Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. It was released by RKO Pictures, and was Welles's first feature film. The film was nominated for Academy Awards in nine categories; it won an Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay) by Herman Mankiewicz and Welles. Citizen Kane has been voted the greatest film of all time in each of the last five Sight & Sound's polls of critics,[3] and is particularly praised for its innovative cinematography, music, and narrative structure.
The story is a film à clef that examines the life and legacy of Charles Foster Kane, played by Welles, a character based in part upon the American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst,[4] Chicago tycoons Samuel Insull and Harold McCormick,[5] and aspects of Welles's own life.[6] Upon its release, Hearst prohibited mention of the film in any of his newspapers. Kane's career in the publishing world is born of idealistic social service, but gradually evolves into a ruthless pursuit of power. Narrated principally through flashbacks, the story is revealed through the research of a newsreel reporter seeking to solve the mystery of the newspaper magnate's dying word: "Rosebud".
After his success in the theatre with his Mercury Players and his controversial 1938 radio broadcast of War of the Worlds, Welles was courted by Hollywood. He signed a contract with RKO Pictures in 1939. Unusual for an untried director, he was given the freedom to develop his own story and use his own cast and crew, and was given final cut privilege. Following two abortive attempts to get a project off the ground, he developed the screenplay of Citizen Kane with Herman Mankiewicz. Principal photography took place in 1940 and the film received its American release in 1941.
A critical success, Citizen Kane failed to recoup its costs at the box office. The film faded from view soon after but its reputation was restored, initially by French critics and more widely after its American revival in 1956. Many film critics consider Citizen Kane to be the greatest film ever made,[7] which has led Roger Ebert to quip: "So it's settled: Citizen Kane is the official greatest film of all time."[8] In addition to the Sight & Sound polls, it topped the AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies list and its 10th Anniversary Update.
The film was released on Blu-ray disc September 13, 2011, for a special 70th anniversary edition.[9]
Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles), an enormously wealthy media proprietor, has been living alone in Florida in his vast palatial estate Xanadu for the last years of his life, with a "No trespassing" sign on the gate. He dies in a bed while holding a snow globe and utters "Rosebud..."; the globe slips from his dying hand and smashes. Kane's death then becomes sensational news around the world. Newsreel reporter Jerry Thompson (William Alland) tries to find out about Kane's private life and, in particular, to discover the meaning behind his last word. The reporter interviews the great man's friends and associates, and Kane's story unfolds as a series of flashbacks. Thompson approaches Kane's second wife, Susan Alexander (Dorothy Comingore), now an alcoholic who runs her own club, but she refuses to tell him anything. Thompson then goes to the private archive of Walter Parks Thatcher (George Coulouris), a deceased banker who served as Kane's guardian during his childhood and adolescence. It is through Thatcher's written memoirs that Thompson learns about Kane's childhood. Thompson then interviews Kane's personal business manager Mr. Bernstein (Everett Sloane), best friend Jedediah Leland (Joseph Cotten), Susan for a second time, and Kane's butler Raymond (Paul Stewart) at Xanadu.
Flashbacks reveal that Kane's childhood was spent in poverty in Colorado (his parents ran a boarding house), until the "world's third largest gold mine" was discovered on the seemingly worthless property his mother had acquired. He is forced to leave his mother (Agnes Moorehead) when she sends him away to the East Coast of the U.S. to live with Thatcher, to be educated. After gaining full control over his possessions at the age of 25, Kane enters the newspaper business with sensationalized yellow journalism. He takes control of the newspaper, the New York Inquirer, and hires all the best journalists. His attempted rise to power is documented, including his manipulation of public opinion for the Spanish American War; his first marriage to Emily Monroe Norton (Ruth Warrick), a President's niece; and his campaign for the office of governor of New York State, for which alternative newspaper headlines are created depending on the result.
Kane's marriage disintegrates over the years, and he begins an affair with Susan Alexander. Both his wife and his opponent discover the affair, simultaneously ending his marriage and his political career. Kane marries his mistress, and forces her into an operatic career for which she has no talent or ambition. Kane finally allows her to abandon her singing career after she attempts suicide, but after a span of time spent in boredom and isolation in Xanadu, she ultimately leaves him.
Kane spends his last years building his vast estate and lives alone, interacting only with his staff. The butler recounts that Kane had said "Rosebud" after Susan left him, right after seeing a snow globe.
At Xanadu, Kane's vast number of belongings are being catalogued, ranging from priceless works of art to worthless furniture. During this time, Thompson finds that he is unable to solve the mystery and concludes that "Rosebud" will forever remain an enigma. He theorizes that "Mr. Kane was a man who got everything he wanted, and then lost it. Maybe Rosebud was something he couldn't get, or something he lost." In the ending of the film, it is revealed to the audience that Rosebud was the name of the sled from Kane's childhood – an allusion to the only time in his life when he was truly happy. The sled, thought to be junk, is burned and destroyed in a basement furnace by Xanadu's departing staff.
- Orson Welles as Charles Foster Kane: the titular "Citizen Kane"; a wealthy, megalomaniacal newspaper publisher whose life is the subject of the movie.
- William Alland as Jerry Thompson: the reporter in charge of finding out the meaning of Kane's last word, "Rosebud". Thompson is seen only in shadow or with his back turned to the camera.
- Ray Collins as Jim W. Gettys: Kane's political rival and the incumbent governor of New York. Kane appears to be the frontrunner in the campaign, but Gettys exposes Kane's relationship with Susan Alexander which leads to his defeat.
- Dorothy Comingore as Susan Alexander Kane: Kane's mistress, who later becomes his second wife.
- Joseph Cotten as Jedediah Leland: Kane's best friend and the first reporter on Kane's paper. Leland continues to work for Kane as his empire grows, although they grow apart over the years. Kane fires Leland after he writes a bad review of Susan Alexander Kane's operatic debut.
- George Coulouris as Walter Parks Thatcher: a miserly banker who becomes Kane's legal guardian.
- Agnes Moorehead as Mary Kane: Kane's mother.
- Harry Shannon as Jim Kane: Kane's father.
- Everett Sloane as Mr. Bernstein: Kane's friend and employee who remains loyal to him to the end. According to RKO records, Sloane was paid $2400 for shaving his head.[2]
- Ruth Warrick as Emily Monroe Norton Kane: Kane's first wife and the niece of the President. She leaves him after discovering his affair with Susan Alexander. She dies in a car accident along with their only child, a son, a few years later.
- Paul Stewart as Raymond: Kane's cynical butler who assists him in his later years. Stewart had discovered Welles when he was a radio producer.[10]
The film's closing credits read, "Most of the principal actors are new to motion pictures. The Mercury Theatre is proud to introduce them."[2] Welles along with his partner John Houseman had assembled them into a group known as the Mercury Players to perform his productions in the Mercury Theatre in 1937. After accepting his Hollywood contract in 1939, Welles worked between Los Angeles and New York where the Mercury Theatre continued their weekly radio broadcasts for The Campbell Playhouse.[13] Welles had wanted all the Mercury Players to debut in his first film, but the cancellation of The Heart of Darkness project in December 1939 created a financial crisis for the group and some of the actors worked elsewhere.[13] This caused friction between Welles and Houseman, and their partnership ended.[13]
RKO executives were dismayed that so many of the major roles went to unknowns, but Welles's contract left them with no say in the matter. The film features debuts from William Alland, Agnes Moorehead, Everett Sloane, Ruth Warrick and Welles himself. An uncredited Alan Ladd appears as one of the newspaper reporters.
Orson Welles's notoriety following The War of the Worlds broadcast earned him Hollywood's interest, and RKO studio head George J. Schaefer's unusual contract.[14] Welles made a deal with Schaefer on July 21, 1939, to produce, direct, write, and act in two feature films.[15]:1 The studio had to approve the story and the budget if it exceeded $500,000. Welles was allowed to develop the story without interference, cast his own actors and crew members, and have the privilege of final cut – unheard of at the time for a first-time director.[15]:1 He had spent the first five months of his RKO contract trying to get several projects going with no success. The Hollywood Reporter said, "They are laying bets over on the RKO lot that the Orson Welles deal will end up without Orson ever doing a picture there."[15]:15 First, Welles tried to adapt Heart of Darkness, but there was concern over the idea of depicting it entirely with point of view shots. Welles considered adapting Cecil Day-Lewis' novel The Smiler With The Knife, but realized that to challenge himself with a new medium, he had to write an original story.[16]
Screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz was recuperating from a car accident and in-between jobs. He had originally been hired by Welles to work on The Campbell Playhouse radio program and was available to work on the screenplay for Welles's film. The writer had only received two screenplay credits between 1935 and his work on Citizen Kane and needed the job.[15]:16 There is dispute amongst historians regarding whose idea it was to use William Randolph Hearst as the basis for Charles Foster Kane. Welles claimed it was his idea while film critic Pauline Kael (in her 1971 essay "Raising Kane"[17]) and Welles's former business partner John Houseman claim that it was Mankiewicz's idea.[15]:17 For some time, Mankiewicz had wanted to write a screenplay about a public figure – perhaps a gangster – whose story would be told by the people that knew him.[18]
Mankiewicz had already written an unperformed play about John Dillinger entitled The Tree Will Grow. Welles liked the idea of multiple viewpoints but was not interested in playing Dillinger. Mankiewicz and Welles talked about picking someone else to use a model. They hit on the idea of using Hearst as their central character.[18] Mankiewicz had frequented Hearst's parties until his alcoholism got him barred. The writer resented this and became obsessed with Hearst and Marion Davies.[18] Hearst had great influence and the power to retaliate within Hollywood so Welles had Mankiewicz work on the script outside of the city. Because of the writer's drinking problem, Houseman went along to provide assistance and make sure that he stayed focused.[15]:17 Welles also sought inspiration from Howard Hughes and Samuel Insull (who built an opera house for his wife). Although Mankiewicz and Houseman got on well with Welles, they incorporated some of his traits into Kane, such as his temper.[16]
During production, Citizen Kane was referred to as RKO 281. Most of the filming took place between June 29, 1940 and October 23, 1940 in what is now Stage 19 on the Paramount lot in Hollywood. There was some location filming with Balboa Park in San Diego[19] and San Diego Zoo[citation needed]; and still photographs of Oheka Castle in Huntington, New York were used in the opening montage representing Kane's Xanadu estate.[20][21] Welles prevented studio executives of RKO from visiting the set. He understood their desire to control projects and he knew they were expecting him to do an exciting film that would correspond to his The War of the Worlds radio broadcast. Welles's RKO contract had given him complete control over the production of the film when he signed on with the studio, something that he never again was allowed to exercise when making motion pictures. According to an RKO cost sheet from May 1942, the film cost $839,727 compared to an estimated budget of $723,800.[2]
