Film Title	Preference (/10)	Most Memorable Scene	Film Element Focus
Citizen Kane (1941, Welles)	7/10, closer to a 6 than an 8.	Kane smashing the contents of Susan Alexander’s room.	“The Greatest Film of All Time”

My favourite scene from Orson Welles’ 1941 Mystery/Drama classic ‘Citizen Kane’ is the scene in which Welles’ titular leading man, Charlie Kane, destroys the room which had once belonged to his ex-wife Susan Alexander in a fit of rage. I think it is brilliant because it embodies an extremely organic and human sense of escalation which, in a less skillfully made movie, would be reserved for scenes involving dialogue.

In here, however, Welles can pull it off on his own – as the scene starts from a small beginning, Kane packs a suitcase. Then, it spirals out of control along with Charles’ feelings, as he throws the cases across the room and then continues to tear down her bedding – moving on to smash nearly all the contents of the room. It’s a raw display of ape-like aggression that solidifies just how rotten Kane has become at his core.

From a technical perspective, the sequence is impressive because of the length that Welles goes to to create the imposing menace of this freakout – low angles were of course necessary, and they are frequently utilised, but the notable use is in the more extreme Worms’ Eye shots in which the camera is placed into openings in the floor. Shots like these are few and far between though, as the more common camera technique here is a long take – a way of forcing the audience to sit through this veritable tantrum with little to no respite, making it as uncomfortable as possible.

The choice of camera and lens for this movie also let it be shot fully in Deep Focus style, as opposed to the blurry Shallow Focus style employed by other directors (David Fincher, as an example) – Welles uses the Deep Focus heavily because it opens the viewer’s peripheral vision to include all of the present destruction. We see the entire fallout of Charles’ outburst.

The sound present in this scene is simultaneously rudimentary, emblematic of Welles’ background in theater and inexperience with film, but also quite effective. The lack of mixing makes the scene sort of accidentally funny in an amateurish way, but the sheer volume of all the clipping noise of the crashes does in some regards add a sheer intensity which could easily provoke fear in a cinema audience using more high-calibre speakers.

Overall, whilst many parts of this scene are notably showing of Welles’ amateur status, those same elements show the creativity and experimental nature that he brought to Hollywood which made the movie so beloved.

My favourite scene was the ending scene where they burnt the sled, due to how cleverly anticipation was built up to the final answer the audience has been looking for. A continuous take showing all his wealth and possessions helps emphasise how insanely rich Kane was, only for this shot to end in a cut showing a burning fire, with everything he had ever worked for being destroyed. The mise en scene here is incredibly significant, as the sheer magnitude of items would be insane for the audience to comprehend, especially the WW2 audience at the time, considering how poor some became, which therefore emphasised it’s impact on this audience. This continuous take drastically increases the anticipation, as the audience knows this is the end as they have seen Kane has died, so they are eagerly waiting for the answer they have been waiting for. There is then a slow fade through to the burning sledge to increase suspense, as the word ‘Rosebud’ is revealed instead of being burnt due to the shot being reversed. By cleverly reversing this shot, it increases the impact of this answer, as it is slowly revealed instead of being burnt, emphasising how important this word is to the audience. The sound here is also overwhelming and loud to exaggerate what the audience sees on screen: the final reveal. After this reveal, there is a camera tilt towards the rising smoke created from the fire, with this dark smoke contrasting against the lighter sky. This huge amount of smoke could symbolise how huge of an impact Kane had, and how much wealth he truly obtained, only for it to rise as smoke in the end. I think this was an extremely fitting ending for the movie, as is summarises the core message commentating on how power and wealth will consume one, and how you will wish to return to simpler times.

