The Battle Over Citizen Kane
Encyclopedia
The Battle Over Citizen Kane is a 1996 documentary
about the clash between newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst
and actor
/writer
/director
Orson Welles
over Welles' 1941 motion picture Citizen Kane
, which is widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time.
The Battle Over Citizen Kane originally aired as an episode of the Public Broadcast System's The American Experience series and was narrated by actor Paul Winfield
.
, whose fictional life partially mirrors that of Hearst's. However, Chicago
inventor and utilities magnate Samuel Insull
, Chicago Tribune
publisher Robert R. McCormick
, and even Welles' own life were used in creating Kane.
In 1939, based partly on the strength of his imaginative and successful New York
plays which were produced under the aegis of the Mercury Theater (such as an adaptation of William Shakespeare's
Macbeth
, which featured an all-black
cast and was set in the jungle
), and the infamy of his October 30, 1938 radio
broadcast of H. G. Wells
' The War of the Worlds
which sent residents of Grover's Mill, New Jersey into a panic, Orson Welles was able to negotiate a virtually unheard-of two-picture deal with the relatively small RKO Pictures
studio. The deal gave him near-total creative control and, arguably, overshadowed the production of films also considered classics: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
's Gone with the Wind
and The Wizard of Oz
and RKO's own Gunga Din
.
The Battle Over Citizen Kane also details the lives of Orson Welles and William Randolph Hearst before Citizen Kane, Hearst's manipulation of the heads of the four largest Hollywood studios: Columbia Pictures
, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures
, and Warner Bros.
to combine their efforts and financial strength to buy the film from RKO with the express purpose of destroying it, and how the film affected their lives after the release of the film.
During this period, however, William Randolph Hearst was actually millions of dollars in debt due largely to excessive spending, particularly on his continuing construction of his already sprawling mansion
near San Simeon, California
which was located on a property approximately half the size of the state of Rhode Island
. While married to Millicent Hearst
, he kept a mistress over twenty years his junior, the actress Marion Davies
. Davies had been a silent film
-era star who worked on a number of "talkies
", but with lesser success.
After the release of Citizen Kane to relatively positive critical
reviews and largely indifferent popular response, Orson Welles moved on to his second project, The Magnificent Ambersons
. However, after Citizen Kane did not become a money-maker, The Magnificent Ambersons was wrested from his control. RKO re-edited the film itself and released it.
William Randolph Hearst died in 1951; Orson Welles died in 1985.
The events chronicled in The Battle Over Citizen Kane were dramatized in the 1999 HBO film, RKO 281
. "281" was the internal production name of Citizen Kane.
The documentary has come under serious criticism by several Welles scholars and critics. Jonathan Rosenbaum
writes: "Perhaps the cardinal failing of The Battle Over Citizen Kane, a 1996 Oscar-nominated documentary, is its nearly groundless argument that Hearst and Welles had a lot of things in common." http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.com/?p=6233.
David Walsh writes: "This sort of superficial comparison—a cat has a head, a dog has a head, therefore a cat equals a dog—conceals far more than it reveals." He adds: "The documentary filmmakers fail to make any reference to this social and political context. Furthermore, because they identify success with a stable career and a steady income, they think Welles's subsequent work hardly worth considering."http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/nov1999/pbs-n29.shtml
print was destroyed in a fire) and released with The Battle Over Citizen Kane as a two-DVD
set. The documentary was subsequently included in both the DVD and Blu-ray editions of the 2011 70th anniversary re-issue of the film (although in the case of the Blu-ray release, the documentary was retained in standard definition and included as a bonus DVD).
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
about the clash between newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...
and actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
/writer
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
/director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
over Welles' 1941 motion picture Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
, which is widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time.
The Battle Over Citizen Kane originally aired as an episode of the Public Broadcast System's The American Experience series and was narrated by actor Paul Winfield
Paul Winfield
Paul Edward Winfield was an American television, film, and stage actor. He was known for his portrayal of a Louisiana sharecropper who struggles to support his family during the Great Depression in the landmark film Sounder which earned him an Academy Award nomination. Winfield also portrayed Dr....
.
Synopsis
In Citizen Kane, Welles plays Charles Foster KaneCharles Foster Kane
Charles Foster Kane is a fictional character and the subject of Orson Welles' 1941 film Citizen Kane. Welles played Kane , with Buddy Swan playing Kane as a child...
, whose fictional life partially mirrors that of Hearst's. However, Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
inventor and utilities magnate Samuel Insull
Samuel Insull
Samuel Insull was an Anglo-American innovator and investor based in Chicago who greatly contributed to creating an integrated electrical infrastructure in the United States. Insull was notable for purchasing utilities and railroads using holding companies, as well as the abuse of them...
, Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
publisher Robert R. McCormick
Robert R. McCormick
Robert Rutherford "Colonel" McCormick was a member of the McCormick family of Chicago who became owner and publisher of the Chicago Tribune newspaper...
, and even Welles' own life were used in creating Kane.
In 1939, based partly on the strength of his imaginative and successful New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
plays which were produced under the aegis of the Mercury Theater (such as an adaptation of William Shakespeare's
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
Macbeth
Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
, which featured an all-black
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
cast and was set in the jungle
Jungle
A Jungle is an area of land in the tropics overgrown with dense vegetation.The word jungle originates from the Sanskrit word jangala which referred to uncultivated land. Although the Sanskrit word refers to "dry land", it has been suggested that an Anglo-Indian interpretation led to its...
