Citizen Kane (1941)

1) Relate what was discussed in class or the text to the screening.

Citizen Kane was not what I had expected. The movie was based off William Hearst. Orson Wells had directed the movie with full artistic control and in my opinion he did a fantastic job. Citizen Kane was Wells first movie where he was the director, but in the movie he was also the main character, Charles Foster Kane.  

2)  Find a related article and summarize the content.  (on the film, director, studio, actor/actress, artistic content, etc.) You can use the library or the internet.  Cite the article or copy the url to your journal entry. Summarize in your own words the related article but do not plagiarize any content.

http://www.filmsite.org/citi.html

Citizen Kane was voted the best American film of all time in 1998 and for good reasons. Its cinematic and narrative techniques were gold, almost every scene had the perfect camera angle and lighting. At the time of its released the movie was financially a bust, but after World War II the movie was rereleased in Europe and also on television and had a much better turn out.  The release had failed partly because of numerous efforts to stop the film from releasing at all due to parallels in the lives of Charles Foster Kane and William Hurst who was a powerful name in the newspaper business.

3) Apply the article to the film screened in class.   How did the article support or change the way you thought about the film, director, content, etc.?

Overall the article had some great information that I wasn’t aware of until now. The fact that the FBI had gotten involved in the delay of the release of the movie was a great tidbit of information behind this amazing film. I believe that if the film had been able to be released when RKO had expected it to it would have been a great success and not a financial flop. The documentary “The Battle Over Citizen Kane” which was released in 1996 seems like a great documentary depicting the controversies at the time of release.  

4) Write a critical analysis of the film, including  your personal opinion,  formed as a result of the screening, class discussions, text material and the article.  I am less interested in whether you liked or disliked a film, (although that can be part of this)  than I am in your understanding of its place in film history or the contributions of the director.

Orson wells, in my option, did a fantastic job with the movie. Bouncing between being the director and the main character must have been a very difficult task, but due to the fact that Kane was not in every scene it made sense that it could have been done. Overall AFI rated this as the greatest American film of all time. I would have to say it was an amazing film with some of the best cinematography that I have ever seen especially for being released in 1941.

CHECKLIST FOR PLAGIARISM 
1) ( x  ) I have not handed in this assignment for any other class.

2) ( x  ) If I reused any information from other papers I have written for other classes, I clearly explain that in the paper.

3) ( x ) If I used any passages word for word, I put quotations around those words, or used indentation and citation within the text.

4) ( x ) I have not padded the bibliography. I have used all sources cited in the bibliography in the text of the paper.

5) ( x ) I have cited in the bibliography only the pages I personally read.

6) ( x ) I have used direct quotations only in cases where it could not be stated in another way. I cited the source within the paper and in the bibliography.

7) ( x ) I did not so over-use direct quotations that the paper lacks interpretation or originality.

8) ( x ) I checked yes on steps 1-7 and therefore have been fully transparent about the research and ideas used in my paper.

Name: ___Christian Hansen___________  Date: _____04/29/2013___________________