Through Thatcher's written memoirs, Thompson learns about Kane's rise from a Colorado boarding house and the decline of his personal fortune. In 1871, gold was discovered through a mining deed belonging to Kane's mother, Mary Kane.
Mankiewicz had a bet on the horse in the 1914 Kentucky Derby, which he won, and McGilligan wrote that "Old Rosebud symbolized his lost youth, and the break with his family".
Kane sold his newspaper empire to Thatcher after the 1929 stock market crash left him short of cash. Thompson interviews Kane's personal business manager, Mr.
Welles cast Dorothy Comingore, an actress who played supporting parts in films since 1934 using the name "Linda Winters", as Susan Alexander Kane.
From 1935 to 1938 Welles was a member of the uncredited company of actors that presented the original radio version. Houseman claimed that banker Walter P.
Actor Alan Ladd, still unknown at that time, makes a small appearance as a reporter smoking a pipe at the end of the film. ==Pre-production== ===Development=== Hollywood had shown interest in Welles as early as 1936.
In 1937, he declined offers from David O.
Ten were billed as Mercury Actors, members of the skilled repertory company assembled by Welles for the stage and radio performances of the Mercury Theatre, an independent theater company he founded with Houseman in 1937.
Upon its release, Hearst prohibited the film from being mentioned in his newspapers. After the Broadway success of Welles's Mercury Theatre and the controversial 1938 radio broadcast "The War of the Worlds" on The Mercury Theatre on the Air, Welles was courted by Hollywood.
From 1935 to 1938 Welles was a member of the uncredited company of actors that presented the original radio version. Houseman claimed that banker Walter P.
He signed a contract with RKO Pictures in 1939.
Throughout the spring and early summer of 1939, Schaefer constantly tried to lure the reluctant Welles to Hollywood.
Welles first arrived on July 20, 1939 and on his first tour, he called the movie studio "the greatest electric train set a boy ever had". Welles signed his contract with RKO on August 21, which stipulated that Welles would act in, direct, produce and write two films.
Schaefer told Welles that the $500,000 budget could not be exceeded; as war loomed, revenue was declining sharply in Europe by the fall of 1939. He then started work on the idea that became Citizen Kane.
When that project stalled in December 1939, Welles began brainstorming other story ideas with screenwriter Herman J.
Called "A Poco No", the song was written by Pepe Guízar and special lyrics were written by Herman Ruby. "In a Mizz", a 1939 jazz song by Charlie Barnet and Haven Johnson, bookends Thompson's second interview of Susan Alexander Kane.
Principal photography took place in 1940 and the film was released in 1941. Although it was a critical success, Citizen Kane failed to recoup its costs at the box office.
Mercury would get $100,000 for the first film by January 1, 1940, plus 20% of profits after RKO recouped $500,000, and $125,000 for a second film by January 1, 1941, plus 20% of profits after RKO recouped $500,000.
Mankiewicz based the original outline on the life of William Randolph Hearst, whom he knew socially and came to hate after being exiled from Hearst's circle. In February 1940 Welles supplied Mankiewicz with 300 pages of notes and put him under contract to write the first draft screenplay under the supervision of John Houseman, Welles's former partner in the Mercury Theatre.
RKO hired Toland on loan from Samuel Goldwyn Productions in the first week of June 1940. "And he never tried to impress us that he was doing any miracles," Welles recalled.
During the first few weeks of June, Welles had lengthy discussions about the film with Toland and art director Perry Ferguson in the morning, and in the afternoon and evening he worked with actors and revised the script. On June 29, 1940—a Saturday morning when few inquisitive studio executives would be around—Welles began filming Citizen Kane.
Although neither worked with Welles again, Toland and Ferguson collaborated in several films in the 1940s. ===Special effects=== The film's special effects were supervised by RKO department head Vernon L.
A December 1940 feature story in Stage magazine compared the film's narrative to Faust and made no mention of Hearst. The film was scheduled to premiere at RKO's flagship theater Radio City Music Hall on February 14, but in early January 1941 Welles was not finished with post-production work and told RKO that it still needed its musical score.
Cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa said that his use of deep focus was influenced by "the camera work of Gregg Toland in Citizen Kane" and not by traditional Japanese art. Its cinematography, lighting, and flashback structure influenced such film noirs of the 1940s and 1950s as The Killers, Keeper of the Flame, Caught, The Great Man and This Gun for Hire.
