A comparison of Citizen Kane and The Scarlett Empress

The folowing essay is a comparison of the films Citizen Kane (1941) dircted by Orson Welles and Josef Von Sternberg's The Scarlet Empress. (1934) Specifically it will concentrate on how the two directors use set design, framing and lighting to comment upon the psychology of their principle characters. Welles' Citizen Kane tells the story of an aging press tycoon and would-be politician Charles Foster Kane. A man whose arrogance alienates him from everyone who loves him, leaving …

…surroundings only add to her feelings of despair. Both Orson Welles and Josef Von Sternberg used set design framing and lighting to great effect in the two aforementioned films. I realize that in the space provided I have only described breifly instances of this in each film, but the scenes I have chosen are central to each fim and give good example of how their individual techniques comment on the psychology of their principle characters.