Welles ran a closed set, limited access to rushes and managed the publicity of Kane to make sure that its influence from Hearst's life was a secret.[15]:111 Publicity materials stated the film's inspiration was Faust.[16] RKO hoped to release the film in mid-February 1941. Writers for national magazines had early deadlines and so a rough cut was previewed for a select few on January 3, 1941. Friday magazine ran an article drawing point-by-point comparisons between Kane and Hearst and documented how Welles had led on Louella Parsons, Hollywood correspondent for Hearst papers, and made a fool of her in public. Reportedly, she was furious and demanded an immediate preview of the film. James Stewart, who was present at the screening, said that she walked out of the film. Soon after, Parsons called George Schaefer and threatened RKO with a lawsuit if they released Kane.[15]:111 The next day, the front page headline in Daily Variety read, "HEARST BANS RKO FROM PAPERS."[22] In two weeks, the ban was lifted for everything except Kane.[15]:111
The Hollywood Reporter ran a front-page story on January 13 that Hearst papers were about to run a series of editorials attacking Hollywood's practice of hiring refugees and immigrants for jobs that could be done by Americans. The goal was to put pressure on the other studios in order to force RKO to shelve Kane.[15]:111 Soon afterwards, Schaefer was approached by Nicholas Scheck, head of MGM's parent company, with an offer on the behalf of Louis B. Mayer and other Hollywood executives to reimburse RKO if it would destroy the film.[15]:111–112 Once RKO's legal team reassured Schaefer, the studio announced on January 21 that Kane would be released as scheduled and with one of the largest promotional campaigns in the studio's history. Schaefer brought Welles to New York City for a private screening of the film with the New York corporate heads of the studios and their lawyers.[15]:112 There was no objection to its release provided that certain changes, including the removal or softening of specific references that might offend Hearst, were made.[15]:112–113 Welles agreed and Wise[who?] was brought in to cut the film's running time from two hours, two minutes and 40 seconds to one hour, 59 minutes and 16 seconds. This cut of Kane satisfied the corporate lawyers.[15]:113
Richard Carringer, author of The Making of Citizen Kane (1985), described the early stages of the screenplay:
Welles's first step toward the realization of Citizen Kane was to seek the assistance of a screenwriting professional. Fortunately, help was near at hand. . . . When Welles moved to Hollywood, it happened that a veteran screenwriter, Herman Mankiewicz, was recuperating from an automobile accident and between jobs... Mankiewicz was an expatriate from Broadway who had been writing for films for almost fifteen years.[15]:16
However, according to film author Harlan Lebo, he was also "one of Hollywood's most notorious personalities."[23]:12 Mankiewicz was the older brother of producer-director Joseph Mankiewicz and was a former writer for The New Yorker and the New York Times and had moved to Hollywood in 1926. By the time Welles contacted him he had "established himself as a brilliant wit, a writer of extraordinary talent, [and] a warm friend to many of the screen world's brightest artists ... [he] produced dialogue of the highest caliber."[23]:12 Yet Mankiewicz's behavior, according to Welles's close friend and associate John Houseman, was also a "public and private scandal. A neurotic and homophobic drinker and compulsive gambler..." Houseman adds, however, "that he was also one of the most intelligent, informed, witty, humane and charming men I have ever known."[23]:12 Despite those apparent contradictions in his personality, Welles "recognized the writer's abilities and trusted him to produce", wrote Lebo.[23]
Speaking with Peter Bogdanovich in February 1969, Orson Welles said, "Nobody was more miserable, more bitter, and funnier than Mank ... a perfect monument of self-destruction. But, you know, when the bitterness wasn't focused straight at you, he was the best company in the world." When Bogdanovich asked how important Mankiewicz was to the Citizen Kane script, Welles responded, "Mankiewicz's contribution? It was enormous."[24]:52–53
According to film historian Clinton Heylin, "the idea of Citizen Kane was the original conception of Orson Welles, who in early 1940 first discussed the idea with John Houseman, who then suggested that both he and Welles leave for Los Angeles and discuss the idea with scriptwriter Herman Mankiewicz. He adds that Mankiewicz "probably believed that Welles had little experience as an original scriptwriter...[and] may even have felt that John Citizen USA, Welles's working title, was a project he could make his own."[25]:43 Orson Welles said that his preparation before making Citizen Kane was to watch John Ford's Stagecoach forty times.[26]
Still incapacitated with a broken leg, Mankiewicz was happy to work with Welles, and an "alliance" formed, noted Houseman. This combination of a "brash new director, a nervous studio, and an erratic genius" gave birth to Citizen Kane, in what Houseman called, "an absurd venture."[23]:14
Houseman recalled that Mankiewicz, during his convalescence, had "revived a long-simmering idea of creating a film biography in which a man's life would be brought to the screen after his death through the memories and opinions of the people who knew him best." And Welles himself had ideas that meshed with that concept, as he described in a 1969 interview in the book, This is Orson Welles:
I'd been nursing an old notion – the idea of telling the same thing several times – and showing exactly the same thing from wholly different points of view. Basically, the idea Rashomon used later on. Mank liked it, so we started searching for the man it was going to be about. Some big American figure – couldn't be a politician, because you'd have to pinpoint him. Howard Hughes was the first idea. But we got pretty quickly to the press lords.[24]:53
Welles then assigned Mankiewicz, writes Lebo, "to work on an original screenplay – not an adaptation as his first two projects would have been." Welles next traveled to New York and desperately "pleaded and persuaded Houseman to return to Los Angeles to manage Mankiewicz and his writing schedule."[23]
According to film critic and author Pauline Kael, Mankiewicz "was already caught up in the idea of a movie about Hearst" when he was still working at the New York Times, in 1925. She learned from his family's babysitter, Marion Fisher, that she once typed as "he dictated a screenplay, organized in flashbacks. She recalls that he had barely started on the dictation, which went on for several weeks, when she remarked that it seemed to be about William Randolph Hearst, and he said, 'You're a smart girl.'"[17]:35
In Hollywood, Mankiewicz had frequented Hearst's parties until his alcoholism got him barred.[18] And Hearst was also a person known to Welles. "Once that was decided", wrote author Don Kilbourne, "Mankiewicz, Welles, and John Houseman, a cofounder of the Mercury Theatre, rented a place in the desert, and the task of creating Citizen Kane began."[27]:221 This "place in the desert" was on the historic Verde ranch on the Mojave River in Victorville. In later years, Houseman gave Mankiewicz "total" credit for "the creation of Citizen Kane's script" and credited Welles with "the visual presentation of the picture."[23]:32
Mankiewicz was put under contract by Mercury Productions and was to receive no credit for his work as he was hired as a script doctor. According to his contract with RKO, Welles would be given sole screenplay credit, and had already written a rough script consisting of 300 pages of dialogue with occasional stage directions under the title of John Citizen, USA.[18]
Welles visiting Mankiewicz (center) in the California desert while in the process of writing
Citizen Kane. John Houseman (right) is holding a copy of the screenplay.
One of the long standing debates of Citizen Kane has been the proper accreditation of the authorship of the screenplay, which the credits attribute to both Herman J. Mankiewicz and Orson Welles. Mankiewicz biographer Richard Meryman notes that the dispute had various causes, including the way the movie was promoted. For instance, when RKO opened the movie on Broadway on May 1, 1941, followed by showings at theaters in other large cities, the publicity programs that were printed included photographs of Welles as "the one-man band, directing, acting, and writing." In a letter to his father afterward, Mankiewicz wrote, "I'm particularly furious at the incredibly insolent description of how Orson wrote his masterpiece. The fact is that there isn't one single line in the picture that wasn't in writing – writing from and by me – before ever a camera turned."[28]:270 Film historian Otto Friedrich said it made Mankiewicz "unhappy to hear Welles quoted in Louella Parsons's column, before the question of screen credits was officially settled, as saying, 'So I wrote Citizen Kane.'"[29]
Controversy over the authorship of the Citizen Kane screenplay was revived in 1971 by film critic Pauline Kael, whose essay, "Raising Kane," was printed in two installments in The New Yorker (February 20 and 27, 1971). According to Kael, Rita Alexander, Mankiewicz's personal secretary, stated that she "took the dictation from Mankiewicz from the first paragraph to the last ... and later did the final rewriting and the cuts, and handled the script at the studio until after the film was shot. ...[and said] Welles didn't write (or dictate) one line of the shooting script of Citizen Kane. She added that "Welles himself came to dinner once or twice...[and] she didn't meet him until after Mankiewicz had finished dictating the long first draft."[17]:38 However Welles had his own secretary, Katherine Trosper, who typed up Welles's suggestions and corrections, which were incorporated into the final script; Kael did not interview Trosper before producing her article.[30]
Nevertheless, Kael maintained that Mankiewicz went to the Writers Guild and declared that he was the original author. Welles later claimed that he planned on a joint credit all along, but Mankiewicz claimed that Welles offered him a bonus of ten thousand dollars if he would let Welles take full credit."[29] According to Pauline Kael, "he had ample proof of his authorship, and when he took his evidence to the Screen Writers Guild ... Welles was forced to split the credit and take second place in the listing."[17]:38 Charles Lederer, a screenwriter and a source for Kael's article, insisted that the credit never came to the Screen Writers Guild for arbitration.[31]
Kael argued that Mankiewicz was the true author of the screenplay and therefore responsible for much of what made the movie great. This angered many critics of the day, most notably critic-turned-filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich, a close friend of Welles who rebutted Kael's claims in an October 1972 article for Esquire titled "The Kane Mutiny." Other rebuttals included interviews with George Coulouris and Bernard Herrmann that appeared in Sight & Sound (Spring 1972), articles by Joseph McBride (Film Heritage, Fall 1971) and Jonathan Rosenbaum (Film Comment, Spring 1972 and Summer 1972), and remarks in Welles biographies by Barbara Leaming and Frank Brady. Rosenbaum also reviews the controversy in his editor's notes to This is Orson Welles (1992).[24]:494–501
Robert L. Carringer likewise rebutted Kael's conclusions in an article titled "The Scripts of Citizen Kane" for the Winter 1978 edition of Critical Enquiry. Carringer refers to early script drafts with Welles's incorporated handwritten contributions, and mentions the issues raised by Kael rested on the evidence of an early draft which was mostly written by Mankiewicz. However Carringer points out that subsequent drafts clarified Welles's contribution to the script:
Fortunately enough evidence to settle the matter has survived. A virtually complete set of script records for Citizen Kane has been preserved in the archives of RKO General Pictures in Hollywood, and these provide almost a day-to-day record of the history of the scripting...The full evidence reveals that Welles's contribution to the Citizen Kane script was not only substantial but definitive.
