"Citizen Kane" is very suitable as an example of film analysis because of its unique form and diverse styles. Below we will examine "Citizen Kane" to see how the various principles of narrative form function in a particular movie. For example, investigating the main plot of Kane’s death leads us to analyze the causal relationship and how the characters operate in the film. The film deals with the narrative range and depth of the story information, and also clarifies the distinction between "plot" and "story". In addition, the plot elements with unknown motives in the film are also used to illustrate how the ambiguity arises. In addition, the comparison between the beginning and the end of the film can confirm how a film breaks from the Hollywood narrative model. Finally, the film can reveal the narrative techniques that dominate the content of the story, and how to provide the audience with an outline of the story.
The overall narrative expectation of "Citizen Kane"
Our film experience is mostly based on the expectation of the film, and the film itself confirms our expectation. Before watching "Citizen Kane", maybe you already know that this is a classic work. Audiences in 1941 may be looking forward to it more, because there is a saying that the character in the film is the incarnation of the newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst at the time. The audience will look forward to seeing the events in the film. , Associated with Hirst's real life.
In the first few minutes of the plot, the audience has generated specific expectations from the genre conventions in the film. The previous “hotline news” segment suggested that the film might be a biographical drama. Then reporter Thompson appeared and began investigating Kane’s life. The film did follow the general outline of a biographical film—as it typically tells the story of a person’s life. , And then present some anecdotes in a dramatic way. Examples of this type of film are "Anthony Adverse" (1936) and "The Power and the Glory" (The Power and the Glory, 1933). The complex use of flashback techniques in "Power and Glory" is considered to be a "Kane" had a huge impact.
The audience also quickly recognized the convention of using news reports in the film—usually a difficult process for reporters to find story material. Therefore, we are not only looking forward to seeing the events investigated by Thompson, but also looking forward to seeing him successfully unearth the truth of the story. These clips are similar to the techniques in the films "Picture Snatcher" (1933), "Five-Star Final" (1931) and "Friday Girl" (1939). In the film, Susan's play also used the performance techniques of the musical film type: such as frantically rehearsal and backstage preparations, and the most prominent-the montage shot of her singing opera, such as "Maytime" (Maytime, 1937) ) The technique used in this movie. More broadly, this film obviously uses a detective film type technique, because Thompson's purpose is to solve the mystery [what exactly did Kane mean by "Rosebud" before his death? ], he interviewed some relevant people, and it was very much like a detective questioning the suspect for clues.
However, it is worth noting that the genre usage of "Citizen Kane" is quite unclear and ambiguous. If it is a biographical film, the film seems to pay more attention to the protagonist’s psychological condition rather than his actions and social relations; if it is a news film, the unusual thing about the film is that the reporter did not get the information he wanted; if it is a detective film If so, the film does not answer all the mysteries. "Citizen Kane" is the practice of comprehensively using various genres, but the result in turn destroys those expectations caused by the genre.
The same ambiguity also occurs in the relationship between "Citizen Kane" and classic Hollywood movies. Even if there is no previous knowledge of the film, we usually guess that the film produced by the American studio in 1941 should follow its existing model. Roughly speaking, the film is followed: we will see in the film how desire promotes narrative development, how character characteristics and goals shape causality, how conflict leads to results, how time is arranged according to the needs of the plot, Objective narratives and how to use restricted and non-restricted narratives together, etc. However, we can also see that this film is more ambiguous than some films produced under such conventions: sometimes it does not explain desires, characters, characteristics and goals; sometimes conflicts have no definite results; at the end of the film, it is omniscient. The objective narrative tone is minimized. Especially at the end, it is not the way classic narrative movies deal with the ending. The following analysis of "Citizen Kane" will detail how it uses narrative conventions while at the same time undermining audiences' expectations of Hollywood movies. The first step in analyzing
the story and plot of "Citizen Kane"
is to segment it. Segmentation can use movie techniques (such as dissolve, fade in and fade out, cut, black field, etc.) to form meaningful units. In a narrative movie, each paragraph is each part of the plot.
