Citizen Kane

Citizen Kane is a world famous film, some even say it is the greatest. Orson Welles, director, actor, and producer of the film, collaborated with Herman J. Mankiewicz and Gregg Toland to create this masterpiece. Welles worked with Mankiewicz on the script and Toland was the cinematographer. Their budget was $800,000 and was filmed in a short amount of time. One of the reasons why this film was so great is because of its innovative uses of technology. They tried new techniques for editing, photography, and sound. Even the narrative and cinematic techniques were amazing for its time. It used things like a subjective camera, deep-focus shots, elaborate camera movements, over-lapping, talk-over dialogue and layered sound, and many transitionary dissolves. The story was told by different characters and from different points of view and perspectives. Although some considered it to be a great film, it was surrounded by controversy. The film seemed to fictionalize and portray the life of Willliam Randolph Hearst, who at the time was a powerful newspaper mogul and publisher, in an unfavorable way. It was said to be unflattering and having uncomplimentary parallels to real life. There was even a documentary about the controversy called The Battle Over Citizen Kane. Hearst wanted the film to be boycotted and threatened lawsuits. It was not a huge success when it was released, but it received nine Oscar nominations and won one Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
work cited: http://www.filmsite.org/citi.html

The Great Train Robbery

The Great Train Robbery is a short film directed by Edwin S. Porter in 1903. The main characters of this film are the robbers, the operator, and the men that pursue the robbers in the end. The film starts with two masked robbers forcing the operator to stop a train so that they can sneak on board. Once the train was stopped and they went on board, a gun fight occurs and the robbers kill a man. The robbers find a safe, but they find that they have to blow it up with dynamite to get its contents. They then force the passengers to exit the train. One tries to escape, but is shot while the rest are robbed. The robbers force the engineer to take them further on and are let off the train. The viewer is then taken back to the gagged operator. His daughter releases him and he shows up at a dance and tells the people there what had happened. The men then pursue the robbers in the woods. They catch up to the robbers and shoot all of them down. After the final scene, one of the robbers shoots point blank at the audience. Because this was new to audiences, this scene would have frightened them. The end of this film was probably considered to be a happy ending because good prevailed over evil. The men stopped the robbers in the end, resolving the conflict.