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Citizen Kane And The Social Network: Cinematic Analysis

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In 1941, Orson Welles directed a movie that many now consider to be the best movie ever made. With eight wins and twelve other nominations, Citizen Kane stars Welles himself, playing newspaper tycoon Charles Foster Kane, who was based on the real-life William Randolph Hearst. The story immediately begins with Kane’s death, and his last word sparks a wave of curiosity among journalists, leaving them to investigate the meaning of the mysterious “Rosebud.” During the film, the audience learns that Kane, although wealthy, was not necessarily happy; he had lost love and respect numerous times throughout his life, and each of those events forced him into a deeper state of isolation. On the other hand, 2010 movie The Social Network, directed by David …show more content…

During the course of the film, Citizen Kane included very dim lighting, sometimes to the point where only silhouettes could be seen. While the newspaper reporters review Kane’s life in the beginning of the movie, everybody’s face is engulfed in shadow, which emphasizes the isolation Kane felt consistently during his life. Kane, despite his wealth, never had a dependent source of love or support. Welles shows that Kane is completely and utterly alone with the darkness; even in his death, a room full of people want to invade his privacy purely for the press, not to mourn or offer respect. Additionally, Finch uses low-key lighting to reveal Zuckerberg's conflict at the start of the movie. Immediately, Zuckerberg and his girlfriend are in a bar with dim lighting, and the two of them begin to argue until she ends the relationship. This is just the first step of many as Zuckerberg becomes more and more isolated from his friends. Both Citizen Kane and The Social a Network applied low-key lighting to clarify that despite all the wealth or virtual friends, the two characters are alone, referencing the theme of

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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.

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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

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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”.

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(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

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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

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Citizen Kane challenged the traditional narrative and technical elements of classic Hollywood cinema mainly in the area of sound. Orson Welles was ahead of his time when he created his works of manipulating sound to transfer meaning in the film Citizen Kane. Welles used concealed hanging microphones to obtain different levels of sound throughout the film. The manner, in which the story was told, from Kane’s death flashbacked to his life of success and ultimate failure, was also a new style of storytelling for films. Welles also used symbolism with his last mumbling word “Rosebud.”

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