t help but think that rather than being groundbreaking, Kane’s mystery and characterization is somewhat shallow. The film presents Kane’s life as being mysterious and even magical, which leads us to believe that Kane was perhaps more of a symbolic figure or concept than a man. My issue is that this concept did not seem to be incorporated throughout the film. Rather it was just thrown at the beginning and at the end while the middle provided us with no answers.
I’ll admit that I’m slightly exaggerating because I know that there are aspects of Citizen Kane that are breathtaking. The film is one that should be studied and without a doubt must have been a blast to see sixty years ago. All I’m saying is that in films like There Will Be Blood, I saw a progression of violence and desperation in Daniel Plainview that seemed to come from the core of his character. In American Beauty I was able to experience the frustration of Lester Burnham and fall in and out of love with his family simply through Kevin Spacey’s performance. In Citizen Kane, Orson Welles didn’t do this for me. And even though Kane is supposed to be unreachable and mysterious, I just wish I could have felt something more.
