Citizen Kane

Seth Ekberg
October 7th, 2010
Film History & Appreciation
Professor R. Schulz

An Analysis of the Great Citizen Kane
Orson Wells’ 1941 masterpiece Citizen Kane has been repeatedly haled as the greatest movie of all time. This is no underserved praise it is quite evident when you watch the film how extremely ahead of its time the movie is. The movie can stand alone in looking just as good as any movie to come out to day with out much effort, just imagine what the audiences of 1941 must have thought when they looked upon this film. This was just the case, people back then had never seen anything so visually stunning and extremely well edited from the many ways it was shot, to the wonderful works of the soundtrack, score, and Foley artists. Citizen Kane has various techniques, such as all sorts of new acting skills, photography and sound experimentation, and a pretty steady switch from the story being portrayed to a well-placed narration.   These were used to capture the audience and keep the audience for the entire duration of the film. Citizen Kane is just considered great because of the film it self it’s the people that made it and why. The various reasons around the film and all the negative press around it can all be seen as here say because they were never confirmed by Orson Wells   or the rest of those that made the film , but it was never denied either. In this paper I will be touching on the true cinematic wonder that this movie really is and all of the social aspects and scandalous drama that this new wave, out of the box film caused. As well as the emotional appeal that this movie had to millions, and still has.
The world at the time that this movie was made was a world filled with turmoil and war full of people with better things to think about than what would be gracing their local movie theatre. A perfect time for a person like Orson Wells to come onto the scene and try out his new vision for how movies could be and should be.   With this movie... [continues]

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