AN INTERPRETATION OF SCENES FROM CITIZEN KANE USING STILL PHOTOGRAPHY

By MaryRose Grech

I have often heard  that ‘Citizen Kane’ is a classic, but I never knew why until I saw it. The creative camera angles are always mentioned in discussions of this film.  Instead of recreating the film with a video camera, I wanted to capture the essence of some scenes that I thought were visually dramatic and important, so I used still photography.

It was difficult to choose which scenes to use because there were so many and I did not have much time to present. Therefore I chose five scenes that I thought people would be able to recognize. I also chose them because it was possible for me to recreate them without spending lots of money and time. All but one of the scenes I chose had to do with Kane and his female relationships.

I used a digital camera in black and white to easily present the pictures on Power Point and also a 35mm camera with color film. In the 1940’s black and white films were considered more realistic. Color was reserved for fantasies, musicals, or historical films. But now black and white is considered to suggest a historic period. Since, ‘Citizen Kane’ is a black and white film I wanted to compare black and white pictures to color. With these two cameras I shot four or more different angle shots for each scene. I wanted to experiment and not use the same angles as the director, Orson Welles. I wanted to make my own shots and work with what was available to me at the time.

CLICK ON INDIVIDUAL IMAGES FOR ENLARGEMENTS AND ANALYSIS