Citizen Kane And The Ox-Herder Pictures Analysis

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what can be said about a film? Communicating visually is a unique storytelling device which, when used effectively, can elevate a text, theme or idea. Citizen Kane and the Ox-Herder Pictures are two seminal works of their respective mediums and cultures, and use nuanced visual storytelling to enhance a theme common to both texts: the journey of self-discovery. This journey is characterised by breaking away from societal expectations to determine one’s own feelings and priorities in life. Both texts use a similar visual device: isolation, to symbolise that self-discovery is in an inner journey. Likewise, colour is used to symbolise various stages and thresholds throughout one’s course, serving as a visual

Both texts use isolation as a visual device to symbolise this process, yet vary in their execution, as each text is a product of two very different cultures. The story in CK is told through a series of flashbacks by journalists seeking to understand ‘who Kane was’, not what he did. This theme, of what constitutes how a person should be judged, is developed as a critique on the American dream; the values of which are fundamentally flawed. Materialism, excess, money and power; “Kane was a man who got everything he wanted”, and yet, he died with regret. Rosebud is, at its core, a symbol of a life lost. “If I hadn’t been very rich, I might have been a really great man”. Kane, the epitome of success in the eyes of society, became increasingly unfulfilled as he engaged more deeply in a materialistic lifestyle. Welles pictures Kane becoming dwarfed by his own success, wholly absorbed by society’s expectations of him. Kane’s isolation is thus used in contrast to his excess, signalling the growing need for Kane to look inwards instead of through his public image. In contrast, the OHP, Zen Buddhism’s allegory of self-discovery, depicts a literal, visual representation of this journey. Zen is a culture of simplicity, removing all excess and unnecessities to focus on what is important, a philosophy is reflected in the ten Ox-Herder pictures. As such, the OHP depicts isolation literally: ‘’In an endless wilderness the lonely herdsman… [searches] for his ox’’. Where CK presents a story in which a man loses his way, unable to find his own happiness in a lifestyle ill-suited to this cause, the OHP delivers a focused fable of the self coming under one’s control. Introspection is both the medium of self-discovery and its catalyst, so that one can determine what they value in themselves, not what society values in