The Film That Reinvented Cinema: Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane

After watching Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, I wondered why this film is considered one of the greatest masterpieces of all time. The film left a lingering impression on me – particularly in its portrayal of Kane’s failure to understand others’ desires until his death. Although this film emotionally resonated with me, I still couldn’t understand why it is considered revolutionary. To gain a deeper understanding of why Citizen Kane is regarded as a revolutionary film, I viewed an analytical video about it on YouTube. The video explains that we may not immediately see this movie as revolutionary. In the past, films rarely experimented with visual storytelling or narrative structure to the extent that Citizen Kane did. The video especially highlights how the cinematic techniques that once set Citizen Kane apart are now standard in modern cinema. Although those techniques were not entirely new, Orson Welles and cinematographer Gregg Toland combined them in a new way that reinvented the language of cinema.

Some interesting innovations include the following:

1. Deep Focus
   Some of the film’s most notable innovations include the use of deep focus. According to Film Art, deep focus is “a use of the camera lens and lighting that keeps objects in both close and distant planes in sharp focus”. In earlier films, filmmakers typically used different focal lengths to separate the figures from the background. However, in Citizen Kane, the entire scene was kept in focus through the use of a small aperture, which allowed more of the image to remain sharp within a single frame. This allowed viewers to take in the whole frame simultaneously. An example of this technique appears in the scene where young Kane plays in the snow outside the window, while inside, his mother and Mr. Thatcher are making decisions about his future.

2. Montage Sequence
   Another notable cinematic technique used in Citizen Kane is a montage sequence, which is a film editing technique used to condense time through a series of short shots. In this instance, Welles utilizes this technique to compress sixteen years of marriage into just a few minutes. The audience observes the emotional tone between Kane and his wife evolving throughout their relationship, as multiple breakfast scenes seamlessly dissolve into one another. Even though the exact year or time is never shown, it becomes evident that Kane’s marriage is gradually declining.
   
3. Labyrinth of Flashbacks and Different Points of View
   Unlike most films of its time, Citizen Kane does not follow a linear narrative structure. Instead, it followed a radical approach to storytelling. This non-linear narrative structure allows the story to unfold through differing perspectives and recollections. The movie begins with Kane’s death, and the story unfolds as a reporter interviews several people to find out what “Rosebud” means. Each person who was once close to Kane takes the audience back in time, revealing different parts of his life. This kind of narrative technique had never appeared in films before. However, many later films abandoned the strictly linear narrative, adopting techniques such as flashbacks and flash-forwards in ways that reflect Citizen Kane’s influence on modern storytelling.

After learning about these techniques, I came to understand why Citizen Kane is regarded as revolutionary. The cinematography, shifts in perspective, and narrative structure illustrate the film’s transformative impact on modern cinema. Ultimately, exploring its innovative techniques allowed me to appreciate how Citizen Kane continues to shape the style and storytelling of modern films.