Citizen Kane: A Legacy of Innovation

Though a box office failure upon its release “Citizen Kane” has been canonised as one of the most important films ever made. Hailed for its innovative script, Citizen Kane garnered nine Oscar nominations and won for Best Writing by Mankiewicz and Welles. Besides these awards the film has been praised for Gregg Toland's innovative cinematography, Robert Wise's editing, Bernard Herrmann's music, and its unique narrative structure. Citizen Kane’s impact on cinema was so profound that its techniques which were once radical ideas now see common place as innovation giving way to the imitators, the film now stands in a shadow of its own greatness. 

Certain ideas that are credited to the film are the use of deep focus and extreme low angles which were used before as well, the use of these techniques by Orson Welles and Greg Tollens, alongside their own innovations turned this film into a masterpiece.

Released in 1941, Citizen Kane is a groundbreaking American drama film directed, produced by, and starring Orson Welles. It delves into the life and legacy of Charles Foster Kane, a complex character inspired by various American tycoons and media tycoons like William Randolph Hearst, Joseph Pulitzer, Samuel Insull and Harold McCormick, as well as aspects of the screenwriters' own lives. However upon its release, Hearst prohibited any mention of the film in his newspapers.

Citizen Kane narrates the story of a newspaper tycoon’s life. The first time we meet Kane is on his deathbed, in his palace, Xanadu, dramatically murmuring his last word “Rosebud”. 

Orson changed the way of visual storytelling in cinema. First we get to see glimpses of Kane’s rise and fall through a newsreel within the first few minutes of the film itself. But then things get a little different after this. We meet people who knew Kane, each with their own biassed memories and interpretations. Through their interviews, we get to see a messy and contradicting image of Kane. This technique shows us that no single story can capture the true essence of a person, and allows the audience to piece together all the stories and form their own understanding about Kane’s character.

Another notable feature of this film is its editing, which is best displayed in the way the 16 year long failed marriage of Kane and Emily was condensed into a 2 minute breakfast table montage.

The use of Deep Focus is an amazing innovation, wherein not just the foreground or the background, but the entire scene was in focus. Camera efforts, combined with other practical effects really immerse the audience into the story. Let’s take an example of the scene where the young Kane is playing in the snow, while inside the cabin his parents are talking about sending him away. The camera pulls back through a window, and eventually stops on the other side of the dinning table. The trick is in the set; the art director had to add mechanical elements into the set so that the table splits and comes back together, without breaking the mise - en - scene.

Another unusual element of the time was the use of ceilings. Conventionally filmmakers kept the ceilings out of sight while shooting in a studio, because that’s where all the mics and lights would be placed. But in this film Orson Welles tried something different. The lights and microphones were still up there above the ceilings which were made with muslin cloth. They also made holes in the floor to make room for the camera, so that they could achieve a dramatic effect by using extreme low angle shots to make the actors look larger than life.

We can easily name plenty of films that may be more visually pleasing or even great in terms of cinematography than Citizen Kane, but it can’t be denied that Orson defined the Language of Cinema.