Module B: A Critical Study of Text

Citizen Kane

Citizen kane is studied as a 'critical study of text'. The focus is:

• a close study of the text itself: structural and language features as well as the content and ideas contained in the text,

• a study of the way it has been received by different audiences in different contexts,

• the different ways in which the text can be read and the values reflected by those readings, and

• an understanding of the value of the text.

Resources

Orson Welles

• The life

http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/03/welles.html

ttp://www.bway.net/~nipper/home.html

http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=116368&inline=nyt-per

• A blog devoted to Orson Welles

http://www.wellesnet.com/

Reception of his work

 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/kane2/

   http://www.time.com/time/2005/100movies/0,23220,citizen_kane,00.html

http://www.afi.com/tvevents/100years/movies.aspx

Citizen Kane

• The screenplay

http://www.godamongdirectors.com/scripts/citizenkane.shtml

• Background

http://www.filmsite.org/citi.html

• A Citizen Kane website with useful links

http://www.cis.vt.edu/modernworld/kane/

• Review by a leading US critic

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19980524/REVIEWS08/401010334/1023

• Article from a film journal

http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/45/kane.htm

Readings of Citizen Kane

• A close reading with a useful synopsis of the writer's approach

http://home.nikocity.de/fabianweb/kane.html

• A postmodern close reading using narratology principles

http://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/narratology/plans/narrativeplanskane.html