I decided to make my own modern/experimental interpretation of one of my favorite scenes in Citizen Kane: the dinner between Kane and his wife Emily which shows the crumbling of their relationship over several years.
I chose to focus on this aspect specifically while retaining several key shots and transitions throughout (i.e. the swing dissolves to signify the passing of time, the pull-in from wide to two-shot at the beginning and the pull-out from a close-up to a wide shot at the end). In the scene itself, we see Kane become more and more wrapped up in the news and his work, and in my film, my character in place of Kane similarly becomes consumed by work, but on a technological level. He is fully sucked into the matrix of modern tech business on full scale to the point of being surrounded by piles of wires and devices.
Meanwhile, my character in place of Emily is also experiencing a similar dissatisfaction in the relationship that Emily undergoes. I added a deeper sense of longing for the relationship to work out on my character’s end I think, but I feel as though I maintained the basic elements of the arc of both characters in this scene. I wanted to convey two people deeply in love; eating a great meal together, and slowly drifting apart scene by scene, year by year, until one becomes self-absorbed, and the other, disappointed and left feeling alone. My music choices (“Mid Air” by Paul Buchanan, “No Surprises” by Radiohead) are admittedly more sentimental than Citizen Kane’s music choice itself, but as I was going for a modern interpretation, I do think the music is fitting, and I chose to slowly overlap the tunes intentionally to reflect the character’s journey together. I also challenged myself by deciding to include a lack of dialogue. Where Citizen Kane is abundant in conversation, I felt a modern version could very easily have less speaking, and more visual storytelling.
The use of title cards was a stylistic choice, partially for the efficiency of filming, but also trying to find a way to convey my vision of this scene in a simple, succinct, and effective manner. I’ve also never used title cards in any of my previous short films and wanted to experiment with less actual dialogue. The absence or loss of human connection/love in favor of materialism and the accumulation of unnecessary stuff is a huge theme in Citizen Kane I believe, and another that I tried to encapsulate here. This is especially still prevalent in today’s world, as we witness genuine connection with each other faltering and slowly being lost amid an increasingly modernized technological age.
