CITIZEN KANE
​HUGO, ANDREA, KIKE, ALBA R
Summary
Summary
2
Introduction
3
Individual project
3
Characters
4
Poster
6
Trailer
7
Dialogue
8
Conclusion
9
Bibliography
10
1. Introduction In this project we are going to analyze the film “Citizen Kane” and the different aspects of the movie’s publicity, like the trailer, the movie posters and apart from that we are going to parody a short conversation of the movie.
2. Individual project Directed by: Orson Welles Produced by: Orson Welles Starring: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Everett Sloane, Ray Collins, George Coulouris, Agnes Moorehead, Paul Steward, Ruth Warrick, Erskine Sanford, William Alland. Production company: RKO Radio Pictures Year: 1941 Running time: 119 minutes Gender: Drama Citizen Kane was premiered in 1941 and it was a success in light of the critic and the critic considered it one of the best movies in the history of the cinema and a masterpiece. It was nominated to 9 Oscars but it only won one, form the best original script. Orson Welles, who was the director, and the one that interpreted Charles Foster Kane, had very good critics, The New York Daily News said that one day Welles would be the biggest director in Hollywood. This film starts when a very popular man in USA, whose name was Charles Foster Kane, dies and the last word that he says is “Rosebud”, and nobody knows what it means. A journalist decides to find out the meaning of the word, so he starts to ask everyone that knew Charles. The theme of the movie is expressed through the scenes and the characters.
The ideas and issues that are raised in this film are the emotional, private and political life of the protagonist, and the impact of the newspapers in the society. The film has a lot of flashbacks and they are really important because they are used to tell Kane’s life. The end of the movie is a closed-ended and it is peculiar because at the end you know the meaning of Rosebud but the characters don’t (know it). There isn’t an authorial voice in it and this movie has a lot of perspectives. First you watch the film from the journalist’s perspective and in the flashbacks you watch it from Kane’s friends’ perspective. This movie doesn’t have any funny moments and I like all the characters except one, Susan, because she is very annoying and capricious. The film is based on the United States at the beginning of the XX century. We can establish the setting at the beginning of the movie because of the clothes and the set. There is music and it creates an atmosphere which is different in each situation, sometimes it creates a happy atmosphere and sometimes (creates) a mysterious one. The genders of this film are drama and mystery.
3. Characters Charles Foster Kane: Charles Foster Kane is a rich man from a poor family, who bought an empty gold mine, Kane was adopted by his financial assistant and later friend until he reached the age of 21, when he was able to manage the properties of the family. He wears a suit and is friend of his friends, editors of the newspaper “Inquirer”. He is a strong man with left-sided ideas and the power to defend the rights of workmen (until he stops doing it) the ideas are expressed by the newspaper. This is the profile of a consistent character, a person who evolves at the length of his life and ends it forgotten like a match. The evolution is from a rights defender to a lonely man, drowned by the society and the shame.
Jedediah Leland: Jedediah Leland is one of Kane’s best friends, he isn’t very extroverted, he is a journalist and Kane and he work together in Kane’s newspaper, he usually wears a suit. Jedediah is the one that knows Kane better, and sometimes he doesn’t agree with what Kane does and he says to Charles what he thinks is wrong although Kane never listens to him. Jedediah is a consistent and believable character. He changes throughout the movie and we can see that at the beginning he was very excited about the newspaper project and he was very proud of Kane but at the end we can see that he has lost that excitement that he had at the beginning and he didn’t like the person that Kane was at the end, so we can observe that he changes his mind from the beginning to the end.
Susan Alexander Kane:
Susan Alexander Kane is Kame’s second wife and one of the persons who was interviewed after his dead, she appears so many times in the movie and with different outfits, in one scene when she was doing a puzzle she was wearing a dress, a coat, a pearl necklace (and the shoes can’t be seen). We can see that she is quite selfish and is tired of seeing criticism for her singing but Kane forces her even though she doesn’t wants. The character is realistically depicted, consistent and believable. This woman goes from being a middle class to have a lot of money for being married with Kane.