), and the infamy of his October 30, 1938 radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
broadcast of H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...
' The War of the Worlds
The War of the Worlds (radio)
The War of the Worlds was an episode of the American radio drama anthology series Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on October 30, 1938, and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. Directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker...
which sent residents of Grover's Mill, New Jersey into a panic, Orson Welles was able to negotiate a virtually unheard-of two-picture deal with the relatively small RKO Pictures
RKO Pictures
RKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P...
studio. The deal gave him near-total creative control and, arguably, overshadowed the production of films also considered classics: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
's Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind (film)
Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American historical epic film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer-winning 1936 novel of the same name. It was produced by David O. Selznick and directed by Victor Fleming from a screenplay by Sidney Howard...
and The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)
The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed primarily by Victor Fleming. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but there were uncredited contributions by others. The lyrics for the songs...
and RKO's own Gunga Din
Gunga Din (film)
Gunga Din is a 1939 RKO adventure film directed by George Stevens, loosely based on the poem of the same name by Rudyard Kipling, combined with elements of his novel Soldiers Three...
.
The Battle Over Citizen Kane also details the lives of Orson Welles and William Randolph Hearst before Citizen Kane, Hearst's manipulation of the heads of the four largest Hollywood studios: Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
, and Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
to combine their efforts and financial strength to buy the film from RKO with the express purpose of destroying it, and how the film affected their lives after the release of the film.
During this period, however, William Randolph Hearst was actually millions of dollars in debt due largely to excessive spending, particularly on his continuing construction of his already sprawling mansion
Hearst Castle
Hearst Castle is a National Historic Landmark mansion located on the Central Coast of California, United States. It was designed by architect Julia Morgan between 1919 and 1947 for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, who died in 1951. In 1957, the Hearst Corporation donated the property to...
near San Simeon, California
San Simeon, California
San Simeon is a census-designated place on the Pacific coast of San Luis Obispo County, California. Its position along State Route 1 is approximately halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, each of those cities being roughly 230 mi away...
which was located on a property approximately half the size of the state of Rhode Island
Rhode Island
The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...
. While married to Millicent Hearst
Millicent Hearst
Millicent Hearst, née Millicent Veronica Willson , was the wife of media tycoon William Randolph Hearst. Willson was a vaudeville performer in New York City whom Hearst admired, and they married in 1903...
, he kept a mistress over twenty years his junior, the actress Marion Davies
Marion Davies
Marion Davies was an American film actress. Davies is best remembered for her relationship with newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, as her high-profile social life often obscured her professional career....
. Davies had been a silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
-era star who worked on a number of "talkies
Sound film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
", but with lesser success.
After the release of Citizen Kane to relatively positive critical
Film criticism
Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films, individually and collectively. In general, this can be divided into journalistic criticism that appears regularly in newspapers, and other popular, mass-media outlets and academic criticism by film scholars that is informed by film theory and...
reviews and largely indifferent popular response, Orson Welles moved on to his second project, The Magnificent Ambersons
The Magnificent Ambersons
The Magnificent Ambersons is a 1918 novel by Booth Tarkington which won the 1919 Pulitzer Prize for novel. It was the second novel in his Growth trilogy, which included The Turmoil and The Midlander . In 1925 the novel was first adapted for film under the title Pampered Youth...
. However, after Citizen Kane did not become a money-maker, The Magnificent Ambersons was wrested from his control. RKO re-edited the film itself and released it.
William Randolph Hearst died in 1951; Orson Welles died in 1985.
The events chronicled in The Battle Over Citizen Kane were dramatized in the 1999 HBO film, RKO 281
RKO 281
RKO 281 is a 1999 historical drama film directed by Benjamin Ross. It stars Liev Schreiber, James Cromwell, Melanie Griffith, John Malkovich, and Roy Scheider and depicts the troubled production behind the 1941 film Citizen Kane...
. "281" was the internal production name of Citizen Kane.
Critical reaction
The Battle Over Citizen Kane was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, but lost to Anne Frank Remembered.The documentary has come under serious criticism by several Welles scholars and critics. Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum is an American film critic. Rosenbaum was the head film critic for the Chicago Reader from 1987 until 2008, when he retired at the age of 65...
writes: "Perhaps the cardinal failing of The Battle Over Citizen Kane, a 1996 Oscar-nominated documentary, is its nearly groundless argument that Hearst and Welles had a lot of things in common." http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.com/?p=6233.
David Walsh writes: "This sort of superficial comparison—a cat has a head, a dog has a head, therefore a cat equals a dog—conceals far more than it reveals." He adds: "The documentary filmmakers fail to make any reference to this social and political context. Furthermore, because they identify success with a stable career and a steady income, they think Welles's subsequent work hardly worth considering."http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/nov1999/pbs-n29.shtml
Home media
On September 25, 2001, Turner Home Entertainment released a restored version of Citizen Kane taken from the best available print (the original nitrateNitrate
The nitrate ion is a polyatomic ion with the molecular formula NO and a molecular mass of 62.0049 g/mol. It is the conjugate base of nitric acid, consisting of one central nitrogen atom surrounded by three identically-bonded oxygen atoms in a trigonal planar arrangement. The nitrate ion carries a...
print was destroyed in a fire) and released with The Battle Over Citizen Kane as a two-DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
set. The documentary was subsequently included in both the DVD and Blu-ray editions of the 2011 70th anniversary re-issue of the film (although in the case of the Blu-ray release, the documentary was retained in standard definition and included as a bonus DVD).