Along with its renowned outstanding cinematic achievements, what ultimately exalted Citizen Kane to such incredible heights was the character of Charles Foster Kane. In despite of reporters attempts to unveil the genuine Kane. Kane claimed the name of an enigma. The depth of Kane’s loneliness and isolation concludes in a vignette that will continue to impress generations of audiences .
A series of rough chronological flashbacks tells the life story of Charles Foster Kane. The first flashback introduces Kane to Thatcher.Kane’s mother Mary runs a lodging house in rural Colorado. To compensate a payment for room and board, one of her tenants gives her stock to what she believes is a worthless mine, but in-turn is a working gold mine.
She unexpectedly strikes it rich, she decides it would be better off to send Charles away at eight years old, to be raised by her banker, Thatcher. Naturally, Charles is infuriated and strikes Thatcher with the sled he’s been happily riding when Thatcher comes to take him away. Kane never sees his mother again.The abrupt separation keeps keeps Kane from growing past the needy and aggressive behaviors of a pre-adolescent. The relationship between Kane and Thatcher remained cold.
In their years together Kane moves on to writing questionable journalism, but continued to constantly waste money and enrage Thatcher. As an adult, Kane possess a significant amount of wealth and power but no sense of emotional security, this absence greater constraints his development and stimulates his resentment of authority. His great wealth causes Kane to have no motives to bring himself to social standards.He sees no reason to move past his disdain and sense of the world revolving around him, and never takes his place as a productive member of society. He takes control of Thatchers owned New York Inquirer with idealistic intentions at the start, but soon began to thwart his ideas in order to gain control over his environment and competition.
Kane used his personal resources in order to finance the Inquirer regardless of a million dollar annual loss. Kane’s quest for power makes him charismatic, successful, and respected, but eventually things take a turn for the worst.His marriage with his wife Emily Monroe Norton eventually sours because of Kane’s power hungry megalomaniacal ego. As his publicity and fortune rises, Kane decides to run for Governor of New York against reputedly corrupt J. W.
Gettys. The victory of the election was almost certain until Gettys reveals Kane’s affair with singer Susan Alexander. However, Kane refused to drop out of the race despite Gettys’ leverage. Kane scandal goes public and he decisively loses the election and his wife.
Furthermore, his best pal, Jedediah Leland, become distraught of Kane’s arrogance.He goes on to humiliate Kane, his family, and demanded he be moved to the Chicago paper to keep distant from him. Kane goes on to marry Susan and forced her into a doomed and humiliating career as an opera singer, her ameatuer singing was no match to the standards of an opera performance. Kane relinquishes her from her disastrous operatic career and retires to Xanadu, after Susan attempts suicide. Susan cannot withstand the monotonous life inside the cavernous mansion and Kane’s increasingly dominant nature.Their marriage breaks up, and loses respect of society at large.
Susan represents Kane’s lost innocence and downfall. When she leaves him, Kane’s loss mirrors his mother abandonment. In gripping rage he trashes Susan’s room and finds the snow globe,which conjures long-repressed memories of his childhood. Kane now has no one since Susan is gone, and nothing to hold onto but the past.
Citizen Kane cinematics advanced on many levels, the technique known as deep focus was a very significant contribution to cinematography.Deep focus refers to acquire everything in a single frame, including the background, converging at the same time, instead of having people and things in the foreground in focus. For example, throughout the film, windows indicated a point of inflection depicting a feeling of emptiness. In creating a deep focus the cinematographer needs to combine lighting, composition, and specific camera lens in order to create the desired effect. Deep focus, showcases overlapping activity, and mise-en-scene becomes more analytical.
Deep focus actively engages the entire space of the frame to have the viewer fully aware of the intentions of the frame.In Citizen Kane deep focus was most effective in scenes that illustrate Kane’s loss of control and personal isolation because it gives the audience the concise view into Kane’s demise and space in which he had no control over. In conclusion Citizen Kane created an everlasting impact in the movie making industry along with society. The mood and tone conjured by this movie set a standard in cinematography and visual effects that leaves an everlasting effect worldwide. Citizen Kane has made a great significance in the movie making history claiming the name “the best movie ever made”.
