Below you will find four different articles about Citizen Kane from three different authors. Read each and check in at the end.
CITIZEN KANE
REVIEW BY ROGER EBERT
``I don't think any word
can explain a man's life,'' says one of the searchers through the warehouse of
treasures left behind by Charles Foster Kane. Then we get the famous series of
shots leading to the closeup of the word ``Rosebud'' on a sled that has been
tossed into a furnace, its paint curling in the flames. We remember that this was
Kane's childhood sled, taken from him as he was torn from his family and sent
east to boarding school.
Rosebud is the emblem of the
security, hope and innocence of childhood, which a man can spend his life
seeking to regain. It is the green light at the end of Gatsby's pier; the
leopard atop Kilimanjaro, seeking nobody knows what; the bone tossed into the
air in ``2001.'' It is that yearning after transience that adults learn to
suppress. ``Maybe Rosebud was something he couldn't get, or something he lost,''
says Thompson, the reporter assigned to the puzzle of Kane's dying word.
``Anyway, it wouldn't have explained anything.'' True, it explains nothing, but
it is remarkably satisfactory as a demonstration that nothing can be explained.
``Citizen Kane'' likes playful paradoxes like that. Its surface is as much fun
as any movie ever made. Its depths surpass understanding. I have analyzed it a
shot at a time with more than 30 groups, and together we have seen, I believe,
pretty much everything that is there on the screen. The more clearly I can see
its physical manifestation, the more I am stirred by its mystery.
It is one of the miracles of
cinema that in 1941 a first-time director; a cynical, hard-drinking writer; an
innovative cinematographer, and a group of New York stage and radio actors were
given the keys to a studio and total control, and made a masterpiece. ``Citizen
Kane'' is more than a great movie; it is a gathering of all the lessons of the
emerging era of sound, just as ``Birth of a Nation'' assembled everything
learned at the summit of the silent era, and ``2001'' pointed the way beyond
narrative. These peaks stand above all the others.
The origins of ``Citizen
Kane'' are well known. Orson Welles, the boy wonder of radio and stage, was
given freedom by RKO Radio Pictures to make any picture he wished. Herman
Mankiewicz, an experienced screenwriter, collaborated with him on a screenplay
originally called ``The American.'' Its inspiration was the life of William
Randolph Hearst, who had put together an empire of newspapers, radio stations,
magazines and news services, and then built to himself the flamboyant monument
of San Simeon, a castle furnished by rummaging the remains of nations. Hearst
was Ted Turner, Rupert Murdoch and Bill Gates rolled up into an enigma.
Arriving in Hollywood at age
25, Welles brought a subtle knowledge of sound and dialogue along with him; on
his Mercury Theater of the Air, he'd experimented with audio styles more lithe
and suggestive than those usually heard in the movies. As his cinematographer
he hired Gregg Toland, who on John Ford's ``The Long Voyage Home'' (1940) had
experimented with deep focus photography--with shots where everything was in
focus, from the front to the back, so that composition and movement determined
where the eye looked first. For his cast Welles assembled his New York
colleagues, including Joseph Cotten as Jed Leland, the hero's best friend;
Dorothy Comingore as Susan Alexander, the young woman Kane thought he could
make into an opera star; Everett Sloane as Mr. Bernstein, the mogul's business
wizard; Ray Collins as Gettys, the corrupt political boss, and Agnes Moorehead
as the boy's forbidding mother. Welles himself played Kane from age 25 until
his deathbed, using makeup and body language to trace the progress of a man
increasingly captive inside his needs. ``All he really wanted out of life was
love,'' Leland says. ``That's Charlie's story--how he lost it.''
The structure of ``Citizen
Kane'' is circular, adding more depth every time it passes over the life. The
movie opens with newsreel obituary footage that briefs us on the life and times
of Charles Foster Kane; this footage, with its portentous narration, is Welles'
bemused nod in the direction of the ``March of Time'' newsreels then being produced
by another media mogul, Henry Luce. They provide a map of Kane's trajectory,
and it will keep us oriented as the screenplay skips around in time, piecing
together the memories of those who knew him.
