Citizen Kane movie review

"Citizen Kane" is a documentary film shot by Orson Welles in 1940. The film begins with a newspaper tycoon dying alone in a mansion and revolves around his final moments. The word "rosebud" uttered before his death tells the story of his extraordinary life experiences.

After watching this movie, what impressed me most was the multi-linear narrative method, which uses multiple perspectives to piece together Kane's image from different character perspectives like a puzzle. In terms of lens language, I lack personal ability and can only talk briefly.

Generally speaking, there are many long lenses and depth of field lenses. For example, first use a panoramic lens, and then pull the camera back to lengthen the distance and make it look deep. There are also frequent triangle compositions composed of three people. For example, the three-person composition of the reporter on the phone with the waiter and Susan at the headquarters. In the negotiation when Kane was a child, the window separated the banker from Kane's mother and Kane's father to form a unique composition. The depth of field shot divides the scene into the mother in the close shot, the father in the medium shot, and Kane playing outside the window in the distance.

Regarding the lens language, the most impressive thing is mobile photography. The movement of the camera in the film always follows Kane like a person, giving the audience a sense of immersion, such as when Kane came to Susan for the first time. The camera "follows" Kane to Susan's house, as if the audience has followed Kane to Susan's house, and feels like they want to see the whole picture.

The so-called "deep focus photography" means that all objects in the picture are basically clear, and the foreground, middle ground and distant view are all in focus. The background is not blurred and the subject is highlighted through virtual reality. There are also background blur scenes in "Citizen Kane", but most of them use the "size" of the characters to replace the virtual and real distance. The characters near are larger and the characters far away are smaller. At the same time, strong characters are large and humble characters are small, which can reflect a visual and plot strength. For example, when Kane's friend Rand complained to him, it was obvious that Kane's character image was more positive than Rand's.

For the protagonist, the angle of shooting from above is usually used, instead of the normal camera position looking down. The upward shot highlights the tallness and respect of the character, while the overhead shot makes the person appear weak. Therefore, Kane is mostly shot from an upward perspective, which highlights his "giant" image, while Susan is mostly shot from an overhead perspective, showing the strength and weakness of the two.

In addition, there are also wonderful aspects such as light and shadow, editing skills, etc., which I won’t go into details for now.