Introduction
The American film history is rich with the names of the directors who contributed to the world cinematography by the innovativeness and development of the industry. Depending on the era and the technological possibilities accordingly, the genius directors made the cinema the more and more powerful tool of influence on the society. Becoming more complex and profound, cinema in hand of the creator is a true work of art. The genius of his epoch, Orson Welles contributed not only to the cinema, but also theatre, radio, and even the social life of his country.
Not only did Orson Welles shoot movies but also played in them and produced them. His devotion to his work together with the talent allowed him to invent the new techniques by mixing together the old ones. His style is recognizable because the devices he used for shooting were borrowed from different art spheres and that makes him a true “smuggler” who managed to change the method and approach to the way the motion pictures were made in his era. Smuggling various ideas and techniques into his films, Orson Welles fully embraced the possibilities of the cinema and turned the filmmaking process into the production of the profound dimensional piece of art.
View on America Reflected in the Films
Orson Welles can be considered a person with the well-formed view on everything that surrounded him including the country where he was born and spent all of his life. America will be reflected in all of his movies and his opinion will be absolutely clear to the audience. His active position is recorded in his numerous speeches one of which is: “America has missed absolutely no opportunity, not only during the Reagan administration, but in my lifetime, to render it impossible for us to be anything but the deathly enemy of all Arabs, and, of course, all Latin Americans. We can never polish that image. I don't care how much money we pour into it” (Biskind 205). Orson Welles loved America but devoted his career to revealing and attracting the audience’s attention to its flaws and political mistakes.
As no one had ever done before, Orson Welles used his films in order to communicate with the audience and deliver his message to it. His attitude to the American society of his epoch was skeptical and he was the first director to dare to destroy its beautiful image by showing its true ugly inside (Biskind 212).
Welles skillfully associates the characters of his films with the country and the plot is often based on the process of ruining the American dream. Citizen Kane’s main character can be considered the best example – he develops in money and power but degrades morally. Becoming stronger, Kane loses his soul, and the attentive spectator can easily draw a parallel between him and the history of the United States (Goodykoontz and Jacobs 54).
Citizen Kane himself is the symbol of America. He who has lost the idealistic approach to the reality is now unhappy about his progress and success. This, according to Welles’s opinion, is what America has become – the country whose best intentions and idealism turned it to the pragmatic corruptive organism. In the end of the film, Charles Foster Kane dies, old and alone. Does Orson Welles hint at the same ending for America? The audience might suppose that in this gesture, the director demonstrates his nostalgia for the country he loves because knows it well but whose future is forgone.
In The Magnificent Ambersons, Orson Welles dwells upon the American aristocracy in its sad downfall. Here, the symbol of the American aristocracy as well as the changing nature of the American history is George Amberson Minafer. Keeping in mind that this character is the representative of the best people of the country, the director’s attitude becomes obvious as soon as George’s nature turns out to be egotist and selfish. Unfortunately for Welles, the picture was not released as it was – it was cut and edited so bad, it hugely lost its author’s style: “I had absolutely no doubt that it would win through in spite of that industry fear of the dark movie It was a much better picture than Kane – if they’d just left it as it was” (McBride 12). Welles wanted the ending to be logically sad but the audience of the 40’s never had a chance to witness it.
In The Magnificent Ambersons, the director again uses the scheme of prosperity leading to emptiness just like in Citizen Kane. The loud and reckless life in the Amberson’s mansion faded and finally left it at all. Orson Welles demonstrates the rise and the upcoming fall of America on the example of the Ambersons, and though the film was edited by the studios in order to provide the audience with the more positive message, the director’s original idea was to show the bitter tragedy of America in its essence. “Of course I expected that there would be an uproar about a picture which, by any ordinary American standards, was much darker than anybody was making pictures” (Leaming, 90). In the darkness was hidden the truth, and Orson Welles wanted to show it. As pompous as he might have seemed, he only wanted to talk to his audience and open its eyes.
Later on, Orson Welles was more and more trammeled in his endeavors to convey his ideas so his actions were soon taken control of and the films started to lose the idealistic approach he had at the beginning. He did not lose it but he was forced to fit in the frames of the standards in terms of the message for the audience. The idealism was destined to disappear – just like he forecasted in his movies.
Orson Welles’s big nostalgia for America is in the atmosphere he provides his films with. It is ironic that America limited the actions of one of its most talented citizens: “I’m not a refugee either politically or emotionally from my country (). But I’m very happy in America, but it happens that America is not as happy with me as I am with it” (McBride 105). Struggling for being independent, Orson Welles still did not manage to release numerous films as they were initially planned; some of them were not released at all. The numerous attempts to discredit Welles’s cinematographic career were still fought back by the director and though his actions were limited and he often could not achieve the desired result, he still managed to turn the course of the cinema history.
