Do The Right Thing

3 Pages 840 Words

In viewing these two films, Citizen Kane and Do the Right Thing there were six elements that I will discuss that distanced me from them, starting with Citizen Kane.
Citizen Kane represented a breakthrough in cinematography at the time of its release. Filmed in 1941, it launched the career of Orson Wells. It helped to define Orson Well’s unique style, which later became his trademark. Orson Wells collaborated with Herman J. Mankiewicz on the script. However, it was the cinematography of Gregg Toland that made the film a memorable masterpiece. Until this time, the use of shadows, camera angle, depth of shot and focus presented characters in a non-personal way. The camera stayed in one place and the actors moved in front of it. In Citizen Kane, Orson Wells made the camera an active part of the dialogue and plot. In this way, the photography in Citizen Kane became an integral part of the artistry in the movie. The photography in Citizen Kane could be viewed, as art in it’s self. The use of the camera in Citizen Kane makes the audience a participant in the film, not a mere observer. They become a character in the film themselves through the camera.
The camera angle distant me technically. The deep focus shot (having both the foreground and the background of a shot in focus at the same time) used in the scene, where Kane the boy is playing happily outside in the snow, while his mother is signing the papers that will send the boy to live with Thatcher. Instead of cutting back and forth between the two actions occurring within this shot.



Jump cutting in the scene when Kane bridged eighteen years from his childhood to Thatcher listing his possessions upon reaching age 25.
However, the flashback of when Kane’s life is narrated through those who knew him, i.e. old estranged friends, business partners, and wife number two, Susan, who recalls her opera career. For example, the singing lesson with her exasperated voice teacher is ...