Loss of Innocence in Citizen Kane essays

Loss of Innocence in Citizen Kane essays The movie that I am providing my interpretation of a theme is Citizen Kane. Citizen Kane was directed and starred by a young and relatively unknown actor named Orson Welles. He was given one of the most lucrative movie offers ever given at that time and free range to do anything that he wanted. Citizen Kane was the first movie that he had ever made and is widely regarded as the best film ever made. Throughout the movie there are many different themes such as Rosebud, not one word can describe a mans life, and loss of innocence as it relates to the main character Charles Foster Kanes childhood. The theme that I chose to interpret was the loss of innocence as it related to Kanes childhood. The first scene that I chose to interpret was the opening scene of the movie. Welles chose to shoot the scene in a very formalistic manner. In the scene we see Kane standing in front of a window with a glass snow globe with a miniature version of what we later know is his childhood home. We then hear Kane utter the word Rosebud before he drops the snow globe and dies. Welles used many different techniques to convey the scene to the theme. The first example is when he holds the snow globe in his hand; he makes it the mise-en-scene by using low key dark lighting on everything except the hand itself. As we see Welles hold the snow globe we can see that there is snow falling not only inside of the globe but also on the outside and throughout the whole shot. Welles was able to make this happen by using a matte shot and an optical printer to add the effect of snow. Snow and the color white were used as a motif throughout the movie as a symbol of Kanes childhood and his longing to still be a child. The second scene that I chose to analyze is the scene where there was a flashback to Kanes childhood. This served as the turning point in Kanes life and would mold him into the man that he became. We are taken ...