Form and Content of the Films
Orson Welles was undoubtedly an auteur and his films, though edited and controlled, have the recognizable style both in terms of cinematographic devices and topics covered. Welles’s main achievement was his ability to mix the experiences from different artistic spheres he was involved in. As no one else had done before, Welles managed to bring to his films the theatrical approach to lighting, and the radio style to scoring; by acting in his own films, he contributed to the strengths of his art works. Taking numerous roles in his films – from writer to actor and director – and being one person in charge, Orson Welles was literally the author of the whole work.
Orson Welles shaped the stories of his films and the entire films accordingly. His works belonged to his creativity from the beginning till the end, and such global and full approach to what he was doing let him avoid the conservative cinematography and demonstrate his artistic vision. In the 40’s, the directors had no means of self-expression and could not be recognized by their styles in the eyes of the audience. Orson Welles was the first who found no obstacles in creating the characteristic features for his films.
Being the first and the most influential film in Welles’s career, Citizen Kane literally embraced all of the author’s innovativeness. So it is fair to show it as an example for every distinctive style feature of the director – high contrast lighting, deep focus, innovative sound techniques, and long takes. Still, his other films are, of course, worth a lot of attention as well (Biskind 18).
First of all, Orson Welles skillfully used the nonlinear narrative form which could already been found in literature in the 40’s but never had it been introduced in cinema. The director “trusts in both himself and his audience believing they will piece events together through the course of the film” (Goodykoontz and Jacobs 54). Welles offers his art to the intelligent spectator and leaves a space for his/her imagination. He wants to make the audience think independently and perceive the cinema as meaningfully as any other form of art – the painting or the theatre play. Citizen Kane begins from the ending, and throughout the course of events, the spectator is always keeping in mind the last word of the dying man and is trying to guess its meaning.
The different points of view being the narrators of Citizen Kane confuse and challenge the spectator. Such method was used by Welles in order to hint at what usually happens in the reality – there exists no objective truth, and the media spreading different truths only makes it more difficult to perceive the events in the society. Here, Welles points at the phenomena the audience never used to think about and accept it as the ultimate truth (Goodykoontz and Jacobs 85).
The sound techniques borrowed from the radio found their reflection in terms of the overlapping dialogues and sound perspectives. The latter made it possible for the director to intensify the distance effect in the scene. For example, the character’s voice that stands farther from another can be heard more silent and less clear. Welles was very demanding in creating the sounds for the objects in the scenes instead of using the ordinary library of sounds – that was innovative and risky.
As for the visual part of Welles’s cinematography, his mise-en-scene made history and is still used and alluded to by the contemporary directors. His mastery of the deep focus gave the audience an opportunity for the first time to consider all the characters and objects with equal weight. In Citizen Kane, the attentive spectator might have noticed such method in a scene where Kane’s mother is signing a contract and the young Kane is playing outside the window (Rosenbaum). The audience of the 40’s has never experienced anything like that in cinema before.
It was very important for Orson Welles to accord the movements of the actors together with that of the camera. He preferred long takes but in order to make them visually attractive the new approach to using the camera was introduced. As seen in Citizen Kane, long takes are often followed by the close-ups thus contributing to the dramatic effect and not giving the audience a single chance to get bored. For his films, Orson Welles might have been inspired by the theatre where the scenes cannot be cut like in the cinematography.
Welles’s play of light and shadow allowed him to “color” his films without using the color itself. The chiaroscuro technique or, in other words, low-key lighting, created the strong contrast between the darkest and the lightest parts of the scenes thus attracting the audience’s attention to the necessary parts or conveying the desired atmosphere (Goodykoontz and Jacobs 109).
In Citizen Kane, the play of light and shadows allowed the director to switch the spectator’s attention from the object to the characters (the scene announcing about the death of Kane). For the first time was the audience challenged to get the author’s idea not only by the content but also by the cinematographic technicality. Orson Welles wanted to communicate and influence his audience and he managed to use all the technical devices available for his era in order to achieve a result.
Camera Angles as the Portrayal of the Director’s Views
Orson Welles’s diversified talent reflected in his work with the camera. Living in the era when all the movies were typically shot at a horizontal eye level, at the age of twenty-five, Welles dared to break the rules and shoot the scenes at different levels and from different angles depending on the context of the definite scene.
In Citizen Kane, the variety of usage of the camera levels is interconnected with the characters’ positions of power. From the low camera angle, the audience admires the character while he/she is in the domineering position. The most famous scene as an example of the low-angle shot is the one where Kane is firing Leland. Here, the audience feels the main character’s power not only due to the content but also subconsciously because it looks at him from the bottom upwards.
