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Conventions And Film Analysis: Citizen Kane

863 Words4 Pages

Content 16 Morgan Wilson
Style 16 Novels and Film
Conventions 16 Mr. Dougherty, Period 2
Citizen Kane Citizen Kane is an American mystery drama film produced by Orson Welles. The film is in black and white and was filmed in nineteen forty one. The film is told through the point of view of Charles Foster Kane, for it starts out with him on his deathbed holding a snowglobe, he utters the word “Rosebud”, and dies. Rosebud is the motif that, throughout the film, viewers are trying to solve the mystery of who or what Rosebud is and how it had significance in Kane’s life. This is what makes this film fall into the mystery genre. The camerawork of this film was impeccable, considering the time period it was filmed in. It also includes great transitions and a storyline like no other. The film techniques that Orson Welles captured helped explain the story in …show more content…

Many transitions were used in such a short period of time. In the beginning of the film, we see a series of flashbacks, that also appear at the end of the movie. We see Kane holding the snowglobe, which by the end of the film we realize that the snowglobe means much more. It symbolizes a time in his childhood right before he was taken away from his parents, when he was playing in the snow with Rosebud. A live action shot went into a newspaper photo. As Kane’s affair with Susan is exposed, Susan’s real-life door dissolves into a newspaper photo of the same thing. Another example is the words News on the March fade in and out and then numerous cuts occur as quotes about Kane and Xanadu move in and out of the shot. The transitions were very well done and were strategically

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