Curious about Kane's dying
word, ``rosebud,'' the newsreel editor assigns Thompson, a reporter, to find
out what it meant. Thompson is played by William Alland in a thankless
performance; he triggers every flashback, yet his face is never seen. He
questions Kane's alcoholic mistress, his ailing old friend, his rich associate
and the other witnesses, while the movie loops through time. As often as I've
seen ``Citizen Kane,'' I've never been able to firmly fix the order of the
scenes in my mind. I look at a scene and tease myself with what will come next.
But it remains elusive: By flashing back through the eyes of many witnesses,
Welles and Mankiewicz created an emotional chronology set free from time.
The movie is filled with bravura visual moments: the
towers of Xanadu; candidate Kane addressing a political rally; the doorway of
his mistress dissolving into a front-page photo in a rival newspaper; the
camera swooping down through a skylight toward the pathetic Susan in a
nightclub; the many Kanes reflected through parallel mirrors; the boy playing
in the snow in the background as his parents determine his future; the great
shot as the camera rises straight up from Susan's opera debut to a stagehand
holding his nose, and the subsequent shot of Kane, his face hidden in shadow,
defiantly applauding in the silent hall.
Along with the personal
story is the history of a period. ``Citizen Kane'' covers the rise of the penny
press (here Joseph Pulitzer is the model), the Hearst-supported
Spanish-American War, the birth of radio, the power of political machines, the
rise of fascism, the growth of celebrity journalism. A newsreel subtitle reads:
``1895 to 1941. All of these years he covered, many of these he was.'' The
screenplay by Mankiewicz and Welles (which got an Oscar, the only one Welles
ever won) is densely constructed and covers an amazing amount of ground,
including a sequence showing Kane inventing the popular press; a record of his
marriage, from early bliss to the famous montage of increasingly chilly
breakfasts; the story of his courtship of Susan Alexander and her disastrous
opera career, and his decline into the remote master of Xanadu (``I think if
you look carefully in the west wing, Susan, you'll find about a dozen
vacationists still in residence'').
``Citizen Kane'' knows the
sled is not the answer. It explains what Rosebud is, but not what Rosebud
means. The film's construction shows how our lives, after we are gone, survive
only in the memories of others, and those memories butt up against the walls we
erect and the roles we play. There is the Kane who made shadow figures with his
fingers, and the Kane who hated the traction trust; the Kane who chose his
mistress over his marriage and political career, the Kane who entertained
millions, the Kane who died alone.
There is a master image in
``Citizen Kane'' you might easily miss. The tycoon has overextended himself and
is losing control of his empire. After he signs the papers of his surrender, he
turns and walks into the back of the shot. Deep focus allows Welles to play a
trick of perspective. Behind Kane on the wall is a window that seems to be of
average size. But as he walks toward it, we see it is further away and much
higher than we thought. Eventually he stands beneath its lower sill, shrunken
and diminished. Then as he walks toward us, his stature grows again. A man
always seems the same size to himself, because he does not stand where we stand
to look at him.
A Viewer's
Companion to 'Citizen Kane'
BY ROGER EBERT
"Rosebud." The most famous word in the
history of cinema. It explains everything, and nothing. Who, for that matter,
actually heard Charles Foster Kane say it before he died? The butler says, late
in the film, that he did. But Kane seems to be alone when he dies, and the
reflection on the shard of glass from the broken paperweight shows the nurse
entering the room. Gossip has it that the screenwriter, Herman Mankiewicz, used
"rosebud" as an inside joke, because as a friend of Hearst's
mistress, Marion Davies, he knew "rosebud" was the old man's pet name
for the most intimate part of her anatomy.
Deep Focus. Everyone knows that Orson Welles and his
cinematographer, Gregg Toland, used deep focus in Kane. But what is deep focus,
and were they using it for the first time? The term refers to a strategy of
lighting, composition, and lens choice that allows everything in the frame,
from the front to the back, to be in focus at the same time. With the lighting
and lenses available in 1941, this was just becoming possible, and Toland had
experimented with the technique in John Ford's The Long Voyage Home a few years
earlier. In most movies, the key elements in the frame are in focus, and those
closer or further away may not be. When everything is in focus, the filmmakers
must give a lot more thought to how they direct the viewer's attention, first
here and then there. What the French call mise-en-scene--the movement within
the frame-- becomes more important.