Falacci's account is impossible to verify, but it would have been fully in keeping with industry standard practice for many decades, which was to destroy prints and negatives of countless older films deemed non-commercially viable, to extract the silver. Subsequent prints were derived from a master positive (a fine-grain preservation element) made in the 1940s and originally intended for use in overseas distribution.
Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film produced and directed by Orson Welles, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Herman J.
Principal photography took place in 1940 and the film was released in 1941. Although it was a critical success, Citizen Kane failed to recoup its costs at the box office.
Mercury would get $100,000 for the first film by January 1, 1940, plus 20% of profits after RKO recouped $500,000, and $125,000 for a second film by January 1, 1941, plus 20% of profits after RKO recouped $500,000.
The question was resolved in January 1941 when the studio, RKO Pictures, awarded Mankiewicz credit.
A December 1940 feature story in Stage magazine compared the film's narrative to Faust and made no mention of Hearst. The film was scheduled to premiere at RKO's flagship theater Radio City Music Hall on February 14, but in early January 1941 Welles was not finished with post-production work and told RKO that it still needed its musical score.
Writers for national magazines had early deadlines and so a rough cut was previewed for a select few on January 3, 1941 for such magazines as Life, Look and Redbook.
"But that wasn't Hearst," Welles said, "that was a hatchet man from the local Hearst paper who thought he would advance himself by doing it." In March 1941, Welles directed a Broadway version of Richard Wright's Native Son (and, for luck, used a "Rosebud" sled as a prop).
The Hearst papers vociferously attacked Welles after his April 1941 radio play, "His Honor, the Mayor", produced for The Free Company radio series on CBS. Welles described his chance encounter with Hearst in an elevator at the Fairmont Hotel on the night Citizen Kane opened in San Francisco.
But to this day the name of Orson Welles is on the official son-of-a-bitch list of every Hearst newspaper." Despite Hearst's attempts to destroy the film, since 1941 references to his life and career have usually included a reference to Citizen Kane, such as the headline 'Son of Citizen Kane Dies' for the obituary of Hearst's son.
RKO's publicity advertisements for the film erroneously promoted it as a love story. Kane opened at the RKO Palace Theatre on Broadway in New York on May 1, 1941, in Chicago on May 6, and in Los Angeles on May 8.
In his 1941 review for Sur, Jorge Luis Borges famously called the film "a labyrinth with no center" and predicted that its legacy would be a film "whose historical value is undeniable but which no one cares to see again." The Argus Weekend Magazine critic Erle Cox called the film "amazing" but thought that Welles's break with Hollywood traditions was "overdone".
In July 1941, Welles reluctantly signed a new and less favorable deal with RKO under which he produced and directed The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), produced Journey into Fear (1943), and began It's All True, a film he agreed to do without payment.
Richard Corliss has asserted that Jules Dassin's 1941 film The Tell-Tale Heart was the first example of its influence and the first pop culture reference to the film occurred later in 1941 when the spoof comedy Hellzapoppin' featured a "Rosebud" sled.
Edeson and Toland are often credited together for revolutionizing cinematography in 1941.
After watching the film on January 29, 1942 Kenneth Williams, then aged 15, writing in his first diary curtly described it as "boshey rot". Modern critics have given Citizen Kane an even more positive response.
In June 1942, Schaefer resigned the presidency of RKO Pictures and Welles's contract was terminated by his successor. ===Release in Europe=== During World War II, Citizen Kane was not seen in most European countries.
The popularity of Truffaut's auteur theory helped the film's and Welles's reputation. ===Re-evaluation=== By 1942 Citizen Kane had run its course theatrically and, apart from a few showings at big city arthouse cinemas, it largely vanished and both the film's and Welles's reputation fell among American critics.
The film's cinematography was almost immediately influential and in 1942 American Cinematographer wrote "without a doubt the most immediately noticeable trend in cinematography methods during the year was the trend toward crisper definition and increased depth of field." The cinematography influenced John Huston's The Maltese Falcon.
In early 1942, when Bauer was 12, he had won an RKO publicity contest and selected the hardwood sled as his prize.
That was his style—just as he finished Jed Leland's bad review of Susan as an opera singer." In 1945, Hearst journalist Robert Shaw wrote that the film got "a full tide of insensate fury" from Hearst papers, "then it ebbed suddenly.
Initially most French film critics were influenced by the negative reviews of Jean-Paul Sartre in 1945 and Georges Sadoul in 1946.
