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Wells comes from the field of live radio dramas. In 1938, when his famous radio drama "War of the Planets" was aired, Americans really thought that the United States had indeed been attacked by creatures from Mars and panicked. This was how he captured the imagination of the audience. Wells is certainly happy with this effect. As a result of this sensation, his photo appeared on the cover of Time magazine. At the time, he was only 22 years old. Wells is often praised for inventing many film sound techniques. In fact, he is mainly a person who consolidates his achievements. He has integrated and expanded the achievements of his forerunners.
In radio broadcasting, sound must be able to evoke pictures. For example, an actor speaking in a reverberation room implies that the visually relevant domain is a large auditorium; while the sound of a distant train whistle implies a vast landscape, and so on. Wells applies this sound principle to his film soundtracks, thereby creating a sense of space in the scene. As in Shangdu, the room is too big, and Kane and Susan must shout at each other to be able to hear them, which creates an uncoordinated effect that is both sad and funny. Part of the reason why the depiction of Madison Square Garden is convincing is that we heard the cheers of a large number of people, so we imagined that we also saw them.
With the assistance of his sound engineer James G. Stewart, he discovered that almost every visual technique has its sound equivalent. For example, each lens has a corresponding sound quality in terms of capacity, clarity and quality-long-range and large-distance, the sound of the lens is blurry and far away; close-up sound is crisp, clear, and generally loud; high-angle lenses often Accompanied by high pitch and acoustic effects; while the sound of a low-angle lens is contemplative and low-key. For example, in Li Lan's memory of Susan's first performance, as the elevator lens continues to rise, if we close our eyes and listen, we will find that the vocal cords also weaken with height. Another example is that in the shot of Mrs. Cain’s dormitory, the adult in the foreground dominates the vocal cords, while the shouts of the little Cain in the background can be heard clearly, but they are distant and faint. In other passages, the voice will also change according to the distance as the characters move from the foreground to the background. For example, Kane signs a contract to transfer the newspaper to Thatcher.
Wells also discovered that the sound can be melted and dissolved like a montage paragraph. So he often overlapped the dialogue, especially in comic passages, where several people tried to talk at the same time (such as in the screening room, and several paragraphs of the editorial department of the "Inquiry").
Due to the use of this overlapping dialogue, ungrammatical structure and natural interruption, the naturalness of the dialogue in the film is enhanced.
In "Citizen Kane", another important contribution of Wells to the sound is that he added the factor of timbre, and distinguishing sounds becomes the key to distinguishing roles.
Opposing roles? Opposing voices! In fact, Wells considered the issue of timbre in advance when using his Mercury Theater actor. In summary, Wells has strengthened the visual aspect by moving the detailed sound effects he is familiar with to the soundtrack of the movie (the atmosphere and distance of the scene, the different voices of the characters, and the natural form of speech). The authenticity of the natural space of the manifested event.
In many scenes, Wells used sound as a symbol. For example, when he used translation and montage passages to show Susan's disastrous opera tour. On the vocal cords, the ballad she sang can be heard being transformed into a screaming, bleak cry. The passage ends with the dimming light, which symbolizes Susan's growing despair. And on the accompanying vocal cords, we heard her voice slip into a traumatized groan, as if someone had unplugged the record player halfway through the singing of a song. During the breakup between Kane and Li Lan, following Kane's "You are fired", he pushed the sliding frame of the typewriter back hard, and the sound was like an exclamation mark.
The most worth mentioning is that in the premiere of Susan's memories, there is a close-up of Kane applauding. We all know that close-up shots are insulated, that is, the characters are isolated from the environment. However, in this close-up, when the reverberation of Kane’s applause became larger and larger, we were clearly aware of the existence of the environment, that is, there was no one in the auditorium at this time, only Kane was left. Clapping persistently.
Here, the sound broke the frame of the close-up shot.
