Orson Welles Analysis


Orson Welles Auteur Analysis

Orson Welles is a classic Film Noir filmmaker who appears in most of the movies he creates. His signature style is extremely noticeable throughout his films as he often deals with death, crime, and includes a strong female character. To add to the theme of crime and mystery, Welles often uses low-key, high contrast lighting to distort to hide the faces of many of his characters. Due to most of his films being shot in black and white because of the restrictions at the time, this causes filmmakers at the time to focus more on shadows and low-key/high-key lighting to create the atmosphere for the films. 

In addition, Orson Welles often shows the downfall of a main character, sometimes the 'detective'. He does this by incorporating themes of isolation and corruption. Welles also includes the concept of the  'right and wrong' or 'moral and immoral' in his films to show contrasting sides to the plot. Take 'The Lady from Shanghai' as an example: there is a powerful female character played by Rita Hayworth and we are automatically lead to join sides with Orson Welles character as he is also the narrator at certain points in the film. As well as this, his views are contrasted by the views of Arthur Bannister. 

Welles signature film noir style, combined with his use of lighting and similar themes proves that ever since his first film in 1941 (Citizen Kane) he has had a constant style, feel, and appearance to his movies.

The use of smoke and mirrors is also very clear in many of his movies as he uses smoke to hide certain sections of the screen and also to create mystery. Mirrors are also used to show character reflection, and more human emotion in certain scenes of the film. 

Welles also wanted to make the audience feel like they were attached/immersed in each movie as he used many cinematic techniques that achieved this. For example, Welles holds the record for the longest single continuous shot in history at 3 minutes 20 seconds. This was all done with old-fashioned camera techniques as was many other pieces of his work.les

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