Optical illusions. Deep focus is especially tricky because
movies are two-dimensional, and so you need visual guideposts to determine the
true scale of a scene. Toland used this fact as a way to fool the audience's
eye on two delightful occasions in the film. One comes when Kane is signing
away control of his empire in Thatcher's office. Behind him on the wall are
windows that look of normal size and height. Then Kane starts to walk into the
background of the shot, and we realize with surprise that the windows are huge,
and their lower sills are more than six feet above the floor. As Kane stands
under them, he is dwarfed--which is the intent, since he has just lost great
power. Later in the film, Kane walks over to stand in front of the great
fireplace in Xanadu, and we realize it, too, is much larger than it first
seemed.
Visible ceilings. In almost all movies before Citizen Kane,
you couldn't see the ceilings in rooms because there weren't any. That's where
you'd see the lights and microphones. Welles wanted to use a lot of low-angle
shots that would look up toward ceilings, and so Toland devised a strategy of
cloth ceilings that looked real but were not. The microphones were hidden
immediately above the ceilings, which in many shots are noticeably low.
Matte drawings. These are drawings by artists that are used
to create elements that aren't really there. Often they are combined with
"real" foregrounds. The opening and closing shots of Kane's great
castle, Xanadu, are examples. No exterior set was ever built for the structure.
Instead, artists drew it, and used lights behind it to suggest Kane's bedroom
window. "Real" foreground details such as Kane's lagoon and private
zoo were added.
Invisible wipes. A "wipe" is a visual effect that
wipes one image off the screen while wiping another into view. Invisible wipes
disguise themselves as something else on the screen that seems to be moving, so
you aren't aware of the effect. They are useful in "wiping" from
full-scale sets to miniature sets. For example: One of the most famous shots in
Kane shows Susan Alexander's opera debut, when, as she starts to sing, the
camera moves straight up to a catwalk high above the stage, and one stagehand
turns to another and eloquently reviews her performance by holding his nose.
Only the stage and the stagehands on the catwalk are real. The middle portion
of this seemingly unbroken shot is a miniature, built in the RKO model
workshop. The model is invisibly wiped in by the stage curtains, as we move up
past them, and wiped out by a wooden beam right below the catwalk. Another
example: In Walter Thatcher's library, the statue of Thatcher is a drawing, and
as the camera pans down it wipes out the drawing as it wipes in the set of the
library.
Invisible Furniture Moving. In the early scene in the
Kanes's cabin in Colorado, the camera tracks back from a window to a table
where Kane's mother is being asked to sign a paper. The camera tracks right
through where the table would be, after which it is slipped into place before
we can see it. But a hat on the table is still trembling from the move. After
she signs the paper, the camera pulls up and follows her as she walks back
toward the window. If you look sharply, you can see that she's walking right
through where the table was a moment before.
The Neatest Flash-Forward in Kane. Between Thatcher's words
"Merry Christmas" and "... a very Happy New Year," two
decades pass.
From Model to Reality. As the camera swoops above
the night club and through the skylight to discover Susan Alexander Kane
sitting forlornly at a table, it goes from a model of the nightclub roof to a
real set. The switch is concealed, the first time, by a lightning flash. The
second time we go to the nightclub, it's done with a dissolve.
Crowd scenes. There aren't any in Citizen Kane. It only looks
like there are. In the opening newsreel, stock footage of a political rally is
intercut with a low-angle shot showing one man speaking on behalf of Kane.
Sound effects make it sound like he's at a big outdoor rally. Later, Kane
himself addresses a gigantic indoor rally. Kane and the other actors on the
stage are real. The audience is a miniature, with flickering lights to suggest
movement.
Slight Factual Discrepancies. In the opening newsreel,
Xanadu is described as being "on the desert coast of Florida." But
Florida does not have a desert coast, as you can plainly see during the picnic
scene, where footage from an earlier RKO prehistoric adventure was
back-projected behind the actors, and if you look closely, that seems to be a
pterodactyl flapping its wings.
The Luce Connection. Although Citizen Kane was
widely seen as an attack on William Randolph Hearst, it was also aimed at Henry
R. Luce and his concept of faceless group journalism, as then practiced at his
Time magazine and March of Time newsreels. The opening "News on the
March" segment is a deliberate parody of the Luce newsreel, and the reason
you can never see the faces of any of the journalists is that Welles and
Mankiewicz were kidding the anonymity of Luce's writers and editors.
An Extra with a Future. Alan Ladd can be glimpsed
in the opening newsreel sequence, and again in the closing warehouse scene.
