Truffaut's 400 Blows And Welles Citizen Kane

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In the creative scene, there are painters to their paintings, sculptors to their sculptures, authors to their novels, and then there are auteurs to their films. What all these different artists have in common is authorial-like control over the creation of their art and their works. What makes films different from the rest is the amount of work put into a film and the involvement of many other people. There are some film directors that are not the possess complete authorial-like control over their films and there are auteurs, such as François Truffaut and Orson Welles, that do. Within Truffaut’s 400 Blows and Welles’ Citizen Kane, it is evident that both directors had creative control over their projects which allowed their films to truly become their individual works through their specific uses of cinematic language, mise-en scene, cinematography, and, in Welles’ case, narrative structure. …show more content…

In 400 Blows, Truffaut utilizes a very linear narrative structure as the story progresses from the first instance of Antoine’s truancy as he begins skipping school and running away from home. Though simple. The narrative structure of the film allows for a clear and steady build up of tension as Antoine begins to develop and reveal more about his unhappiness. In contrast, Citizen Kane utilizes a very non-linear narrative structure as Charlie Kane’s life is told through a series of anecdotal interviews which allows for different bias and perspective on the character. Welles utilizes this anecdotal interpretation of Kane’s life to show that perhaps the thing that Kane was missing in life was something held so secret that no one remotely close to him could