In Fabe’s essay on Citizen Kane, she explains how elements of Expressionism and Realism are combined but also hint at Modernist influences, such as Soviet Constructivism, Dada, and Surrealism. Fabe uses specific examples of scenes to demonstrate how Orson Welles, the director of Citizen Kane, uses these artistic movements to produce his highly popular film. Through the combination and toying of different styles of film, Orson Welles creates a film in which the viewer is grounded in a realist narrative while still demonstrating modernist forms.
Fabe argues that Welles’s Citizen Kane demonstrated Expressionism through externalizing the subjectivity of his characters, especially Kane. He did this through psychologically charged settings, acute…show more content… Realism and Dadaism were combined through the use of camera movement and nearly invisible editing of scenes. Soviet Constructivism was present through Welles’ stylistic Realism of his film which he borrowed from Sergei Eisenstein. The use of camera movement and editing showed Dadaism’s physical movement by constructing transitions to signal gaps in the narrative, which is shown through Citizen Kane’s complicated structure of leaping forward and backward in time (Fabe 89). Welles used effects like Eisenstein’s to contrast scenes and bring a message– an example would be his death and images of flags and upbeat music to create the impression that no one truly cared that Kane had died (Fabe…show more content… Welles incorporates Modernist elements in particular scenes where he wants to portray an important message instead of making the whole film a Modernist film. The film is also Realist due to the fact that it is a narrative on Kane and follows the actions of the narrators with nearly visible editing. By blending in different types of movements into one film, Welles created a successful film which is still being praised and studied