Most Thankless Job on the Movie. It went to William Alland,
who plays Mr. Thompson, the journalist assigned to track down the meaning of
"Rosebud." He is always seen from behind, or in backlit profile. You
can never see his face. At the movie's world premiere, Alland told the audience
he would turn his back so they could recognize him more easily.
The Brothel Scene. It couldn't be filmed. In
the original screenplay, after Kane hires away the staff of the Chronicle, he
takes them to a brothel. The Production Code office wouldn't allow that. So the
scene, slightly changed, takes place in the Inquirer newsroom, still with the
dancing girls.
The Eyeless Cockatoo. Yes, you can see right
through the eyeball of the shrieking cocatoo, in the scene before the big fight
between Kane and Susan. It's a mistake.
The Most Evocative Shot in the Movie. There are many candidates.
My choice is the shot showing an infinity of Kanes reflected in mirrors as he
walks past.
The Best Speech in Kane. My favorite is delivered by
Mr. Bernstein (Everett Sloane), when he is talking about the magic of memory
with the inquiring reporter: "A
fellow will remember a lot of things you wouldn't think he'd remember. You take
me. One day, back in 1896, I was crossing over to Jersey on the ferry, and as
we pulled out, there was another ferry pulling in, and on it there was a girl
waiting to get off. A white dress she had on. She was carrying a white parasol.
I only saw her for one second. She didn't see me at all, but I'll bet a month
hasn't gone by since, that I haven't thought of that girl."
Genuine Modesty. In the movie's credits, Welles allowed his
director's credit and Toland's cinematography credit to appear on the same
card--an unprecedented gesture that indicated how grateful Welles was.
False Modesty. In the unique end credits, the members of
the Mercury Company are introduced and seen in brief moments from the movie.
Then smaller parts are handled with a single card containing many names. The
final credit down at the bottom, in small type, says simply:
Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc.
Citizen Kane
When it comes to Citizen
Kane, one question eclipses all others: Is it the best film ever made?
For
years, I have avoided writing a review of this movie, intimidated perhaps by
its immense reputation. Having missed the 1991 fiftieth anniversary revival, I
had only seen Citizen Kane on the small screen, and it didn't seem right
somehow to discuss a picture of this magnitude without viewing it at least once
in the manner originally envisioned. Well, some five years after I started
writing reviews, the opportunity arose at a small film festival. This review is
the result of that screening.
Citizen
Kane has been lauded as the greatest motion picture to come out of America
during the black-and-white era (or any era, for that matter). It also
represents the pinnacle of Orson Welles' film making career. For, although
Welles lived for more than forty years following the release of Kane, he never
succeeded in recapturing the brilliance or fulfilling the promise of his first
feature. Some maintain that his cut of The Magnificent Ambersons was more
powerful, but the studio took the film away from him, slashing more than 40
minutes of footage. And, while Welles' Shakespeare movies and A Touch of Evil
contain elements of brilliance, they are not on the same level as Kane. It has
been argued, most forcefully in Thomas Lennon and Michael Epstein's 1996
documentary, The Battle Over Citizen Kane, that Kane not only started Welles'
directorial career, but nearly ended it.
The
movie opens with an unforgettable image of a distant, fog-shrouded castle on a
hill. It's a classic gothic shot, and goes a long way towards establishing
Citizen Kane's mood. We quickly learn that this place, called Xanadu, is the
dwelling of America's Kubla Khan, Charles Foster Kane (Welles), a one-time
newspaper magnate who could have become President if not for an ill-advised
extramarital affair. Xanadu, in the words of the faux newsreel that gives a
brief history of Kane's life, is the "costliest monument of a man to
himself." Any resemblance to The Ranch, William Randolph Hearst's
real-life San Simeon abode, is not coincidental.
Within
moments of the film's eerie, visually-stunning opening, Kane is dead, uttering
the word "Rosebud" as he hunches over. His death, like his life, is a
big news event, and the paper he owned, the New York Inquirer, is desperate to
unearth the meaning of his cryptic last word. Is it a woman he bedded? A horse
he bet on? A beloved pet? Some long-lost, unrequited love? The truth, which
isn't revealed until the closing scene, represents one of the all-time greatest
motion picture ironies, and leads us to believe that, on some level, Kane
regretted not having led a simple, quiet life.
