I recently got to review the movie “Citizen Kane”. This is not a movie I wouldn’t normally watch based on the title and era, but after seeing it for the first time it would still not be a movie I would watch.
Being the time frame of the movie 1941 it had some interesting features. The fading in and out of scenes from one time era to another. Many of the lighting contrasts made the appearance of who was in charge or being forceful in the situation. The type and tone of music in-conjuction with the scene got more intense and the fluctuation of the music and the tone helped bring out the importance of that scene. The scene as Kane was talking to his first wife and the scene flashed forward changing with different clothes, hair and the aging process, but the same dialog.
The flashbacks made it seem like a movie with in a movie. How their current time is relevant to the past and why it got to that point. Kane as a young boy and his mother seemed so distant when she let him go to boarding school. How this impacted the young Kane in his adult years. He went from being a child with a family to a child in a school with no family. The news broadcasts reports and how the times were and how Kane was a part of the era. The film started out like a haunted movie with showing a fence with a castle in the background and making it seem light gloom and doom bringing the audience into the movie. The movie also ended just as it had started.
I like your first comment about not choosing to watch this again the best.
ReplyDeleteI understand that it was a new thing in its time and it may have started "special effects" for many others but I still cannot take it in.
The light and scene changes were very dramatic however, I think that they were overkill as well.
If I had not read the book on this prior to viewing the movie I would have been lost throughout the entire thing. I was happy that the text book did not state what "rosebud" was supposed to be so that there was some surprise at the end.