FILM COMPARISON:CITIZEN KANE & CATCH ME IF YOU CAN
INTRODUCTIONFamily -- The first and single most important
foundation any of us will ever know. To a child, his family is
everything to him, whether he realizes it or not. His parents are
not only his guardians, protecting him from every harm that may
come his way, but also his source of love and care, for which he
strongly yearns for. When a child is deprived of such care, he will
be wounded deeply, resulting in disastrous repercussions. This is
the central idea between the two films of my choice: Citizen Kane
and Catch Me If You Can. The former, co-written, directed and
starring Orson Welles, revolves around the life of Charles Foster
Kane, a man who owned virtually everything a man could ask for, but
who had nothing of real value. His lifestyle was lavish; owning
property worth millions and buying numerous ornaments from around
the world, but his death is cold and lonely; in complete isolation
save for the company of his butlers and maids. It is then revealed
that his fiasco of a life was the result of his starvation of love
from his parents when he was a child. The same can be said for the
protagonist of the latter movie, directed by Steven Spielberg,
Catch Me If You Can. Frank Abagnale Jr. is the teenage son of a
newly divorced couple. Consequently, he runs away from home, not
wanting to face the reality of his parents decision. He then
embarks on a journey to save his parents marriage by collecting
millions through fraud; deceiving numerous corporations into
allowing his financial status. He desperately hopes to return to
his family to support his parents through their bankruptcy, a key
factor behind their divorce, and thus regain his parents love and
care. In this film analysis, I will be delving into the
mise-en-scene and the lighting of two scenes from each movie.FORMAL
ANALYSISThe first scene chosen from Citizen Kane was where Jed
Leland tells Kane about why Kanes political campaign has
failed.There werestreamers which lay down on the floor in the
office. Kane was dressed in a rather black and white outfit.
Meanwhile, Leland wore a grey coat over his black and white outfit.
The 2nd shot shows Kane standing very close to the camera, his legs
dressed in black pants on the left side of the screen, while Leland
was further away from the audience, shown in full body, on the
right side of the screen. The lighting in this scene uses low key
to medium key. Especially in the third shot, when Leland walks up
to Kane, his lighting changes dramatically. He is well lit at
first, but then walks into the dark while having a slight highlight
on a side of his body.
For the scene in Catch Me If You Can, Frank tells his son Frank
Jr. about his mothers remarriage. The use of lighting was very well
played with in this scene, next to the mise en scene. In the
beginning shots, Frank Jr. is shown wearing a suit, a watch and
carrying a briefcase. The father on the other hand is shown wearing
a blue US Postal Service uniform and has no watch. Most of the
scene uses one-sided lighting on both Frank Jr. and Frank. In other
shots, both the characters are nearly silhouettes against the
bright light of the window.
The next two scenes from the two films are when our protagonists
have their final hope taken away from them. In Citizen Kane, it is
when Susan Alexander leaves Charles Kane.Pictures of animals are
seen on the ceiling beams above Kanes head. After that, just before
Kane goes on a rampage thrashing the room, he is seen fiddling with
a small bag, trying to close it. Later, he finds a small snowglobe
and grips it tightly in his hand. In the final shot, when Kane
walks down a hallway and passes by some mirrors which face each
other, causing a sort of infinite reflections effect. The lighting
in the bedroom is medium key as is most of the scene. However, the
light was projected from above of Kane for the shot in which he
left the bedroom.
In Catch Me If You Can, the scene is when Frank Jr. and Carl
Hanratty, an FBI agent, are aboard an airplane. Frank Jr. is
wearing a white striped shirt while Carl is wearing a suit. Later,
Frank Jr. confines himself in the airplane lavatory where he also
comes across a mirror. The light projected on Frank Jr. in the
beginning of the scene was from above, accentuating his eyebags,
while the lighting on Carl was mainly from the side.