In narrative movies, the paragraph plot is usually called "scenes" (scenes). The word comes from drama, which refers to a clear plot segment in a fairly complete time and space. The following is a segment of the film. The Arabic numerals in this outline indicate the main plot part; some have only one scene, but most of them are several scenes, which will be expressed in lowercase letters. Many paragraphs can be further subdivided, but this segmentation method is enough for us to use.
Such segmentation allows us to see the main distribution of the plot and the way the scene is organized. This outline also roughly explains how the plot constructs the relationship between cause and effect and time.
"Citizen Kane": Plot
C. Opening Subtitles
1. Xanadu Mansion: Kane's Death
2. Screening Room:
a. "Hotline News"
b. A group of reporters discussing "Rosebud"
3. Blue Hill Nightclub: Thompson tried to visit Susan
4. Thatcher Library:
the first retrospective
a. Thompson entered and read Thatcher's manuscript
b Kane’s mother asked Thatcher to take Kane away
c. Kane bought "The Enquirer" when he grew up
d. Kane launched a fierce offensive and performed well in the newspaper industry
e. Economic panic: Kane sold the newspaper business The system gives Thatcher
f. Thompson leaves the library
5. Bernstein’s office: a
second look back
a. Thompson visits Bernstein
b. Kane is in power "The Inquirer"
c. Montage: "The Inquirer" grows
d. Banquet: "The Inquirer" celebrates the purchase of "The Chronicle"
e. Leland and Bernstein discuss Kane's overseas trip
f. Kane returns to China with his fiancee Emily appearing
g. Bernstein ends his memories
6. Nursing home:
The third retrospect
a. Thompson talks with Leland
b. Montage: Breakfast highlights-Kane's marriage life deteriorated
c. Leland continues to recall the
third retrospect (continued)
d. Kane meets Susan and walks into her Room
e. Kane participated in the election and gave a speech
. f. Kane traded between Getty, Emily and Susan.
g. Kane failed in the election and Ryland asked for a transfer
h. Kane and Susan married
i. Susan’s Opera premiere
j. Ryland is drunk, Kane writes an art review for Ryland
k. Ryland ends his memories
7. Lanqiu Nightclub: The
fourth time in retrospect
a. Thompson talks with Susan
b. Susan sings
c. Susan's opera debut
d. Kane insisted that Susan continue to sing opera
e. Montage: Susan's opera career
f. Susan wanted to commit suicide, Kane finally agreed to let her give up the opera
g. Xanadu Mansion: Susan feels dull
h. Montage: Susan playing puzzles
i. Kane proposes a picnic
j. Picnic: Kane and Susan duo
k. Xanadu Mansion: Susan leaves Kane
l. Susan Ending Memories
8. Xanadu Mansion: The
Fifth Retrospect
a. Thompson talks with Raymond
b. Kane destroys Susan’s room, picks up the paperweight, and mutters: "Rosebud"
c. Raymond the end of the recall; Thompson talking with other reporters; all leave
d lens patrol Kane collection, and a "rosebud" mystery;. mansion fence, ending
E. closing credits
causal relationship "citizen Kane" in the
film All events are triggered by two groups of characters. One group was reporters who wanted to interview Kane throughout his life; the other group was Kane himself and others who knew him, who provided clues for these reporters to investigate.
Causality was first established on Kane’s death, which led some reporters to report on his career. But at the beginning of the movie, the news report is over, and the plot then introduces these reporters; the boss, Lauston, provided the reasons for investigating Kane's life, but Thompson's report disappointed him. Lauston wanted to understand the meaning of "rose bud" from another angle, which gave Thompson a goal to explore Kane's past. His investigation is the main line of the plot.
