In Citizen Kane the director popularized the style of using the camera to convey the characters status in a scene. An example of this when Kane is walking towards the massive window showing him getting further away and demonstrating to the audience his growing disconnect with everyone around him.

Another example of the director using cinematography to improve the scenes is with the use of set design. For example at the end when the camera is flying thought Kane’s boxed assets its constructed in a way to look like an entire city. Whereas if the shot was just a straight still.

Overall the main way the directors convey the story-line of Citizen Kane is  through the actors port-rials of the characters with the main example being Kane’s angry outburst where he destroys all the items in his second wife room. The actor Orson Well’s use of physicality when he throws the lamp post over the wardrobe demonstrates his destructive anger at that instant.

German expressionism came about after WW1 and during the rise of Hitler, Germany was eager to be the best when it came to intellectual and artistic production. They were always competing with America. Hollywood was beginning to use technological advancements in their movies which the German film industry couldn’t compete with. So, they developed a new movement which was full of symbolism’s and this was the birth of expressionism.

The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (Robert Wiene) was released in 1920 is a German silent horror film, which tells the story of Dr Caligari and his silent Cesare,  Caligari stores Cesare in a  cabinet and shows it off at the Holstenwall Carnival. Based upon an unsolved murder of a girl at a carnival, the film sees Caligari ordering Cesare to murder various individuals during the night.

The film is greatly influenced by German Expressionism, the set design in particular reflecting this through unusual and twisted backgrounds, painted in very contrasting colours. The Mise en scene is incredible in this film for the 1920’s, as you can see there are lots of angular shadows and shapes in this particular scene. the use of light and dark in this scene gives the audience an idea of a much larger scale than the set itself.

Another example of light in this film is In the scene where Cesare was going to kidnap Jane, he is shown as a total black shadow on the wall. That scene really disclosures Cesare’s sinister feelings and intentions and the use of light or lack of light allows this feeling. 

Why is Citizen Kane Still Considered the Greatest Movie of All Time

Production Context of Citizen Kane

Favorite Scene in Citizen Kane

Key Films and Directors in Hollywood in 1920s powerpouin (1)

Breathless is 1960s New Wave French Crime drama written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard. One of the most earliest attempts of French New Wave cinematography with other attempts from a year earlier from Francois Truffaut’s drama The 400 Blows and Alain Resnais’ romantic drama Hiroshima, Mon Armour. Yet his one brought more international acclaim to this new style of filmmaking by unusual it was. The New Wave style was emerged in the 1950s as people in the film industry wanted to reject the traditional film culture and create there own form of film through different techniques and experimentation while bringing topics of the era into their films. New wave is seen as revolutionary in film history by using small and portable equipment while filming in a documentary type of style what helped creating more realism in those films especially. Godard was also follower of auteur theory what came to prominence in the 1940s what was theory that sound and editing could create a more powerful message than plot. Cultural influences went into many other artistic forms such as music with Miles Davis’ Milestone, and Jack Kerouac On the Road as well as going into art with Jackson Pollock with Number 9. This this film was also made in during the Algerian War what pushed the movement even further into the spotlight of film with Goddard even producing a film 1960 The little soldier on the events of the war, it was banned until 1963 as it showed the torture the French had used. This showed further rebelling New Wave artists who wanted involve current events into their films.

Breathless and New Wave as a whole inspires many work clearly, however this seemingly had a big affect on crime films, Biopics and any type of drama. As these genres would never become as realistic as they were without New Wave. One crime film likely that wouldn’t of been as close as a success  would of been Brian De Palma’s 1983 Scarface that uses New Wave techniques such bringing era relevant topics such as Cuba refugees while the cinematography feels some what similar to the style, he also incorporates auteur theory into his work. It may of also had an influence on how Tony is left by his wife in the movie and that he he dies at the end while refusing to go down. Just like in the film where Patricia no longer wants to be involved and Michel dies when refusing to go to jail. It may of had influence on movie deaths such as in James Mangold’s Logan the impact of final words occur in both. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s The Tourist plot may have been heavily inspired by Breathless, with a runaway criminal finding love. The biggest influence from this style is Quentin Tarrantino who clearly focuses less on story in all his movies and uses everything else in the movie to tell  more of a plot. Can be seen in movies such as Kill Bill or The Hateful 8 where focus on story is less focused on and so makes it more unique to the class of directors Tarrantino is in. Pulp Fiction is another film by Tarrantino inspired by New Wave by having a very similar style while in both movies they use smoking scenes to create more character depth as they are similar to the interactions in Breathless. The hand hold technique of cameras changed cinema clearly though as likely inspired the hand held camera movement in films such as the Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield where they are filmed by handheld camera. This brought more realism and fear to the scenes in those films as they were so real as it mostly used what were around them in filming, and less CGI effects.