Citizen Kane: An Editing masterpiece

Citizen Kane employs a combination of cinematic techniques that makes it worthy as a contender for best movie ever made. To study these visionary techniques it is necessary to break down the movie in order to understand how it was that Welles did such innovative film making. One interesting formula used in the movie is thematic montage. This effective editing procedure condenses ideas and symbols that occurred over a number of years in the character’s life into one sequence that tells all. The most famous example of thematic montage in Citizen Kane compresses an entire marriage into a swift montage of breakfast table scenes. This scene shows us the downfall of a marriage within a few minutes. Other such montages can be found in the movie and these scenes help to create the overall cinematic success that is Citizen Kane.
The very beginning of the movie gives us the kind of central character we are immediately interested in. Given Welles' opening newsreel montage, Kane is intere...