How Does Citizen Kane Challenge Classical Cinema

Citizen Kane, (Orson Welles, 1941), was a breakthrough film of its time of release in 1941. The director, Orson Welles, had been in radio and had already made somewhat of a name for himself onstage, as well as a director and manager of his own company. After failing to persuade his Hollywood contractor RKO with his first script and movie project, he decided to focus on creating a screenplay about a “millionaire media magnate William Randolph Hearst.” (Lewis, p158). Hence, Citizen Kane debuted and presented new technical elements and narrative ways to produce a movie and capture viewers. Orson Welles was able to challenge traditional narrative and technical elements of classic Hollywood Cinema by providing multiple narrative sequences with a parallel narrative structure, mis-en-scene, and depth of field camera shots. The use of multiple narrative sequences was essential to provide a new way narrate a movie. Instead of telling a story from one narrator, Orson Welles told the story of lead character, Charles Forest Kane, through multiple narrators, all of which were supporting characters in the movie. Each character

This is the use of camera angle to give the look and feel of the scene as the director wants the audience to portray it. For example, the same scene explained earlier when Kane and Jedidiah are in the newspaper office after the failed political campaign. The camera angle is low, looking up at the characters. As Jedidiah walks in, the camera captures the entire room, the falling decorations, and the men as they talk and walk around the room. One can see Kane walk to the back of the room, and the camera angle turns to see Kane’s legs in the foreground with Jedidiah speaking to him form the middle of the room. These camera angles and shots show the depth of the room and help to form the mise-en-scene discussed