Citizen Kane Symbolism

In a book “Among the Hidden” by Margaret Peterson Haddix, symbolism is used to create a powerful feeling with a place or thing. For example, Luke (the main protagonist) was "... always safe and protected by the house and the barn and the woods. Until they took the woods away." (pg. 11) The woods were Luke’s playground where he didn’t have to worry about being seen, his only safeguard and protection from the Population Police.

The play Macbeth by William Shakespeare and 1941 film Citizen Kane possess many similarities in themes and characters, despite the completely different settings and plots. Both main characters are ambitious and determined to achieve a goal, even to a certain point where they lose everything truly meaningful to them. While Macbeth strives to become king of Scotland, Charles Foster Kane attempts to become popular and influential. Both Macbeth and Citizen Kane desire to be powerful members of their respective societies and receive respect and recognition from their acquaintances. In both works, they acquired everything they thought they wanted, yet realised they could not have what they truly desired, essentially ending up with “nothing of value”.

The Coen brothers write about the Odyssey in their film, O Brother, Where Art Thou?. O Brother, Where Art Thou? mimics the Odyssey in a surreal sense. The writing from the Coen brothers depicts many parallels between the two stories, almost as if O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Alfred Hitchcock used various symbols throughout the film Psycho to allow the viewer to get an insight of what is happening in the film. Symbolism is an exceptional way to entice the viewer as it creates suspense and makes it better to understand the film. Alfred uses paintings as a symbol, which can be seen in multiple scenes, to symbolize a certain character in the film to the painting and foreshadow events in the film. This allows the viewer to get more detail on the character’s personality and what is about to happen.

The first time we see Kane is at a great distance and only in silhouette. The still, deep focused shot shows Kane framed within several doorways. The forced perspective of the doorways make him seem very small as the close down and appear to almost crush him. This framing reflects Kane’s current state of emotion as he is now alone, trapped in his house. (Note that we also see the butler Raymond in the frame looking in at Kane.

Kane turned the Daily Inquirer Into a successful business and eventually hired the staff from the New York Chronicle. How Kane wanted to protect the ordinary people and turned this struggling business into a money maker shows the audience that Kane wanted to be loved and wanted power through journalism. Kane struggled throughout his life with two failed marriages that took a toll on him and changed his

(Citizen Kane, 1941) Kane’s parents used the power of money as an accessory for giving him away to a billionaire. Since that day, the protagonist went through a traumatizing experience, insecurity and redisposition due to his parents’ actions, which marked the beginning of his tortuous need, to be loved. This unreturned love created a sense of fear and mistrust to love something or someone, only to experience abandonment again was something Kane never got a chance to learn. Citizen Kane broke all the rules because of Welles, there were no

In Thompson’s quest to uncover the mystery of “rosebud,” he meets the people that were involved in Kane’s life and the effect he had on them. First of all comes

Citizen Kane challenged the traditional narrative and technical elements of classic Hollywood cinema mainly in the area of sound. Orson Welles was ahead of his time when he created his works of manipulating sound to transfer meaning in the film Citizen Kane. Welles used concealed hanging microphones to obtain different levels of sound throughout the film. The manner, in which the story was told, from Kane’s death flashbacked to his life of success and ultimate failure, was also a new style of storytelling for films. Welles also used symbolism with his last mumbling word “Rosebud.”

In the film Citizen Kane we learned the life of Charles Foster Kane, who is a wealthy news reporter. The first scene shows Charles Kane dying as he whispers “Rosebud” while the rest of the film works to solve the meaning of his dying word. The film then shows News on the March, which reveals Charles Kane’s entire life. After Kane begins building his newspaper empire, he meets and marries Emily Norton. Kane runs for political office, yet his personal life starts falling apart when he has an affair with Suzan Alexander.

The story focuses on telling about Kane but is about a reporter trying to seek what and why his last words meant. A reporter, Thompson was trying to seek why Kane’s last words were rosebud and what it was. The reporter interviewed people such as Mr. Jedediah Leland who was his friend until he was fired from the newspaper after transferring to Chicago to take care of that newspaper. Jedediah was fired after he was found to be face down on his typewriter writing a review of Susan and her horrific performance. Kane’s

Shot Analysis: Citizen Kane Orson Welles, director of “Citizen Kane”, is well known for his unusual directing methods that defied conventional cinematic techniques. Welles provided his audience with original forms of cinematography, narrative structures, and music. The scene I chose to analyze is extremely important to the plot of the film because Kane begins to realize that he is going through some serious financial problems. During the scene, Kane maintains a sarcastic mood, until he finally decides to surrender and signs the papers that transfer the ownership of his media empire to Mr. Thatcher.

There is a combination of colour and black and white images which feature rapidly throughout the film (Hersey, 2002). The colour images which represent a perfectly normal and happier environment rapidly move to black and white, which is usually associated to threating events, highlighting the bleakness of the expected outcome of the scene (lburgess3, 2013 and Natural Born Killers, 1994). There is animalistic reference with the rattle snake symbolising poison and death and the wolf symbolising the hunt for prey, both symbolising the outcomes of the subjects within the scene. There is also a man holding a newspaper with the headline “666 Death” before he dissolves away from the scene and for most of the scene being black and white because of the murders that are committed by Mickey and Mallory. The end of the scene is in colour with the pair celebrating their victory in dance and a projector displaying fireworks in the background

Thompson concludes that he is unable to solve the mystery and that the meaning of "Rosebud" will forever remain an enigma. As the film ends, the camera reveals that Rosebud was the name of the sled from Kane 's childhood in Colorado — a time when he was happy. Thought to be junk by Xanadu 's staff, the sled is burned in a furnace. Cast Orson Welles as Charles Foster Kane, a wealthy newspaper publisher. Joseph Cotten as Jedediah Leland, Kane 's best friend and a

Citizen Kane challenged the traditional narrative and technical elements of classic Hollywood cinema by having many different points of view telling the story. Most movies made at this time had only one narrative while this movie does not. Having a movie have multiple narrators tells the story in many peoples view points. This gives the viewer a point of view from multiple views.