But another line of plot-Kane's life-has happened in the past. In the past, a group of characters made the plot happen: Many years ago, Kane’s mother’s boarding dormitory had a poor boarder who used a silver mine contract as rent. The wealth brought by this silver mine allowed Mrs. Kane to hire Thatcher as Charlie Kane’s guardian; and Thatcher’s discipline (not clearly explained in the film) made Kane grow up and become a guardian. A loved, rebellious young man.
The unusual thing about "Citizen Kane" is that the subjects of these investigators actually symbolize a person's character traits. What Thompson wanted to understand was what personality caused Kane to say the word "rosebud" before his death, and this motivation led Thompson to start a series of investigations. Kane is a very complicated character, and his character traits also affect the words and deeds of other characters. However, what we will see is that the story of "Citizen Kane" still does not define all of Kane's personality characteristics at the end.
Kane's life has a goal: to find goals related to "rosebuds". But when the people in the play think about Kane, they all agree in some places that it is something he has lost or cannot get. This once again shows that although Kane's goal is not clear, it makes this story very unusual.
Other characters in Kane's life provide causal material for the narrative. Although Kane was dead, the existence of several people who knew Kane made Thompson's investigation possible. In particular, these characters provide a considerable degree of knowledge about Kane's life, which allows the audience to reconstruct the sequence of events in the film. Thatcher knew Kane’s childhood; Bernstein (his manager) knew his career; good friend Leland knew his private life (especially his first marriage); Susan Alexander was his second wife , Know his middle age; and the servant Raymond handled everything around him in Kane's old age. These characters not only played a causal role in Kane's life, but also in Thompson's investigation. It should be noted that Kane’s wife Emily has no recollection in the story because her part will inevitably overlap with Lilan’s recollection, which is not very helpful to the plot, so the plot is about to be omitted from her (through a Car accident).
Time in "Citizen Kane"
When dealing with different events in the plot of "Citizen Kane", the order, length and number of appearances vary greatly. The power of the film comes from the complex plot to provide clues to the audience by reorganizing the story.
To understand the sequence of the story, the duration and frequency of events, the audience must follow these intricate network of events and figure out their own ideas. For example, looking back at Thatcher's diary for the first time, it was revealed that Kane lost the newspaper office during the economic panic (4e). At this time, Kane was already a middle-aged man. However, in the second retrospect of the film, Bernstein recounted that Kane entered the "Inquirer" young and was newly married to Emily (5b, 5f). The audience psychologically reversed the sequence of these plots, and when new events appeared, they would put people in the correct time sequence in the story.
Similarly, the earliest part of the story should be that Kane’s mother got a valuable silver mining right; but we only learned about it in the second episode of the news film, and the first episode in the film One paragraph is about Kane's death. Therefore, Li Zhong must work hard to clarify these sequences. Let us assume that Kane’s life includes the following stages:
Childhood and
Youth: Newspaper career,
newly married life,
middle
age, and later years.
Interestingly, the first part of the film includes the life fragments of Kane at all stages, and they move back and forth; until the latter part, they take turns to focus. At various specific stages. The paragraph (2a) of "Hotline News" allows the audience to take a look at the full picture of his life, and thatcher's manuscript (4) lets us know about Kane's childhood and middle age. Then, all the retrospective passages began to appear in chronological order. Bernstein’s memories (5) focused on Kane as an editor and the life of his fiancee Emily; Ryland’s memories (6) span Kane’s newlywed life to middle age; Susan (7) tells The story of middle-aged and elderly Kane; the anecdotes that Raymond talked about Kane's life (8h) focused on his old age.
At this point, the plot has become more "linear" development. This function is to make the audience no longer jump back and forth in each stage, and troubles in the time and space sequence of the plot. For this reason, the expectations caused by the earlier episodes are confirmed or corrected in the later episodes.
Through the reorganization of time and space of events, the plot aroused specific expectations in the audience's hearts. Starting from the death of Kane and the content of the newsreel, the plot created two intense curiosities about what exactly is a "rosebud"? What happened to make a powerful person so isolated in his later years?
