Day 366
Sunday 1 July 2018 02.10am
‘Money, Power and Ego’ 2018
Citizen Kane (1941)
An Orson Welles Film
Orson Welles, at the age of 25 or 26, was invited to Hollywood to make a film. He co-scripted it with Herman J. Mankiewicz and used Hollywood’s best technicians to achieve his unique vision and goals. To tell a story in so many different ways, in 1941, I’m betting, was unheard of.
It contains scenes of light and darkness and all the shadows that separate them. It has framing that is as good as the best photographer the world has known (I’m guessing) has ever produced. It has elements which link together to deliver a biographical-style film in a new way which I cannot imagine anyone had done before.
What impressed me at the age of 20 was how well framed from fore to middle to background the shots were. There’s not as much dolly work as I remembered. There are significantly more crane shots than I remember and there are still scenes where I can’t telling how a huge camera could photograph people so intimately and then so extremely.
On the other hand, there is a man who is looking at the budget and having a fit of apoplexy because it’s all too complex.
A cinematographer and first A.D. know how much trouble – how difficult – this means. An upstart wanting to do things with a camera and lighting which is pointless and useless. Maybe, a newcomer to directing motion pictures would want to film one character with five hundred different feelings and set-ups.
