Non-Linear Editing
Alex Bordino
Spring 2015
The Impact of Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane, a remarkable film that involves a unique class of characters as well as a very different plot structure. Some individuals, like the American Film Institute, consider Citizen Kane the best film of all time. Perhaps the reasons for viewing Citizen Kane as the best film of all time come from the film's background and development? In the film, Orson Welles plays a man named Charles Foster Kane who was thought to resemble a real life person named William Randolph Hearst. Kane and Hearst portrayed very striking resemblances between their characters as well as their backgrounds. In fact, there is a film called RKO 281 which explains the background of the story and production of Citizen Kane. In RKO 281, Orson Welles (played by Liev Schreiber) struggles in creating Citizen Kane. One of the main reasons for this is because Welles' screen play has a shocking resemblance to the biography of William Randolph Hearst (played by James Cromwell). In RKO 281, the viewer finds out what "rosebud" possibly means in real life as well as the controversial development of the film's screening. But besides the fact that this film was very controversial, what are other reasons why Citizen Kane is considered one of the best films of all time? One final reason could be Welles' art of cinematography. Welles' used effects that were revolutionary for it's time like putting together a flash back structure or using the idea of of a wide camera angle. Films that were influenced by Citizen Kane's cinematography were The Maltese Falcon, Lawrence of Arabia, and The Social Network. Regardless, all aspects of Citizen Kane had a huge effect on the film industry from it's amazing storytelling to it's influential cinematography. Ranking Citizen Kane as the most influential/best film of all time is well understandable because of all the remarkable ideas the film had brought about.
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