These also produced a considerable degree of suspense. Because we already know that Kane's two marriages have failed, friends will leave him and so on, so we focused on how and when these happened. Therefore, the function of many scenarios is to delay the results we know. For example, we know that Susan will be away from Kane at some point, so every time Kane treats her cruelly, we expect her to do that. She almost left him in several games (7b-7j), including the period when she tried to commit suicide and he comforted her. The plot can actually arrange her to leave earlier (7k), but in that case, the ups and downs of their relationship will not be fascinating and will not produce suspenseful effects.
Moreover, if there is no "hotline news", the process of psychologically reorganizing the sequence of events for the audience may be very different. The news of the death of the Xanadu mansion in the first paragraph left us at a loss because we knew nothing about the dead. But the appearance of the news film itself quickly provided a lot of information; moreover, its narrative content was parallelly compared with the content of the later movie, and it also provided a synopsis of the plot.
A. A few shots of the
Shenandoah mansion B. Funeral; the newspaper reported the death of Kane with headlines
C. The growth of the economic kingdom
D. The boarding house of the silver mine and Kane’s mother
E. Thatcher’s testimony at the meeting,
F. Political career
G. Private life: weddings, divorces
H. Opera and Xanadu
I. Election
J. Economic panic
K. 1935: Kane’s elderly
L. Isolated life in Xanadu’s mansion
M. Announced
Compared with the content of the whole movie, the death news short film has surprising similarities in the form and structure. "Hotline News" initially emphasized that Kane was the "Master of Xanadu", followed by a shot of this huge house: house, courtyard and interior (A). This is a variation (1) of the opening of the whole film. The shot includes the courtyard, which directly drives the mansion. The opening scene ended with Kane’s death, and the news film was introduced on location, followed by Kane’s funeral (B). Next came the front page news of various newspapers announcing Kane’s death. A slight comparison of the plot flow chart of "Citizen Kane" will reveal that these headlines are equivalent to the proportion of news films in the film (2a). Even if the headline on the front page "For 40 million newspaper readers, it is Kane himself that is more valuable than the headline of Kane’s name in his newspaper." After a brief parallel editing process, in this scene the supervisor decides that Thompson should continue to investigate Kane's "worthy" life.
The narrative sequence of the newsletter is also roughly parallel to the sequence of retrospective interviews by Thompson. "Hotline News" moved from the news of Kane’s death to the newspaper kingdom (C) that reported him, and the film went back to (4) for the first time in the film, telling the audience how Thatcher disciplined Kane and Kane’s first attempt to operate " The Inquirer (3). This kind of rough parallel comparison also occurs in news films reporting on Kane’s political attempts (F), his marriage (G), building an opera house (H), campaigning (I), and so on. Ryland’s retrospective also included Kane’s first marriage (6), his affair with Susan, the campaign, and the premiere of the opera.
There are more similarities between the news short film and the whole film. If you compare the two carefully, you can find more. In short, news films provide us with a "map", so that when we watch the retrospective scenes, we are already expecting some things to happen; at the same time, we also have a rough concept of time series, waiting to regroup these events into a complete one. story.
The large number of flashbacks in "Citizen Kane" allows us to directly see past events. Therefore, the story time and the plot time are about the same. Kane was 75 years old when he died, but he was 10 years old at the beginning of the movie, so the plot covers approximately 65 years of his life, plus Thompson's investigation for about a week. In addition, when Mrs. Kane was doing mineral business, we can imagine it was a few years before she handed over her son Kane to Thatcher; therefore, the story is slightly longer than the plot—about 70 years. The time on the screen is about 120 minutes.
Like most movies, "Citizen Kane" also uses an omission technique. The plot skips the actual story time, and the screening time also shortens the time of Thompson's visit by a week. At the same time, using montage techniques to condense the story time in a few shots, such as the growth of "Inquiry" (4d), the increase in circulation (5c), Susan's opera career (7e), Susan playing puzzles to pass the time ( 7h). This "summary" approach is very different from general narrative scenes. So far we can understand the value of these clips in helping the audience clarify the length of the story.
