One of the hallmarks of Welles' films is the high elevation and low camera positions that enclose the ceiling in the frame. Different from the low camera position used by Yasujiro Ozu, Wells pursues a figure composition similar to the shape of a pyramid, and the figure slightly deformed in the unconventional angle seems to have a stronger and more complex psychological state and a more profound desire to speak. . The flock of pigeons flying behind Othello in "Othello" once fascinated me.
Wells consciously used a depth-of-field lens, a method widely used and admired by later film directors. Andre Bazin, the editor-in-chief of "Cinebook", later proposed the long-shot theory, an important element of which is the use of depth-of-field lenses (vertical lenses), that is, the same scene with different depths of field.
With unique low-camera, depth-of-field shots and subtle camera movement, Wells brilliantly narrates Kane, the life story of the lost careerist's highs and lows, gaining everything and then quickly losing it all with the forever picture. The lost puzzle, in the expression of the movie, is the phrase "Rosebud" that no one heard when Kane died, but it became a puzzle in everyone's heart.
"Citizen Kane" was very sluggish at the box office when it was released, and even caused an angry condemnation from the audience, questioning the filmmaker's "not being able to tell a good story". Abandoning Hollywood's usual linear narratives and parallel montages with a strong sense of drama, Wells uses a seemingly casual and even fragmented way to show several overlapping paragraphs in the life of newspaper tycoon Kane through six interviews and the memories of different characters. time.
It was not until the rise of the new wave of French cinema that film scholars at that time re-evaluated Citizen Kane, which was recognized as the beginning of a new film era. Yasujiro Ozu said Japan was doomed to defeat the country that made the film.
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