Citizen science

With Dunkirk Christopher Nolan has reached new heights of filmmaking and he seems to have employed a whole new set of techniques. Gone is the dialogue and one-liners that we associate with Hollywood. No famous Hollywood stars (with a couple of exceptions) are present either. Speaking of stars, the director focuses on the anonymity of a few people, without revealing their names most of the time. And if you expect to watch a war film like Saving Private Ryan you will be disappointed. According to…

On December 18, 2015, Star Wars:The Force Awakens, the seventh installment in the main Star Wars movie series, was released into theaters all over the United States. Starring Harrison Ford as Han Solo, Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia from the original trilogy, and dozens of other actors, this epic Star Wars movie was a major hit. After the defeat of the Galactic Empire thirty years ago, the galaxy faces a new danger from the evil Kylo Ren and the First Order. When…

scholarly film critic to figure these motion pictures out. On the other side, some movies are extremely intricate and take some deep meditating and even then one may not be able to fully put together what they have just spent two hours watching. Citizen Kane, Rashomon, and Stories We Tell are three pictures that fall somewhere between these boundaries. All of these films deal with something that happened in the past and different people attempting to recreate the moment. The conflict in each of…

Special Effects have been evolving for years it all started in 1895 when Alfred Clarke created what is considered the first-ever special effect. While filming a reenactment of the beheading of Mary, Queen of Scots, Clarke instructed an actor to step up to the block in Mary's costume. As the executioner brought the axe above his head, Clarke stopped the camera, had all the actors freeze, and had the person playing Mary step off the set. He placed a Mary dummy in the actor's place, restarted…

The film Citizen Kane starts as the main character, Charles Foster Kane, mutters his last words and dies; his last words were “Rosebud.” The entirety of the movie is based around trying to find out the significance of rosebud, and in doing so the viewers get a look at the summary of Charles Kane’s life through flashbacks. Throughout his life, Charles Kane used his wealth to make millions, however by the end of the film we realize that being a tycoon in the United States, the “American Dream,”…

Citizen Kane is often referred to as “The Greatest Movie of All Time” by many film critics, actors, directors, and film industry pioneers. Its story of Charles Foster Kane’s rise and fall as the wealthy newspaper tycoon is Orson Welles first feature film and his masterpiece. I must admit that last night was my first time watching Citizen Kane but I immediately understood why it is such a well-regarded film. I had previously read reviews and in-depth analysis about the movie but never actually…

When ‘Citizen Kane’ was originally released in 1941, it gave an insight into the manipulation and distortion of the press by scrutinizing Kane’s desire to gain control. As Kane’s character is based on newspaper magnate, William Randolph Hearst, Welles depicts Kane’s influential media control by exposing the beginning of “yellow journalism” as Kane reiterates Hearst’s famous note, “you provide the prose poems, I’ll provide the war.” Kane’s unethical abuse of media power expressed when Kane states…

Citizen Kane challenged the traditional narratives and technical elements of classic Hollywood cinema in a number of ways. The most noteworthy challenge of traditional narratives was its application of deep focus. Citizen Kane using deep focus and having everything in frame was a serious challenge of traditional narratives and technical elements because traditionally in films of the time, only the foreground was in focus. In addition to those elements, Citizen Kane used cutting edge storytelling…

Statistics do reveal to the true identity of a man. In “The Unknown Citizen,” W.H. Auden presents a Big Brother like state that knows everything about its citizens except for what really matters; this state views individuality as irrelevant and judges citizens based solely on their relation to society as a whole. The bureaucrat leaves out important emotional events involving the unknown citizen that seem vital to the judging of his character. Auden uses a speaker whose viewpoints contradict his…

abusing privileges are all elements found in both The Fisher King and Citizen Kane. The Fisher King follows the story of radio personality Jack and his struggle to rise above his superior attitude, while Citizen Kane takes viewers through Charles Foster Kane’s ultimate downfall in his quest for power. Although many years and two distinct casts separate the two films, both films share similar attributes. In both The Fisher King and Citizen Kane, the mise-en-scene and camerawork illustrate the…