The technical innovations of Orson Welles' Citizen Kane range from depth of field to his lightning-fast mixing. He used graphic and aural pairings to depict the narrative of one man's meteoric rise to power and his painful slide into oblivion. Director Mike Nichols implements many of Welles' tools to create the world of Benjamin Braddock's relationship in The Graduate. With these techniques the director creates a distortion of the narrative and characters, but through this distortion paradoxically comes a clarity that illuminates subtle meanings, which contribute to the broader symbolic fabric of the film. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay At the beginning of Citizen Kane, a snow globe rolls out of Charles Foster Kane's recently lifeless fingers and shatters. The next shot is from a vertical low-angle perspective with a fish-eye view through the broken glass of the globe as a nurse enters the room to attend to Kane. A similar distortion occurs in The Graduate, except this time he is shot through an aquarium after Mrs. Robinson fiendishly throws Ben's car keys into the tub water. Both objects that create the distortion have symbolism in the films: Kane's snowball symbolizes his childhood, while Ben's fish tank symbolizes the constraints of the upper-middle class suburban lifestyle. Although the image on the screen becomes distorted in these shots, they bring clarity of meaning to the overall narrative. Welles used graphic matching as a transition technique in Kane. A dissolve transported the audience from the building's address number to the photo of the building in a newspaper the day after Kane's affair with Susan Alexander. By blending two images into a distortion, Welles allows for fluid movement of subtly connected scenes. On the other hand, Nichols implements a graphic match as symbolism for Ben's life. The scene comes at the end of a long montage in which Benjamin drifts in and out of his life at home and in a hotel. At home, Benjamin comes out of the pool water and lands on his raft, which immediately becomes Mrs. Robinson in the hotel room. This functions as a symbolic meeting because he has drifted on his raft and throughout his life with his relationship with Mrs. Robinson. Soon the audience hears Mr. Braddock's stern voice: "Ben, what are you doing?" leading them to believe that Ben has been involved in her affair, but it is actually an illusion in the form of a comedic sound bridge as Nichols returns to the poolside where Mr. Braddock's voice lip-syncs. At this moment the public can glimpse the possible repercussions of this story and prepare for the consequences that loom in the future. Nichols switches images between them and dub a scene to create anxiety in the audience. The scene provides a clearer picture of Ben's commitment to this story in a protected yet compliant police society. Welles invented the match, which he used to show the passage of time in young Kane's life with Thatcher. The years pass in an instant with the simple phrase "Merry Christmas..." completed by "And a happy new year" long after. The time distortion allows Welles to condense a man's entire life into two hours, eliminating minor details that were irrelevant to Kane's life. Nichols also uses the lightning mix, not to illustrate a substantial time gap, but rather as a simple transition and comparison. The transition occurs after Benjamin lies to his mother about where.