"Citizen Kane" also shows examples of events that only appear once in the story and can be repeated in the plot. Susan and Ryland’s reminiscences all mention Susan’s debut in Chicago. Lilan's reminiscence perspective is to look at the stage from the auditorium, therefore, what the audience sees is the performance on the stage (6i). Susan's version (7c) includes various backstage and front-stage performances, allowing the audience to see her humiliation. Therefore, the two versions of the same event did not confuse the audience, because the audience could see that these were different scenes of the same event (the "Hotline News" also mentioned Susan's opera career in the G and H sections). By repeating her embarrassment, the painful process that Kane forced her to go through, the whole film became clearer.
Taken together, the narrative of "Citizen Kane" used retrospective techniques to dramatize Thompson's visit, inspiring the audience to find the reasons for Kane's failure and to identify the true meaning of the "rosebud". Just like in a detective film, we will look for the missing causal part and compose the story into a consistent pattern. Therefore, by manipulating the timing, duration and number of occurrences of events, the plot can not only help the audience find the missing parts, but also complicate them to arouse the audience's curiosity and create suspenseful effects.
Motivation in "Citizen Kane"
Some film critics believe that director Orson Wells's method of finding the true meaning of "rose bud" was a shortcoming of the film, because it proved to be just a gimmick afterwards. However, if the focus of "Citizen Keith" is only to verify the meaning of "attack the rose bud," the above complaint may be valid. In fact, the function of "Rose Bud" in this film is only to create motivation. It gives Thompson the goal of investigation and also allows the audience to focus on his efforts to find out the truth about Kane's life. Therefore, "Citizen Kane" became a detective film, but instead of investigating the motive of a crime, it was a reporter investigating a character's characteristics. Therefore, the message of "Rose Bud" is to establish a basic motivation to promote the development of the whole plot (Of course, "Rose Bud" has other functions; Give Charlie a new sleigh at Christmas).
The narrative of "Citizen Kane" revolves around the process of investigating a person's personality characteristics, and as a result, these characteristics provide motivation for many events (this point, the film is quite in line with the classic Hollywood narrative). Kane wanted to prove for Susan that she was a singer and not just his mistress, and that she was the motivation for him to start his career in opera. Kane's mother was overly concerned about Kane's childhood education, believing that the environment she was in was a bad environment, and gave her the motivation to hand Kane to Thatcher's care. The motivation for these behaviors comes from the character's characteristics and goals.
At the end of the film, Thompson announced that he had given up searching for the meaning of "rose buds" because he did not think that "any word can fully explain a person's life". At this point, Thompson's rhetoric gave him an incentive to accept failure. However, if the audience is to accept the concept of "there is no key to the mystery of a person's life", further reasons are needed, and the film also provides these reasons. In the screening room where the newsreel was shown earlier, Lauston said: "Perhaps what he said in bed before his death tells everything." Another reporter replied: "Yes, but maybe he didn't say anything." Here, I have already hinted that the "rose bud" is a mystery without a mystery. Lilan bitterly rejected this topic later and only talked about other incidents. These short clips helped Thompson establish the final negative argument.
The scene where Thompson visited Susan for the first time in the Blue Hill nightclub (3) may be quite confusing at first. Unlike the scene where he visits other people, there is no retrospective happening here. Thompson knew from the bartender that Susan knew nothing about "Rosebud", which he could learn from the second time he visited her. So, why does the film still include this section? One reason is that this scene aroused the curiosity of the audience and deepened Kane's sense of mystery. Also, Susan’s story is about Kane’s middle and old age, and after the middle of the story, all the retrospectives are in chronological order; if Susan had said it during the first visit by Thompson, we would not have enough Information to understand these contents. However, it is reasonable for Thompson's investigation to start with Susan first, because she is Kane's ex-wife and should be the closest living person to him. When she visited her for the first time, she refused to be interviewed because she was drunk. There was a motive for her to postpone her retrospective appearance. By then, Bernstein and Ryland had talked a lot about Kane’s life, and It paved the way for Susan's backtracking. Therefore, the first visit is functionally providing a reason to postpone Susan's backtracking.
