Anlaysis paper : Acomparison between tow films - Assignment Example

Both of the movies exhibit a lot of film elements, some of which may be compared while some strongly contrast. These film elements make the two movies appealing to watch for the audience. This paper will discuss two main elements that are prevalent in both of the films and try to give comparisons or contrasts depending on how the movie producers used these elements in production and post-production. The elements that will be discussed include the movie editing and cinematography. Main Body Formal Analysis: Citizen Kane Citizen Kane is highly regarded as one of the most innovative films of all time.

The director Orson Welles tried to usher in a new style by bringing several elements of movie production from different movies together and creating Citizen Kane (Cook 54). Aside from employing innovative technology such as the wide use of deep focus, cinematography is one of the most visible elements in Citizen Kane. The cinematographer for the movie is Gregg Toland (Cook 57). Toland used deep focus so many times throughout the movie as he tried to experiment with various lenses and lighting while shooting some of the scenes in order to bring out different effects.

This can be evidenced almost in every scene where the background and foreground have been presented in sharp focus. Deep focus can be described as a technique of cinematography which helps to approximate the vision of a human eye while creating a movie. In scenes where deep focus was difficult or impossible, the cinematographer relied on an optical printer that helped to make the scenes appear as if they had been shot in sharp focus by virtually putting one piece of film on another (Cook 72).

This can be seen in the scene where Kane completes his review of Alexander’s opera and firing at the person who had started the review at the same time. In-camera-effects were also used to ensure deep focus in the movie, for instance in the scene where Kane breaks in to the room where Susan had attempted to commit suicide. In the background of this scene, Kane breaks in to the scene with another man while at the same time there is a medicine bottle and a glass in the foreground. In this scene, the cinematographer used in camera effects such as the in-camera shot where he first shot the foreground with a dark background.

The background was the lit while the foreground was darkened. The movie was then re-shot with a background action. Citizen Kane also employs continuity editing technique which is one of the main techniques used to advance the storyline of the film (Cook 104). The transition from one scene to another enables the audience to follow the story effectively. There are also some elements of continuity in the background of the movie. Interpretation: Citizen Kane This being his first movie to direct, Orson and Toland tried to give it his all so as to appeal to a large audience by being highly innovative and technical.

This in turn paid off as the movie was a huge success. The cinematography techniques used in Citizen Kane helps us to understand the movie better while also enabling a strong basis for both historical and theoretical discussions regarding the movie. One theoretical framework that can be extracted from the movie’s editing and cinematography is realism. Realism can be viewed in the movie from a perspective that the director and the cinematograph