Citizen Kane

Citizen Kane is a film about a man named Charles Foster Kane, who passes away upon the film's opening scene. From that point forward, the film focuses on his life, through a series of interviews and clips about Kane. The film uses an almost documentary style of filming, as interviews about kane transition into scenes that coincide with what they were talking about. A great scene in the film centers around Kane and his wife. Through the power of montage editing, we see the deterioration of Kane's marriage and the couple's love. When the scene begins, we see Kane as a loving husband, infatuated with his wife; however, as the scene goes on we see the couple on different nights, as the newspaper begins to take over Kane's life. We watch as the couple grows distant and as Kane becomes almost delusional. This use of montage allows the viewer to view the marriage over the course of months in just three minutes, as conversations transition into conversations on a different night. This gives the viewer the ability to see only the important aspects of each conversation that outline the marriage's downward spiral.