Carringer notes that Mankiewicz' principal contribution was on the first two drafts of the screenplay, which he characterizes as being more like "rough gatherings" than actual drafts. Houseman accompanied Mankiewicz so as to ensure that the latter's drinking problem did not affect the screenplay. The early drafts established "the plot logic and laid down the overall story contours, established the main characters, and provided numerous scenes and lines that would eventually appear in one form or another in the film."(The Scripts of Citizen Kane) However he also noted that Kane in the early draft remained a caricature of Hearst rather than the fully developed character of the final film. The main quality missing in the early drafts but present in the final film is "the stylistic wit and fluidity that is the most engaging trait of the film itself."(ibid)
According to film critic David Thomson, however, "No one can now deny Herman Mankiewicz credit for the germ, shape, and pointed language of the screenplay, but no one who has seen the film as often as it deserves to be seen would dream that Welles is not its only begetter."[32] Carringer considered that at least three scenes were solely Welles's work and, after weighing both sides of the argument, including sworn testimony from Mercury assistant Richard Baer, concluded, "We will probably never know for sure, but in any case Welles had at last found a subject with the right combination of monumentality, timeliness, and audacity."[15]:11 Harlan Lebo agrees, and adds, "of far greater relevance is reaffirming the importance of the efforts that both men contributed to the creation of Hollywood's greatest motion picture."[23]:32
Carringer notes that Citizen Kane was unusual in relation to his later films in that it was original material rather than adaptations of existing sources. He cites that Mankiewicz's main contribution was providing him with "what any good first writer ought to be able to provide in such a case: a solid, durable story structure on which to build." (ibid, '"The Scripts of Citizen Kane")
For his part, Welles stated the process of collaborating with Mankiewicz on the Citizen Kane screenplay in a letter to The Times (London), November 17, 1971:
The initial ideas for this film and its basic structure were the result of direct collaboration between us; after this we separated and there were two screenplays: one written by Mr. Mankiewicz, in Victorville, and the other, in Beverly Hills, by myself. ... The final version of the screenplay ... was drawn from both sources.[24]:500
In his 1982 chronicle of the studio, The RKO Story, scholar Richard B. Jewell concluded the following:
Besides producing, directing and playing the role of Kane, Welles deserved his co-authorship credit (with Herman J. Mankiewicz) on the screenplay. Film critic Pauline Kael argues otherwise in a 50,000 word essay on the subject, but her case against Welles is one-sided and unsupported by the facts.[33]
| “ |
William Randolph Hearst was born rich. He was the pampered son of an adoring mother. That is the decisive fact about him. Charles Foster Kane was born poor and was raised by a bank. |
” |
| |
|
Orson Welles as Charles Foster Kane
Orson Welles never confirmed a principal source for the character of Charles Foster Kane. It is believed that Kane is a synthesis of different personalities, although the main inspiration was the life of media tycoon William Randolph Hearst.[4] The film is commonly regarded as a fictionalized, unrelentingly hostile parody of Hearst, in spite of Welles's statement that "Citizen Kane is the story of a wholly fictitious character."[17]:42 According to film historian Don Kilbourne, "much of the information for Citizen Kane came from already-published material about Hearst... [and] some of Kane's speeches are almost verbatim copies of Hearst's. When Welles denied that the film was about the still-influential publisher, he did not convince many people."[27]:222
Hearst biographer David Nasaw finds the film's depiction of Hearst unfair:
Welles' Kane is a cartoon-like caricature of a man who is hollowed out on the inside, forlorn, defeated, solitary because he cannot command the total obedience, loyalty, devotion, and love of those around him. Hearst, to the contrary, never regarded himself as a failure, never recognized defeat, never stopped loving Marion [Davies] or his wife. He did not, at the end of his life, run away from the world to entomb himself in a vast, gloomy art-choked hermitage. Orson Welles may have been a great filmmaker, but he was neither a biographer nor a historian.[35]:574
Arguing for the release of Citizen Kane before the RKO board, Welles pointed out the irony that it was Hearst himself who had brought so much attention to the film being about him, and that it was his own columnist Louella Parsons who was doing the most to publicize Kane's identification with Hearst. Public denials aside, Welles held the view that Hearst was a public figure and that the facts of a public figure's life were available for writers to reshape and restructure into works of fiction. Welles's legal advisor Arnold Weissberger put the issue in the form of a rhetorical question: "Will a man be allowed in effect to copyright the story of his life?"[36]:210–211
One particular aspect of the character, Kane's profligate collecting of possessions, was directly taken from Hearst. "And it's very curious – a man who spends his entire life paying cash for objects he never looked at," Welles said. "He just acquired things, most of which were never opened, remained in boxes. It's really a quite accurate picture of Hearst to that extent."[24]:50 But Welles himself insisted that there were marked differences between his fictional creation and Hearst. He acknowledged that aspects of Kane were drawn from the lives of two business tycoons familiar from Welles's youth in Chicago — Samuel Insull and Harold Fowler McCormick.[5]
A financier closely associated with Thomas Edison, Samuel Insull (1859–1938) was a man of humble origins who became the most powerful figure in the utilities field.[37] He was married to a Broadway ingenue nearly 20 years his junior, and built the Chicago Civic Opera House. In 1925, after a 26-year absence, Gladys Wallis Insull returned to the stage in a charity revival of The School for Scandal that ran two weeks in Chicago.[38] When the performance was repeated on Broadway in October 1925, Herman Mankiewicz — then the third-string theatre critic for The New York Times — was assigned to review the production. In an incident that became infamous, Mankiewicz returned to the press room drunk and wrote only the first sentence of a negative review before passing out on his typewriter. Mankiewicz resurrected the experience in writing the screenplay for Citizen Kane, incorporating it into the narrative of Jedediah Leland.[28]:77–78
In 1926 Insull took a six-year lease on Chicago's Studebaker Theatre and financed a repertory company in which his wife starred. Gladys Insull's nerves broke when her company failed to find success, and the lease expired at the same time Insull's $3 billion financial empire collapsed in the Depression.[39][40] Like that of Charles Foster Kane, the life of Samuel Insull ended in bankruptcy and disgrace.
Like Kane, Harold McCormick was divorced by his aristocratic first wife, Edith Rockefeller, and lavishly promoted the opera career of his only modestly talented second wife, Ganna Walska.[24]:497
According to composer David Raksin, Bernard Herrmann used to say that much of Kane's story was based on McCormick, but that there was also a good deal of Orson Welles himself in the flamboyant character.[6] Welles lost his mother when he was nine years old and his father when he was 15. After this, he became the ward of Chicago's Dr. Maurice Bernstein. Bernstein is the last name of the only major character in Citizen Kane who receives a generally positive portrayal. Although Dr. Bernstein was nothing like the character in the film, Welles said, the use of the name "Bernstein" was a family joke. "I used to call people 'Bernstein' on the radio, all the time, too – just to make him laugh. ... Mank did all the best writing for Bernstein. I'd call that the most valuable thing he gave us."[24]:65–66
In Hollywood in 1940, Orson Welles invited longtime friend and Mercury Theatre colleague Joseph Cotten to be part of a small group reading the script aloud for the first time. They got together around the pool at the Beverly Hills home of Herman Mankiewicz, Cotten wrote:
"I think I'll just listen," Welles said. "The title of this movie is Citizen Kane, and I play guess who." He turned to me. "Why don't you think of yourself as Jedediah Leland? His name, by the way, is a combination of Jed Harris and your agent, Leland Hayward." "There all resemblance ceases," Herman reassured me. These afternoon garden readings continued, and as the Mercury actors began arriving, the story started to breathe.[41]
"I regard Leland with enormous affection," Orson Welles said to filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich.[24]:84 He told Bogdanovich that the character of Jed Leland was based on drama critic Ashton Stevens, George Stevens's uncle and a close boyhood friend of Welles:
What I knew about Hearst came more from him than from my father – though my father did know him well ... But Ashton had taught Hearst to play the banjo, which is how he first got to be a drama critic, and, you know, Ashton was really one of the great ones. The last of the dandies – he worked for Hearst for some 50 years or so, and adored him. A gentleman ... very much like Jed.[24]:66
Regarded as the dean of American drama critics, Ashton Stevens (1872–1951) began his journalism career in 1894 in San Francisco and started working for the Hearst newspapers three years later. In 1910 he moved to Chicago where he covered the theatre for 40 years and became a close friend of Orson Welles's guardian, Dr. Maurice Bernstein.[42]
Screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz incorporated an incident from his own early career as a New York Times theatre critic into the narrative of Jed Leland. Mankiewicz was assigned to review the October 1925 opening of The School for Scandal[43] — a production that marked the return of Gladys Wallis to the Broadway stage. A famous ingenue of the 1890s, Wallis had retired upon her marriage to Chicago utilities magnate Samuel Insull but was now, 26 years later, using her husband's fortune to form her own repertory company. After her opening-night performance in the role of Lady Teazle, drama critic Mankiewicz returned to the press room "full of fury and too many drinks," wrote biographer Richard Meryman:
He was outraged by the spectacle of a 56-year-old millionairess playing a gleeful 18-year-old, the whole production bought for her like a trinket by a man Herman knew to be an unscrupulous manipulator. Herman began to write: "Miss Gladys Wallis, an aging, hopelessly incompetent amateur, opened last night in..." Then Herman passed out, slumped over the top of his typewriter.[28]:77–78
The unconscious Mankiewicz was discovered by his boss, George S. Kaufman, who composed a terse announcement that the Times review would appear the following day.[44]
Mankiewicz resurrected the incident for Citizen Kane. After Kane's second wife makes her opera debut, critic Jed Leland returns to the press room drunk. He passes out over the top of his typewriter after writing the first sentence of his review: "Miss Susan Alexander, a pretty but hopelessly incompetent amateur..."
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It was a real man who built an opera house for the soprano of his choice, and much in the movie was borrowed from that story, but the man was not Hearst. Susan, Kane's second wife, is not even based on the real-life soprano. Like most fictional characters, Susan's resemblance to other fictional characters is quite startling. To Marion Davies she bears no resemblance at all. |
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The common assumption that the character of Susan Alexander was based on Marion Davies was a major reason William Randolph Hearst tried to destroy Citizen Kane.[45] In his foreword to Davies's autobiography, published posthumously in 1975, Orson Welles draws a sharp distinction between the real-life actress and his fictional creation:
That Susan was Kane's wife and Marion was Hearst's mistress is a difference more important than might be guessed in today's changed climate of opinion. The wife was a puppet and a prisoner; the mistress was never less than a princess. Hearst built more than one castle, and Marion was the hostess in all of them: they were pleasure domes indeed, and the Beautiful People of the day fought for invitations. Xanadu was a lonely fortress, and Susan was quite right to escape from it. The mistress was never one of Hearst's possessions: he was always her suitor, and she was the precious treasure of his heart for more than 30 years, until his last breath of life. Theirs is truly a love story. Love is not the subject of Citizen Kane.[34]
Welles cited Samuel Insull's building of the Chicago Opera House, and business tycoon Harold Fowler McCormick's lavish promotion of the opera career of his second wife, as direct influences on the screenplay.[46] McCormick divorced Edith Rockefeller and married aspiring opera singer Ganna Walska as her fourth husband. He spent thousands of dollars on voice lessons for her and even arranged for Walska to take the lead in a production of Zaza at the Chicago Opera in 1920. Contemporaries said Walska had a terrible voice; New York Times headlines of the day read, "Ganna Walska Fails as Butterfly: Voice Deserts Her Again When She Essays Role of Puccini's Heroine" (January 29, 1925), and "Mme. Walska Clings to Ambition to Sing" (July 14, 1927).
"According to her 1943 memoirs, Always Room at the Top, Walska had tried every sort of fashionable mumbo jumbo to conquer her nerves and salvage her voice," reported The New York Times in 1996. "Nothing worked. During a performance of Giordano's Fedora in Havana she veered so persistently off key that the audience pelted her with rotten vegetables. It was an event that Orson Welles remembered when he began concocting the character of the newspaper publisher's second wife for Citizen Kane.[47]
Charles Lederer, Marion Davies's nephew, read a draft of the script before filming began on Citizen Kane. "The script I read didn't have any flavor of Marion and Hearst," Lederer said. "Robert McCormick was the man it was about."[48] (Lederer confuses Walska's husband Harold F. McCormick with another member of the powerful Chicago family, one who also may also have inspired Welles – crusading publisher Robert R. McCormick of the Chicago Tribune.) Although there were things based on Marion Davies – jigsaw puzzles and drinking – Lederer noted that they were exaggerated in the film to help define the characterization of Susan Alexander.[24]:497–498
"As for Marion," Orson Welles said, "she was an extraordinary woman – nothing like the character Dorothy Comingore played in the movie."[24]:49
Movie tycoon Jules Brulatour's second and third wives, Dorothy Gibson and Hope Hampton, both fleeting stars of the silent screen who later had marginal careers in opera, are also believed to have provided inspiration for the Susan Alexander character.[citation needed]
The character of political boss Jim Gettys (Ray Collins) is based on Charles F. Murphy, a leader in New York City's infamous Tammany Hall political machine.[17]:61 William Randolph Hearst and Murphy were political allies in 1902, when Hearst was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, but the two fell out in 1905 when Hearst ran for mayor of New York. Hearst turned his muckraking newspapers on Tammany Hall in the person of Murphy, who was called "the most hungry, selfish and extortionate boss Tammany has ever known." Murphy ordered that under no condition was Hearst to be elected. Hearst ballots were dumped into the East River, and new ballots were printed favoring his opponent. Hearst was defeated by some 3,000 votes and his newspapers bellowed against the election fraud. A historic cartoon of Murphy in convict stripes appeared November 10, 1905, three days after the vote.[49] The caption read, "Look out, Murphy! It's a Short Lockstep from Delmonico's to Sing Sing … Every honest voter in New York wants to see you in this costume."[50]
In Citizen Kane, Boss Jim Gettys (named Edward Rogers in the shooting script) admonishes Kane for printing a cartoon showing him in prison stripes:
If I owned a newspaper and if I didn't like the way somebody else was doing things – some politician, say – I'd fight them with everything I had. Only I wouldn't show him in a convict suit with stripes — so his children could see the picture in the paper. Or his mother.
