I have been on a mission to watch many of the films deemed "classics." Today, I watched Citizen Kane. I hadn't even heard of it until Emerald pointed it out in the DMA movie library.
At first I was a bit worried. I didn't read the summary of the film before watching it (those give too much away, in my opinion). It seemed like a boring documentary of the Most Interesting Man. Naturally, I was quite happy when it became a story about a group of reporters trying to discover the meaning of Charles Foster Kane's last word, "rosebud," and telling Kane's life story along the way. They embraced the fact that it is a documentary, but an entertaining one. Throughout the film, we are given little parts of his life as recalled by those who knew him, pursuing the answer to the mystery of "rosebud." I am very impressed with the camera angles used in this film. Particularly in the scene after Kane loses the election for Governor. The low angle shot from the ground is actually my favorite. You don't see this angle very often in films, but it gives you a different perspective of the scene. I really appreciate it when this angle is used. Another shot I very much enjoyed was when Kane walked through the "hall of mirrors." The camera work throughout the entire movie is absolutely beautiful. It all flows so nicely, and keeps you very interested from beginning to end. I honestly wasn't expecting the cinematography to be as good as it is in Citizen Kane, but it truly is remarkable.
Here is an interesting fact that I shamelessly copied and pasted from Wikipedia about how the made the low angle shots:
"Another unorthodox method used in the film was the way low-angle shots were used to display a point of view facing upwards, thus allowing ceilings to be shown in the background of several scenes. Since films were primarily filmed on sound stages and not on location during the era of the Hollywood studio system, it was impossible to film at an angle that showed ceilings because the stages had none. In some instances, Welles's crew used muslin draped above the set to produce the illusion of a regular room with a ceiling, while the boom microphones were hidden above the cloth and even dug a trench into the floor to allow the low-angle shot to be used in the scene where Kane meets Leland after his election loss."
I love that you found this! It makes me happy how much effort they were willing to put into this film, just so they could use these angles. It makes me love and appreciate Citizen Kane even more.
Here is an interesting fact that I shamelessly copied and pasted from Wikipedia about how the made the low angle shots:
ReplyDelete"Another unorthodox method used in the film was the way low-angle shots were used to display a point of view facing upwards, thus allowing ceilings to be shown in the background of several scenes. Since films were primarily filmed on sound stages and not on location during the era of the Hollywood studio system, it was impossible to film at an angle that showed ceilings because the stages had none. In some instances, Welles's crew used muslin draped above the set to produce the illusion of a regular room with a ceiling, while the boom microphones were hidden above the cloth and even dug a trench into the floor to allow the low-angle shot to be used in the scene where Kane meets Leland after his election loss."
I love that you found this! It makes me happy how much effort they were willing to put into this film, just so they could use these angles. It makes me love and appreciate Citizen Kane even more.
ReplyDelete