Motivation takes the narrative for granted. Kane's mother hoped that her son could live a successful and prosperous life. This motivation led her to hand Kane to Thatcher's discipline. But Thatcher is a powerful banker and gave the news clip a reason to include his testimony at the hearing (proving his status) in the news content. And his social status also shows that he can put his diary manuscript in the memorial library. These collectively indicate that Thompson can obtain data on Kane's childhood life.
Although the film is dependent on psychological motives, "Citizen Kane" deliberately breaks away from the classic Hollywood narrative in some places and obscures some motives. And these ambiguous places mainly come from Kane's character. Every character has a certain saying about Kane, but these do not fully explain Kane's personality. Bernstein recalled Kane in a sympathetic and emotional way, while Leland talked about his relationship with Kane in a cynical tone. These statements still do not fully explain some of Kane's words and deeds. For example, if Kane issued a check for 25,000 dollars to fire Leland, did she read it for his old friends, or did she want to prove with a high profile that she was more generous than Leland? And why did he keep buying some artworks that were not even opened and put them in Xanadu? While remaining open to these issues, this film invites us to take a look at the different aspects of Kane's character.
Parallel group "Citizen Kane" in the
parallel control is not "Citizen Kane" basic narrative structure, but the film has some parallel structure. We have discussed the structure of a parallel comparison between the news short film and the entire film, and we have also noticed the parallelism of the two plot lines; Kane’s life and Thompson’s investigation "Rosebud" are what Kane pursued in his life. Synonymous; we have seen from his life that he was unable to obtain friendship and love, so that he was lonely and died in Xanadu. And his inability to obtain happiness and Thompson's inability to learn the true meaning of "rose buds" created a parallel contrast. Of course, this does not mean that they have the same personality traits, but that it provides two plot lines to develop in the same direction at the same time.
Another comparison is that Kane is running a campaign while busy with his opera career that portrays Susan as an opera star. In both aspects, Kane tried to use the influence of newspapers on public opinion to expand his reputation. In order for Susan to succeed, he forced his colleagues in the newspaper to write music reviews admiring her performance; this action echoed the action of the "Inquirer" immediately announcing the vote invalid when his election failed. These circumstances indicate that Kane did not understand that his power was not enough to cover up his failure: his affair with Susan caused him to lose the election, and then he refused to admit that Susan did not have the ability to sing and play. The comparison here points out how Kane kept making the same mistakes in his life.
The pattern of plot development in "Citizen Kane"
The order in which Thompson visited Kane’s old acquaintances gave these retrospectives a clear development trajectory, because he started from people who knew Kane’s childhood to people who knew his life in his later years, visiting them in order. In addition, each retrospective depicts a specific aspect of Kane. Thatcher provides an overview of Kane's politics, while Bernstein talks about his handling of the newspaper industry. The plot first summarizes Kane's early achievements, and then introduces Lilan's views on his private life, from which we learn the first hint about Kane's failure. Then, Susan talked about how Kane manipulated her personal will, and Raymond's memories made Kane gradually become a poor old man.
Therefore, although the timing, duration, and number of occurrences of each event in the plot are different, the film still presents Kane's life through a stable development model. The present tense of the narrative-Thompson's investigation-also has its own pattern (the failure of Thompson's investigation at the end of the film echoes Kane's own inability to pursue happiness or personal achievement).
Because of this failure, the ending of "Citizen Kane" was much more "open" than the Hollywood movie of 1941. Thompson has actually found his own answer for "Rose Bud", because he said that it cannot explain Kane's life; therefore, the audience can use this behavior pattern to gain more room for thinking. Thompson has learned that life cannot be summed up in one word. However, in most classic narrative movies, the protagonist usually accomplishes the original goal (Thompson is the protagonist of this plot line).