It was shown in France for the first time on July 10, 1946 at the Marbeuf theater in Paris.
Initially most French film critics were influenced by the negative reviews of Jean-Paul Sartre in 1945 and Georges Sadoul in 1946.
The film is in the past tense, whereas we all know that cinema has got to be in the present tense." André Bazin, a then little-known film critic working for Sartre's Les Temps modernes, was asked to give an impromptu speech about the film after a screening at the Colisée Theatre in the autumn of 1946 and changed the opinion of much of the audience.
This speech led to Bazin's 1947 article "The Technique of Citizen Kane", which directly influenced public opinion about the film.
Paris, France: Les Temps modernes 2, number 17, 1947.
In a 1948 interview, D.
In 1949 critic Richard Griffith in his overview of cinema, The Film Till Now, dismissed Citizen Kane as "... tinpot if not crackpot Freud." In the United States, it was neglected and forgotten until its revival on television in the mid-to-late 1950s.
Bazin wrote that the film's mise-en-scène "forces the spectator to participate in the meaning of the film" and creates "a psychological realism which brings the spectator back to the real conditions of perception." In his 1950 essay "The Evolution of the Language of Cinema", Bazin placed Citizen Kane center stage as a work which ushered in a new period in cinema.
In 1949 critic Richard Griffith in his overview of cinema, The Film Till Now, dismissed Citizen Kane as "... tinpot if not crackpot Freud." In the United States, it was neglected and forgotten until its revival on television in the mid-to-late 1950s.
Cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa said that his use of deep focus was influenced by "the camera work of Gregg Toland in Citizen Kane" and not by traditional Japanese art. Its cinematography, lighting, and flashback structure influenced such film noirs of the 1940s and 1950s as The Killers, Keeper of the Flame, Caught, The Great Man and This Gun for Hire.
Welles said his initial idea for the film was "Basically, the idea Rashomon used later on," however Kurosawa had not yet seen the film before making Rashomon in 1950.
David Thomson said that the film 'grows with every year as America comes to resemble it." 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.
Modern techniques were used to produce a pristine print for a 50th Anniversary theatrical reissue in 1991 which Paramount Pictures released for then-owner Turner Broadcasting System, which earned $1.6 million in North America. In 1955, RKO sold the American television rights to its film library, including Citizen Kane, to C&C Television Corp.
The film faded from view after its release, but it returned to public attention when it was praised by French critics such as André Bazin and re-released in 1956.
David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson have written that "For over a decade thereafter American films displayed exaggerated foregrounds and somber lighting, enhanced by long takes and exaggerated camera movements." However, by the 1960s filmmakers such as those from the French New Wave and Cinéma vérité movements favored "flatter, more shallow images with softer focus" and Citizen Kane's style became less fashionable.
In 1960, television rights to the pre-1959 RKO's live-action library were acquired by United Artists.
American filmmakers in the 1970s combined these two approaches by using long takes, rapid cutting, deep focus and telephoto shots all at once.
The most commonly-reported explanation is that it was destroyed in a New Jersey film laboratory fire in the 1970s.
Mankiewicz's rancor toward Welles grew over the remaining 12 years of his life. Questions over the authorship of the Citizen Kane screenplay were revived in 1971 by influential film critic Pauline Kael, whose controversial 50,000-word essay "Raising Kane" was commissioned as an introduction to the shooting script in The Citizen Kane Book, published in October 1971.
The book-length essay first appeared in February 1971, in two consecutive issues of The New Yorker magazine. In the ensuing controversy, Welles was defended by colleagues, critics, biographers and scholars, but his reputation was damaged by its charges.
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1971. Leaming, Barbara.
"The Kane Mutiny", in Esquire, October 1972. Brady, Frank.
"I Missed It at the Movies: Objections to 'Raising Kane'", in Film Comment, Spring 1972. Stern, Sydney Ladensohn.
RKO kept the non-broadcast television rights to its library. In 1976, when home video was in its infancy, entrepreneur Snuff Garrett bought cassette rights to the RKO library for what United Press International termed "a pittance".
Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1976.
The essay's thesis was later questioned and some of Kael's findings were also contested in later years. Questions of authorship continued to come into sharper focus with Carringer's 1978 thoroughly-researched essay, "The Scripts of Citizen Kane".
In 1978 The Nostalgia Merchant released the film through Media Home Entertainment.
5, 1978. Cook, David A.
