... with a memorable image of a castle in the distance on a fog covered hill, a gothic shot which establishes Citizen Kane's mood. This place, called Xanadu, is the home of Charles Foster Kane, a newspaper businessman. Within moments of the film's eerie and visually pleasing opening, Kane is dead, muttering the word "Rosebud" as he hunches over. His death, like his life, is a big news event, and the paper ... a variety of different settings and objective lighting that overwhelms the audience. High and low key lighting is used numerous times to create a mystique environment around the secret...

• Word Count: 542
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... in our group has viewed (or has at least heard about) "Citizen Kane". When you first get a glimpse at the movie you imagine it would be "usual", but you discover that even after ten ... You can get a very intellectual approach from Laura Mulvey, who offers a psychoanalytic interpretation of this scene. She believes that this scene is key to explaining Kane's character because his separation from his mother prevents him accepting the surrogate father who will introduce him to society: The child is suspended between two stages, on ... threshold between a pre-Oedipal love for his mother an...

• Word Count: 671
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

Citizen Kane, produced by Orson Welles and acclaimed as one of the greatest films of our time, was composed of many different layers. Through symbolic imagery and creative mise- ... . At this time in the movie, one might have assumed that we would get the information necessary to find out the meaning of "Rosebud."" Instead, we were told about Kane's affair with Suzanne Alexander and Kane's attempt to make Suzanne a great opera singer. Interpretation led the audience to the impression that he had become a full-fledged tyrant "power ... search, and seemed to know much less than we would expect...

• Word Count: 1144
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

Citizen Kane, produced by Orson Welles and acclaimed as one of the greatest films of our time, was composed of many different layers. Through symbolic imagery and creative mise- ... . At this time in the movie, one might have assumed that we would get the information necessary to find out the meaning of "Rosebud."" Instead, we were told about Kane's affair with Suzanne Alexander and Kane's attempt to make Suzanne a great opera singer. Interpretation led the audience to the impression that he had become a full-fledged tyrant "power ... search, and seemed to know much less than we would expect...

• Word Count: 1092
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... his life is ultimately about the quest for acceptance and popularity and the loneliness that money cannot fix in Citizen Kane. The symmetry of Citizen Kane is also interesting as the film begins and ends by showing a "No Trespassing" sign on the outside fence of Kane's mansion, or his "Xanadu." The sign is also a reminder that audiences are being told a secret. They are being shown ... the true meaning of a man's life through the course of the movie, which ties into the earlier point about only audiences learning what "Rosebud" means. Letting only audiences know about the meaning of the...

• Word Count: 360
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Citizen Kane A. Throughout the movie Citizen Kane the view that nothing really matters and that there is no meaning, or nihilism, is often prevalent. It is said numerous times in the film that Charles Kane lost everything that he ever got. He spent the majority of his life running an unprofitable and failing newspaper, he lost 2 wives and although he had multiple riches through out ... mysterious last words, but in the end he doesn"t find them to mean anything. In a sense the lack of meaning to the word rosebud represents a lack of meaning to Kane's entire life. B. Shadows and silhouettes we...

• Word Count: 400
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

Kane was depicted as a rich, cold-hearted man, relying heavily on materialistic things as a means to cope with his inability to form relationships with other humans. Being a man raised in a life of luxury, he takes ownership of a newspaper company further enhancing his wealth. Kane is a callous man who deprives others as a means to further his fortune even if it means using poor journalism techniques. He lacks any ability to care for anything other than his material goods which leads him to a life of no fortune and complete sadness. Kane was deprived of a childhood when he was eight years old ...

• Word Count: 796
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School