One most noticeable mise en scene from The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari was the shapes and sizes of the doors and windows. One thing to note about some the set was that it was painted with colors that would fully show when in black white. This abstract look of the doors and windows actually allows the viewer to pay more attention to the set.

Another noticeable mise on scene was the low key lighting. Low key lighting creates a highlighting effect on each scene on the film so that even though some focus may be on the set in the background, the lighting can move your focus onto what they want you to see.

The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari was filmed using 6 film roles so each role had a time whilst being switched for the audience to take a break and reflect on what they’d seen.

My inspiration for this character came from the fiance in ‘The cabinet of Dr. Caligari’ In my head my character, like the fiance, is clinically insane and suffers from dissociative amnesia. I kept with the grainy black and white theme of the 1920 film as I felt that the character would fit in a horror film in that time period. I did her makeup with the characteristic sharp and thin drawn on eyebrows and red cupid bow lips of the time period. I decided on a white dress as it makes her the focal point in the dark background as well as giving her an air of childlike innocence and purity.

In the final scenes of the film the camera pulls back to reveal the true scale of how much Charles Foster Kane owned. In this whole scene the camera has an omnipotent perspective as it rises high above the people gathered in the entirety of Mr Kane’s possessions. The final words spoken in the film reflect the story as a whole; “…No, Mr Kane was a man who got everything he wanted, then lost it. Maybe ‘rosebud’ was something he couldn’t get or something he lost. Anyway it wouldn’t explain anything.” these words act as a synopsis of the film up until this point. The most pivotal words of the film are then spoken: ‘I don’t think any words can describe a man’s life’ These words carry so much weight in the context of the film as it explains the futility in trying to understand who or what ‘rosebud’ was.

As the dialogue continues the camera remains slowly moving backwards revealing more and more of the Kane estate.

Then we dissolve to a high angle shot of the whole room and all of its contents, The Mise en Scene of this shot is unlike anything seen at the time or even today, the chiaroscuro lighting enhances the shadows to look like towering skyscrapers, the penultimate dissolve pulls us back farther and higher, the trinkets, statues and objects in Mr Kane’s collection look more like a real city, a maze, a labyrinth that one could spend days exploring fully.

The final dissolve brings the camera back to a smaller scale and a less overwhelming size, although we cannot see the room as a whole anymore the detail remains as intricate as before,yet more visually manageable,specific objects have become much more detectable such as chalices placed upon crates alongside ornate vases.

The camera sweeps over these objects at a slow,looming and methodical pace, as we travel across the room the music begins to swell and remains mysterious, as the camera approaches the object of our attention it begins to angle downwards and then there’s the reveal. what the film has been about this entire time, reached the final destination. A sled, with the inscription: ‘Rosebud’.

Although the final reveal is somewhat anticlimactic in a general sense, the meaning behind our final reveal is deeply meaningful and profoundly touching.The sled is the same sled from Kane’s youth, although it seems like the sled is yet another one of Kane’s meaningless trinkets in his collection, it represents a time from his past when he was truly happy, before his wealth and success and failures,pure unadulterated and unencumbered childhood happiness,to me this is incredibly touching and is why this is my favourite scene of the entire film.

The Mise-en-Scene in The Cabinet of Dr Caligari is very abstract for the time with the doors and windows being stretched and more triangular than in real life. The whole set was painted in colours that the design team knew would make the set very contrasty when shot in black and white.

At the time editing your film was a big thing to keep audiences interest and attention. Dr Caligari was shot using 6 rolls of film so had 6 parts so the audience had a break while the projection team changed the roll of film. The shots were edited together through an iris effect where the frame slowly goes black but stops on a subject for a couple seconds before the frame goes all black. This was normally used to change scene or feeling. The other cut that was used a lot in this film was a jump cut to show the tension raising during the film.

Citizen Kane follows the life of Charles Kane as he progresses through his life from a child to his eventual death, the film also shows Charles Kane’s power struggle as his success soars in his early life and eventually crumbles later in his life. The film is debated as the greatest film of all time due to its excellence in cinematography and groundbreaking ideas. 

The Cinematographer for Citizen Kane was Gregg Toland, the cinematography Tolnd used was revolutionary in the world of cinema as he implemented new creative shots and cinematic techniques. At the start of Citizen Kane Toland uses an impossible tracking shot to move from inside the house to Charles Kane who is playing in the snow outside, he does this by moving the camera through an open window while maintaining a steady and smooth shot, this was achieved by placing the camera on a table and moving it closer to the window. Toland also used deep focus in Citizen Kane, which was rare in cinema due to its complexity, the use of deep focus allowed Toland to focus the audience’s attention on certain characters whether they are close or far from the camera, during this scene the audience’s attention was focused on Charles Kane as he played in the snow while his parents were having a conversation. 

Another example of cinematography in Citizen Kane is the use of low and high angle shots, by using high angle shots Toland was able to capture the landscape of an entire area or room, in the final scene this technique allowed the audience to gain insight into the environment the characters are in and what they see. The high angle shots also helped with the understanding of Charles Kanes wealth as the high angle shots showed the immense size of Charles Kanes home and conveyed the message that Kane was extremely successful and rich.  

The best example of low angle shots in Citizen Kane is when Charles Kane loses his election for Governor, in the scene the lighting is dim which creates a dismal tone, the low angle shot shows that Kane is still a dominant character even in his time of sadness. The low angle is positioned at a distance which isolates Charles Kane from the audience and expresses his view compared to the rest of society; he looks down on others as if he is king.  

Another great aspect of Citizen Kane is the symbolism used in the film to create meaning. In the film Toland and Welles put thought into the scenes that show the visuals supplement the verbal narrative. Charles Kane seems to be in need of love throughout his life despite his success and wealth, it is shown that he is unable to achieve love because of his seperation from his parents by his foster father, who was cold and calculating and also always put money before people. As a result of this Kane grew up to be the same as his foster father as he finds it difficult to find love. His hobby of collecting European statues relates to his lack of love as they seem to give his personal fulfillment to compensate for his loneliness.  

Which technique(s) being used: Framed Subject, Deep Focus

Where (location) we are shooting: The street

Who (subject) we are shooting: Charlie, Myself

We were inspired by the scene in which young Kane is about to be taken from his parents. The scene artfully uses blocking techniques and deep focus to show the emotions of Kane. We replicated the camera movements by utilising a bench that we moved in and out of the way.

In my opinion, the best scene in citizen Kane is when a young Kane is being taken from his parents. The scene is pioneering in its cinematography which utilises deep focus in a way that was technologically impossible in films previous. The scene also uses blocking techniques using the window that draws attention to young Kane. The use of deep focus keeps audience attention fixed on all characters and shows their reactions to situations better. The camera movement itself is one of the reasons the films stands out against other films at the time. The movements were fresh and new compared to most other films of the period that used the same, boring, barely moving movements. One example of Toland’s innovative camera movements was during the scene mentioned previously which, in order to get the smooth shot wanted, a table was cut in half and moved together in time for the camera to move through it, creating the illusion that the table was there the whole time. Extreme closeups allowed a clearer look at the emotion of characters faces which gages a clearer audience response.  The film is incredibly fast paced and changes genre suddenly and often which helps keep audience engagement. The newsreel montage at the beginning of the film was also creative and innovative. It gave a more comedic spin to what previously looked like a horror or drama and was an interesting new experience for audiences who had never experienced that kind of intradiegetic gaze in cinema. The montage also gave a fresh way to showcase information for the audience without having to explicitly using dialogue.