Citizen Kane Cinematic Techniques

Citizen Kane is undoubtedly one the world's most famous and highly-rated film. Its use of cinematic techniques, narrative techniques and experimental innovations in the areas of photography, editing, and sound brings the narrative to life and entices our engagement throughout the motion picture. Citizen Kane’s director, star, and producer were all the same genius individual - Orson Welles. Throughout this essay, I will look at such cinematic techniques used in the sequence “Young Charles Growing Up” and I will discuss how they were used in order to develop the plot.

Citizen Kane employs creative storytelling techniques throughout the narrative. Acting almost as a biopic, Citizen Kane depicts a long period of time realistically, allowing the characters to age as the story goes on. Instead of being told in a linear manner, Kane’s story unfolds in overlapping segments told by various characters, which provides us with more information on the character Charles Foster Kane.. Telling Kane’s life story entirely in flashbacks was another innovative approach to storytelling. Flashbacks had been used in …show more content…
One such technique, deep focus. This refers to having everything in the frame, even the background, in focus at the same time, as opposed to having only the people and things in the foreground in focus. With deep focus, a filmmaker can showcase overlapping actions, and mise-en-scène, the physical environment in which a film takes place, becomes more critical. Effectively manipulating the mise-en-scène for deep focus actively engages the whole space of the frame without leaving the viewer confused. Deep focus is most effective in scenes in which Kane suffers with loss of control and his personal isolation. This gives the audience a clear view of the space Kane commands as well as the space over which he has no