Since there isn’t an official poster, we closed this because is the only one who shows the right amount of information to analyze.
Bernstein: One of the best characters of the film is Bernstein interpreted by Everett Sloane. This character is one of Kane’s best friends, he tells us a part of kane’s life. He is a very leal friend of Kane and G an honorable person who transmits us an exalted image of Kane, this shows us how Charles Foster Kane is for Bernstein.
4. Poster This is a poster of the early 40’s so it’s evidently different to modern posters, the posters of this age put the cast in a big font and prioritized cold colors, the title is the center part of the poster and it’s in front of the principal character. You have to look at the title and by the way you can see how attractive the protagonist and his wives are, this distribution is intentional (of course) but it’s interesting to look at these things. The man is looking down to see the women, this can be a resource to give importance to the male principal character or male chauvinism because the meaning of the poster is that women are less important than the protagonist (things of the age). The poster shows us the title of the film, a sketch of a critic and the cast. It locates kane’s second wife in front of the first one, denoting that she’s a memory. At the top of the poster we can see the sketch, under it the director’s name, on the right side of the poster the main character, the title of the film and the cast. The poster uses the colors to transmit how the first wife is relegated to the black background and how Susan and Kane’s images shine thanks to the contrast between the black and white.
5. Trailer There isn’t an official trailer of this movie so we chose this one because in our opinion is the best trailer that we found. The trailer introduces us the question of “who is rosebud?” and thanks to it the spectator is expectant. This feeling is boosted by the music and the great construction of the image. The pace is fast, generally showing important moments of Kane’s life as if his life was passing in front of his eyes before his death.
6. Dialogue Jim: Kane has abandoned you for a naive whore of theatre. How can you tolerate that? It’s unforgivable. Emily: What? Jim: The gossips of the radio already comment it. Susan: But what are you saying? I haven’t done G anything. Jim: The rumors are true. Your attitude confirms it and you, Kane, are a mean womanizer. He doesn't deserve your respect. Come with me and leave this rascal. Susan: It’s enough. Jim: Who do you believe? Susan: You have to believe me. Kane, tell them that we didn’t do anything. Emily: It’s enough!, I don’t trust in anyone. The radio says one thing and you say another thing. I’m not able to take it anymore. Kane: Don’t believe all you hear in the radio. I know what's true and what's not Emily: And what is the truth Kane? Susan: What I’m saying is true. Emily: Oh please. Came on, take me home. Kane: Wait Emily: What? Kane: You must know the truth. Maybe we did something but I still love you Kane: Stay with me, this won’t happen again Emily: I’m sorry Kane, I won’t tolerate this anymore. Kane:Don’t do this to me, don’t leave me for that man Kane: I love you Susan: What about me?. Who am I, your hobby? I also count on!. Kane: Don’t leave me. Emily: This is the end. Goodbye, Kane.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oTNHBOid2n86jjne6PqCnLgcyMTWfcJr/view? usp=sharing
7. Conclusion Doing this project we learned a lot of things about cinema, like analyzing the poster and some cinema techniques. Also we learned how trailers were made so that the people could be kept with intrigue and they were looking forward to watching the movie. Another thing that we learned is how the cinema had evolutionated in a short period of time, because we chose a film that is from the 40’s and it was made in black and white so we can see that the cinema has evolved a lot since that age.
8. Bibliography Poster: marketplace.secondlife.com Trailer:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1A_WUNQlKY&t=50s Project information: https://www.edu.xunta.gal/centros/iesfene/aulavirtual2/mod/resource/view.php ?id=10466 Dialogue original scene:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4XiKFvQ1rM Our principal source of information: https://www.tomatazos.com/articulos/252341/El-Ciudadano-Kane-de-Orson-W elles-que-dijo-la-critica-de-este-clasico