Dark Lighting

Citizen Kane is certainly a very visually striking film, combining many different filming techniques such as deep focus, different fade-ins and dissolves, and low/high angles.  But the thing that stuck in my mind was the use of dark lighting.  Citizen Kane starts out with a dark landscape, and utilizes dark, high contrast lighting, as well as silhouettes, throughout the film.  One of the main instances of this is only a few minutes into the film when the reporters are discussing Charles Foster Kane's death and pondering the meaning of "Rosebud."  They are all in shadow throughout this scene, and none of their faces are visible, indicating to the viewer that these people are not important at all.  We see the same concept during the short scene where Susan seems to have overdosed on medicine.  There is deep focus on Kane and the medicine, while Susan is draped in shadow.  Perhaps this was done to show that Susan has done something "dark" by intentionally taking too much of the medicine.  But I think it follows the same principle as the scene with those reporters - it shows her insignificance, both to Charles Foster Kane and overall to the world.  He does not care about her much at all, aside from having her sing at the opera house he had built.  This smart use of shadowing leads me to believe that many, if not most of the different camera techniques and visual effects are important in some way or symbolize something important to the plot or the characters in Citizen Kane.