When conducting an interview for the American Film Institute, actor Jeff Bridges, discussing 1941s Citizen Kane, said its director was “twenty-five years old, and he didnt know what he couldnt do…and Greg Toland gave him all the confidence in the world (2011, 0:28 sec.). Bridges was of course talking about the late, great Orson Welles. But who was Greg Toland? Well known in Hollywood at the time, Toland was a longtime cinematographer who had not only won an Academy Award for 1939s Wuthering Heights, but more importantly, had a unique unorthodox style and “was a devoted rebel against the conventions and rituals of big studio filmmaking” (Carringer, 1982, pp. 652-653). Needless to say, when the rookie filmmaker and veteran cameraman got together, movie magic was in the air. Indeed, their collaboration would result in a cinematic spectacle…
When the main character, played by Welles himself, whispers “Rosebud” while lying on his deathbed at the beginning of the movie, little did audiences know they were about be taken on a unique cinematic journey never before traveled. Long after moviegoers left Citizen Kanes end credits rolling on the big screen as they exited the theater, they were most likely scratching their heads wondering what exactly they had just witnessed. In fact, as Barsam and Monahan point out, the plot and the way it was scripted and enacted were so radical for the 1940s that audiences, unprepared for what they were about to see and hear, were actually bewildered by the atypical storyline (2013, p. 146). However, even as unique as the narrative turned out to be, Citizen Kane is arguably more renowned for its avant-garde technical machinations involving new and diverse camera…