Citizen Kane
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Citizen Kane
In the movie Citizen Kane , young Charles Foster Kane is very energetic, optimistic and has a very positive outlook on life. At the same time he hates his old and bitter guardian, Mr. Thatcher, who has secluded himself from the everyday man and the only thing he is after is money and stature. Later on in life Charles Kane turns into an exact carbon copy of Mr. Thatcher, even though that is exactly what he wanted to get away from. In this essay I will prove how the used of sound, in the scenes in ThatcherÐŽ¦s library and Xanadu, as compared to the earlier scenes in young KaneÐŽ¦s newspaper office, help establish this development in KaneÐŽ¦s character.
The scene in ThatcherÐŽ¦s library starts off with the attendant being on the phone when the reporter walks in to talk to her. The non-diegetic sound is scary and creepy at the same time. It sounds very unwelcoming and gives the impression of Mr.Thatcher as being the bad guy and his library not a good place to be. At first glance we can see that it is a big hall with a huge statue of Mr. Thatcher. The floors are made out of marble and the first impression the audience gets of the room is that, it is very dark, cold and has a gloomy feel to it. The voices of the reporter and the attendant echo in the hall that gives us the impression of the place being very uninhibited and very uninviting, just as the personality of Mr. Thatcher. Once the reporter goes through the giant vault doors into the main library, we seem to be in more of a personal space of Mr.Thatcher, with a huge cold marble table and the same dark and cold atmosphere. The attendant gives a journal of Mr. Thatcher to the reporter and tells him only to read a specific number of pages in a limited amount of time. Even in death Mr. ThatcherÐŽ¦s want for control and his bitterness is shown through the library attendant, and it feels like he had given her instructions prior to his death as to how to deal with people seeking access to his library.
In the second scene we see Charles Kane and his Friends pull up in a horse driven carriage in front of his newspaper building. The non-diegetic sound in this scene is very happy, upbeat, and energetic. There is a bit of humor and with KaneÐŽ¦s positive energy everything seems very lively. The sound itself tells us that he is not anything like his guardian Mr. Thatcher. He has a