As he pursues Gettys down the stairs, Kane threatens to send him to Sing Sing.[51]
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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. |
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In This is Orson Welles, Welles credits the "Rosebud" device – the journalist's search for the enigmatic meaning of Kane's last word, the device that frames the film – to screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz. "Rosebud remained, because it was the only way we could find to get off, as they used to say in vaudeville," Welles said. "It manages to work, but I'm still not too keen about it, and I don't think that he was, either." The dialogue eventually reflects the screenwriters's desire to diminish the importance of the word's meaning; "We did everything we could to take the mickey out of it," Welles said.[24]:53
As he began his first draft of the Citizen Kane screenplay in early 1940, Mankiewicz mentioned "Rosebud" to his secretary. When she asked, "Who is rosebud?" he replied, "It isn't a who, it's an it." The symbol of Mankiewicz's own damaged childhood was a treasured bicycle, stolen while he visited the public library and, in punishment, never replaced.[53] "He mourned that all his life," wrote film critic Pauline Kael, who believed Mankiewicz put the emotion of that boyhood loss into the loss that haunted Kane.[17]:60
In his 2002 book Hearst Over Hollywood, Louis Pizzitola reports one historian's statement that "Rosebud" was a nickname given to William Randolph Hearst's mother by portrait and landscape painter Orrin Peck. The Peck family were intimates of the Hearsts, and Orrin Peck was said to be nearer to Phoebe Apperson Hearst than her own son.[54][55] Another theory of the origin of "Rosebud" is the similarity with the dying wish of Basil Zaharoff (who is one of the inspirations for the central character), to be wheeled "by the rosebush".[56]
In 1989, essayist Gore Vidal cited contemporary rumors that "Rosebud" was a nickname Hearst used for his mistress Marion Davies; a reference to her clitoris,[57][58] a claim repeated as fact in the 1996 documentary The Battle Over Citizen Kane and again in the 1999 dramatic film RKO 281. Film critic Roger Ebert has been a bit more specific than Vidal about the source, saying on his commentary track for the September 2001 DVD release that, "Some people have fallen in love with the story that Herman Mankiewicz, the co-author with Welles of the screenplay, happened to know that 'Rosebud" was William Randolph Hearst's pet name for an intimate part of Marion Davies' anatomy."[60]
Welles biographer Frank Brady traces the story to the popular press in the late 1970s:
How Orson (or Mankiewicz) could have ever discovered this most private utterance is unexplained and why it took over 35 years for such a suggestive rationale to emerge, although the origins of everything to do with Citizen Kane had continually been placed under literary and cinematic microscopes for decades, is also unknown. If this highly unlikely story is even partially true … Hearst may have become upset at the implied connotation, although any such connection seems to have been innocent on Welles's part. In any event, this bizarre explanation for the origin of one of the most famous words ever spoken on the screen has now made its way into serious studies of Welles and Citizen Kane.[61]
File:Citizen Kane deep focus.jpg
A deep focus shot: everything, including the hat in the foreground and the boy (young Kane) in the distance, is in sharp focus.
Film scholars and historians view Citizen Kane as Welles's attempt to create a new style of filmmaking by studying various forms of movie making, and combining them all into one. However, in an interview in March 1960 with the BBC's Huw Wheldon, Welles stated that his love for cinema began only when he started the work on Citizen Kane, and when asked where he got the confidence from as a first-time director to direct a film so radically different from contemporary cinema, he responded, "[From] ignorance...sheer ignorance. There is no confidence to equal it. It's only when you know something about a profession that you are timid or careful."[62][63]
The most innovative technical aspect of Citizen Kane is the extended use of deep focus.[64] In nearly every scene in the film, the foreground, background and everything in between are all in sharp focus. This was done by cinematographer Gregg Toland through his experimentation with lenses and lighting. Specifically, Toland often used telephoto lenses to shoot close-up scenes. Any time deep focus was impossible – for example in the scene when Kane finishes a bad review of Alexander's opera while at the same time firing the person who started the review – an optical printer was used to make the whole screen appear in focus (visually layering one piece of film onto another). However, some apparently deep-focus shots were the result of in-camera effects, as in the famous example of the scene where Kane breaks into Susan Alexander's room after her suicide attempt. In the background, Kane and another man break into the room, while simultaneously the medicine bottle and a glass with a spoon in it are in closeup in the foreground. The shot was an in-camera matte shot. The foreground was shot first, with the background dark. Then the background was lit, the foreground darkened, the film rewound, and the scene re-shot with the background action.
Another unorthodox method used in the film was the way low-angle shots were used to display a point of view facing upwards, thus allowing ceilings to be shown in the background of several scenes.[65] Since movies were primarily filmed on sound stages and not on location during the era of the Hollywood studio system, it was impossible to film at an angle that showed ceilings because the stages had none. In some instances, Welles's crew used muslin draped above the set to produce the illusion of a regular room with a ceiling, while the boom microphones were hidden above the cloth and even dug a trench into the floor to allow the low-angle shot to be used in the scene where Kane meets Leland after his election loss.[66]
Toland had approached Welles in 1940 to work on Citizen Kane. Welles's reputation for experimentation in the theatre appealed to Toland and he found a sympathetic partner to "test and prove several ideas generally being accepted as radical in Hollywood".[2] Welles credited Toland on the same card as himself. "It's impossible to say how much I owe to Gregg. He was superb," Welles said.[67]
Citizen Kane eschews the traditional linear, chronological narrative and tells Kane's story entirely in flashback using different points of view, many of them from Kane's aged and forgetful associates, the cinematic equivalent of the unreliable narrator in literature.[68] Welles also dispenses with the idea of a single storyteller and uses multiple narrators to recount Kane's life. The use of multiple narrators was unheard of in Hollywood movies.[68] Each narrator recounts a different part of Kane's life, with each story partly overlapping.[69] The film depicts Kane as an enigma, a complicated man who, in the end, leaves viewers with more questions than answers as to his character, such as the newsreel footage where he is attacked for being both a communist and a fascist.[68] The technique of using flashbacks had been used in earlier films such as Wuthering Heights in 1939 and The Power and the Glory in 1933 but no film was so immersed in this technique as Citizen Kane. The use of the reporter Thompson acts as a surrogate for the audience, questioning Kane's associates and piecing together his life.[69]
One of the narrative voices is the News on the March segment.[68] Its stilted dialogue and portentous voiceover is a parody of The March of Time newsreel series[70] which itself references an earlier newsreel which showed the 85-year old arms czar Sir Basil Zaharoff getting wheeled to his train. Welles had earlier provided voiceovers for the March of Time radio show. Citizen Kane makes extensive use of stock footage to create the newsreel.
One of the story-telling techniques used in Citizen Kane was the use of montage to collapse time and space. Using an episodic sequence on the same set while the characters changed costume and make-up between cuts so that the scene following each cut would look as if it took place in the same location, but at a time long after the previous cut. In the breakfast montage, Welles chronicles the breakdown of Kane's first marriage in 5 vignettes, which takes 16 years of story time and condenses it into two minutes of screen time.[71]
Welles also pioneered several visual effects in order to cheaply shoot things like crowd scenes and large interior spaces. For example, the scene where the camera in the opera house rises dramatically to the rafters to show the workmen showing a lack of appreciation for the second Mrs. Kane's performance was shot by a camera craning upwards over the performance scene, then a curtain wipe to a miniature of the upper regions of the house, and then another curtain wipe matching it again with the scene of the workmen. Other scenes effectively employed miniatures to make the film look much more expensive than it truly was, such as various shots of Xanadu. A loud, full-screen closeup of a typewriter typing a single word ("weak"), magnifies the review for the Chicago Inquirer.[72]
The make-up artist Maurice Seiderman created the make-up for the film.[14] RKO wanted the young Kane to look handsome and dashing, and Seiderman transformed the overweight Welles, beginning with his nose, which Welles always disliked. For the old Kane, Seiderman created a red plastic compound which he applied to Welles, allowing the wrinkles to move naturally.[14] Kane's mustache was made of several hair tufts. Transforming Welles into the old Kane required six to seven hours, meaning he had to start at two in the morning to begin filming at nine. He would hold conferences while sitting in the make-up chair; sometimes working 16 hours a day. Even breaking a leg during filming could not stop him from directing around the clock, and he quickly returned to acting, using a steel leg brace.[14]
Welles brought his experience with sound from radio along to filmmaking, producing a layered and complex soundtrack. In one scene, the elderly Kane strikes Susan in a tent on the beach, and the two characters silently glower at each other while a woman at the nearby party can be heard screaming in the background, conveying Susan's horror at being struck. Elsewhere, Welles skillfully employed reverberation to create a mood, such as the chilly echo of the monumental Thatcher library, where the reporter is confronted by an intimidating, officious librarian.
In addition to expanding on the potential of sound as a creator of moods and emotions, Welles pioneered a new aural technique, known as the "lightning-mix". Welles used this technique to link complex montage sequences via a series of related sounds or phrases. In offering a continuous sound track, Welles was able to join what would otherwise be extremely rough cuts together into a smooth narrative. For example, the audience witnesses Kane grow from a child into a young man in just two shots. As Kane's guardian hands him his sled, Kane begrudgingly wishes him a "Merry Christmas". Suddenly we are taken to a shot of his guardian fifteen years later, only to have the phrase completed for us: "and a Happy New Year". In this case, the continuity of the soundtrack, not the image, is what makes for a seamless narrative structure.[73]
Welles also carried over techniques from radio not yet popular in the movies (though they would become staples). Using a number of voices, each saying a sentence or sometimes merely a fragment of a sentence, and splicing the dialogue together in quick succession, the result gave the impression of a whole town talking – and, equally important, what the town was talking about. Welles also favored the overlapping of dialogue, considering it more realistic than the stage and movie tradition of characters not stepping on each other's sentences. He also pioneered the technique of putting the audio ahead of the visual in scene transitions (a J-cut); as a scene would come to a close, the audio would transition to the next scene before the visuals did.
In common with using personnel he had previously worked with in the Mercury Theatre, Welles recruited his close friend Bernard Herrmann to score Citizen Kane.[74] Herrmann was a longtime collaborator with Welles, providing music for almost all his radio broadcasts including The Fall of the City (1937) and the War of the Worlds (1938) broadcast.[75] The film was Herrmann's first motion picture score[74] and would be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score, but would lose out to his own score for the film All That Money Can Buy.[74]
Herrmann's score for Citizen Kane was a watershed in film soundtrack composition and proved as influential as any of the film's other innovations, establishing him as an important voice in film soundtrack composition.[6][75] The score eschewed the typical Hollywood practice of scoring a film with virtually non-stop music. Instead Herrmann used what he later described as '"radio scoring", musical cues which typically lasted between five and fifteen seconds to bridge the action or suggest a different emotional response. One of the most effective musical cues was the "Breakfast Montage." The scene begins with a graceful waltz theme and gets darker with each variation on that theme as the passage of time leads to the hardening of Kane's personality and the breakup of his marriage to Emily.[76]
Herrmann realized that musicians slated to play his music were hired for individual unique sessions; there was no need to write for existing ensembles. This meant that he was free to score for unusual combinations of instruments, even instruments that are not commonly heard. In the opening sequence, for example, the tour of Kane's estate Xanadu, Herrmann introduces a recurring leitmotiv played by low woodwinds, including a quartet of bass flutes.[75] Much of the music used in the newsreel was taken from other sources; examples include the News on the March music which was taken from RKO's music library, Belgian March by Anthony Collins, and accompanies the newsreel titles; and an excerpt from Alfred Newman's score for Gunga Din which is used as the background for the exploration of Xanadu.[75] In the final sequence of the film, which shows the destruction of Rosebud in the fireplace of Kane's castle, Welles choreographed the scene while he had Herrmann's cue playing on the set.[77]
For the operatic sequence which exposed Kane's protege Susan Alexander for the amateur she was, Herrmann composed a quasi-romantic scene, Aria from Salammbô.[6] There did exist two treatments of this work by Gustave Flaubert's 1862 novel, including an opera by Ernest Reyer and an incomplete treatment by Modeste Mussorgsky. However, Herrmann made no reference to existing music. Herrmann put the aria in a key that would force the singer to strain to reach the high notes, culminating in a high D, well outside the range of Susan Alexander.[6][75] Herrmann said he wanted to convey the impression of "a terrified girl floundering in the quicksand of a powerful orchestra".[6] On the soundtrack it was soprano Jean Forward who actually sang the vocal part for actress Dorothy Comingore.[6]
In 1972 Herrmann said "I was fortunate to start my career with a film like Citizen Kane, it's been a downhill run ever since!"[75] Shortly before his death in 1985, Welles told director Henry Jaglom that the score was fifty per cent responsible for the film's artistic success.[75]
Herrmann was vocal in his criticism of Pauline Kael's claim that it was Mankiewicz, not Welles, who made the main thrust of the film, and also her assertions about the use of music in the film without consulting him:
Pauline Kael has written in The Citizen Kane Book (1971), that the production wanted to use Massenet's "Thais" but could not afford the fee. But Miss Kael never wrote or approached me to ask about the music. We could easily have afforded the fee. The point is that its lovely little strings would not have served the emotional purpose of the film.[78]
Opera lovers are frequently amused by the parody of vocal coaching that appears in a singing lesson given to Susan Alexander by Signor Matiste. The character attempts to sing the famous cavatina "Una voce poco fa" from Il barbiere di Siviglia by Gioachino Rossini, but the lesson is interrupted when Alexander sings a high note flat.
