Media mogul Charles Foster Kane has died, and a reporter looks into his life by interviewing the people who knew him. Their accounts contradict each other and never fully explain the man. It's widely considered the most technically influential film ever made.
Citizen Kane is a 1941 drama and mystery film directed by Orson Welles. This breakdown covers 4 techniques (3 narrative and 1 cinematography), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, Amadeus uses several of the same techniques.
Wrapping the story inside another story that turns out to be a trap or a deception. The listener, or you as the viewer, gets locked into the teller's version before realizing what it is for.
How this film uses it
The 'Rosebud' investigation holds the film together. A reporter gathers testimony to solve the mystery of Kane's last word. That setup promises an answer and gives you only contradictions, since every witness describes a different Kane. The investigation ends and the reporter never gets his answer. Only the audience sees Rosebud burn, and it explains nothing.
Where to see it
The final shot. Only the camera and the audience see the burning sled. That confirms the people doing the investigating were never going to find the answer.
Telling the story out of order by jumping between time periods. The order you see events in changes how you understand them.
How this film uses it
Kane's life is pieced together from accounts that overlap and contradict each other. They are all told looking back, and they do not come in the order things happened. Each narrator gives you a different period, a different Kane and a different reading of him. I feel like telling it out of order is the point. You can't rebuild a life from testimony. You can only get close and argue about it.
Where to see it
The transition between Thatcher's memoir and Bernstein's interview. The 2 witnesses had very different relationships to Kane, and their descriptions of the same man don't fit together.
Lighting a scene with strong contrast between bright light and deep shadow, a style borrowed from old paintings called chiaroscuro. How lit a character is hints at their moral or mental state.
How this film uses it
Gregg Toland shoots in deep focus, which keeps things near and far sharp at the same time, and it gives the film its signature look. You see ceilings above the characters, deep shadows that swallow figures from below and lamps and windows inside the frame. Kane is filmed again and again from low angles in darkness. You get his power and his isolation from the shadows alone, with no dialogue needed.
Where to see it
Kane's speech to the crowd. The camera shoots from below, and Kane looms in darkness against a giant portrait of himself. The shot lets you see how obsessed he is with his own greatness.
Telling the story through a character you can't trust, because they are lying, mentally unwell or fooling themselves. At some point, you have to rethink what you were told.
How this film uses it
Every narrator in Citizen Kane is unreliable in a different way. Thatcher dislikes Kane, Bernstein worships him, Leland resents him and Susan was damaged by him. No single account is enough. Welles sets the film up so you can never get the truth, because interviewing people who knew Kane was never going to reach it.
Where to see it
Leland's account of Kane's political failure. Bitterness and decades of grievance color everything he says, so you learn as much about Leland as you do about Kane.
Questions
Citizen Kane: quick answers
What filmmaking techniques does Citizen Kane use?
CineCode breaks down 4 techniques in Citizen Kane (1941): Frame Narrative as Trap, Non-Linear Narrative, Chiaroscuro Lighting and Unreliable Narrator.
Who directed Citizen Kane?
Orson Welles directed Citizen Kane, released in 1941. CineCode also covers The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), The Stranger (1946), The Lady from Shanghai (1947), Touch of Evil (1958), The Trial (1962), F for Fake (1973).
What films are similar to Citizen Kane?
Films that share techniques with Citizen Kane include Amadeus (1984), Chinatown (1974), Touch of Evil (1958), Double Indemnity (1944).