The high camera angle puts the character in a submissive position in relation to the audience so he/she automatically fades into insignificance (Goodykoontz and Jacobs 100). In Citizen Kane, the main character’s wife is often shot from the high angle and from behind Kane’s back. By doing this, Welles demonstrates the woman’s absence of credibility in her relationships with the husband.
Apart from the genius Citizen Kane which contains all the innovative cinematographic devices, the good example of play with the camera angles is The Magnificent Ambersons, the second Welles’s best movie (Leaming 389). The crane shooting allowed the audience to fully embrace the atmosphere of the mansion as well as follow the characters in the ball sequence from a new angle. In the film, Welles’s passion for the mirrors can also be noticed by the attentive spectator. Reflections and dissolves let the audience sweep more perspectives and embrace several scenes at a time.
The theatre background influenced Orson Welles’s films in terms of their grandeur and the profound approach. The detailed forethought of every scene as though it cannot be cut and edited, the long takes demanding both the actors and the camera movements interact perfectly, and the scenic design testify of the fact that Orson Welles skimmed the cream off his acting in theatre and enriched the cinema industry.
Politics and Media in the Films
Orson Welles was an active supporter of the progressive political orientation. From the beginning of his career and till the end of his life, he advocated the left. Being an active person, Welles had a reputation of an involved citizen as well. He used to support Franklin D. Roosevelt who, in his turn, tried to persuade Welles to run for a Senate seat: “Orson, you and I are the two best actors in America” (Biskind 136).
Orson Welles was ironic about the American politics: “Politics is always corrupting. Even saints in politics. The political world, in itself, is corrupt. You're not going to satisfy that urge to spiritual perfection in any political movement without being betrayed and without betraying others” (Biskind 101). Orson Welles’s first and the greatest film Citizen Kane demonstrates the politics in the negative terms and thus testifies of the director’s true attitude to it.
Welles’s depicting of media in his films and his connection to it is worth the particular attention. The person who all of his life would explore the ways of communicating with his audience first showed the power of the media in Citizen Kane. The era when the newspapers were the most influential tool in the hands of the government was effectively depicted in the film (Rosenbaum).
Welles bases Citizen Kane on how the only source of getting information, newspapers, can work for and against those receiving (the people) and manipulating the news through the media. Being the owner of the newspaper, the main character strengthened his power by filtering and even faking the news (Goodykoontz and Jacobs 109). The idea was reflecting what was going on in the American society in the 40’s – not only politics was corrupting but the media was not trustworthy, too.
Being aware of the media’s endless power, Orson Welles saw the tendencies on how those in charge of it would soon suffer from the consequences of their actions. Today when the media has no limits and does not fully conform any of the sides, it seems overwhelming how Welles clearly foresaw the future of the information transfer more than seventy years ago. The director’s ability to look ahead in the long term extended not only to technologies but the development of the society as well.
Conclusion
Orson Welles made a huge contribution to developing the cinematography both as an industry and an art form. The success that came to him at a very young age was determined not only by his many-sided talents, but also the unlimited energy, progressive views on politics and life, and, of course, the unique ability of mixing techniques and art forms. His mastery also showed itself decades later when his works turned out to stay relevant for the following eras. Seventy years after the films such as Citizen Kane saw the world, the contemporary audience still enjoys them, critics still appraise them, and the famous directors and actors still find inspiration in them.
Orson Welles was a true “smuggler” of his era because being the explorer of the great beyond, he managed to borrow the methods and devices and transfer them from one art form to another. His approach to what he was doing was that of the alchemist or the chef because the recipes containing the unique components resulted in the inimitable works of art that made the cinema history.
Orson Welles offered the world to borrow the lighting from the theatre and the sound from the radio like no one had ever done before. Because he knew the spheres so well, he was able to take the best from them and carry it over to the cinema industry. He was the “smuggler” who mastered the newly-born industry and developed it at a fast pace. The progressive nature of the director made it possible for the cinema to turn into art in a decade and thus gave an opportunity for the future directors to invent more and more methods and devices to continue Welles’s basis.
Works Cited
Biskind, Peter. My Lunches with Orson: Conversations between Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2013. Print.
Goodykoontz, Bill, and Christopher P. Jacobs. Film: From Watching to Seeing. San Diego: Bridgepoint Education, 2011. Print.
Leaming, Barbara. Orson Welles, A Biography. New York: Viking Press, 1985.
McBride, Joseph. What Ever Happened to Orson Welles? A Portrait of an Independent Career. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2006.
Rosenbaum, Jonathan. "Orson Welles’s Essay Films and Documentary Fictions: A Two-Part Speculation". JonathanRosenbaum. Vol. 4. Cinematograph, 23 Aug. 1991. Web. 12 Mar. 2016.