Bernard Heilman's music is also complicated. Several major characters and events have been given musical motives. Many of these motives first appear in news clips, then reappear later in the film, and are often changed to a minor key or played at a different speed, depending on The mood of the scene. Let's take the rose
Take Hua Bu's musical motives as an example. In the opening scene of Kane’s death, the dominant motive of the touching rosebud first appeared. It was a solo performed by an electric vibrating percussion instrument, and then throughout the film it began to use various Different disguises appeared. Heilman once said, “If you follow the rose bud’s motives carefully, it is itself a clue to the ultimate identity of the rose bud itself.” That is, in the process of Thomson’s investigation, whenever a rose bud is mentioned, this Variations of musical motives set off the dialogue. When Wells finally revealed the secret of the rosebud to us, not to the person in the play, this musical motive emerged so powerfully to the point where it was the most impressive of all movies ever. Exciting reveal.
On the other hand, Heilman's music often parallels Wells' vision. For example, in the montage of the scene between Kane and his wife at the breakfast table, the disintegration of marriage is parallel to the variation in music. This passage begins with a soft and romantic waltz, which gently sets off the mutual infatuation between the two. Followed by a slightly comic musical variation. When the relationship between the two becomes more tense, the orchestration becomes more blunt and discordant. In the final scene, the two never wanted to talk anymore. This silence is accompanied by a gloomy and neurotic variation on the original musical theme. The same goes for the lens,
It started with a two-person camera, with cross positions and close distances, to indicate a harmonious relationship between the two. Then start cutting. In the end, it was pulled out by Kane, and it was still a panoramic view for two people, a long table, but now they are sitting at one end of each, and each person reads each person's newspaper. When shooting this passage, Wells strictly followed the script and dissolved from one scene to another, but he used the camera's shaking motion when connecting these dissolves. They were so fast that they blurred the image. elephant.
From Wells’s own introduction, we learned that he spent a year editing "Citizen Kane" and watched it 7000 times. And in the editing of the film, the most prominent thing is that it is different from other films, that is, the most typical four-part intra-shot change——
The background of the first scene comes out;
The foreground of the first scene is characterized;
The background transformation of the second scene;
The new character of the second scene is transformed into.
This form of transformation used by Wells, on the one hand, is suitable for the elegy and contemplative emotional state of the storyteller. For example, the effect of the dissolving in the opening (title) is a typical Wellesian. On the other hand, it uses this interlaced dissolve to connect the narration of his character with the scenes, and these scenes are assumed to be recalling—visually superimposing them on the next scene. For example, in the section of the breakfast table in Li Lan's recollection above, at the beginning, Li Lan's large image was painted on the left, and it remained on the screen until the breakfast scene was fully overlapped. At the end of the paragraph at the breakfast table, Li Lan's image was stacked again, and the two images were placed side by side. In fact, this method of introducing and distinguishing flashbacks with characters as a semi-narration is ultimately affected by radio dramas. This influence is directly determined. In the editing of the film, sound played an important role.
Wells often uses scary voices to switch, jumping from one time or place to another. For example, the opening scene of the film ends with Kane's death, and this segment is accompanied by a fading voice. Suddenly, the rumbling of the godlike voice of the narrator from "The News on the Move" hit us—the news fragment began. Raymond's memory paragraph also begins with a bird's weird call. Wells also likes to use sound as a pause, such as closing a scene with the sound of closing a door.
And in another paragraph, the transition between the night Kane met Susan for the first time and the scene where Kane was speaking at Madison Square Park a year later was also caused by sound——
1. The first is the middle shot, Susan's boarding room. Susan is sitting next to the piano, on the left side of the painting. She is playing and singing. Kane sits in the background and draws to the right. Stacked.
2. Medium and long-range view, tastefully decorated room. Susan is sitting next to the piano, on the left side of the painting. She is playing and singing. Kane sits in the background and draws to the right. After Susan finished playing, Kane applauded. Stacked.
3. Mid-range view of the street. The crowd gathered around the convertible, Li Lan was talking. Kane’s applause in the previous scene turned into the applause of the crowd. Li Lan was giving a speech:
"I'm talking about Charles Foster Kane, the fighting libertarian, worker's friend, and the next governor of the state. He is running for this election..." Che.
4. Close up, a flag with a picture of Kane, with his name on it. Kane (voice-over) continued Li Lan's last sentence: "...There is only one purpose..."
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