An uncredited Nat King Cole is believed to provide the music in two key scenes in the film. He can be heard playing piano, but not singing, "This Can't Be Love" (actually sung by Alton Redd),[79] in the scene where Susan fights with Kane.[80] Welles heard him playing at a bar and created the scene around the song.[80]:28–29 Unconfirmed reports suggest he can also be heard playing in the scene where Thompson questions a down-at-heel Susan in the nightclub she works;[79] however, Bernard Herrmann denied any knowledge of this to musicologist David Meeker.[79]
Hearing about the film enraged Hearst so much that he banned any advertising, reviewing or mentioning of it in his papers, and had his journalists libel Welles. Following lobbying from Hearst, the head of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Louis B. Mayer, acting on behalf of the whole film industry, made an offer to RKO Pictures of $805,000 to destroy all prints of the film and burn the negative.[81] Welles used Hearst's opposition to Citizen Kane as a pretext for previewing the movie in several opinion-making screenings in Los Angeles, lobbying for its artistic worth against the hostile campaign that Hearst was waging.[81]
When George Schaefer of RKO rejected Hearst's offer to suppress the film, Hearst banned every newspaper and station in his media conglomerate from reviewing – or even mentioning – the movie. He also had many movie theaters ban it, and many did not show it through fear of being socially exposed by his massive newspaper empire.[82] The documentary The Battle Over Citizen Kane lays the blame for Citizen Kane's relative failure squarely at the feet of Hearst. The film did decent business at the box office; it went on to be the sixth highest grossing film in its year of release, a modest success its backers found acceptable. Nevertheless, the film's commercial performance fell short of its creators' expectations. In The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst, David Nasaw points out that Hearst's actions were not the only reason Kane failed, however: the innovations Welles made with narrative, as well as the dark message at the heart of the film (that the pursuit of success is ultimately futile) meant that a popular audience could not appreciate its merits.[35]:572–573
In a pair of Arena documentaries about Welles's career produced and broadcast domestically by the BBC in 1982, Welles claimed that during opening week, a policeman approached him one night and told him: "Do not go to your hotel room tonight; Hearst has set up an undressed, underage girl to leap into your arms when you enter and a photographer to take pictures of you. Hearst is planning to publish it in all of his papers." Welles thanked the man and stayed out all night. However, it is not confirmed whether this was true. Welles also described how he accidentally bumped into Hearst in an elevator at the Fairmont Hotel when Kane was opening in San Francisco. Welles's father had been friends with Hearst, so Welles tried to comfortably ask if Hearst would see the film. Hearst ignored him. "As he was getting off at his floor, I said 'Charles Foster Kane would have accepted.' No reply", recalled the director. "And Kane would have you know. That was his style."[16]
Although Hearst's efforts to suppress it damaged the film's success, they backfired in the long run, since almost every reference to Hearst's life and career made today typically includes a reference to the film's parallel to it. The irony of Hearst's efforts is that the film is now inexorably connected to him. This connection was reinforced by the publication in 1961 of W. A. Swanberg's extensive biography, Citizen Hearst.
Citizen Kane was to open at RKO's flagship theatre, Radio City Music Hall, but did not; a possible factor was Louella Parsons's threat that The American Weekly would run a defamatory story on the grandfather of major RKO stockholder Nelson Rockefeller.[15]:115 Other exhibitors feared retaliation and refused to handle the film. Schaefer lined up a few theaters but Welles grew impatient and threatened RKO with a lawsuit. Hearst papers refused to accept advertising for the film. Kane opened at the RKO Palace on Broadway in New York on May 1, 1941, in Chicago on May 6, and in Los Angeles on May 8.[15]:115 Kane did well in cities and larger towns but fared poorly in more remote areas. RKO still had problems getting exhibitors to show the film. For example, one chain controlling more than 500 theaters got Welles's film as part of a package but refused to play it, reportedly out of fear of Hearst.[15]:117 The Hearst newspapers's disruption of the film's release damaged its boxoffice performance and, as a result, Citizen Kane lost $160,000 during its initial run.[83]:164
The reviews for the film were overwhelmingly positive, although some reviewers were challenged by Welles's break with Hollywood traditions.[84] Kate Cameron, in her review for the New York Daily-News, said that Kane was "one of the most interesting and technically superior films that has ever come out of a Hollywood studio".[85] In his review for the New World Telegram, William Boehnel said that the film was "staggering and belongs at once among the greatest screen achievements".[86] Otis Ferguson, in his review for The New Republic, said that Kane was "the boldest free-hand stroke in major screen production since Griffith and Bitzer were running wild to unshackle the camera".[87] John O'Hara, in Newsweek, called it "the best picture he'd ever seen"[81] and Bosley Crowther writing in The New York Times wrote that "it comes close to being the most sensational film ever made in Hollywood".[81]
In a 1941 review, Jorge Luis Borges called Citizen Kane a "metaphysical detective story", in that "... [its] subject (both psychological and allegorical) is the investigation of a man's inner self, through the works he has wrought, the words he has spoken, the many lives he has ruined..." Borges noted that "Overwhelmingly, endlessly, Orson Welles shows fragments of the life of the man, Charles Foster Kane, and invites us to combine them and reconstruct him." As well, "Forms of multiplicity and incongruity abound in the film: the first scenes record the treasures amassed by Kane; in one of the last, a poor woman, luxuriant and suffering, plays with an enormous jigsaw puzzle on the floor of a palace that is also a museum." Borges points out, "At the end we realize that the fragments are not governed by a secret unity: the detested Charles Foster Kane is a simulacrum, a chaos of appearances."[88]
Citizen Kane, with nine nominations, was the 16th film to get more than six Academy Awards nominations.[89][90] It was nominated for the following awards:[91]
It was widely thought the film would win most of the awards it was nominated for, but it only won the Best Writing (Original Screenplay) Oscar.[15]:117
Film editor Robert Wise recalled each time Citizen Kane's name was called out as a nominee, the crowd booed.[4] Most of Hollywood did not want the film to see the light of day, considering the threats that William Randolph Hearst had made if it did. According to Variety, bloc voting against Welles by screen extras denied him Best Picture and Actor awards.[92] British film critic Barry Norman attributed this to Hearst's wrath.[14]
The National Board of Review gave 1941 "Best Acting" awards to Orson Welles and George Coulouris, and the film itself "Best Picture." That same year, the New York Times named it one of the Ten Best Films of the year, and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for "Best Picture" also went to Citizen Kane.[93]
By 1942 Citizen Kane had run its course theatrically and, apart from a few showings at big city arthouse cinemas, it largely vanished from America until 1956. In that period, Kane's and Welles's reputation fell among American critics. In 1949 critic Richard Griffith in his overview of cinema, The Film Till Now, dismissed Kane as "tinpot if not crackpot Freud."[15]:117–118
Due to World War II, Citizen Kane was little seen in Europe. It was not until 1946 that it was shown in France, where it gained considerable acclaim, particularly from film critics such as André Bazin and from Cahiers du cinéma writers, including future film directors François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. In his 1950 essay "The Evolution of Cinema", Bazin placed Citizen Kane centre stage as a work which ushered in a new period in cinema.[94]
In the United States, it was neglected and forgotten until its revival on television in the mid-1950s. Three key events in 1956 led to its re-evaluation in the United States. RKO was one of the first studios to sell its library to television and early that year Citizen Kane started to appear on television. Around the same time the film was re-released theatrically to coincide with Welles return to the New York stage where he played King Lear. That year American film critic Andrew Sarris wrote "Citizen Kane: The American Baroque" for Film Culture and described it as "the great American film,"[95] further enhancing the film's status. During the Expo 58, a poll of over 100 film historians named The Battleship Potemkin the greatest film ever made, while Kane was part of the top ten. When a group of young film directors cast their vote for their top six, they were booed at the announcement for not including the film.[16]
In the decades since, its critical status as one of the greatest films ever made has grown with numerous essays and books on it including influential books like Peter Cowie's The Cinema of Orson Welles, Ronald Gottesman's Focus on Citizen Kane, a collection of significant reviews and background pieces, and most notably Kael's essay, "Raising Kane", which promoted the value of the film to a much wider audience than it had reached before.[15]:120 Despite its criticism of Welles it further popularized the notion of Citizen Kane as the great American film. The rise of art house and film society circuits also aided in the film's rediscovery.[15]:119
The British magazine Sight & Sound has produced a Top Ten list surveying film critics every decade since 1952 and is regarded as one of the most respected barometers of critical taste.[96] Citizen Kane was a runner up to the top 10 in its 1952 poll but was voted as the greatest film ever made in its 1962 poll and[97] it has retained the top spot in every subsequent poll.[98][99]
The film has also ranked number one in the following film "best of" lists: Editorial Jaguar, FIAF Centenary List, France Critics Top 10, Cahiers du cinéma 100 films pour une cinémathèque idéale,[100] Kinovedcheskie Russia Top 10, Romanian Critics Top 10, Time Out Magazine Greatest Films, and Village Voice 100 Greatest Films. Roger Ebert called Citizen Kane the greatest movie ever made: "But people don't always ask about the greatest film. They ask, 'What's your favorite movie?' Again, I always answer with Citizen Kane."[8]
In 1989, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.[101]
The film currently has a 100% rating at Rotten Tomatoes, based on 60 reviews.[102]
American Film Institute recognition
Despite its status as a revered classic, Citizen Kane is not entirely without its critics. Boston University film scholar Ray Carney, although noting its technical achievements, criticized what he saw as the film's lack of emotional depth, shallow characterization and empty metaphors. Listing it among the most overrated works within the film community, he accused the film of being "an all-American triumph of style over substance."[104] The Swedish director Ingmar Bergman once stated his dislike for the movie, calling it "a total bore" and claiming that the "performances are worthless." He went on to call Orson Welles an "infinitely overrated filmmaker."[105]
Similarly, James Agate wrote, "I thought the photography quite good, but nothing to write to Moscow about, the acting middling, and the whole thing a little dull...Mr. Welles's high-brow direction is of that super-clever order which prevents you from seeing what that which is being directed is all about."[106]
Despite the critical success of Citizen Kane it nevertheless marked a decline in Welles's fortunes. In the book Whatever Happened to Orson Welles?, Joseph McBride argues that the problems in making Citizen Kane caused lasting damage to his career. The damage started with RKO violating its contract with him by taking his next film The Magnificent Ambersons away from him and adding a happy ending against his will.[16] Hollywood's treatment of Welles and his work ultimately led to his self-imposed exile in Europe for much of the rest of his career where he found a more sympathetic audience.