After
showing Kane's death, Citizen Kane presents a ten-minute "newsreel"
that details the man's larger-than-life accomplishments. Then, as a reporter
(William Alland) from the Inquirer digs into Kane's past to learn the meaning
of Rosebud, the mogul's history is unraveled through a series of extended
flashbacks that represent the sometimes-overlapping, non- chronological accounts
of five eyewitnesses. As the story unfolds, we see Kane, aided by his closest
friend, Jedediah Leland (Joseph Cotton), build a nationwide newspaper empire
out of one small paper with a circulation of less than 30,000. To do so, he
displays equal parts ruthlessness and generosity, willing to lose 1,000,000
dollars a year to win the circulation wars. His New York Inquirer specializes
in bold, splashy headlines that don't necessarily represent the truth. By the
time he marries Emily Norton (Ruth Warrick), the President's niece, Kane is one
of the most powerful men in America -- a public giant with designs on the White
House.
Eventually,
Kane moves into the political arena, but his bid for the governor's office
crashes and burns when his rival, Boss Jim Gettys (Ray Collins), exposes Kane's
affair with Susan Alexander (Dorothy Comingore). Following this failure, Kane
divorces his first wife, marries Susan, then goes into seclusion in his
unfinished palace of Xanadu. As the years pass, he becomes progressively more
bitter and less approachable, until Susan, weary of Xanadu's isolation, leaves
him. Alone and unloved, Kane awaits the inescapable hand of death.
The
script for Citizen Kane, written by Herman J. Mankiewicz (with an assist from
Welles), is a thinly-disguised fictional biography of publishing king William
Randolph Hearst, who was 76 years old when the movie came out in 1941. And,
while Hearst was offended by Welles' characterization of him, he was supposedly
more angered by Kane's unflattering portrayal of his beloved mistress, Marion
Davies (who is represented in the film by Susan Alexander). To add insult to
injury, "Rosebud" was allegedly Hearst's pet name for Marion's
private parts.
Kane
is not, however, all Hearst. There's more than a little Welles in the
character, and, when one examines the direction the film maker's life took
after Kane, the similarities become more obvious. After peaking with Kane,
Welles began an slow-but-inevitable descent into isolation, eventually dying of
a heart attack in 1985. Like Kane, he was a vital, passionate figure in youth,
but a sad, pathetic one at the end. (Who can forget the Paul Masson
commercials?) In retrospect, Kane can be viewed as being as much a
representation of Welles as of Hearst.
Back
in 1941, Hearst exerted his considerable power and influence to destroy Citizen
Kane before it opened. He failed, but, even though Kane saw the light of day,
Welles' young career (he was only 25 at the time) did not escape unscathed. A
smear campaign in Hearts' papers branded him as a communist. Kane, nominated
for nine Oscars, emerged with only one (best screenplay), and "boos"
could be heard whenever the film was mentioned during the ceremony. And, before
Welles had completed post-production, RKO wrested control of his next picture,
The Magnificent Ambersons, from him.
As
a film, Citizen Kane is a powerful dramatic tale about the uses and abuses of
wealth and power. It's a classic American tragedy about a man of great passion,
vision, and greed, who pushes himself until he brings ruins to himself and all
around him. Of course, the production aspect that makes Citizen Kane so
memorable is Greg Toland's landmark cinematography. In fact, it's impossible to
have a serious discussion about this film without mentioning this element.
The
movie is a visual masterpiece, a kaleidoscope of daring angles and breathtaking
images that had never been attempted before, and has never been equaled since.
Toland perfected a deep-focus technique that allowed him to photograph backgrounds
with as much clarity as foregrounds (note the scene where Kane's parents
discuss his future while, as seen through the window, the child plays outside
in the snow). There's also an extremely effective low-angle shot late in the
film where Kane trashes Susan's room. The cinematography documentary, Visions of
Light, devoted an entire section to Citizen Kane. If any other film has
come close to the nearly-perfect artistry of this one, I haven't seen it.
Anyone foolishly wondering how black-and-white images could be superior to
color needs only to watch the first few frames of Citizen Kane to understand.
Not only is it impossible to envision this picture in color, the very thought is
blasphemous.
