When I watched Citizen Kane, the American classic, one of my favorite scenes was the first flashback. Not only it was the first real part of Citizen Kane’s life we see in the movie, also because it tells so many things about Charles Kane’s life.
Looking at the technical aspects of the scene, it starts with Thompson reading Thatcher’s notes about Kane. The letter is shot in an extreme close-up and the camera pans as Thompson reads. Then a fade in happens and we see the flashback. The scene opens with a long shot showing Kane playing in the snow. As he throws a snowball camera cuts to the Mrs. Kane’s Boarding House sign. Later we see another long shot of Kane and camera cuts to Kane’s mother in a medium shot. The camera pulls back through the interior of the house and Kane is seen from the window, he is still playing in the snow. While he is playing, there are two serious man and his mom in the house, having a business like meeting going on creates a great contrast in the scene. When Mrs Kane, Mr Kane and Thatcher are talking, Mrs Kane is the the main person in the shot while Mr Kane remains on the side, showing her dislike towards her husband. Later on in another long shot we see Mrs Kane walking to the outside of the house and calling up to her son. They talk about their plans and on that scene, Thatcher and Mr Kane are on one side and Mrs Kane is on another, leaving Charles in the middle of the two parties. It is very clear to see the distraught on Mrs Kane’s face. After the discussion is over, Charles is taken away from his childhood home, where he was extremely joyous and leaves his sled behind. After a while, the sled is buried under snow, metaphor for the childhood he left behind.
This scene actually foreshadows the main question of the movie; “What is rosebud?” this scene is relatively in the beginning of the whole movie but the answer is given to the audience right away; it is the sled. As I’ve said before, the sled is the metaphor for the childhood he left behind. On his last few moments, he remembers his sweet childhood he was torn apart from.
Because this is an example of film noir, there is no need for analyzing the color.
The lighting of this scene is high key lighting, in fact Citizen Kane is the first film noir movie that used the classical Hollywood style three point lighting. Before Citizen Kane, the lights were put on the ceiling and the ceiling was never shown, not allowing the set to be fully used.
Citizen Kane is also counted as revolutionary because it used many camera movements for the first time. Pan, tilt and small zooms/dolly shots were present but in Citizen Kane, a very long dolly out is used espicially in this scene. In this movie, it is said that the low angle shot was used correctly for the first time. Examples of low angle can be seen between 0:18 - 0:21 and 2:07 - 2:27
In the later example, the use of low angle is combined with a close up shot, giving the audience Mrs Kane's feelings openly. She is not happy with this decision.
To sum up, this scene that was placed in the very beginning of the movie actually tells the end of the story and also gives out a lot about Charles Kane's characteristics.
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