Another plot line about Kane appears more open. Not only did Kane fail to achieve his goal, the movie itself never said exactly what his goal was. Most of the classic narratives have to create conflicts, allowing the protagonist to struggle until the end of the film to resolve. Kane started with a successful life (operating the "Inquirer" smoothly), and then gradually progressed to a lonely and lonely life. We never knew what would make him happy. The handling of "The People Kane" made it very unusual at the time.
But the result of searching for "rose bud" has an explanation: the audience finally discovered what "rose bud" is at the end of the film. Based on this discovery, the ending shot contrasts with the opening scene. The opening shot advances through the fence to the mansion, and at the end, it pulls from the inside of the house to the outside of the fence. The huge K badge and the "No Entry" sign fill the entire screen.
However, even so, we still feel ambiguous about Thompson's statement. Because just knowing how the "rose buds" Kane said before his death came from, do we know all of Kane's personality traits? Maybe Thompson is right-there is no word that can explain Kane's life; perhaps, the "no entry" sign at the end of the film is suggesting that neither Thompson nor the audience can get a glimpse of Kane's inner world. "Rosebud" seems to explain the problems of Kane's life, but it comes from the sleigh lost in childhood and his childhood life; but the film also implies that such an answer is too simple. This is exactly what Lauston calls the news point in the film.
For many years, film critics have been debating whether "Rose Bud" has solved the narrative crux of the film. These controversies have actually proved the ambiguous approach used by "Citizen Kane". The movie itself only provides clues, but does not explain the complete ending.
"Citizen Kane" is described
in the analysis of how to "Citizen Kane," the plot presents its story content, you can pay special attention to a phenomenon: we are the only
one directly facing Kane is the time when he died. Other times, he appears either in news clips or in the memories of other characters. This approach makes the film a portrait of a character, a study that explores the character from various angles.
The five narrators in the film, who are also the subjects of Thompson's follow-up investigation: Thatcher, Bernstein, Leland, Susan, and the servant Raymond, all present a certain aspect of Kane. In Thatcher's part (4b-4e), the way of narration is: only scenes where Thatcher appeared, and even Kane's newspaper deeds are presented in accordance with the fan country that Thatcher recognizes. In Bernstein's backtracking (5h-5f), some scenes are beyond the scope of his sightings, but roughly follow the scope of his perception. For example, at the "Inquirer" celebration dinner, we were limited by the conversation between Bernstein and Leland, while Kane was dancing happily in the background hall. Likewise, we have never seen footage of Kane traveling to Europe. We only watched/heard Bernstein reading Kane's telegram to Liland.
Lilan's retrospective part (6b, 6d-6j) is obviously beyond the cognitive scope of the narrator. We can see the footage of Kane having breakfast with Emily, the meeting of Kane and Susan, and the conflict between Kane and Getty in Susan's apartment. In scene 6j, although Lilan appeared, he was almost unconscious (in this part of the plot, Lilan revealed that everything he knew was told to him by Kane, but the details of the scene were obviously beyond Lilan’s range of awareness). When we see Susan's recollection part (7b-7k), the cognitive range presented in her narration fits best with her. And the servant Raymond's narrative is in line with his own perception: he stands outside the door of Susan's room destroyed by Kane (there is also a scene 7f, Susan is not aware of this action). The last retrospect (8b) was recalled by Raymond and fit the range he knew; because when Kane destroyed Susan's room, he was standing outside the door.
Using multiple narrators to convey story information has many functions. It provides a "realistic" component and presents Kane's complex and multi-faceted. Also, the narratives of these characters are like Susan's puzzles, we can only put them together one by one, arousing the curiosity of the audience-what is the connection between the "rose bud" and Kane's past? It also enhances the suspense- —How did he lose his friends and wife?
