The American Dream is that anyone can gain success through hard work, no matter your status, or if you're poor, or your gender, or anything of your background. Citizen Kane shows the dark side by emphasizing the reality of who can achieve the American Dream. Charles Foster Kane was a rich white male who was able to achieve greatness in power and wealth. There is no denying that he did put work in, but you cannot ignore that his background contributed a lot towards his success. For instance, in one scene, Thatcher is telling Kane that he is losing $1 million dollars a year. Kane responds by saying at that rate, he would need to close down is 60 years. By putting this scene in, it shows the amount of privilege Charles possesses. To the general …show more content…
Normally, films will use shallow focus in order to show importance. This was not the case for Citizen Kane. In this film, they used deep focus to show importance to multiple figures. This can be difficult because mise-en-scene becomes so much more important since the audience can clearly see everything. Also, the director has to strategically use deep focus in order to convey information to the audience without leaving the audience confused. For instance, in a scene where Charles Kane’s mother is making an agreement with a banker, Thatcher, to send Charles Kane away to study, along with details about the wealth she had acquired from having a gold mine under her name. In this scene, Mrs. Kane, her husband, and Thatcher are having a discussion on legal matters over the acquired wealth and Charles Kane. While most would use shallow focus to guide the audience to centralize on this conversation, Welles and Toland decided to use deep focus in order to also show Charles Kane playing outside in the snow. This was used to show that he has no control of what is going on, while Mrs. Kane, who is closest to the camera, has most of the power over this
Both times, the main character realises that they have lost everything important to them and have ended up with nothing truly valuable. The play and the film similarly explore the regret and loneliness of those who have lost what is truly important to them. Macbeth and Citizen Kane clearly show the difference between acquiring material goods, and acquiring what is truly important: happiness. Macbeth and Citizen Kane explore the themes of greed, ambition and desire, and are both very clear examples of how such qualities can cause the loss of everything truly valuable. Both works show examples of how those who are overly ambitious can end up with everything they desired, yet nothing they truly want.
The american dream is an ideal of everyone to achieve the hope of having a better life and making great amounts of money but in that sense they aren’t realizing what things they are leaving back and how much they’ll have to sacrifice or loose to gain that thought of American dream. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and “ Harlem” by Langston Hughes both shows how the american dream gives hope but the pursuit of hope demolishes. Which is illustrated by the characters showing the corruption of wealth and their moral values. Gatsby the most wealthiest and meticulous person from West Egg which represents new money a society parades its cash through obvious utilization and luxurious drinking and partying but his american dream was only Daisy
The American Dream is the long held belief that everybody can succeed in life by merit of hard work and perseverance. A man’s origins were not to be an inhibitor of his success. In F. Scott Fitzgerald's work The Great Gatsby the American Dream is portrayed as being misunderstood by the people of the 1920s. The American Dream became corrupted by people searching not for happiness, success, and honorable ambitions in life, but instead for wealth, power, and excess.
The Film Citizen Kane was a groundbreaking film in the 1940’s, the way Orson Wells depicts his film with different lighting, cinematography, choice of camera shots and mise-en-scene throughout this movie truly showed the masterpiece that this film is. In the Film Citizen Kane, it was the first movie that went against true Hollywood cinema by introducing flashbacks throughout the movie to show us how Charles Foster Kane changes throughout the movie. Throughout this movie the audience can see how Charles Foster Kane undergoes a variety of physical and emotional changes from when he was just a young boy all the way until his unfortunate death. Power, that’s all that Kane wanted in the start of the film. In the beginning of the film Kane gets ownership of the struggling New York Daily Inquirer, Kane suggests that he wanted to use journalism to apply to the public and protect the interest of ordinary people.
(Citizen Kane, 1941) Kane’s parents used the power of money as an accessory for giving him away to a billionaire. Since that day, the protagonist went through a traumatizing experience, insecurity and redisposition due to his parents’ actions, which marked the beginning of his tortuous need, to be loved. This unreturned love created a sense of fear and mistrust to love something or someone, only to experience abandonment again was something Kane never got a chance to learn. Citizen Kane broke all the rules because of Welles, there were no
Directed by Orson Welles, the 1941 motion picture “Citizen Kane” is the story of the rise and fall of a great, influential man. The opening scenes of “Citizen Kane” are quite different from what follows during the rest of the film. Fading in and out of different landscapes instilled mystery. This mysterious vibe was carried on during Charles Foster Kane’s death through the use of shadows, quiet music, and close up shots. Isolated in his vast empire of a home, Kane uttered only one word before he passed: “rosebud.”
