Citizen Kane

Citizen Kane

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In the opening scene of Citizen Kane we can see a large mansion in a night landscape. We can then see a snowglobe be dropped and smashing. The man holding the snowglobe prior dies and his last words are "Rose bud". A nurse enters the scene shortly after and covers the mans face.

Denotative readings of Citizen Kane

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Caption: : The shot of a large mansion in a night sky

Connotative readings in Citizen Kane

We can see the large mansion in the first scene which we use to tell us that the film will have a dark and dangerous premise (in this case it is a murder story). We know that it tells us the movie may be dark and dangerous because mansion are commonly seen as haunted and this means that when people see large dark mansion we link it to death. We later see the nurse come in as the man is unconscious, this allows us to understand that he is dead or very unwell. Soon seeing him covered by the nurse we know he is dead.

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Semiotics of Citizen Kane

Within this opening scene of Citizen Kane we see a big mansion, which is indexical for normally a scary, dangerous place, there is lots of shadows and darkness which could mean danger also. The film is in black and white so we do not see as much colour meaning it is an old film. We later on see snow in the film which could be a sign of change or death. The nurse later covers the mans head which can be seen as an indexical reference to death, meaning the audience wouldn't need to know he is dead as people know that covering a face usually is a symbol of death.  We know that the nurse is a nurse as she is wearing white with a white hat, this is the code that we understand.

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