My favourite scene from Citizen Kane was the scene where Kane announces he is going on a holiday and taking a break from running the Inquirer and hires a bunch of dancers to announce his time away from the newspaper. This is my favourite scene from Citizen Kane because during Leland and Bernstein’s conversation which has a sort of semi serious tone, you can clearly see Kane dancing with the dancers in the reflection of the mirror which juxtaposes this more serious atmosphere with this frame within the frame which shows the viewer his ecstatic dancing with the dancers. This juxtaposition helps show how Kane himself is carefree and still young and carefree while his more sensible friends are more concerned. This scene also uses a deep focus lens which lets the audience clearly see Kane in the background shown by his reflection, this clearly demonstrates the characters of Kane, Bernstein and Leland to the audience. The reason this film has such good cinematography is because of Gregg Toland, Gregg Toland was an innovative cinematographer and was one of the first pioneers of the deep focus lens which is used to great effect throughout Citizen Kane but in my opinion particularly in this scene. In the scene we also get a deep focus shot on the whole dinner table and the dancers and musicians as the dancers and musicians enter the room which lets the audience take in this whole grand event that Kane is putting on which again shows the audience his happy go lucky, cheerful attitude whilst also showing his immense wealth. Another reason I love this scene is because of the Mise-En-Scene which with Orson Wells coming from a theatre background he would’ve had a great deal of understanding when it came to blocking and staging which is why we see him use proxemics to great effect such as in this scene where the people at the party are leaning over the dining table towards Kane to show that they like Kane and they are all his friends, not in this scene but in one of the last we see this flipped where the servants all keep their distance from him to show they fear him and dislike him.

my favourite scene in Citizen Kane was the scene where he has a meltdown after his second wife left him. 

i liked it because it shows us how he reacts when he doesn’t get what he wants and how much she meant to him. He smashes up all his possessions and this symbolizes how money didn’t mean anything to him. This shows us how his wife meant more than money even though it didn’t seem like it because he was so used to getting everything, he wanted that he wasn’t worry about losing all of it. The use of things that broken and the amount of it symbolizes chaos and this represents his personality as the addiction to buying things. This implies that overtime he’s possibly gone mad from all the freedom and money he had. 

This would have been shocking for the audience at the time because the chaos and violence wasn’t something they were used to, and no one acted like that in the past especially in film. In 1941 the war was about to start so people would have been shocked that he was throwing around expensive things when everyone else was struggling. This would make the audience feel hatred and as if Kane had been spoilt and raised as selfish because he’s breaking everything when the audience know that they were possibly going to lose lots of young men and not react the same way. 

Wells uses the use of ceiling to show off how he can use ceilings in film without all the camera equipment being shown. The use of ceilings and walls makes Kane seem claustrophobic and trapped as if he’s trapped in his fame and wealth and he wants to escape but he can’t because of how important and famous he is. This is done by having Kane surrounded in things with a low angle camera which represented power. This would have made the audience scared of him because he was powerful, and he could get almost everything he wanted. The idea of smashing up everything could symbolism freedom and not being trapped anymore because it’s when he realizes that things don’t mean anything to him, and wealth doesn’t necessarily bring happiness like his wife did when they first met. 

The snow globe could represent his freedom when he was a kid playing in the snow before he got wealthy and the idea of the glass being around the snow globe could symbolize how he’s trapped outside of his childhood and his freedom. It contrasts when he was 8 and happy even though he didn’t have anything with later when he had everything, but he wasn’t happy. 

My most memorable scene from the film would be one of the ending scenes where we see Kane smashing up his bedroom. This is because we see anger in the film but not to the extent that is portrayed in this scene. It would also have been majorly shocking at the time it came out as the ”normal man” who would be watching the film didn’t have much money, so to see a man destroying his possessions would be alien to them. The use of camera angles is also used extremely well in this scene as it makes use of the low angle portraying Kane as superior and powerful man. This again may have had an affect on the audience as his a rich man who is shown to have and elevated sense of power. After this we see Kane walk out of his bedroom past his staff and walk past a series of mirrors and briefly stop in between two parallel mirrors creating an infinite image of himself. this represents somewhat of a fragmentation of his being and suggesting that he is all over the place and his life has descended into chaos. it also could suggest that there are many layers to him and he doesn’t know which one he is anymore.