Courtesy of Alvin Lin. Used with permission. Exploring Time in Citizen Kane

The allure of Citizen Kane has persisted through the changing of cinematic technique and style. Although full of technical innovation and revolutionary for its time, its unshakable position as the 'greatest movie of all time' cannot be attributed solely to the technical genius of Orson Welles. His use of special effects was inventive, and showed clear influence from Welles' experience as a magician. In addition to its use of special effects, Citizen Kane was also groundbreaking for its addition of meaning to existing cinematic and editing techniques. In his essay " The Technique of Citizen Kane " , André Bazin describes how Citizen Kane's use of cinematography and editing created the vocabulary from which an entire generation of film art could be born (Perspectives 230). Specifically, Bazin praises Welles' ability to use editing and mise-en-scène to transform space and time (Perspectives 230). A good example of this technique is at the very beginning of the film, when Kane is on his deathbed. The camera shows falling snow, then a house fades in. As the camera zooms out, the audience realizes that the house is actually inside a glass ball. Strangely, though, the snow remains falling over the entire scene. Even during the extreme close-up of Kane's lips whispering " Rosebud " , the snow continues to fall over the entire screen. Then, as the globe falls from Kane's fingertips and smashes on the ground, the snow remains on the screen but slows and seems to hang suspended in space. This surreal treatment of the snow would be interpreted by the 21 st century audience as being artistic or perhaps even symbolic, but it can be considered instead as a good example for the projection of the mind onto reality. In reality, there is no snow falling in Kane's room, and a strict realist director would prevent an audience from incorrectly deducing the house is a real house. So what is the significance and meaning of Welles' use of the snow over the whole frame? The simple ambiguity of meaning is the great power and poetry of this shot. The snow is able to create a mood of depression and bleakness when superimposed on Kane's bristly and unshaven white beard and mustache. The audience gets a feeling of coldness and death as the music cuts off and the lights go out, showing only a stiff unmoving body on a bed. The …