The documentary The Battle Over Citizen Kane posits that Welles's own life story resembled that of Kane far more than Hearst's: an overreaching wunderkind who ended up mournful and lonely in his old age. Citizen Kane's editor Robert Wise summarized: "Well, I thought often afterwards, only in recent years when I saw the film again two or three years ago when they had the fiftieth anniversary, and I suddenly thought to myself, well, Orson was doing an autobiographical film and didn't realize it, because it's rather much the same, you know. You start here, and you have a big rise and tremendous prominence and fame and success and whatnot, and then tail off and tail off and tail off. And at least the arc of the two lives were very much the same..."[4]
Peter Bogdanovich, who was friends with Welles in his later years, disagreed with this on his own commentary on the Citizen Kane DVD, saying that Kane was nothing like Welles. Kane, he said, "had none of the qualities of an artist, Orson had all the qualities of an artist." Bogdanovich also noted that Welles was never bitter "about all the bad things that happened to him", and was a man who enjoyed life in his final years. In addition, critics have reassessed Welles’ career after his death, saying that he wasn’t a failed Hollywood filmmaker, but a successful independent filmmaker.[107]
Film critic Kim Newman believed the film's influence was visible in the film noir that followed, as well as the 1942 Hepburn-Tracy film Keeper of the Flame. Film directors Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Michael Mann, Ridley Scott, Francis Ford Coppola, Bryan Singer, Stephen Frears, Brian De Palma, John Frankenheimer, the Coen brothers, Sergio Leone and Luc Besson are all fans of Citizen Kane and it influenced their work.[citation needed]
The film's structure influenced the biographical films Lawrence of Arabia and Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters – which begin with the subject's death and show their life in flashbacks – as well as Welles's thriller Mr. Arkadin.[16]
The film, for its topic of mass media manipulation of public opinion, is also famous for having been frequently presented as the perfect example to demonstrate the power that media have on a society in influencing the democratic process. This exemplary citation of the film lasted till the end of the 20th century, when the paradigm of mass media depicted in Citizen Kane needed to be updated to take into account more globalized and more internet-based media scenarios. Since the film was based on William Randolph Hearst's actions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, that model of media influence lasted for almost a century.[108] Media mogul Rupert Murdoch is sometimes labeled as a latter-day Citizen Kane.[109][110]
In 1955, RKO sold the American television rights to its film library, including Citizen Kane, to C&C Television Corp.[111] TV rights to the pre-1956 RKO library were acquired by United Artists in 1960. RKO kept the non-broadcast TV rights to its library and formed RKO Home Video in 1984.[112] They reissued the film in 1985 on VHS and Beta,[113] but sold the laserdisc video rights to Citizen Kane (along with King Kong) to The Criterion Collection in 1984. Turner Broadcasting System acquired broadcast TV rights to the library when it acquired MGM/UA in 1986.[114] Unable to sustain the debt load, Turner split up MGM/UA and kept the MGM film library including American TV rights to the RKO library.[115] Turner acquired full global rights to the RKO library outright in 1987[116] The RKO Home Video unit was reorganized into Turner Home Entertainment that year.[117] For the film's 50th anniversary in 1991, Turner Entertainment utilized Paramount Pictures as its distributor for the film's re-release to theaters.[118] In 1996, Time Warner acquired Turner and Warner Home Video absorbed Turner Home Entertainment.[119] Today, Time Warner's Warner Bros. unit has distribution rights for Citizen Kane.[1]
The composited camera negative of Citizen Kane was destroyed in a New Jersey film laboratory fire in the 1970s. Subsequent prints were ultimately derived from a master positive (a fine-grain preservation element) made in the 1940s and originally intended for use in overseas distribution.[120] Fortunately, the sound track had not been lost.
Modern techniques were used to produce a pristine print for a 50th Anniversary theatrical revival reissue in 1991 (released by Paramount Pictures). The 2003 British DVD edition is taken from an interpositive held by the British Film Institute. The current US DVD version (released by Warner Home Video) is taken from another digital restoration, supervised by Turner's company.[citation needed] The transfer to Region 1 DVD has been criticized by some film experts for being too bright. Also, in the scene in Bernstein's office (chapter 10), rain falling outside the window has been digitally erased, probably because it was thought to be excessive film grain. These alterations are not present in the UK Region 2, which is also considered to be more accurate in terms of contrast and brightness.
In 2003, Orson Welles's daughter Beatrice sued Turner Entertainment and RKO Pictures, claiming that the Welles estate is the legal copyright holder of the film. Her attorney said that Orson Welles had left RKO with an exit deal terminating his contracts with the studio, meaning that Welles still had an interest in the film and his previous contract giving the studio the copyright of the film was null and void. Beatrice Welles also claimed that, if the courts did not uphold her claim of copyright, RKO nevertheless owed the estate 20% of the profits, from a previous contract which has not been lived up to.
On May 30, 2007, the appeals panel agreed that Beatrice Welles could proceed with the lawsuit against Turner Entertainment; the opinion partially overturns the 2004 decision by a lower court judge who had found in favor of Turner Entertainment on the issue of video rights.[121]
In the 1980s, this film became the catalyst in the controversy over the colorization of black-and-white films. When Ted Turner told members of the press that he was considering colorizing Citizen Kane, his comments led to an immediate public outcry. About two weeks before his death, and almost a year before Turner acquired the rights to the MGM catalog, Welles had asked filmmaker Henry Jaglom, "Please do this for me. Don't let Ted Turner deface my movie with his crayons."[122] The uproar was for nothing, as Turner could not have colorized the film had he wanted to. Welles's original contract prevented any alteration to the film without his, and eventually his estate's, express consent.[123] Turner later claimed that this was a joke intended to needle colorization critics, and that he had never had any intention of coloring the film.[citation needed] In December 1989 Turner Home Entertainment did, however, release a colorized version of The Magnificent Ambersons on VHS.[124]
On September 13, 2011, Citizen Kane was released on Blu-ray disc and DVD in a 70th anniversary box set called The Ultimate Collectors Edition. "This, quite simply, is the Blu-ray release of the year," wrote the San Francisco Chronicle. "Anyone who thinks Blu-ray doesn't make much of a difference to an older, B&W movie hasn't seen this reference-quality work by Warner Home Video."[125] "Citizen Kane is a film whose visual scintillation is ageless, and you have never seen it look as good as it does here, in Warner's newly restored, 1080p, AVC/MPEG-4 transfer," wrote DVD Talk. Supplements include separate commentary tracks by Roger Ebert and Peter Bogdanovich, carried forward from Warner's 60th anniversary edition DVD release; two additional films, The Battle Over Citizen Kane and RKO 281; and packaging extras that include a hardcover booklet and a folio containing a reproduction of the original souvenir program, miniature lobby cards and other memorabilia.[126]
- 2011: Warner Home Video, September 13, 2011, Blu-ray and DVD. 70th Anniversary Ultimate Collectors Edition, UPC 883929184804 (Blu-ray), 883929184811 (DVD)
- 1978: The Nostalgia Merchant, Media Home Entertainment, 1978, VHS and Beta. In 1976, when home video was in its infancy, entrepreneur Snuff Garrett bought cassette rights to the old RKO and Republic films for what United Press International termed "a pittance." By 1980, the 800-title library of The Nostalgia Merchant was earning $2.3 million a year. "Nobody wanted cassettes four years ago," Garrett told UPI. "It wasn't the first time people called me crazy. It was a hobby with me which became big business."[127]
- 1982: VidAmerica, Inc., 1982, VHS and Beta. UPC 082087109036
- 1984: The Criterion Collection, December 1, 1984, videodisc, spine 001. The Criterion Collection began with the laserdisc release of Citizen Kane, from a fine grain master positive provided by the UCLA Film and Television Archive.[128]
- 1985: RKO Home Video, 1985, VHS and Beta
- 1991: Turner Home Entertainment, August 1991, VHS. 50th Anniversary Edition. Also available in gift pack with film, documentary Reflections On Citizen Kane and Harlan Lebo's 50th anniversary album; and in a collector's edition that includes the film, documentary, album, poster and a copy of the original script.[129]
- 2001: Warner Home Video, September 25, 2001, DVD. 60th Anniversary Collectors Edition. Two-disc special edition DVD including feature-length commentaries by film critic Roger Ebert and director Peter Bogdanovich and the PBS documentary The Battle Over Citizen Kane. ISBN 0-7806-3520-5
- 2001: Warner Home Video, September 25, 2001, VHS. 60th Anniversary Collectors Edition.
File:Rosebud-Pine.jpg
Pine sled used in
Citizen Kane, won by a 12-year-old boy in an RKO Pictures publicity contest in 1942, sold at auction through
Christie's for $233,500 in 1996
In June 1982 Steven Spielberg spent $60,500 to buy a Rosebud sled, one of three balsa sleds used in the closing scenes and the only one that was not burned.[130] Spielberg had paid homage to Citizen Kane in the final shot of the government warehouse in his 1981 film, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Spielberg commented, "Rosebud will go over my typewriter to remind me that quality in movies comes first."[131][132]
After the Spielberg purchase, news outlets began reporting the claim of Arthur Bauer, a retired helicopter pilot in New York, that he owned another Rosebud, the hardwood sled used at the beginning of Citizen Kane. "I'm sure it could be true," Welles said when asked for comment.[133] In early 1942, Bauer was a 12-year-old student in Brooklyn and a member of his school's film club. He entered and won an RKO Pictures publicity contest and selected Rosebud as his prize. In 1996, Bauer's estate offered the painted pine sled at auction through Christie's.[134] Bauer's son told CBS News that his mother had once wanted to paint the sled and use it as a plant stand; "Instead, my dad said, 'No, just save it and put it in the closet.'"[135] On December 15, 1996, the hardwood sled was sold to an anonymous bidder in Los Angeles for $233,500.[136]
On February 18, 1999, the United States Postal Service honored Citizen Kane by including it in its Celebrate the Century series.[137] The film was honored again February 25, 2003, in a series of U.S. postage stamps marking the 75th anniversary of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Art director Perry Ferguson represents the behind-the-scenes craftsmen of filmmaking in the series; he is depicted completing a sketch for Citizen Kane.[138]
In December 2007, Welles's Oscar for best original screenplay came up for auction at Sotheby's in New York, but failed to reach its estimate of $800,000 to $1.2 million.[139] The Oscar, which was believed to have been lost by Welles, was rediscovered in 1994, was owned by the Dax Foundation, a Los Angeles based charity,[139] and was sold at auction in 2011 by an anonymous seller to an anonymous buyer for $861,542.[140] At the same sale, Welles's personal copy of the last revised draft of Citizen Kane before the shooting script sold for $97,000.[139]
Parodies of Citizen Kane include "Rosebud," an episode of The Simpsons that first aired October 21, 1993.
- Bogdanovich, Peter and Orson Welles. This is Orson Welles, HarperPerennial 1992, ISBN 0-06-092439-X
- Bogdanovich, Peter "The Kane Mutiny", in Esquire, October 1972. – This piece, which demolishes Pauline Kael's claim that Welles did not write Citizen Kane, was credited to Bogdanovich. While Bogdanovich extensively helped with the background research, it was actually written by Welles himself.[141]
- Callow, Simon. Orson Welles: The Road to Xanadu London: Johnathon Cape, 1995. ISBN 0-224-03852-4
- Carringer, Robert L., The Making of Citizen Kane. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985 ISBN 0-520-05367-2 hardcover; 1996 revised and updated edition ISBN 0-520-20567-7 paperback
- Carringer, Robert L., "The Scripts of Citizen Kane", in Critical Inquiry No. 5 (1978), subsequently reprinted in the below 1996 volume by Gottesman.
- Cook, David A. Orson Welles and the modern sound film. A History of Narrative Film. W.W. Norton Company, Inc, 2004, ISBN 0-393-97868-0
- Gottesman, Ronald, ed. Focus on Citizen Kane. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971, ISBN 0-13-134742-X
- Gottesman, Ronald. Perspectives on Citizen Kane. G.K. Hall & Co., New York, 1996, ISBN 978-0-8161-1616-4
- Heylin, Clinton. Despite the System: Orson Welles Versus the Hollywood Studios, Chicago Review Press, 2005, ISBN 1-55652-547-8
- Kael, Pauline (ed.). The Citizen Kane Book Little and Brown, Boston, 1971 – contains Kael's controversial and much-derided article Raising Kane, as well as the full script by Mankiewicz and Welles.
- Mulvey, Laura. Citizen Kane British Film Institute, London, 1992, ISBN 0-85170-339-9
- Naremore, James (ed.). Orson Welles's Citizen Kane: A Casebook in Criticism, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2004, ISBN 978-0-19-515892-2
- Nasaw, David. The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst.New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ISBN 978-0-618-15446-3
- Rippy, Marguerite H. Orson Welles and the Unfinished RKO Projects: A Postmodern Perspective, Southern Illinois University Press, Illinois, 2009, ISBN 978-0-8093-2912-0
- Rosenbaum, Jonathan. "I missed it at the movies: objections to Raising Kane" (1971), in Rosenbaum, Jonathan (ed.). Discovering Orson Welles, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2007, ISBN 978-0-520-25123-6
- ^ a b http://www2.warnerbros.com/citizenkane/
- ^ a b c d e The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States: Feature Films, 1941 – 1950. University of California Press. pp. 433–435. ISBN 978-0-520-21521-4.
