Film Analysis of Citizan Kane

A detailed Summary of Film Analysis of Citizan Kane

Citizen Kane 1941, directed by Orson Welles, and composed by Bernard Herrmann, has been listed as one of the greatest films ever made. Although this was Bernard Herrmann's first film score, he definitely laid the cornerstone of greatness in this film of which his other works would soon join.

A bit of noteworthy information that should be addressed about Bernard Herrmann is his scoring style in Citizen Kane, as aptly stated in Robert L. Carringers book, The Making of Citizen Kane. The classical Hollywood approach to film scoring during that time was represented in works by composers such as Max Steiner, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and Miklos Rozsa. The main features they emphasized on was full symphonic scoring symbolic of late nineteenth century European romanticism, particularly Wagner, Mahler, Strauss, etc. What makes Bernard Herrmann's approach in Citizen Kane so special is his avoidance of using a full orchestra to score the music. He also employed unorthodox techniques such as smaller groupings of instruments that normally wouldn't be grouped together in an orchestra setting, which you'll hear very frequently in the Leland flashback. His basic structure throughout the movie is a leitmotif. Only the opera sequences and the endi

We end the Gettys scene with both Emily and Gettys walking off into the night. As this happens, a very strong sad string ensemble picks up and we cut to a newspaper headline of the affair of Susan and Kane. The music then abruptly stops as we see a close up of Leland going into a bar.

Scene opens with Emily having a look disappointment and sadness on here face, with sort of a forced smile. Kane comes across in this scene as very matter of fact and openly annoyed when questioned about a gift given by his assistant Bernstein to their son Junior. At this point the audience knows that not all is right in the Kane household. The music played seems to be in a very low bass, has very ominous sounding overtones, and with a very prominent oboe. The scene continues with Charles becoming gradually more annoyed with the music behind it crescendo in a fury of strings just as Charles "lays down the law" so to speak.

The next section of scenes deals with Kane's first wife Emily Norton. All the scenes are done in a minor with the attention on the dialogue, but the music does a good job of portraying the feeling of the moment in each scene. Also here is where we see a musical motif associated with a character. In this case it's Emily Norton. Carringer once again explains in thorough detail how Herrmann scores this particularly important part of the flashback.

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Approximate Word count = 2379
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Movies