How to Analyze Citizen Kane for a College Film Theory Class

In studying film theory in relation to the film Citizen Cain, it is essential to organize your study in the following way: understanding signs, stylization, existentialism, and the signs and their signifiers. All of these elements are woven together by the director who combines these elements through photography, filmmaking, and editing.

Cinematic signs can be faces, expressions, tangible elements in a scene, and flashes of light or anything else that helps convey emotions and feelings that can be experienced, appreciated, and enjoyed in the audience. However, you cannot stop with signs. In order to interpret a sign and to appreciate the elements that a movie can convey, one must not only understand that signs are the root cause, they must also understand that in order to read signs, one must be able to study and analyze the layers, or wrappings, which surround the sign which help slightly decode the sign so as to subtly allow the messages to filter into the minds of audiences, thus allowing them to take in and bask in the joy and wonderment and amazement that movies have to offer.

First off, let's examine signs. For example a sign could be as simple as the face of the moon in the journey to the moon scene. In reality, you have what is probably a rare paper mache' model. However, this sign brings your attention to your self, to give you that roller coaster ride feeling of knowing that you as an audience member has been engaged in the action.

You, as the audience member, are figuratively sucked into the action and swooped upon into a mythical chariot that is supposed to catapult you to the moon and than back. Obviously the moon is the sign that represents you, and the signifier is the facial features which engulfs you into it and brings you closer and closer to yourself bringing you into a cosmic oneself, almost symbolic in a big bang sense (as if it's bringing you back to your birth).

That amazed feeling that audiences felt sitting in the theater may have almost been akin to something orgasmic, since that oneness with themselves may have brought them back, at least emotionally, to their birth. Taking this a step further, you could extend the sign of the moon to signify the planets, which extend to the stars and right back to the big bang which started it all.

In terms of analyzing stylization, signs, of course, also come into play. How different scenes and light flashes are woven together does a lot to create the fabric in life that leads to the fruition that can be seen from the gleam of stylization. For example, consider Citizen Cain. An element of a sign, followed by more signs, helped create a style from the opening scene where the sign, which was the light reflecting from the man's face, shined out along with the movements of his lips saying "Rosebud" to help symbolize the blooming of a rose. The light reflecting from this rose shining out gleamed into the iris's and into the synapses of the minds of the audience which helped create a garden styled after real life with a powerful man born into wealth, but at the same time ashamed that he didn't earn it.

This style, which was a classic poor little rich kid story that goes back far in American history, portrayed a man who simply refused to enjoy his success. Perhaps, in his self loathing and beating up of himself, he beat himself down, became a martyr, thus eventually earning the right to enjoy all his fame and fortune. In the end, it proved that he was a true gentleman. However, it was not his fault that he was born rich. Besides, much like the wealthy elite who rode the Titanic, many such men are true gentlemen within. All of the millionaires on this ship showed their gentlemenliness, and saved many on the sinking ship, as they all went down dressed in their best attire - relaxed sitting in their chairs sipping their favorite brandy. Even John Jacob Astor, who was one of the richest men in the world at the time, kissed his young wife goodbye as he bade her farewell saying "I will see you in the morning." This also helps to symbolize the style of the American heritage, and the ruggedness and elegance of even the most privileged, who underneath the varnish of the glitzy jewelry, and elegant suits, longed and yearned to be humble.