This strategy hints at the focus of the film's formal structure. When Thompson gets information from different narrators, the plot uses both (Thompson and these narrators) to convey the story information, while also concealing the story information. Because it makes us understand that there is no saying that can explain anyone's life. If we can directly enter Kane's consciousness, perhaps we can understand the meaning of "rose bud" to him more quickly. The use of this multiple narrative is to imitate real life phenomena, using fragmented, discontinuous information to arouse curiosity and suspense.
Although each narrator is mostly limited to the scope of self-cognition, the plot does not try to use a more subjective narrative approach to show the depth of the narrative. It uses narration as a transition to lead the audience into a retrospective situation, but it does not make any attempt to present the subjectivity of these narrators. Only in Susan's part are there traces of subjective narrative techniques. In scene 7c, Lilan's existence is seen from the subjective visual angle of her standing on the stage, and the montages about her opera career also show some psychological subjectivity, revealing her frustration. However, on the whole, the film conforms to the classic Hollywood convention of presenting the plot with objective narrative methods.
In addition to these five narrators, the film also has the cognitive scope presented in the "hot news" short film. We already know the function of its existence, but it also provides us with a big picture of Kane's life and death, and these five narrators will add more information. It is also more "objective" than the rest of the film-it does not reveal any Kane's inner life at all. As Lauston said: "These are not enough to tell the audience what a character is doing. You have to tell us what kind of a person he is." In terms of function, Thompson's purpose is to increase the superficial introduction of Kane in news clips. depth.
However, these have not yet finished the narrative handling of this complex and bold film. At the very least, the information revealed by the newsletter and the five narrators are all linked together by Thompson. To the whole extent, he is the spokesperson of the film: digging and combining all the puzzles.
It is worth noting that Thompson has hardly been given any personality traits, and it is even difficult for us to remember his face, which is the usual practice in the movie. If the audience understands his background more, he will become the protagonist. However, "Citizen Kane" pays more attention to his search than him. The way the plot handles Thompson makes him like a neutral collection station, collecting information from all parties (although his conclusion at the end of the film "I don't think any word can explain everyone's life" implies that he changed his position after investigation) .
However, Thompson is not yet a perfect spokesperson, because the narrative of the film is in a larger range of cognition, Dui Ren news short film, five narrators and Thompson. The retrospective part is very restrictive, but many parts present an omniscient narrative as a whole. Just like the opening method, that is, the operation of the lens like "god's-eye-view"; we enter a mysterious mansion-Kane's territory Shenandoah. We can borrow a character's journey into this scene, just like Dorothy's adventures in Oz. However, here, it is an omniscient narrator who is leading the journey of Zhao, and finally enters a dark bedroom. One hand holds the glass paperweight, juxtaposed with the scene of wind and snow.
This picture is teasing us: Is this an attempt at poetic narrative or is it a picture in the mind of a dying person? Both of these provided a considerable amount of information, allowing the audience to feel the power of omniscience, especially when a nurse rushed into the room after his death. Obviously no one in the play knew more than the audience.
On the other hand, the omniscient narrative is very obvious. When Lilan recalled Susan's opera debut (6i), we saw the reaction of the aloft stage staff to her performance. However, the most obvious should be the omniscient part at the end of the film. When Thompson and a group of reporters left, the mystery of "Rose Bud" was not solved, and the camera still stayed in Xanadu's warehouse. Thanks to the omniscient narrative technique, the audience learned that "rose bud" was originally the name of Kane's childhood toy, the little sleigh. Now we can finally connect the opening paperweight with the sleigh at the end.
This narrative is completely omniscience, "knowing" where the important clues of the opening of the story are, constantly teasing us (the snow, the small wooden house in the paperweight) with hints, and finally the mystery of the opening title puzzle is revealed. The camera went back to the "No Entry" sign, reminding us of the way the film opens. This film not only follows the principles of cause and effect and time, but also uses the narrative model to shape curiosity, suspense, and achieve a consistent unity in the final surprise effect.
--Finish
View more about Citizen Kane reviews