New York: William Morrow and Company, 1978.
"Apprentices were not supposed to make up any principals, only extras, and an apprentice could not be on a set without a journeyman present," wrote make-up artist Dick Smith, who became friends with Seiderman in 1979.
By 1980 the 800-title library of The Nostalgia Merchant was earning $2.3 million a year.
This was partially rectified in 2016 with the release of the 75th Anniversary Edition in both the UK and US, which was a straight repackaging of the main disc from the 70th Anniversary Edition. ===Colorization controversy=== In the 1980s, Citizen Kane became a catalyst in the controversy over the colorization of black-and-white films.
Carlos Fuentes's novel The Death of Artemio Cruz was partially inspired by the film and the rock band The White Stripes paid unauthorized tribute to the film in the song "The Union Forever". ===Film memorabilia=== In 1982, film director Steven Spielberg bought a "Rosebud" sled for $60,500; it was one of three balsa sleds used in the closing scenes and the only one that was not burned.
It was a hobby with me which became big business." RKO Home Video released the film on VHS and Betamax in 1985. In 1984, The Criterion Collection released the film as its first LaserDisc.
It was a hobby with me which became big business." RKO Home Video released the film on VHS and Betamax in 1985. In 1984, The Criterion Collection released the film as its first LaserDisc.
Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985.
New York: Viking Press, 1985.
This version had an improved transfer and additional special features, including the documentary The Legacy of Citizen Kane and Welles's early short The Hearts of Age. Turner Broadcasting System acquired broadcast television rights to the RKO library in 1986 and the full worldwide rights to the library in 1987.
This version had an improved transfer and additional special features, including the documentary The Legacy of Citizen Kane and Welles's early short The Hearts of Age. Turner Broadcasting System acquired broadcast television rights to the RKO library in 1986 and the full worldwide rights to the library in 1987.
A Turner Entertainment spokesperson initially stated that Citizen Kane would not be colorized, but in July 1988 Turner said, "Citizen Kane? I'm thinking of colorizing it." In early 1989 it was reported that two companies were producing color tests for Turner Entertainment.
In 1991 one minute of the colorized test footage was included in the BBC Arena documentary The Complete Citizen Kane. The colorization controversy was a factor in the passage of the National Film Preservation Act in 1988 which created the National Film Registry the following year.
Citizen Kane was selected by the Library of Congress as an inductee of the 1989 inaugural group of 25 films for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". ==Plot== In a mansion called Xanadu, part of a vast palatial estate in Florida, the elderly Charles Foster Kane is on his deathbed.
Mankiewicz's Oscar was sold at least twice, in 1999 and again in 2012, the latest price being $588,455. In 1989, Mankiewicz's personal copy of the Citizen Kane script was auctioned at Christie's.
A Turner Entertainment spokesperson initially stated that Citizen Kane would not be colorized, but in July 1988 Turner said, "Citizen Kane? I'm thinking of colorizing it." In early 1989 it was reported that two companies were producing color tests for Turner Entertainment.
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1989.
Falacci noted that throughout the process he had daily visits in 1990-1 from an unnamed "older RKO executive showing up every day – nervous and sweating".
However, in 2021, Nicolas Falacci revealed that he had been told "the real story" by a colleague, when he was one of two employees in the film restoration lab which assembled the 1991 "restoration" from the best available elements.
Modern techniques were used to produce a pristine print for a 50th Anniversary theatrical reissue in 1991 which Paramount Pictures released for then-owner Turner Broadcasting System, which earned $1.6 million in North America. In 1955, RKO sold the American television rights to its film library, including Citizen Kane, to C&C Television Corp.
In 1991 Turner released a 50th Anniversary Edition on VHS and as a collector's edition that includes the film, the documentary Reflections On Citizen Kane, Harlan Lebo's 50th anniversary album, a poster and a copy of the original script.
In 1991 one minute of the colorized test footage was included in the BBC Arena documentary The Complete Citizen Kane. The colorization controversy was a factor in the passage of the National Film Preservation Act in 1988 which created the National Film Registry the following year.
New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1991.
Fabe says that "by using a standard Hollywood technique sparingly, [Welles] revitalizes its psychological expressiveness." ==Political themes== Laura Mulvey explored the anti-fascist themes of Citizen Kane in her 1992 monograph for the British Film Institute.
