Briefly explain why everyone saw at once that Citizen Kane didn’t look like most American movies of its era

What will be an ideal response?

Answer: The ideal answer should include:
1. Kane ushered in an era of flamboyant visual effects in the American cinema, and as such represented an assault on the classical ideal of an invisible style. There is not an indifferently photographed image in the film. Even the exposition scenes—normally dispatched with efficient medium two-shots—are startlingly photographed. In Citizen Kane, the stylistic virtuosity is part of the show.
2. Not that the techniques Welles and Greg Tolland used were new. Deep-focus, low-key lighting, rich textures, audacious compositions, dynamic contrasts between foregrounds and backgrounds, backlighting, sets with ceilings, side lighting, steep angles, epic long shots juxtaposed with extreme close-ups, dizzying crane shots, special effects galore—none of these was new. But no one had previously used them in such a “seven layer-cake profusion,” to quote critic James Naremore.
3. Lights are often from below or other unexpected sources, creating startling clashes and abstract patterns and infusing the photographed materials with a sense of visual exuberance.
4. The lighting is generally in moderate high key in those scenes depicting Kane’s youth and those dealing with his years as a crusading young publisher. As he grows older and more cynical, the lighting grows darker, more harshly contrasting. Kane’s home, the palatial Xanadu, seems steeped in perpetual night. Only spotlight patches of light penetrate the oppressive gloom, revealing the contours of a chair, a sofa, yet another piece of heroic sculpture.
5. Spotlights are also used in closer shots for symbolic effects. The mixture of decency and corruption in Kane is suggested by the contrasting lights: Sometimes his face seems split in half, with one side brightly illuminated, the other hidden in darkness.
6. Gregg Toland had often experimented with deep-focus photography during the 1930s, mostly while working with director William Wyler. But the deep focus in Kane is more flamboyant than Wyler’s use of this technique. Welles’s deep-focus photography is meant to be admired for its virtuosity as well as its functionalism.
7. Finally, over 80 percent of the movie required some kind of special effects work, such as miniatures, matte shots, and double and multiple exposures. Many scenes required reprinting—that is, combining two or more separate images onto one through the use of the optical printer.