Rita Csernai

Reporting Techniques in the Great Gatsby and Citizen Kane Rita Csernai

F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Orson Welles's Citizen Kane have been renowned for capturing the contradictory features of the American dream through their authentic and fascinating stories of two legendary fictitious American citizens. However, few studies have commented on how similar reporting techniques bridge the genre-specific differences of two of the most iconic pieces of 20th century American literature and cinematography. This book is the first of its kind: It offers a comparative analysis of the reporting techniques on the American dream, unfolding complex semiotic structures. The book casts light on the interplay between the three levels of reporting and the detective-style quest for the personality of Jay Gatsby and Charlie Kane, analyzing the ways the reporters' attitudes and twists of time and space manipulate the perception of the audience. The book can be as useful for scholars in American literature and cinematography as for psychologists and communications professionals, who might feel challenged to observe complex human interactions, while creating the missing pieces of the highly fragmented puzzle in The Great Gatsby's and Citizen Kane's storylines.