Welles utilized sound to make the audience feel the mood of the scenes, the soul of the characters, and the meaning of the film. During happy times in Kane’s memory, the music and sounds were of quick and light as in business implying a mood of success and forward motion in life. The sounds used in the movie assisted viewers in many ways; 1) guided attention to certain parts of the scene, 2) helped define the dimensions of where the characters were positioned in the scene, 3) conveyed the mood of the scene and the character’s states of minds, 4) helped to represent time, 5) created rhythm not provided by music, 6) revealed the main characters aspects, 7) aroused expectations about what was going to happen in the scene, and 8) enhanced the overall dramatic effect of the sequence of the movie. These are just a few of the benefits that the newly introduced sounds in the movie Citizen Kane provided. This film was truly ahead of its time and Orson Welles was well aware of that.
There are many things that make “Citizen Kane” considered as possibly one of the greatest films every made; to the eyes of the passive audience this film may not seem the most amazing, most people being accustomed to the classical Hollywood style, but to the audience with an eye for the complex, “Citizen Kane” breaks the traditional Hollywood mold and forges its own path for the better. Exposition is one of the most key features of a film, it’s meant introduce important characters and give the audience relevant details and and dutifully suppress knowledge in turn. “Citizen Kane” does not follow this Classic Hollywood style exposition, instead going above and beyond to open the film with revealing as little information as possible and confuse/intrigue
Citizen Kane by Orson Welles is a cinematic classic, released in 1941. Citizen Kane challenged traditional narrative and technical elements of classic Hollywood cinema. Kane was narrated by several people that include their take on Kane’s life. The story unfolds by many flashbacks and is told by different perspectives over the years through different narrations. Charles Foster Kane was a millionaire, head of newspapers and died saying “rosebud”.
Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941) challenged traditional narrative and technical elements of classic Hollywood cinema through techniques in cinematography, mise-en-scene and lighting. The mise-en-scene build of Citizen Kane is the pivoting point of the narrative forthcoming and Welles uses every technical element encompassed in this build to span his narrative across 60 years of Charles Foster Kane, the main character 's life. The beginning of this build is founded on the black and white shooting choice which sets an ominous almost 'film noir ' lighting and feel of the opening scene of the castle in Xanadu. This where we see end of Kane 's life, but every aspect of the film 's narrative will revolve around these frames and including the questions of 'who has died '?, 'what was the significance of the snow globe? ', and 'Who is rosebud? '. The camera angle in the deathbed scene is deliberately shot from a low angle, which further implies the importance of the person lying in the bed as well as providing mystery as the viewer is not yet privy to whom has just
Deep focus refers to having everything in the frame in focus at the same time, including the background. Welles technique of deep focus was much different compared to other films that mainly focused on the people and things in the foreground. The deep focus technique requires the cinematographer to combine lighting, composition, and different camera lens to produce the desired effect. When using deep focus, a filmmaker can showcase overlapping actions, and mise-en-scène becomes more
For example, during the book burning scene, a variety of high to mid-low shots are used to position the audience in the crowd or as one of the speakers up front. In addition, the way the objects in the scene are positioned and the frame are composed creates an intimidating effect. All the large Nazi flags are positioned symmetrically around the town square, yet the camera is framed slightly off centre, making the whole shot feel off and like something is wrong [Fig. 5]. This certainly shows that Percival utilizes Percival employs cinematic techniques such as camera angles and the framing of the shots used to communicate and allow the audience to explore the power of the human spirit when dealing with adversity in his film The Book
The term, “American dream,” was first used by historian James Truslow Adams. James stated that the American dream was, “That dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement.” Although the quote states a perfect definition of the American dream, this term can be interpreted in several ways. The American dream is achieving a goal that before was seen as impossible or unlikely, making a decision that could improve the life of future descendants, and having goals that you want to accomplish.
This is when we find out that the news was screened in a room. Shadowed images are seen in the room. With what is said in the room we get to know that these men are very manipulative and want to know what is meant by Kane’s last word “Rosebud”. Sir Thompson is chosen to reveal to the audience the secrecy behind this word. If we were to view this very carefully, we see that Sir Thompson is indirectly the audience to whom all the facts about Kane is revealed to.
Kylie Mawn Professor Rodais CINE 121 Midterm 4 March 2018 Question 1: Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941) is a film that is well known for pushing cinematic boundaries in many ways. One commonly recognized technique in Welles’ film is deep focus photography. Deep focus photography is used in films to allow everything in a shot to be in focus at once. Typical, only specific characters or objects are in focus in any given frame in order to guide the audience’s attention in a scene, but deep focus can bring a new level of sophistication to a shot.