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Essay / How Nicholas is influenced by Welles in Citizen Kane
The technical innovations of Orson Welles' Citizen Kane range from depth of field to its lightning mix. He used graphic and acoustic correspondences to depict the tale of a man's meteoric rise to power and his painful slide into oblivion. Director Mike Nichols uses many of Welles' tools to create the world of Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate. With these techniques, the director creates a distortion of the story and its characters, but through this distortion paradoxically emerges a clarity that illuminates subtle meanings, which contribute to the broader symbolic fabric of the film. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay At the beginning of Citizen Kane, a snow globe emerges from Charles Foster Kane's recently lifeless fingers and shatters. The next shot comes from a low vertical perspective with a bird's eye view through the broken glass globe as a nurse enters the room to tend to Kane. A similar distortion occurs in The Graduate, except this time the film is filmed through an aquarium after Mrs. Robinson evilly throws Ben's car keys into the aquarium water. Both objects that create the distortion have symbolism in the films: Kane's snow globe symbolizes his childhood, while Ben's aquarium symbolizes the constraints of the suburban upper-middle-class lifestyle. Although the image on screen is distorted in these shots, they bring clarity of meaning to the overall narrative. Welles used graphic matching as a transition technique in Kane. A fade-out transported the audience from the building's address number to a newspaper photo of the building the day after Kane's affair with Susan Alexander. By merging two images into one distortion, Welles allows for fluid movement of subtly connected scenes. On the other hand, Nichols implements graphic correspondence as symbolism of Ben's life. The scene comes at the end of a long montage where Benjamin moves in and out of his life at home and at the hotel. At home, Benjamin splashes out of the pool water and lands on his raft, which instantly becomes Mrs. Robinson back in the hotel room. This works as a symbolic match as he drifted on his raft and throughout his life with his affair with Mrs. Robinson. Soon, the audience hears Mr. Braddock's stern voice: "Ben, what are you doing?" leading them to believe that Ben was caught up in his affair, but in reality it is an illusion in the form of a comical sound bridge as Nichols returns to the poolside where Mr. Braddock's voice synchronizes. At this point, the public gets a glimpse of the possible repercussions of this case and prepares for the fallout that looms in the future. Nichols exchanges images with each other and doubles a scene in order to create anxiety in the audience. The scene gives a clearer picture of how Ben undertakes this case in such a sheltered but conformist police society. Welles invented the blitzkrieg, which he used to show the passage of time in young Kane's life with Thatcher. The years pass in an instant with the simple phrase “Merry Christmas…” ending with “And a Happy New Year” much later. Time warping allows Welles to condense a man's entire life into two hours, removing minor details that were of no consequence to Kane's life. Nichols also uses flash mixing, not to illustrate a significant time gap, but rather as a simple transition and comparison. The transition takes place after Benjamin lies to his mother about where he goes at night and.