Genius Hollywood Movies Of The 40s Movie Review Samples

Orson Welles’s famous “Citizen Kane” was shot in 1941 and got the Oscar award for the Best Writing. The film is significant for its characters’ acting, editing, the story itself and the makeup which helped the actors to transform from young people to the old ones. The story is told in non-linear order with a lot of flashbacks. The movie starts with the end. As for the cinematography, the spectator pays his attention to the montage technique: a good example is the director’s depicting of Kane’s relationships with both his wives – they are shot alone either in the kitchen or in the palace. The director uses several extreme close-ups (for example, the scene where Susan makes up her puzzles). Dissolves is another interesting method used in the movie. The director blends one shot on another to get the effect of combining two storylines: contemporary and past. In the movie, the camera moves with the actors, and the deep focus is used.
The American comedy musical “Singin’ in the Rain” by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen is one of the best musicals of all times. Shot in 1952, it depicts the new era in the world of cinema – the appearance of sound. The spectator enjoys the movie on the normal widescreen, that is to say side masking pulled in 1.85:1 aspect ratio. In the movie, the songs do not just accompany the action but are its essential part. The story is told in non-linear order with flashbacks. The movie was shot in black and white, but was later colorized to give its vivid atmosphere and brightness. The talented actors sing and dance throughout the whole movie, and the camera moves with them. There are a lot of shots longer than the usual 10 seconds so that the spectator could appraise the dancing. The director uses deep focus and long shot camera (according to the relative distance to the subject). In the majority of scenes, the spectator can guess that the director uses wide-angle type of lens, so the focal length is short and the depth of field is great.