- ^ "Sight & Sound – Top ten". http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/polls/topten/. Retrieved August 18, 2010.
- ^ a b c d Epstein, Michael and Thomas Lennon. "The Battle Over Citizen Kane." PBS, 1996. Retrieved January 14, 2008.
- ^ a b Welles, Orson, and Peter Bogdanovich, This is Orson Welles. New York: HarperCollins Publishers 1992 ISBN 0-06-016616-9 page 49. Welles states, "There's all that stuff about McCormick and the opera. I drew a lot from that from my Chicago days. And Samuel Insull."
- ^ a b c d e f g "American Composers Orchestra – David Raksin remembers his colleagues". Americancomposers.org. http://www.americancomposers.org/raksin_herrmann.htm. Retrieved January 22, 2009.
- ^ Georgaris, Bill. "The 1,000 Greatest Films The Top 500 (1–25)". They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?. http://theyshootpictures.com/gf1000_top100films.htm. Retrieved October 15, 2011.
- ^ a b Ebert, Roger (September 4, 2008). "What's your favorite movie?". Roger Ebert's Journal. http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/09/whats_your_favorite_movie.html. Retrieved January 6, 2010.
- ^ Taylor, Charles, "The New Season DVDs: Movies That Said, 'Look What I Can Do'"; The New York Times, September 16, 2011
- ^ Higham, Charles (1971). the films of Orson Welles. University of California Press. pp. 9–29. ISBN 978-0-520-02048-1.
- ^ "Last Surviving Cast Member of Citizen Kane Dies". cinematical.com. http://www.cinematical.com/2007/11/09/last-surviving-cast-member-of-citizen-kane-dies/. Retrieved February 27, 2010.
- ^ Louise Currie at the Internet Movie Database; retrieved April 4, 2012
- ^ a b c Walsh, John Evangelist. Walking Shadows: Orson Welles, William Randolph Hearst and Citizen Kane. Bowling Green University Popular Press. pp. 31–37. ISBN 978-0-299-20500-3.
- ^ a b c d e Barry Norman (host) (2003). Anatomy of a Classic (DVD). Universal.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Carringer, Robert L., The Making of Citizen Kane. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985 ISBN 0-520-05367-2 hardcover; 1996 revised and updated edition ISBN 0-520-20567-7 paperback
- ^ a b c d e f g Newman, Kim; Ian Freer, Rob Fraser (July 2003). "Citizen Kane". Empire: pp. 146 to 156.
- ^ a b c d e f g Kael, Pauline, "Raising Kane", book-length essay in The New Yorker (February 20 and 27, 1971); reprinted in The Citizen Kane Book. Kael, Pauline, Herman J. Mankiewicz and Orson Welles, The Citizen Kane Book. Boston: Little, Brown and Company 1971, ISBN 0-436-23030-5 pp. 1–85
- ^ a b c d e Callow, Simon, Orson Welles: Hello Americans. London: Johnathon Cape, 2006 ISBN 0-224-03853-2 page 484
- ^ Williams, Gregory L., "Filming San Diego", San Diego History Center; retrieved April 6, 2012
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- ^ The New York Times, April 6, 1989
- ^ "Hearst Bans RKO From Papers". Daily Variety. January 10, 1941.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Lebo, Harlan. Citizen Kane: Fiftieth Anniversary Album, Doubleday Publishing (1990)
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Welles, Orson, and Peter Bogdanovich, edited by Jonathan Rosenbaum, This is Orson Welles. New York: HarperCollins Publishers 1992 ISBN 0-06-016616-9 hardcover
- ^ Heylin, Clinton. Despite the System: Orson Welles Versus the Hollywood Studios, Chicago Review Press (2006)
- ^ McBride, Joseph. Searching for John Ford: A Life, Macmillan, 2003, ISBN 0-312-31011-0, pp. 299–300
- ^ a b Kilbourne, Don. Dictionary of Literary Biography: American Screenwriters, Gale Research Co. (1984)
- ^ a b c Meryman, Richard, Mank: The Wit, World and Life of Herman Mankiewicz. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1978 ISBN 0-688-03356-3
- ^ a b Friedrich, Otto, City of Nets – a portrait of Hollywood in 1940s, (1986) Harper & Row
- ^ BBC, Arena: The Orson Welles Story, 1982
- ^ Welles, Orson, and Peter Bogdanovich, This is Orson Welles. New York: HarperCollins Publishers 1992 ISBN 0-06-016616-9 page 499. "The Kane case never came before the Guild's Board," Lederer said. "Orson would certainly have won, and Manky must have known that."
- ^ Thomson, David (2002). A New Biographical Dictionary of Film. London: Little Brown. p. 924.
- ^ Jewell, Richard B., with Vernon Harbin (1982). The RKO Story. New York: Arlington House/Crown. ISBN 0-517-54656-6 page 164
- ^ a b c Davies, Marion, The Times We Had: Life with William Randolph Hearst; foreword by Orson Welles, May 28, 1975. Indianapolis and New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1975 ISBN 0-672-52112-1
- ^ a b Nasaw, David, The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, September 6, 2000 ISBN 0-395-82759-0
- ^ Leaming, Barbara, Orson Welles, A Biography. New York: Viking Press, 1985 ISBN 0-670-52895-1
- ^ Owens, Russell, "Another Vivid Scene Ends in Insull's Amazing Drama." The New York Times, April 8, 1934
- ^ "Mrs. Samuel Insull Returns to Stage." The New York Times, May 23, 1925
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- ^ Cotten, Joseph, Vanity Will Get You Somewhere. San Francisco: Mercury House, 1987 ISBN 0-916515-17-6 page 34
- ^ Biography of Ashton Stevens, Ashton Stevens Papers at the Newberry Library, Roger and Julie Baskes Department of Special Collections
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- ^ The New York Times, October 23, 1925. "The School for Scandal, with Mrs. Insull as Lady Teazle, was produced at the Little Theatre last night. It will be reviewed in tomorrow's Times."
- ^ Transcript, The Battle over Citizen Kane on PBS' American Experience; Retrieved January 22, 2012. "Hearst maintained the public stance that he never saw the film, but he knew what was in it. Charlie Lederer said it was the portrayal of Marion as pitiful drunk – that Hearst would not abide."
- ^ Welles, Orson, and Peter Bogdanovich, This is Orson Welles. New York: HarperCollins Publishers 1992 ISBN 0-06-016616-9 page 49. Welles states, "The real story of Hearst is quite different from Kane's … There's all that stuff about McCormick and the opera. I drew a lot from that from my Chicago days. And Samuel Insull." The editor places "Robert" in brackets before the name McCormick, misidentifying press magnate Robert R. McCormick, another member of Chicago's powerful McCormick family, as Walska's husband.
- ^ Owens, Mitchell, "Garden of the Slightly Macabre." The New York Times, August 22, 1996
- ^ Welles, Orson, and Peter Bogdanovich, This is Orson Welles, page 497
- ^ Turner, Hy B., When Giants Ruled: The Story of Park Row, New York's Great Newspaper Street. New York: Fordham University Press, 1999 ISBN 0-8232-1944-5 pp. 150–152
- ^ Current Literature, Vol. 41, No. 5, October 1906, page 477
- ^ Mankiewicz, Herman J. and Orson Welles, shooting script for Citizen Kane reprinted in The Citizen Kane Book. Kael, Pauline, Herman J. Mankiewicz and Orson Welles, The Citizen Kane Book. Boston: Little, Brown and Company 1971, ISBN 0-436-23030-5 pp. 219–225
- ^ Ebert, Roger, "The Great Movies: Citizen Kane"; Chicago Sun-Times, May 24, 1998 (retrieved March 11, 2012)
- ^ Meryman, Richard, Mank: The Wit, World and Life of Herman Mankiewicz, pp. 18–21. "The prototype of Charles Foster Kane's sled was this bicycle. It was stolen during a boyhood misdemeanor and in punishment never replaced. The bike became a symbol of Herman's bitterness about his Prussian father and the lack of love in his childhood" (page 300).
- ^ Pizzitola, Louis, Hearst Over Hollywood, Columbia University Press, 2002 ISBN 0-231-11646-2 page 181. The source for Peck's giving the Rosebud nickname to Phoebe Hearst is a 1977 oral history interview with a researcher named Vonnie Eastham, conducted by California State University, Chico (page 469).
- ^ Orrin Peck Collection of Photographs, 1878–1951 (bulk 1890–1915), Huntington Library
- ^ Andrews, Nigel, "The mark of 'Kane.'" Financial Times, April 29, 2011
- ^ Vidal, Gore. "Remembering Orson Welles." The New York Review of Books, June 1, 1989. Retrieved January 14, 2008.
- ^ Vidal, Gore. "Rosebud." The New York Review of Books, August 17, 1989. Retrieved January 14, 2008.
- ^ Ebert, Roger (January 1, 2004). "A Viewer's Companion to 'Citizen Kane'". Chicago Sun-Times. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040101/COMMENTARY/401010335. Retrieved June 2, 2010.
- ^ Brady, Frank, Citizen Welles: A Biography of Orson Welles. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1989 ISBN 0-385-26759-2 page 287
- ^ "Orson Welles Interview - Citizen Kane". YouTube. 2010-11-23. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQCnrPr3qIA. Retrieved 2012-05-01.
- ^ "Orson Welles: The Movie Bizz". YouTube. 2009-08-06. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibaKFb33a10. Retrieved 2012-05-01.
- ^ Ogle, Patrick L; Bill Nichols (1985). "Technological and Aesthetic Influences Upon the Development of Deep Focus Cinematography in the United States". Movies and Methods (University of California Press): p. 73.
- ^ Toland, Gregg (September 1941). "The Motion Picture Cameraman". Theater Arts magazine. http://www.wellesnet.com/?p=178. Retrieved January 14, 2008.
- ^ Naremore, James. Orson Welles's citizen Kane: a casebook. OUP USA. ISBN 978-0-19-515891-5.
- ^ Welles, Orson, and Peter Bogdanovich, This is Orson Welles, pages 59 and 61. Speaking of the credit given Toland, Welles said, "Nobody those days – only the stars, the director, and the producer – got separate cards. Gregg deserved it, didn't he?"
- ^ a b c d Fabe, Marilyn. Closely Watched Films: an introduction to the art of narrative film technique. University of California Press. pp. 81–84. ISBN 978-0-520-23891-6.
- ^ a b Gianos, Phillip L (1999). Politics and politicians in American film. Greenwood Press. pp. 170–184. ISBN 978-0-275-96766-6.
- ^ Mary Wood. "Citizen Kane and other imitators". University of Virginia. http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma04/wood/mot/html/kane.htm. Retrieved February 27, 2010.
- ^ Costanzo Cahir, Linda. Literature into film: theory and practical approaches. McFarland & Co. pp. 59–60. ISBN 978-0-7864-2597-6.
- ^ Thomas, François (2004). Naremore, James. ed. Citizen Kane: The Sound Track, in Orson Welles's Citizen Kane: A Casebook. US: Oxford University Press via Google Books limited preview. p. 173. ISBN 0-19-515891-1. http://books.google.com/books?id=KzCH4UgSUr8C&pg=PA173. Retrieved November 10, 2007.
- ^ Cook, David A. Orson Welles and the modern sound film. A History of Narrative Film. W.W. Norton Company, Inc, 2004, ISBN 0-393-97868-0, page 330
- ^ a b c "Bernard Herrmann". Moviemusicuk.us. http://www.moviemusicuk.us/herrmann.htm. Retrieved January 22, 2009. [dead link]
- ^ a b c d e f g Smith, Stephen C. (2002). A Heart at Fire's Center: The Life and Music of Bernard Herrmann. University of California Press. pp. 76–84. ISBN 0-520-22939-8.
- ^ "70th anniversary of CITIZEN KANE and Bernard Herrmann's film score". http://www.americanmusicpreservation.com/CitizenKanefilmscore.htm. Retrieved April 27, 2011.
- ^ "Sound and Vision: The New Yorker". NewYorker.com. http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/06/27/050627crmu_music. Retrieved 2009-01-22.
