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Citizen Kane and The Shawshank Redemption Paper
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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//ABISOURCE//DTD XHTML plus AWML 2.2//EN" "http://www.abisource.com/2004/xhtml-awml/xhtml-awml.mod"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:awml="http://www.abisource.com/2004/xhtml-awml/"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="application/xhtml+xml; charset=UTF-8" /> <title> Abiword HTML Document </title> </head> <body> <div> <p> Citizen Kane (film) </p> <p> <span style="font-weight:bold">Identification</span> Film about the rise and fall of a rich newspaper tycoon, told in a newsreel documentary and then nonchronologically to an inquiring reporter in flashbacks from five people who knew the man </p> <p> <span style="font-weight:bold">Director</span> Orson Welles (1915-1985) </p> <p> <span style="font-weight:bold">Date</span> Released on May 1, 1941 </p> <p> Citizen Kane<span style="font-style:italic"> is undoubtedly one of the most important and influential films in filmmaking history. Consistently ranked as the greatest film of all time by the American Film Institute and </span>Sight and Sound<span style="font-style:italic"> polls, it fostered the dark chiaroscuro look and flashbacks of the emerging film noir crime thrillers of the 1940’s and 1950’s and helped establish the idea of the director as auteur of the film.</span> </p> <p> At the age of twenty-five, <a href="http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?sid=19aba253-60b3-45a0-96c4-069d93a5f9f6@sdc-v-sessmgr06&vid=1&db=ers&ss=AN+"88827687"&sl=ll">Orson Welles</a> signed an unprecedented contract at RKO Pictures giving him “final cut,” or complete control, over making his first feature film. Though he had much stage and radio experience, he had no knowledge about making motion pictures. That this novice auteur could harness and inspire the talents of his crew in this project—including famed cinematographer Gregg Toland, screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, composer <a href="http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?sid=19aba253-60b3-45a0-96c4-069d93a5f9f6@sdc-v-sessmgr06&vid=1&db=ers&ss=AN+"88827886"&sl=ll">Bernard Herrmann</a>, editor Robert Wise, RKO special effects and makeup artists, and the Mercury Theatre Players, with whom Welles had acted on stage—makes the achievement of<span style="font-style:italic"> Kane</span> all the more remarkable. </p> <p> <img style="width:52.9mm; height:39.4mm" src="523CitizenKaneStarter.docx.txt_files/rId6.jpg" title="" alt="" align="" />Screenshot from the Citizen Kane trailer By RKO (Citizen Kane, trailer) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons </p> <p> While few of the film techniques in the unconventional <span style="font-style:italic">Kane</span> are new, they are refined and perfected to an incredible degree: deep-focus photography, low-key lighting, unusual low camera angles, overlapping dialogue, startling and abrupt edits and montage sequences, fluid and surprising camera movements, asymmetrical compositions, special effects (estimated in more than 50 percent of the film) not detected until recently, flash-forwards and linked flashbacks, and a “mock” newsreel about Kane’s life. The film is replete with justifiably famous symbols: Xanadu (Kane’s palatial mansion), the “Rosebud” sled, the glass snow-scene paperweight, second wife Susan’s puzzles, Kane’s statues, Kane’s reflections in mirrors, and so on. </p> <p> Rather than answer what happens next, the nonlinear story departs from Hollywood tradition by asking, who is this newspaper tycoon Charles Foster Kane, a man who rises in power and influence but loses love and innocence? The search for the mystery of “Rosebud,” Kane’s last word before he died and the most famous opening word of dialogue in cinema, ends ambiguously like a puzzle with missing pieces or a cubist portrait of an infinity of Kane’s reflected in mirrors. </p> <p> Though Welles denied it, Kane bore an uncomfortable resemblance to newspaper magnate <a href="http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?sid=19aba253-60b3-45a0-96c4-069d93a5f9f6@sdc-v-sessmgr06&vid=1&db=ers&ss=AN+"88829376"&sl=ll">William Randolph Hearst</a>, and Kane’s second wife, Susan, to Hearst’s mistress, actor Marion <a name="_GoBack"> </a> Davies. In response to the extremely unflattering portraits, Hearst and his minions in radio stations and Hearst newspapers at first completely banned all references to the movie, and so it lacked advertising. Afraid of a backlash from the Hearst news empire, major Hollywood moguls offered RKO more than $800,000 (the film’s budget) to burn the negative. When the film was released, studio boycotts prevented it from being shown in large key theaters. It is no wonder, then, that the film was not a box-office success and that it won only a single <a href="http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?sid=19aba253-60b3-45a0-96c4-069d93a5f9f6@sdc-v-sessmgr06&vid=1&db=ers&ss=AN+"87998190"&sl=ll">Academy Award</a> for the screenplay by Mankiewicz and Welles, despite the immediate critical acclaim upon release. </p> <p> <span style="font-weight:bold">Impact</span> </p> <p> The fiftieth anniversary DVD edition of<span style="font-style:italic"> Citizen Kane</span> demonstrated the film’s sustained interest and significance, its influence on the <a href="http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?sid=19aba253-60b3-45a0-96c4-069d93a5f9f6@sdc-v-sessmgr06&vid=1&db=ers&ss=AN+"89405357"&sl=ll">film noir</a> style and the later French New Wave, and the audacious creative vision of the novice auteur Welles that still inspires filmmakers today. </p> <p> <span style="font-weight:bold">Bibliography</span> </p> <p> Carringer, Robert L. <span style="font-style:italic">The Making of “Citizen Kane</span>.” Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. </p> <p> ‗‗‗‗‗‗‗, ed. <span style="font-style:italic">Focus on “Citizen Kane</span>.” Film Focus Series. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971. </p> <p> Naremore, James, ed. <span style="font-style:italic">Orson Welles’s “Citizen Kane”: A Casebook</span>. Casebooks in Criticism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. </p> <p> <span style="font-weight:bold">Derived from: "Citizen Kane." </span><span style="font-weight:bold;font-style:italic">The Forties in America</span><span style="font-weight:bold">. Salem Press. 2010.</span> </p> <p> </p> <p> Copyright of <span style="font-weight:bold">Salem Press Encyclopedia</span> is the property of Salem Press. The copyright in an individual article may be maintained by the author in certain cases. Content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.<span style="font-weight:bold"> Source: </span><span style="font-weight:bold">Item: </span>89116346 </p> <p> </p> </div> </body></html> ">
