FILM COMPARISON:

CITIZEN KANE & CATCH ME IF YOU CAN

INTRODUCTION Family -- 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, cowritten, 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 ANALYSIS The first scene chosen from Citizen Kane was where Jed Leland tells Kane about why Kanes political campaign has failed. There were streamers 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.

INTERPRETATION In 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 th e 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 K anes 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, infinite mirrors thus causing sort of

reflections. describe of the

These inner as he

reflection

Kane

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 sym pathize 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.

CONCLUSION Between 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.