Analysis of Citizen Kane - Essay Example

The Citizen Kane: An Analysis of the Movie Introduction The movie Citizen Cane depicts a scene of comedy, mystery and suspense and with touch of classics. It was first shown on the big screen on 1st day of May 1941. Many who have watched the movie expressed their opinions and comments regarding as to how the movie progressed, its characters, the plot, effects and sound integrated. It was widely considered to be the greatest film that ever created in the sphere of Hollywood. In this paper, a critique on the entirety of the film is discussed.

Critique Every movie has its own story to tell and scenes to display. The movie Citizen Kane, directed by Orson Welles and written by Herman J. and Orson Welles, was full of remarkable scenes and performances. It was able to deliver good narrative techniques and showed fantastic innovations in photography, editing, and sound. However, the film was linked to controversies and negative gossips. In fact, the persons behind the making of this film had received threats through intimidation, blackmail, newspaper smears, discrediting and even was subjected to FBI investigations before the day of its premiere in 1941 in New York City (“Citizen Kane”).

Some watchers found the film as wonderful and extraordinary; others said it was just a mere fiction. Despite the good compliments of some, the film was accused of drawing remarkable, unflattering, and uncomplimentary parallels, not to mention the scene where Susan Alexander Kane character--how it was portrayed to real life. In addition, many did not give ‘nod’ to the film because it was accused of negative fictionalizing and caricaturing of certain events and individuals, especially individuals like in the life of William Randolph Hearst, a prominent and powerful newspaper magnate and publisher.

In addition, Citizen Kane, despite of some good compliments it has earned, it was not spared with both constructive and destructive criticism--it was innovative, yet had shared some of its cinematic techniques from Hitchcock's Rebecca in 1940--also, with other films. Although, the film was tagged with many accusations, it should not have been censored, because it did not contain ‘condemnable acts of immorality.’ Aspects Centered with Criticisms In progress of the film, one could notice the use of subjective camera, unconventional lighting, including chiaroscuro.

Also, the backlighting and high contrast lighting, prefiguring the darkness was not so good. There was a sparse use of revealing facial close-ups, elaborate camera movements, over-lapping and talk-over dialogue, long uninterrupted shots or lengthy takes of sequences. While the sound effects were fairly produced and sustained, a complex montage sequence was linked by other sounds. Others criticize the sequence of flashbacks, flash forwards, and non-linear story-telling. Further, the characters in the film were not properly emphasized and portrayed--though some were taken from real-life story.

Towards the end, the film was not totally a success; though it had a budget of $800,000, still earned a critical praise--because of limited distribution and delayed release by RKO. The Citizen Kane film was tagged by many as sophisticated, fresh, and a classic, masterpiece, and ‘over-fictional’. Reference “Citizen Kane (1941).” Filmsite. American Movie Classics Company, n.d. Web. 4 May 2011.