Introduction
Editing is a true art form, which most editors employ to ensure the movie is intriguing. To attract the viewer’s attention, editors convey visual variety to the picture by skillful shot assortment, collection, and timing. In editing, films emphasize recreation rather than the reproduction of the photographic event to attain a cumulative effort. In most cases, the editing efforts are greater than all actions in individual scenes put together. In this paper, we seek to explore the various aspects of film editing that most editors employ. In the discussion, the principal focus will be on Citizen Kane film, which positioned as one of the utmost motion pictures in the film industry.
Discussion
In the film-editing field, there are two basic techniques employed in creating and moving the story of the film. The first method of film editing is continuity cutting, which employs matching consecutive scenes. Films match up a cut, which in continuous actions flows from one scene to another. At this point, the cuts in which the action showed is not a portion of the previous shot (Brown, 2002).
The other aspect of film editing is complication cutting, which uses a soundtrack that joins the tale together for the entire movie to make sense. Film historians and critics consider Citizen Kane as one of the major motion pictures of the time. As far as editing standards and regulations ranked in the 1940s, Citizen Kane’s film was purely innovative and revolutionary. The production of the film brought to the field new techniques in focus, shots, transitions, and lighting.
Under the leadership and direction of Orson Welles, the film has remained to be one of the most admired films with superb editing techniques. The film derives its popularity from the marvelous editing f Robert Wise and the competent cinematography of Gregg Tolland. Tolland’s skills in cinematography splendidly enhance the multifaceted presentation of Kane’s character. To achieve satisfactory editing, the editor exploits unconventional illumination where shadows are a crucial part of the movie’s unique visual style.
The editor includes frequent use of long, uninterrupted shots in the film to portray an action or an encounter. Also, this editing technique displays the character of Kane comes out as the motivating and controlling force of the screen. In Citizen Kane, Tolland displays his mastery of cinematography using the entire picture from foreground to background. The movie involves popular examples of the accurately masterful application of elevated and squat angle shots.
The movie’s lead characters are Charles Foster Kane led by Welles who is as captivating as a 24-year-old and a 60-year-old. Every member of the cast had no film experience except for radio and stage experience with Welles and RKO. Each editing technique was appropriately applied to bring out pragmatism in storytelling and to augment subtle elements to make the viewing situation more compassionate.
Film editing majorly contributes to the popularity of the movie and this aspect also worked for Citizen Kane. The most notable editing technique in Citizen Kane is the use of matte paintings. These paintings help in making believable scenes look more impressive, or complex camera angles seem possible. Analysts of the film identify the out-of-order presentation technique, which shows Kane’s life in a highly unconventional way for the period. The film starts with Kane’s death and through the editing techniques, the viewers can comprehend the entire tale. The film also employs the aspect of continuity editing techniques, which we now explore.
From the start of the film to end, it is evident that Citizen Kane employs a wide variety of continuity editing techniques, which assist to move the movie’s tale along without a verbal explanation of events being required. The beginning of the film presents montage editing as the scene displays seemingly unrelated things. For instance, lack of a trespassing sign, a creepy looking manor, and monkeys. The No Trespassing sign and chain link fence showed at the beginning of the film emphasize the point that Kane’s life is private.
Also, the viewer cannot fully understand the man who was Charles Foster Kane. On the aspect of video editing, the signs allow the viewer to think about the entire movie at the opening scene (Giannetti, 2010). The signs raise the viewer’s curiosity concerning the happenings of the entire movie seeking to understand the information behind the restricted signs. The following viewing of the film identifies some of the images, which seem random.
However, at this point, the viewer recognizes some elements of continuity editing in that when the manor appears for the first time it never leaves the scene. The film employs match editing to sustain it. The editing technique ensures the window remains in focus as the remaining shots, which later reveals as Xanadu. This combination helps in the creation of suspense in the film, which prompts the viewer to speculate on the happenings of the room. Later in the movie, the window is zoomed in, shot by shot, till the shot is finally from inside the room viewing Kane on his deathbed. Citizen Kane seems to employ aspects of both continuity and discontinuity editing. The opening scene has several aspects of discontinuity but this break when the editor employs the continuing match of the window from shot to shot.
