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Citizen Kane Challenges Classic Hollywood Cinema

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The film Citizen Kane gave challenge to the traditional and classic composition of American Cinema. These challenges came in the form of innovations in both the narrative as well as the technical composition. This film believed by many to be the “greatest movie of all times” (Ebert,1991), was produced and released with much excitement both in the subject and stylistic execution of Orson Wells masterpiece.

Citizen Kane Challenges Classic Hollywood Cinema:
From the very inception of the filming of Citizen Kane, the boundaries of the classic Hollywood film were pushed. The utilization of mise-en-scene was remarkable, opening new doors for use of elements of setting and tone to convey the state of mind of Kane. Kane was depicted early in the film as a character filled with idealism and vitality. This was expressed by the film makers in a somewhat confined frame with low …show more content…

Another seemingly innovative mise-en-scene element used was deep space or deep focus composition. In many of the later frames of the film Kane is the forward most character in a frame as he becomes more influential, both in financial and political stature. This third dimension of depth, adds to the mystique of Kane’s character.
The use of lighting added another expertly utilized tool in creating this masterpiece. The film “makes great use of darkness and shadow. Welles, working with the gifted cinematographer Gregg Toland, wanted to show a man's life that was filled to bursting with possessions, power, associates, wealth and mystery. He created a gloomy, dark visual style for the picture, and because of Toland's famous deep-focus photography, the frame is filled from front to back as well as from left to right.” (Ebert, 1991). Many of the technical lighting effects, were novel in the industry, and this in many respects added to the art of

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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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