There's
no doubt that Citizen Kane was far ahead of its time. Uncompromising,
unsentimental drama of this sort was not in vogue during an era that was better
known for titles like The Wizard
of Oz Gone with
the Wind, and How Green Was My Valley (which beat out Kane for best
picture). In challenging Hearst, Welles forced a clash of egos that had
wide-ranging repercussions. Yet, out of the conflict, Citizen Kane emerged
stronger than ever. Would the film be as compelling if we didn't know how close
it came to never being released? Or if we didn't recognize the parallels
between the life of the main character and that of the director?
All
of this brings me back to the question that I opened the review with: Is
Citizen Kane the best movie ever made? Many critics would argue "yes"
without pause, but my enthusiasm is more restrained. While I acknowledge that
Kane is a seminal masterpiece, I don't think it's the greatest motion picture
of all time. Even so, there's no denying the debt that the movie industry owes
to Welles and his debut feature. Motion picture archives and collections across
the world would be poorer without copies of this film, which will forever be
recognized as a defining example of American cinema.
©
1996 James Berardinelli
THE BATTLE OVER
CITIZEN KANE
It
was a clash of the titans. William Randolph Hearst, the lord and ruler of San
Simeon. And Orson Welles, the ambitious young man with a golden touch, who set
out to dethrone him. It was a fight from which neither man ever fully
recovered.
Long before Orson Welles' Citizen Kane was
released in 1941, there was a buzz about the movie and the "boy
genius" who made it. At a preview screening, nearly everyone present
realized that they had seen a work of brilliance--except Hedda Hopper, the
leading gossip columnist of the day. She hated the movie, calling it "a
vicious and irresponsible attack on a great man."
Citizen Kane was a brutal portrait of newspaper magnate William
Randolph Hearst. When Hearst learned through Hopper of Welles' film, he set out
to protect his reputation by shutting the film down. Hollywood executives, led
by Louis B. Mayer, rallied around Hearst, attempting to buy Citizen Kane
in order to burn the negative. At the same time, Hearst's defenders moved to
intimidate exhibitors into refusing to show the movie. Threats of blackmail,
smears in the newspapers, and FBI investigations were used in the effort.
Hearst's campaign was largely successful. It would
be nearly a quarter-century before Citizen Kane was revived--before
Welles would gain popular recognition for having created one of cinema's great
masterpieces.
"Hearst and Welles were proud, gifted, and
destructive--geniuses each in his way," says producer Thomas Lennon.
"The
Orson Welles was just twenty-four when he took aim
at William Randolph Hearst. The brash upstart was well on his way to claiming
Hollywood as his own. A few years earlier, his infamous radio broadcast, War of
the Worlds, had terrified listeners and won him the sweetest contract Hollywood
had ever seen. With a reputation as a gifted radio and theater director,
Welles' arrogance was founded on a track record of success and a lifetime of
encouragement.
"Everybody told me from the moment I could hear
that I was absolutely marvelous," Welles once told an interviewer.
"We had a crime story that was going to be
featured in a 96-point headline on page one," remembers Vern Whaley, an editor
for Hearst's Herald-Examiner. "When I found the address that was in the
story, that address was a vacant lot. So I hollered over at the rewrite desk, I
said, 'You got the wrong address in this story. This is a vacant lot.' The copy
chief that night was a guy named Vic Barnes. And he says, 'Sit down, Vern.' He
says, 'The whole story's a fake.'"
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., remembers his father asking
Hearst why he preferred concentrating on newspapers, with their limited,
regional appeal, rather than spending more energy on motion pictures and their
worldwide audience. Fairbanks recalls Hearst's reply: "I thought of it,
but I decided against it. Because you can crush a man with journalism, and you
can't with motion pictures."
Hearst began his empire with one small newspaper in
San Francisco, then expanded to New York where, with flair and daring, he
created the top selling of the city's fourteen newspapers. But he always wanted
more, and eventually he controlled the first nationwide chain--with papers in Chicago,
Los Angeles, Boston, and Atlanta. Soon, an estimated one in five Americans was
reading a Hearst paper every week.
Hearst's urge to acquire extended to art objects,
mansions, and women. He owned eight homes, each stocked with priceless antiques
and works of art, but spent most of his time in his California castle. Called
San Simeon, the estate was on a piece of property nearly half the size of Rhode
Island. George Bernard Shaw commented, "San Simeon was the place God would
have built--if he had the money." Hearst's companion was Marion Davies, a
showgirl whom he loved and propelled into Hollywood movies. Together they
entertained Hollywood's biggest, best, and brightest; San Simeon became a
social mecca for the stars.
