Citizen Kane

 

1.

Named “The Best American Film of all Time” by American Film Institute, the film Citizen Kane was released in 1941. The Film was based on a very wealthy and powerful man named William Randolph Hearst. Hearst ran his own newspaper company. Charles Foster Kane portrayed Hearst’s Personality and life tails through this film. This interested film was directed by Oscar Welles and after released it went on to receive nine Oscar Nominations. One of the infamous nominations included “Best Original Screenplay.” Director Oscar Welles also was nominated for four Oscars, which was incredible during this Era. Welles won the Oscars for “Best Original Screenplay.” In class we discussed many significant facts about Oscar Welles.  Citizen Kane was the Director Welles first motion picture.  Welles directed this film at a very early age of 24. While directing, Welles had complete control in producing and collaborated with Herman Mankiewicz on the scripts.

2.

The Article I have chosen from Film site written by Tim Dirks, discuss how the Film engendered controversy in the early 1941, because the film appeared to illustrate fictional and false accusations about the life of William Randolph Hearst. Hearst was a powerful newspaper writer and publisher. His life was based on the character Charles Kane in the film Citizen Kane. The film was accused for drawing remarkable, unflattering, and uncomplimentary parallel to the actually life of Hearst. In fact the article mentioned that Hearst ordered his publications to completely ignore the popular film and to not release any comments about the film and its portrayed character. The Article also illustrated a detail similarity chart of the character Charles Foster Kane and Hearst, to represent how the film was strongly influenced by Hearst.

3.

The article by Tim Dirks relates to the screening by pin pointing the many similarities that the character, Charles Foster Kane, in the film had with the infamous Newspaper writer William Randolph Hearst. The article did an excellent job explaining the complexity of the Film’s Character and how it strongly impacted Hearst and the audience. The film had Kane portray such a well known man in history of journalism to be relived through a motion picture. Charles Kane worked for the New York Inquirer as a multi-millionaire newspaper publisher, who had a distinct over-willing and in many cases misunderstood personally that was Hearst seemed to present through the eyes of many. Though the film did includes certain inaccurate facts about Hearst, is also use many significant aspects about the newspaper business and the power man behind it all. 

4.

 First, I can truly agree with the American Film Institute, when they said Citizen Kane is the greatest American film of all time. But I can say it was a film because of its great character, Charles Kane. Kane had me truly believe it was as miserable as what he portrayed in the film. The sound and lighting in this film worked to it great advantage. For example, when Kane was upset and was speaking to his second wife about singing for the opera, the sound got louder and the lighting was shining directly on him. The scene was much more intensified, not only by the content.  The lightings and sounds allowed the characters to truly come alive and define the intensities of the film. I truly enjoyed when moments between the scenes were sad or aggressive, I got those feelings in my own emotions. It was like a was feeling each character’s emotions.