By Randy Rasmussen
Orson Welles is a self-conscious storyteller who usually invitations his viewers to query the equipment and veracity of what they see and listen to. he's that infrequent magician who either pulls the wool over our eyes, for our satisfaction, and unravels the wool prior to our eyes, encouraging us to examine the character of the magic itself. the various characters in Welles' video clips is also noticeable as magicians of a kind, growing impressions meant to govern different characters, or perhaps themselves, in a single path or one other. yet not like Welles, few of them voluntarily reveal their tips to the scrutiny in their sufferers. Six significant Welles movies - "Citizen Kane", "The very good Ambersons", "The woman from Shanghai", "Touch of Evil", "The Trial", and "Chimes at Midnight" - obtain a scene by means of scene research during this serious examine. From a viewer's viewpoint, it illuminates the dramatic rhythms of every movie as they spread on display and from the soundtrack. widespread analogies to different videos and pertinent quotations from the impressions of different commentators increase the textual content, constantly in the scene by way of scene development dictated by means of the vital movie lower than dialogue.
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Additional info for Orson Welles: Six Films Analyzed, Scene by Scene
Example text
The tragic richness of Kane’s private life is an elaborate reflection of the less grandiose but no less complex lives of the film’s supporting characters. Like Susan’s “hot water” invitation to Kane, his “Let’s go to the parlor” contains sexual innuendo. But when we segue to the parlor, there is no sex. Kane, looking very comfortable and domestic seated in a chair, listens contentedly to Susan play the piano and sing. To our eyes and ears her performance is mediocre and heavy-handed. Susan’s music forms a bridge to the next scene, where the positions of both characters remain similar while the setting changes significantly.
Carter’s arguments are sound, but because of his opponent’s charm and superficial egalitarianism we root for Kane instead. “If the headline is big enough, it makes the news big enough” is a despicable way to run a newspaper. And so is Bernstein’s enthusiastic endorsement of that sentiment. And yet aesthetically Carter loses this contest. His flustered demeanor betrays him. Kane, by contrast, looks cool, calm, even roguishly elegant. A bottle of champagne on ice sits on his desk. The rapidity and self-assurance of Kane’s speech are intoxicating, partly obscuring the arrogance of what he says.
Shooting from a low angle, it also shows us the skylight we saw in an earlier scene. No longer shaded by the gloom of Herbert Carter’s stifling reign as editor-in-chief, it now lets in sunlight more appropriate to Kane’s inspired leadership, and matching his bright clothes. Kane’s informal, shy manner as he hands a written announcement to the newspaper’s society editor adds to his egalitarian charm. He interrupts Bernstein’s formal presentation of the “Welcome Home” trophy to rush back out of the o‡ce.