INTERPRETATIONIn the first pair of scenes chosen from each film,
there is a similar theme which is portrayed: Both films use a close
person related to the protagonist who convey the grim reality of
the protagonists situation. In Citizen Kane, Jed Leland and Charles
Kane speak about the reason for his downfall in the political
elections which Kane had just lost, that is, Leland claims Kane is
only concerned with making people love him. The props used in this
scene for Citizen Kane held interesting meaning. The streamers
which lay down on the floor in the office now as if represented the
crumbling of Kanes empire. The political campaign that was so sure
to claim victory now was defeated and the streamers resembled the
ruins of a fortress that once stood firm. Next, the colour of their
clothes, Leland and Kane, symbolized the psychological state that
they were currently in for the scene. Kane was dressed in black and
white. This shows that Kane was experiencing the brunt of moralitys
consequence on his political machine. The black and white presents
Kane as now more remorseful over his actions as he is more aware of
the blacks and whites in ethics; the difference between good and
evil. Leland on the other hand was wearing a coat that was entirely
grey over his black and white outfit, suggesting that in his core,
he has a strong moral code, but currently, it is being blurred into
a grey area of vagueness. He has, in this scene, lost his sense of
politeness, something dictated by a moral code, and has come to
tell Kane the hard truth which Kane does not want to hear. The
truth is something that is not actually distinctly good or evil,
but a mix between the two, hence, the grey colour which is a mix of
black and white. The colour of Lelands coat, as well as the fact
that Leland was wearing a coat, are both strong points in
dramatizing Lelands drunkenness; of his inability to speak fluently
in the conversation, as it shows a layer of haziness over an
otherwise decent man. The next shot shows Kane standing very close
to the camera, his legs dressed in black pants on the left side of
the screen, while Leland was further away from the audience, shown
in full body, on the right side of the screen. This clearly shows
the dynamics of the dialogue: Kane, being stubborn in his ways, is
portrayed as large and strong while Leland, being the voice of
reason, is small and weak. Kanes evil is accentuated in the black
colour of his pants as well as the positioning of him on the left
side of the screen, which is often related to negativity. The
opposite is also true: Lelands outfit seems much brighter than the
blackness of Kanes pants, and thus, he seems to hold more good than
Kane, and this is strengthened by his position on the right side of
the screen.The lighting for this scene was also highly symbolic. In
the beginning, when Leland first confronts Kane with his line, Im
drunk, immediately, the lighting on his face from the ceiling
window is cast on one side of his face, implying a serious tone to
an otherwise ludicrous statement. This makes the viewer more
accepting of his words rather than dismiss them as rambling of a
drunken man. Conversely, the lighting on Kane was much duller,
presenting a calm and unagitated character. In the third shot, when
Leland walks up to Kane, his lighting changes dramatically. He is
well lit in the beginning, showing a more polite and merciful
character. However, he immediately walks into the dark while
delivering his line: [The love you want] is something to be played
your way according to your rules. The darkness by which he is
engulfed in is not complete and there remains a slight highlight to
the side of his figure. This clearly dramatizes the darkness in
Kanes idea as well as the almost hopelessness (since he was almost
completely dark) of the idea coming to fruition.
Catch Me If You Can on the other hand portrays the father of the
protagonist, Frank Abagnale, telling his son that his mother is now
remarried. This of course is agonizing news for the boy to hear,
which should have made him see the pointlessness of his of crime
and thus made him stop. However, his father does not instruct him
to stop but in fact does the exact opposite, convincing his son
that the authorities will never be able to capture him. In this
scene, the lighting played a particularly important role as
compared to the mise en scene.In the beginning shots, Frank and
Frank Jr. hug each other, and the camera shows each of their hands
behind the others back. Frank Jr., now more financially stable than
his father, is shown wearing a golden watch with black leather
strap, a symbol of high status, while his father has none. After
the hug, we can see Frank in his US Postal Service uniform while
Frank Jr. is dressed in a suit, and later we see Frank Jr. bringing
out a briefcase, both of which further strengthens the difference
in status of the two men. The viewer might be led to believe that
the father, who will be communicating to his son the harsh reality
of his ex-wifes remarriage, will become the voice of good and try
to reason with his son because he is placed on the right side.
However, the lighting informs us otherwise.Due to the (most likely
deliberate) use of a window providing the majority of the light,
the entire scene shows harsh one-sided lighting on both characters.
Some shots show the window straight on and thus cause our
characters to be dark figures (almost silhouettes), to compensate
the overexposure on camera. At first, the lighting seems to also
support the notion of Frank becoming the voice of reason. This is
because when Frank sits down and Frank Jr. leans over to tell him
about his wedding, Franks uniform which was black in earlier shots
shows its true blue colour. According to colour theory, blue is
often used to represent calmness and responsibility. In the
following shots however, when Frank Jr. desperately tells his
father to ask him to stop his life of fraud and his father does
otherwise, the lighting clearly shows the state of the two men. In
one shot, both of them are completely dark and black, except for
slight highlights on Frank Jr. which show us the contour of his
face and torso. Here, the darkness by which both characters are in
depicts the internal darkness that resides in both of them. Frank,
although having lived a life of crime, seeks moral advice from his
father, which explains the sliver of light on his character ie. the
small but firm goodness left inside of him. However, Frank, who is
in complete darkness, is thus suggested to have no morality to
offer, and hence encourages his sons misdeeds.