- ^ "The Orson Welles Web Resource " Blog Archive " BERNARD HERRMANN on working with ORSON WELLES and CITIZEN KANE". Wellesnet. 2007-06-24. http://www.wellesnet.com/?p=176. Retrieved 2010-03-06.
- ^ a b c "CITIZEN KANE/Orson Welles Bibliographic Record Brief Display". Library of Congress. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.natlib.jots.200014490/default.html. Retrieved August 24, 2009.
- ^ a b Naremore,James. Orson Welle's Citizen Kane:a casebook. ISBN 0-19-515891-1.
- ^ a b c d "The greatest story ever told: Sixty years of Citizen Kane". The Independent (London). April 28, 2001. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/the-greatest-story-ever-told-sixty-years-of-citizen-kane-682857.html. Retrieved December 26, 2009.
- ^ Street, Sarah. (1996). Citizen Kane. History Today, 46(3), 48. Retrieved October 26, 2009, from Research Library Core. (Document ID: 9345422).
- ^ Jewell, Richard B., The RKO Story, New York: Arlington House, 1982, ISBN 0-517-54656-6
- ^ SCREEN REALISM MAY BE A LITTLE TOO REAL Argus February 7, 1942, Supplement page 6
- ^ Cameron, Kate (May 2, 1941). "Citizen Kane". New York Daily-News.
- ^ Boehnel, William (May 2, 1941). "Citizen Kane". New World Telegram.
- ^ Ferguson, Otis (June 2, 1941). "Citizen Kane". The New Republic.
- ^ Borges, Jorge Luis. Selected Non-Fictions. New York: Viking Press, 1999. ISBN 0-14-029011-7.
- ^ 1931 Cimarron (7), 1935 The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (8) and Mutiny on the Bounty (8), 1936 Anthony Adverse (7), Dodsworth (7), The Great Ziegfeld (7) and The Life of Emile Zola (10), 1937 A Star Is Born (7), 1938 You Can't Take It With You (7), 1939 Gone with the Wind (13), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (11), Stagecoach (7) and Wuthering Heights (8), 1940 The Grapes of Wrath and Rebecca (10)
- ^ "NY Times: Citizen Kane". NY Times. http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/9737/Citizen-Kane/details. Retrieved December 13, 2008.
- ^ "The 14th Academy Awards (1942) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/legacy/ceremony/14th-winners.html. Retrieved August 13, 2011.
- ^ "Extras Scuttled Welles". Variety. March 4, 1942.
- ^ Allmovie Awards
- ^ Bazin, Andre (1950). What is Cinema?. University of California Press. p. 37. ISBN 978-0-520-24227-2.
- ^ Sarris, Andrew (1956). "Citizen Kane: The American Baroque". Film Culture.
- ^ "'Citizen Kane' fave film of movie elite". rogerebert.com. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20020811/COMMENTARY/88010305. Retrieved January 1, 2008.
- ^ "The Sight & Sound Top Ten Poll: 1962". British Film Institute. 1962. http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/topten/history/1962.html. Retrieved January 14, 2008.
- ^ "Critics' Top Ten Poll". British Film Institute. 2002. http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/topten/poll/critics.html. Retrieved January 14, 2008.
- ^ "Directors' Top Ten Poll". British Film Institute. 2002. http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/topten/poll/directors.html. Retrieved January 14, 2008.
- ^ "Cahiers du cinéma 100 films pour une cinémathèque idéale". Cahiersducinema.com. http://www.cahiersducinema.com/article1337.html. Retrieved March 6, 2010.
- ^ National Film Registry, National Film Preservation Board, Library of Congress; Retrieved April 16, 2012
- ^ "Citizen Kane (1941)". Rotten Tomatoes. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/citizen_kane/. Retrieved December 13, 2011.
- ^ "AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores Nominees" (PDF). http://www.afi.com/Docs/100Years/scores250.pdf. Retrieved 2012-05-01.
- ^ "Carney on Culture: Over-Rated Films". People.bu.edu. May 14, 1999. http://people.bu.edu/rcarney/carncult/orfilms.shtml. Retrieved March 6, 2010.
- ^ Bergman about other filmmakers – Orson Welles. Ingmar Bergman Face to Face, Ingmar Bergman Foundation. Retrieved April 7, 2012
- ^ Tookey, Chris, Tookey's Film Guide – Film Reviews since 1902 (2002)
- ^ ''Movie Wars'' by Jonathan Rosenbaum. September 10, 2002. ISBN 978-1-903364-60-4. http://books.google.com/?id=Pwb7WR2wVZ0C&pg=PA175&lpg=PA175&dq=%2BWelles. Retrieved March 6, 2010.
- ^ Ignacio Ramonet (2011) in ¿En manos de quien estamos?, conference held at University of Heidelberg, June 8, 2011. Video: part1, mins. 10:38–12:55 quotation: Hace unos años, hace sesenta años, pero como les voy a demostrar, duró casi un siglo esta demostración, cuando se quería demostrar que por ejemplo, la información periodística, la información mediática, tenía influencia en una sociedad, esencialmente se recurría, a un ejemplo, un ejemplo de ficción, se recurría a una ficción, esencialmente a una película. Y esta película, como ustedes saben, es El ciudadano Kane.[...] El modelo de Welles es un propietario de prensa, del final del siglo XIX. Es Randolph Hearst, el hombre que inventó mediáticamente la Guerra de Cuba. El mismo ejemplo sirvió durante cincuenta años. Cuando Welles quiso demonstrar que los medios de comunicación, y en particular la prensa, tenían influencia en una sociedad, se inspiró en Randolph Hearst, final del siglo XIX, porque era propietario de algunos periódicos. Y este ejemplo se presentó prácticamente hasta el final del siglo XX en los cineclubs, y aun hoy día a veces en televisión. [...] Se presentó, hasta hace muy poco, como el ejemplo mismo de lo que puede la prensa cuando manipula a la opinión pública.
- ^ Walker, Andrew, Rupert Murdoch: Bigger than Kane; BBC News, July 31, 2002
- ^ Tuccille, Jerome (1989) Rupert Murdoch: creator of a worldwide media empire p.xiv
- ^ Boddy, William, Fifties Television: The Industry and Its Critics. University of Illinois Press, 1993 ISBN 0-252-06299-X paperback, page 138
- ^ McCormick, Moira, "RKO Focuses On Upscale Market for Classic Films". Billboard, August 23, 1966, page 64
- ^ "Citizen Kane (Film, 1985)". [WorldCat.org]. http://www.worldcat.org/title/citizen-kane/oclc/016396308. Retrieved 2012-05-01.
- ^ "Turner Acquires Mgm/ua". Chicago Tribune. March 26, 1986. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1986-03-26/business/8601220602_1_turner-broadcasting-system-ua-mgm.
- ^ "Ted Turner & AOL Time Warner". The Pop History Dig. http://www.pophistorydig.com/?tag=ted-turner-aol-time-warner. Retrieved 2012-05-01.
- ^ "Turner Buys Rights to 800 RKO Movies". Los Angeles Times. December 10, 1987. http://articles.latimes.com/1987-12-10/business/fi-27906_1_rko-movie.
- ^ "An Ok For Rko". Chicago Tribune. March 29, 1992. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1992-03-29/entertainment/9201290077_1_old-time-hollywood-studios-turner-label-orson-welles.
- ^ Rohter, Larry (February 20, 1991). "For 'Citizen Kane,' a Fresh Start at 50". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/20/movies/for-citizen-kane-a-fresh-start-at-50.html.
- ^ "Time Warner phasing out Turner Pictures: Time Warner Inc". Chicago Tribune. November 14, 1996. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1996-11-14/news/9611150315_1_turner-broadcasting-system-turner-pictures-time-warner.
- ^ Tom McGreevey and Joanne L. Yeck Our Movie Heritage, 1997, Rutgers University Press, p135-36.
- ^ Welles' daughter could get profit from 'Kane' Los Angeles Times, retrieved August 8, 2011
- ^ Lebo, Harlan (1990). Citizen Kane:the fiftieth -anniversary album. Doubleday. p. 194. ISBN 978-0-385-41473-9.
- ^ American Notes Hollywood – Kane Steals Ted's Crayons. Time Magazine February 27, 1989
- ^ Wilkinson, Jack E., "What's New on the Home Video Scene"; United Press International, November 22, 1989
- ^ Johnson, G. Allen, "DVD Review: Citizen Kane"; San Francisco Chronicle, October 23, 2011
- ^ McQuain, Christopher, "Citizen Kane (Blu-ray)"; DVD Talk, September 7, 2011
- ^ Scott, Vernon, "Nostalgia King". United Press International, October 11, 1980
- ^ Smith, Roger P., "From the Current – Citizen Kane"; The Criterion Collection
- ^ Wilkinson, Jack E., United Press International, August 29, 1991
- ^ "Hidden Treasures: Prop Art"; The New York Times, June 13, 1982
- ^ Video Viewer (August 1982).
- ^ Medina, Sara (June 21, 1982). "People". Time. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,925482,00.html. Retrieved March 6, 2010.
- ^ Kessler, Robert E., "A 'Rosebud' of any other wood may still be genuine"; Anchorage Daily News, June 24, 1982
- ^ Lot 59, Sale 7927, Christie's Los Angeles auction catalogue, Film, Television & Pop, December 15, 1996, page 31
- ^ CBS News Transcripts, December 14, 1996
- ^ "Clark Gable's Oscar and 'Rosebud' sled sold"; Associated Press, December 15, 1996
- ^ "1940s Celebrate the Century"; Arago, Smithsonian National Postal Museum, Retrieved April 22, 2012
- ^ "American Filmmaking: Behind the Scenes"; Arago, Smithsonian National Postal Museum, Retrieved April 22, 2012
- ^ a b c "'Citizen Kane' Script sells for $97,000". The Washington Post. December 12, 2007. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/11/AR2007121101455.html. Retrieved January 22, 2009.
- ^ Henry Barnes (December 21, 2011). "Welles's "Citizen Kane" Oscar sells for $860,000". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/dec/21/orson-welles-citizen-kane-oscar.
- ^ Rosenbaum, Jonathan (ed.). Discovering Orson Welles, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2007, p.295n Rosenbaum writes in one of the footnotes that Oja Kodar first made him aware of Welles' authorship of the article in 1986, and quotes Bogdanovich's decidedly coy comment on the article's authorship, while stating "I did all the legwork, research and interviews".
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| Feature films |
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| Shorts |
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| Unfinished films |
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Films in which
Welles directed
some scenes |
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| Television |
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| Theatre |
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| Radio |
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| Books |
- Everybody's Shakespeare (co-editor, with Roger Hill) (1934)
- The Mercury Shakespeare (co-editor, with Roger Hill) (1939)
- The Lives of Harry Lime (short stories) (1952)
- Une Grosse Légume (ghostwritten by Maurice Bessy) (1953)
- Mr. Arkadin (ghostwritten by Maurice Bessy) (1955)
- Moby Dick—Rehearsed (play) (1965)
- The Trial (screenplay, ed. Nicholas Fry) (1970)
- The Citizen Kane Book (screenplay, co-written with Herman J. Mankiewicz, ed. Pauline Kael) (1971)
- Touch of Evil (screenplay, ed. Terry Comito) (1985)
- Chimes at Midnight (screenplay, ed. Bridget Gellert Lyons) (1988)
- Orson Welles on Shakespeare: The W.P.A. and Mercury Theatre Playscripts (ed. Richard France) (1990)
- The Big Brass Ring (unproduced screenplay, co-written with Oja Kodar) (1991)
- This is Orson Welles (co-written with Peter Bogdanovich) (1992, rev.1998)
- The Cradle Will Rock (unproduced screenplay, co-written with Oja Kodar) (1994)
- Les Bravades (1996)
- Orson Welles Interviews (ed. Mark W. Estrin) (2002)
- The Other Side of the Wind (screenplay, co-written with Oja Kodar, ed. Giorgio Gosetti) (2005)
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| 1952 |
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| 1962 |
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| 1972 |
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| 1982 |
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| 1992 |
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| 2002 |
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![Citizen Kane (1941) Opening [HD]](http://web.archive.org./web/20130315023426im_/http://i.ytimg.com/vi/RRa3qZ0_4ew/default.jpg "Orson Welles
Notice how the transitions parallel one another.")
