Crowther, Bosley. "The Ambiguous 'Citizen Kane'" The New York Times 4 May 1941: X5.

This Bosley Crowther review of Citizen Kane accomplishes in highlighting several aspects that contribute to or impede the success of the film. The publicity created by the films possible connection to William Randolph Hearst and his tactics of yellow journalism created an attitude in the public that helped the film succeed. Their dislike of Hearst’s yellow journalism techniques made viewers eager to cling to any attacks on his character, which could be inferred through the portrayal of Kane. While the film fails to conclude that Kane was indeed guilty of yellow journalism or any other amoral actions, the eagerness the audience had to find such connections fueled the success of the film. Also, Crowther praises the innovative film techniques employed by Welles and Toland to make the film a visual masterpiece. The filmmakers mastery of and excitement toward the art of cinema was an incredible contributor to Citizen Kane’s success.

While Crowther does concede that Citizen Kane is quite above average and an overall success, he raises an argument against the film as truly great one. He states that the lack of clarity that the ending brings to the mystery of ‘Rosebud’ makes the theme of the movie ambiguous and vague. As relates to my thesis, the piece provides support for the idea that the intended meaning of ‘Rosebud’ is quite unclear, even to film critics such as Crowther. It pushed me to explore the idea that it’s significance is merely misunderstood as opposed to altogether ambiguous as is asserted by Crowther in this piece. This kind of feedback also pressured Welles to respond with evidence that 'Rosebud' is in fact clear.

Salt, Barry. "Film Style and Technology in the Forties." Film Quarterly 31 (1977): 46-57. JStor. 9 Apr. 2008.

This article discusses the technical side of films in the late 1930s through the end of the 1940s and gives great insight into what was common technique in the era and what was groundbreaking in terms of filmic technique and style. There is a large segment of the article dedicated to the style and technique used in Citizen Kane, with special attention given to Gregg Toland - the cinematographer of Citizen Kane who was largely responsible for the look and feel of the film through his use of special lighting techniques and coated lenses.

Specifically, Gregg Toland was responsible for innovating techniques to increase the range of objects that were in focus in any given shot – a technique called deep-focus. The prevalent use of deep-focus shots throughout the film was rare for its time, and as such Citizen Kane is often credited for starting the trend of heavy use of deep focus with more shallow focus limited to certain close shots in films since. Furthermore, the use of wide angle lenses to give more dynamic framing to the characters was innovative in this film, and is believed to have heavily influenced the look of The Maltese Falcon less than a year later.

Lastly, this article mentions that the average shot length in Citizen Kane is not significantly longer than other films of the period, even though this is not commonly believed to be the case. Citizen Kane has an A.S.L. of about 12 seconds, compared to an average A.S.L. for other films of the period, and Kane only has a few shots that last up near 2 minutes.