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Citizen Kane-Mise-En-Scene

In: Film and Music

Submitted By potatoboy511
Words 640
Pages 3
What is mise-en-scene? Mise-en-scene is the arrangement of scenery and properties to represent the place where a movie is enacted. It is most commonly used to show the setting of the movie. But if used correctly can be used to portray the feelings of the characters and to help tell the story. Orson Welles made sure to use the props, actors, and even the camera to use mise-en-scene to tell the story of Charles Foster Kane to its fullest. Character positions, camera angles and music, and framing used to tell the story in Citizen Kane. It’s use of mise-en-scene made it not only ahead of its time, but it made it a masterpiece. Citizen Kane uses mise-en-scene is multiple scenes to help tell the narrative. A perfect example is when the parents of the Charles Kane are speaking with Walter Thatcher in the house. As Kane’s parents are discussing giving Kane over to Thatcher, we see Kane as a boy playing in the snow through the window. This scene represents the innocence that is stolen from him in this exact moment. When he was a child he was pure and innocent and naïve, but we never see him like this again after he is taken and brought up by Thatcher. The boy stays in the middle of the frame the whole scene making this part one of the most import scenes in the movie. As the live changing scene goes on we just watch as Kane plays in innocence, completely oblivious to what is going on in his home. The entire movie is affected by this one scene and links to his dying word, rosebud. This is the sled that he was playing with during that important scene. Without this scene we would not know the importance of the sled at the end of the film. In another scene, we see Kane and his first wife, Emily Monroe Norton Kane, sitting at a dining room table. At first they are speak to each other in a loving manner. We notice that they are sitting close to each other at the table as

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