Marion Davies was widely liked in Hollywood:
straightforward, full of humor and charm. The battle over Citizen Kane
was in large part a fight over her honor: It was said that Welles's treatment
of Davies riled Hearst more than any other aspect of the film. Even Welles
agreed that Susan Alexander, the Davies character, was unfair:
"We had somebody very different in the place of
Marion Davies. And it seemed to me to be something of a dirty trick, and does
still strike me as being something of a dirty trick, what we did to her. And I
anticipated the trouble from Hearst for that reason."
Never one to shy away from trouble, Welles built his
career on a streak of controversial productions--the more upset and swirl he
could create, the better. His production of Macbeth was set in Haiti and
employed an all-black cast...his Julius Caesar was reimagined as a
contemporary drama about facism...and finally, his radio staging of War of
the Worlds, about Martians invading Earth, caused so much terror and uproar
it might have ended his career. But his talent and ferocious energy seemed to
lift him above the fray, delivering him unscathed to his next challenge. When
he graced the cover of Time magazine, he was only twenty-three years
old.
Welles was the talk of Hollywood when he arrived.
His contract demanded two films, but Welles demanded they be revolutionary. He
cast about for months for a project, presenting two ideas to the studio,
neither of which went into production. With the pressure mounting, Welles was
desperate. "He did a lot of drinking," says Bill Alland, Welles'
longtime associate. "He did a lot of chasing around. But he also did a lot
of work." When Herman Mankiewicz, a Hollywood writer and friend of Welles
who had been a guest at San Simeon, proposed the story of Hearst, Welles seized
on the idea as his last best chance.
Producer John Houseman, who worked with Mankiewicz
on the Citizen Kane script, recalls the creation and evolution of
Charles Foster Kane, the character modeled on Hearst, which Welles himself
would play. "We were creating a vehicle suited to a man who, at
twenty-four, was only slightly less fabulous than the hero he would be
portraying. And the deeper we penetrated into the heart of Charles Foster Kane,
the closer we seemed to come to the identity of Orson Welles."
But in the course of making Citizen Kane,
Welles' huge ego and his youth would blind him to the extent of Hearst's power
and reach; he tragically underestimated Hearst's ability to counterattack.
Indeed, Welles proved no match for the old man.
Hearst threatened to expose long-buried Hollywood scandals his newspapers had
suppressed at the request of the studios. His papers used Welles' private life
against him, making blunt references to communism and questioning Welles'
willingness to fight for his country. Major theater chains refused to carry Citizen
Kane. Hearst's campaign to discredit Welles was ruthless, skillful, and
much aided by Welles himself, who had never bothered to hide his contempt for
Hollywood. When Welles' name and his film were mentioned at the 1942 Academy
Awards, they were booed. Nominated for nine awards, Citizen Kane lost in
every category except one. (Welles shared the award for best screenplay with
Herman Mankiewicz.) After the Academy's repudiation of Citizen Kane, RKO
quietly retired the film to its vault.
Citizen Kane was an American saga about a giant who brings ruin
to all, including himself. As fate would have it, it is through this film that
both men are remembered today. In telling the tale of these two flawed and
fascinating men, The Battle over Citizen Kane also sheds light on the
masterpiece over which they fought, the fiction that fuses them both: the
enduring film character of Charles Foster Kane.
Mr. Cowlin here again. Your task this week? In a thoughtful, thorough, multi-paragraph, two-page essay answer the following question:
Regardless of whether or not you actually liked Citizen Kane,
and taking into account some of the information you learned from above,
and taking into account some of the information you learned from above,
can you honestly argue that it wasn't the greatest film
we've viewed in class this semester?
Do not post your answer in the comments below. Include a few cited quotations from the above articles (with which you may either agree or disagree.) Hand in your essay on Monday. To review, here's a list of the films we've seen this semester:
- Psycho
- The Great Train Robbery
- High Noon
- No Country for Old Men
- Yojimbo
- House of Flying Daggers
- Jaws
- One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
- Blade Runner
- Memento
- The Maltese Falcon
- Le Jetee
- Fantastic Planet
- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
- Triplets of Belleville
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