There is also a similar theme between the second pair of scenes
chosen from each film, which is when the protagonists lose the last
thing important to them. In Citizen Kane, this occurs when Susan
Alexander leaves Charles Kane, and he reacts by thrashing the
bedroom which he is in. In the few seconds before Kane throws his
tantrum, his animalistic behaviour is somewhat forecasted in the
pictures of the animals on the ceiling beams, which show all sorts
of animals, most if not all of which were wild. Next, right before
Kane launches into his manic destruction of the room, he is seen
fiddling with a small bag, determinedly trying to close it. This is
a clear metaphor for his current psychological state in which he is
trying to contain himself; trying to stuff his anger, frustration,
sadness, humiliation and ego into a container. Once he discovers he
cannot fit all of that into a small bag, he flings the bag across
the room. In fact, all the bags are the first objects for him to
throw, clearly showing Kane completely giving up on the idea of
containment. After a long thrashing of the bedroom, Kane stumbles
upon a small snowglobe which reminds him of his childhood. The
object which is very small and fragile, symbolizes him in his
childhood, and it is the one object that was able to stop his
frantic destruction. In the final shot of the scene, when Kane
walks away from his butlers and maids, down the hallway, he passes
by a pair of intelligently placed mirrors on either side of the
wall, thus causing sort of infinite reflections. These mirrors
describe the inner reflection of Kane as he reminisces his past as
a child and what he has become as an adult. The infinite reflection
has an interesting effect by which it means to convey that Kanes
desire for love and care is virtually infinite, and yet he has none
but himself.The lighting in the bedroom seems rather even on Kane
and is in medium key, presenting a sense of realism rather than
attempts to dramatize anything. The shot by which Kane leaves his
bedroom uses lighting from above, accentuating the eyebags on his
face, making him look much older and weaker than he should have
been.
In Catch Me If You Can, a similar scene can be found aboard an
airplane when Frank Jr. is told by Carl Hanratty, the FBI agent who
is holding Frank Jr. in custody, that Frank Jr.s father is dead.
Frank Jr. is wearing a white striped shirt, depicting a man who is
now clean in terms of conscience. This helps dramatize his
suffering as he reacts to the news of his fathers death because it
is easier to sympathize with someone the audience perceives as
innocent rather than guilty. Later in the scene, Frank Jr. confines
himself in the airplane lavatory where he, similar to the scene in
Citizen Kane, encounters a mirror, which then also becomes a
metaphor for self-reflection. The lavatory itself becomes a sign of
how dejected Frank Jr. feels as excrement is commonly associated
with lowliness, and the size of the lavatory depicts how trapped
Frank Jr. feels in the pointlessness of his actions in light of his
fathers death.The lighting technique used in this scene is also
similar to Citizen Kane, in which the light is projected from above
the subject, accentuating his eyebags. As a result, Frank Jr. looks
more distressed and anxious. The lighting on Carl however comes
mainly from the side, putting less pressure on his character and
making him seem more technical than emotional.
CONCLUSIONBetween the two films, a lot of similarities can be
drawn. Both protagonists were men emotionally wounded as children
who wanted to do everything in their power to fix the problems they
had. However, both characters went about it in different ways.
Citizen Kane shows a man who deals with his struggle indirectly,
trying to find a substitute for the love from his parents, while
Catch Me If You Can shows a man who deals with his problems
directly, trying to remedy his broken familys financial
problems.When faced with a grim reality, both characters accept it
differently as well. Kane was more calm and accepting of his
political failure (as well as the ignominy) while Frank lashes out
in frustration when he finds out his mother has been remarried. The
factor of age and corresponding maturity may have a key role in
these scenes.However, when finally having everything taken away
from them, down to the last ray of hope that they may have kept,
both characters experience an utter emotional breakdown which
results in physical repercussions.
The importance of parenthood and family cannot be stressed
enough behind these two films. In the end, it is understood that
behind all the masculinity and machoness with which men hide behind
resides a young boy who yearns to be loved by his parents.