Creating Enigma - 'Citizen Kane'

Citizen Kane

The opening sequence of Citizen Kane begins with the camera tilting down a series of fences, before passing a shot of a sign saying "NO TRESPASSING", accompanied with suspenseful and unnerving non-diegetic music. The music, the shots, the mise-en-scene and the lighting all help create mystery and enigma.

The camera then pans up focusing on the metal caging. As the background is out of focus, blurry and unrecognisable, this creates a lot of enigma and an unsettling atmosphere for the audience. The picture then dissolves into a different shot of the same location, but with more metal caging, possibly implying that the caging is very tall and consuming and that either the person inside is trapped, or paranoid and desperate to keep people out.

The camera then shows a gate with the letter "K" inserted into it, that leads up to a house on top of a hill. This creates a very spooky and anxiety-provoking aesthetic. The audience at this point is most likely wondering who lives in that house and why it has so much caging around it.

Another dissolve leads to a shot of a lake with gondolas, along with fog grazing over the water which creates a very eerie and ghostly atmosphere. The audience are then presented with different angles of the house, each one closer and closer to the inside, and finally we are presented with a window that suddenly blacks out along with the music coming to an abrupt stop.

Next, there is a close up shot of a snow globe which then pans out to reveal a man holding it in his hand while laying down. He then whispers "Rosebud", before dropping and smashing the snow globe on the ground and passing away. A nurse walks into the room, however, the camera now has a fish eye effect, creating a sinister aesthetic.

The opening scene then ends with the nurse placing bedding over the man's face, laying him to rest, leaving the audience wondering who or what "Rosebud" is, who the man is and how he died.