RKO 281 (1999)
Actors:
Ridley Scott (producer),
Melanie Griffith (actress),
Brenda Blethyn (actress),
Fiona Shaw (actress),
James Cromwell (actor),
Liev Schreiber (actor),
Kerry Shale (actor),
Jay Benedict (actor),
Liam Cunningham (actor),
David Suchet (actor),
Cyril Shaps (actor),
Roy Scheider (actor),
John Malkovich (actor),
John Altman (composer),
Tony Scott (producer),
Plot: Coming to Hollywood as a celebrated boy genius featuring a spectacular career arc in New York including his "War of the Worlds" radio hoax, Orson Welles is stymied on the subject for his first film. After a dinner party at Hearst Castle, during which he has a verbal altercation with Hearst, Welles decides to do a movie about Hearst. It takes him some time to convince co-writer Herman Mankiewicz and the studio, but Welles eventually gets the script and the green light, keeping the subject very hush-hush with the press. When a rough cut is screened, Hearst gets wind of the movie's theme and begins a campaign to see that it is not only never publicly screened, but destroyed.
Keywords: 1940s, actress, anti-semitism, bankruptcy, based-on-documentary, based-on-true-story, censorship, director, film-director, film-industry
Genres:
Biography,
Drama,
Quotes:
Welles's Mother: Orson, come into the light. Never stand in the shadows -- you were made for the light. Always remember that.
[last lines]::Herman J. 'Mank' Mankiewicz: All stars burn out, Orson. It's the flame that counts.::Orson Welles: [toasts] To the flame.::Herman J. 'Mank' Mankiewicz: To the flame.
William Randolph Hearst: There is nothing to understand. Only this: I am a man who could have been great, but was not.
[Addressing the RKO shareholders]::Orson Welles: Good afternoon. Today a man from Germany invaded Greece. He's already swallowed Poland, Denmark, Norway, and Belgium. He's bombing London as I speak. Everywhere this man goes he crushes the life and the freedom of his subjects. He sews yellow stars on their lapels, he takes their voices. In this country, we still have our voices. We can argue with them, and we can sing, and we can be heard because we are, for the moment, free. No one can tell us what to say or how to say it, can they? Gentlemen, I am one voice; that is all. My picture is one voice, one view, one opinion, nothing more. Men are dying in Europe now, and Americans soon will be so that we can surmount the tyrants and the dictators. Will you send a message across America that one man can take away our voices? So, who is Mr. Hearst, and who is Mr. Welles? Well, Mr. Hearst built a palace of brick and mortar, and little wars and corpses piled high. Mr. Welles built a palace of illusion. It's a, what we call a matte painting, it's a camera trick, it's nothing. Nothing but a dream. Today you have the chance to let the dream triumph. Thank you.
Orson Welles: Everything I am, everything I could be is in that picture.
Orson Welles: I expected better of you, Mank.::Herman J. 'Mank' Mankiewicz: Me too, but I got used to it.
Herman J. 'Mank' Mankiewicz: What about Marion?::Orson Welles: Another animal in his zoo.::Herman J. 'Mank' Mankiewicz: That is love to him. "I love you, I built you a beautiful cage."
Herman J. 'Mank' Mankiewicz: Every man loves, Orson. Or has loved.
William Randolph Hearst: My battle with the world is almost over. Yours is just beginning.::Orson Welles: Kane would've taken the tickets.
[In the lobby, opening night]::Herman J. 'Mank' Mankiewicz: Rosebud's a sled! Rosebud's a sled.