Match editing in the film presents itself when Kane’s rival newspaper company, The Chronicle, appears to have greater sales than the Inquirer. An employee in the film remarks that of course, they have greater sales and more so, have the best staff in the region. At this point, the film shows a picture of the staff in a company photo, which supports the remarks of the earlier employee (Dixon & Foster, 2008).
The editor zooms in the photo, and at the end when it finally zooms out, the picture is no longer in existence. In its place, real staff members appear to pose for a picture with the lead character. This scene which uses match editing leaves the viewer appreciating the essence of editing in films and more so, Citizen Kane. The assumption of the viewer, through match editing, is that Kane somehow managed to hire all of The Chronicle’s employees for his own newspaper business.
Another notable editing technique employed by the editor in the movie is the use of fades. The change of scenes, for instance from the opening scene to the closing scene, uses fades. Citizen Kane employs fades that melt one scene into the next. The most fascinating editing technique in Citizen Kane is the ability to transform one scene to another without any statement. The viewer is left with the responsibility of determining the time between the first and last scenes.
However, the presence of flashbacks in the film between different scenes enables the viewer to calculate how much time has passed hence no confusion. Through extensive editing techniques such as fades, the tale pieces itself together with the quest to identify the connotation of Kane’s final statements. The setting of flashbacks in Citizen Kane occurs through some type of meeting; stumble upon, or in one case journal entry. At the time the fading ends and the following scene picks up, the viewer is never left to question what time they are watching for extraordinarily long.
Continuity of editing technique excites the viewer’s mind leaving them to think a lot about the happenings in the film (Barsam, Monahan & Gocsik, 2010). The transitions fade, and scenes make the film a fascinating one with several viewers getting their minds locked in the escapades of the lead characters. Notable is the use of metaphors and excellent time selection linking all the scenes in the film. Another interesting scene in the film, which employs editing techniques, is when Kane dies.
The scene starts with the presence of snow leaving the viewer to think that Kane is already dead. The editor zooms the cameras revealing that the snow is in the entire film remaining the outstanding event using significant effects. However, further on, the viewer realizes that the movie aims at representing Kane’s lost childhood. Kane’s dreams and memories are broken upon his death, which marks the end of the movie.
The film employs a deep-focus camera, which is part of editing techniques in filmmaking (Citizen Kane: A Synthetic Approach, n.d.). Shots were taken with this kind of camera permit everything within the film frame, whether in the front, middle, or background, to be central (Citizen Kane: A Synthetic Approach, n.d.). This was quite innovative in adding an aspect of further depressed to the already dark genre film noir is. Angling shots are a procedure known to illustrate a character, situation, or power.
This implies that “a deep focus shot can be heavily detailed, with people, objects and action shown simultaneously in all three grounds” (Citizen Kane: A Synthetic Approach, n.d.). These shots occur in the early times of the film, which is in Kane’s cabin. Also, editors use deep-focus shots when Mrs. Kane signs papers allowing her son to leave home and be brought up by the bank (Citizen Kane: A Synthetic Approach, n.d.). Another technique is the lengthy takes, which go “hand in hand with deep focus shots” (Citizen Kane: A Synthetic Approach, n.d.).
Another perfect example of this technique happens in the scene after Kane lost his trial for the governorship. Despite this loss, the audience does not view Kane’s splendor lowered. This is an observation that can be linked to Kane being continuously displayed from a low-shot in the post-election scene. The presence of too much information in a shot forces the editor to hold his shots for a long period. These long takes allow viewers to absorb all the undertakings on the screen.
Conclusion
The film Citizen Kane displays a less dramatic script but exhibits skillful editing techniques of the era. The use of the continuity editing technique marks the beginning of editors to employ conventional ways of film editing. Multifaceted editing techniques enable the film to divert from close-ups shots to long and low shots. Also, the application of lighting to emphasize the mood and surroundings was extensively available throughout the film. From the editing perspective, Citizen Kane was and will always be a masterpiece of its time.
References
Barsam, R. M., Monahan, D., & Gocsik, K. M. (2010). Looking at movies: an introduction to film (3rd ed.). New York: W.W. Norton & Co..
Brown, B. (2002). Cinematography: Image making for cinematographers, directors, and videographers. Oxford: Focal Press.
Citizen Kane: A Synthetic Approach. (n.d.). Web.
Dixon, W.W., & Foster, G.A. (2008). A short history of film. New York: Rutgers University Press.
Giannetti, L. (2010). Understanding Movies. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.