Re: Depth of Field: Gregg Toland, Citizen Kane and Beyond

What Toland did for Orson, in one sense, with deep focus was let Orson work in a familiar mode, as if his movie was a theatrical stage play, where instead of only driving the viewpoint with the lens and the cutting alone, additionally you direct the audience's eye thru multiple techniques, of lighting and motion and physical positioning, but you leave additional material there to look at over multiple viewings.

One of the reasons Kane stands up to repeated viewings, IMO, is that with this technique you keep finding new things to see in it, seeing new interrelationships.