10 Ways Movies Blew Your Mind Without You Even Realising

1. Rear Projection Was Subtly Used In Many Scenes - Citizen Kane

Orson Welles' Citizen Kane gets plenty of justified praise for Robert Wise's landmark editing and Gregg Toland's incredible deep focus cinematography, but Welles' masterpiece is also far more of a special effects movie than its reputation would have you believe.

Welles made extensive use of rear projection technology - that is, having scenes performed in front of a painted or video backdrop - in order to give the film a subtly heightened and totally unique aesthetic.

Notable examples include the matte painting background of Kane's (Welles) Xanadu estate, an entire dance sequence being rear-projected while Thompson (William Alland) interviews Leland (Joseph Cotten), young Kane playing in the snow as projected behind a window (above), and most amusingly, the exotic background of the swampy picnic scene.

In the latter case, Welles actually opted to rear-project jungle footage previously used in 1933's The Son of Kong, and in an hilarious mistake, didn't even try to disguise the pterodactyls visible in the footage, which can be briefly seen flying around in the background of the picnic scene.

And yet, these moments are so astonishingly subtle, and so counter to what audiences expect from how Citizen Kane was made, that they're basically invisible effects.