I don't like to interpret the plot when evaluating movies. "What to shoot" belongs to the category of literature, and the focus of a movie is "how to shoot". The reason for interpreting the plot of this film is to refute a view that the success of "Citizen Kane" is only about showing off. In fact, the text of "Citizen Kane" itself is excellent enough. Compared with the famous American movies of the same period, such as "Gone with the Wind", "Casablanca", "Blue Bridge", etc., "Citizen Kane" is intended to, The format is by no means comparable to those romantic feature films.
1. Interpretation of the plot
In the interpretation of the author's film, there is a type of mistake, that is, linking the film with the author's life and era, and interpreting the film with materials other than the film. This indexed interpretation creates a paradox: Assuming a movie is complete, the movie itself already contains all the information for interpretation, and relying on indexed interpretation proves that the movie is incomplete. The boundaries of the index should stop at authors, not movies. For example, "Rosebud" in this film is even traced back to the private parts of media mogul Hearst's mistress, which is ironic.
Rosebud is a key to unlock the tragedy of Kane's individual (and possibly human tragedy). That is, throughout the film, Kane 's struggle and failure between "individual rights and tyranny" .
Kane's childhood was changed by "dictatorship" and he was forced to leave the family and be under the custody of the bank. The motivation is the mother's love and the father's greed for money. The despotism in the name of love also existed between Kane and Susan later. So Little Kane fought with the Rosebud sled.
The shadow of childhood is the clue of all Kane's behavior in the future.
In the early days of running the newspaper, Kane practiced his struggle and decided to speak up for the people. Two famous principles were published.
An important character in the film is Kane's friend Jed Lilan, who is Kane's mirror. He was the first to predict Kane's transformation.
The lines in the scene in which the two met each other are worth studying. Li Lan said that Kane's so-called civilian power was actually given to them by Kane as a gift, and the love that Kane thought was actually Kane's own way of love, and asked the people to reciprocate. This substantial autocracy stems from Kane's limitations as an individual. Orson Welles expressed his pessimism: people have two sides, they can be victims of tyranny, or they can be tyranny itself, so people are unreliable. Just like Kane's review of Susan in the movie, he adopted Li Lan's point of view on the one hand, but fired Li Lan on the other hand.
Kane and Susan's emotional line is an extension of the struggle. Building the theatre for Susan is to prove something - take the quotes out of "singer" from the story. In Kane's view, this quotation mark is actually the tyranny of Susan by the media that has the right to speak. So Kane tried everything possible to prove that Susan was a qualified singer, and eventually he became a capitalist manipulating the newspaper.
Facing Susan directly, Kane disregarded Susan's rights as an individual, and used love as a reason to keep her in captivity and control. As in Kane's childhood, wealth and love again became reasons for despotism. Susan left him, Kane vented his anger in the room, picked up the crystal ball inadvertently, his thoughts returned to childhood, he thought of "Rosebud", and realized the failure of his life's struggle.
2. Narrative
The non-linear narrative is not very clever enough to accurately summarize the way the film is told. Citizen Kane actually uses a "puzzle narrative" approach.
The puzzle narrative is different from the "Rashomon narrative" in that: the puzzle narrative - everyone tells the truth, but not all; the Rashomon narrative - everyone tells the whole, but not all the truth. At the same time, Orson Welles creatively outlines Kane's life in a newsreel, like a preview on a puzzle box. This narrative mode is the first time I have seen in the limited amount of film I have watched. Whether there is a similar narrative structure before 1941, I would like to let you know.
In terms of narrative style, it has changed the routine of Hollywood in the era of big studios. Instead of using a main plot to run through the whole film, it is divided into parts, and it describes Kane's childhood, career, politics, marriage and other dimensions. After watching the movie, the audience can't summarize what the movie tells the story. Because in Citizen Kane, narrative is not a purpose, but a function, to present the life of Kane as a character and to convey the author's intentions. This narrative style is usually frowned upon at the box office, but is refined enough from a cinematic innovation standpoint.
3. Audiovisual language
1. The audio-visual analysis of this film is overwhelming, and the processing of almost every shot can be called a textbook classic. In my opinion, there are certainly dazzling skills, but most of the time the director controls his desire to show off his skills, and generally speaking, the camera serves the main body of the film.
For example, the low-angle "ceiling" shot that is talked about with great interest, although it has the dazzling purpose of "hiding the microphone", it also happens to reflect the creative intention of conveying "power" and "authority" in the film.
The same feature also includes deep focus photography. Kane is in close-up, showing his strength and arrogance at the moment.
In the second half of the movie, in the two scenes of Kane and Susan, Susan is always on the ground. It reflects her weak position in the relationship between the two.
2. The lens of the magic brush.
The first is that in the opening newsreel, multiple shots were "old". In the early silent films, many films had these thin black lines in the picture. The caption at the beginning of "Metropolis" said that these thin lines were caused by the restoration of 16mm film to 35mm. Similar ideas are very much like modern movies, with dim and mottled special effects.
"Light of God" Tyndall effect. It is not uncommon to use cigarettes, but it is especially the white light on the paper. When the camera is zoomed in to a close-up view, the audience still cannot see the words on the paper, which is very mysterious.
To be continued...
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