When told about the then-new concept of having an audio commentary on the disc, Welles was skeptical but said "theoretically, that's good for teaching movies, so long as they don't talk nonsense." In 1992 Criterion released a new 50th Anniversary Edition LaserDisc.
HarperPerennial 1992.
London: British Film Institute, 1992.
Bauer's son told CBS News that his mother had once wanted to paint the sled and use it as a plant stand, but Bauer told her to "just save it and put it in the closet." The sled was sold to an anonymous bidder for $233,500. Welles's Oscar for Best Original Screenplay was believed to be lost until it was rediscovered in 1994.
London: Jonathan Cape, 1995.
In 1996, Bauer's estate offered the painted pine sled at auction through Christie's.
In 1996, Time Warner acquired Turner and Warner Home Video absorbed Turner Home Entertainment.
hardcover; 1996 revised and updated edition paperback Carringer, Robert L.
100 Movies list in 1998, as well as its 2007 update.
They ask, 'What's your favorite movie?' Again, I always answer with Citizen Kane." In 1998 Time Out conducted a reader's poll and Citizen Kane was voted 3rd best film of all time.
Art director Perry Ferguson represents the behind-the-scenes craftsmen of filmmaking in the series; he is depicted completing a sketch for Citizen Kane. Citizen Kane was ranked number one in the American Film Institute's polls of film industry artists and leaders in 1998 and 2007.
On February 18, 1999, the United States Postal Service honored Citizen Kane by including it in its Celebrate the Century series.
Mankiewicz's Oscar was sold at least twice, in 1999 and again in 2012, the latest price being $588,455. In 1989, Mankiewicz's personal copy of the Citizen Kane script was auctioned at Christie's.
New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2000.
unit had distribution rights for the film. In 2001, Warner Home Video released a 60th Anniversary Collectors Edition DVD.
The San Francisco Chronicle called it "the Blu-ray release of the year." Supplements included everything available on the 2001 Warner Home Video release, including The Battle Over Citizen Kane DVD.
The transfer for the US releases were scanned as 4K resolution from three different 35mm prints and rectified the quality issues of the 2001 DVD.
The film was honored again February 25, 2003, in a series of U.S.
The DVD was criticized for being "too bright, too clean; the dirt and grime had been cleared away, but so had a good deal of the texture, the depth, and the sense of film grain." In 2003, Welles's daughter Beatrice Welles sued Turner Entertainment, claiming the Welles estate is the legal copyright holder of the film.
In 2007 she was allowed to proceed with the lawsuit, overturning the 2004 decision in favor of Turner Entertainment on the issue of video rights. In 2011, it was released on Blu-ray and DVD in a 70th Anniversary Edition.
Norton Company, 2004.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Curran as Teddy Roosevelt in the faux newsreel; Richard Baer as Hillman, a man at Madison Square Garden, and a man in the News on the March screening room; and Alan Ladd, Arthur O'Connell and Louise Currie as reporters at Xanadu. Ruth Warrick (died 2005) was the last surviving member of the principal cast.
"Rosebud" was chosen as the 17th most memorable movie quotation in a 2005 AFI poll.
The film's score was one of 250 nominees for the top 25 film scores in American cinema in another 2005 AFI poll.
In 2005 the film was included on Time's All-Time 100 best movies list. In 2012, the Motion Picture Editors Guild published a list of the 75 best-edited films of all time based on a survey of its membership.
Despite the System: Orson Welles Versus the Hollywood Studios, Chicago Review Press, 2005.
100 Movies list in 1998, as well as its 2007 update.
Sonny Bupp (died 2007), who played Kane's young son, was the last surviving credited cast member.
Art director Perry Ferguson represents the behind-the-scenes craftsmen of filmmaking in the series; he is depicted completing a sketch for Citizen Kane. Citizen Kane was ranked number one in the American Film Institute's polls of film industry artists and leaders in 1998 and 2007.
It was withdrawn from a 2007 auction at Sotheby's when bidding failed to reach its estimate of $800,000 to $1.2 million.
Estimated to bring $70,000 to $90,000, it sold for a record $231,000. In 2007, Welles's personal copy of the last revised draft of Citizen Kane before the shooting script was sold at Sotheby's for $97,000.
In 2007 she was allowed to proceed with the lawsuit, overturning the 2004 decision in favor of Turner Entertainment on the issue of video rights. In 2011, it was released on Blu-ray and DVD in a 70th Anniversary Edition.
Southern Illinois University Press, Illinois, 2009.
The film was made available on Blu-ray on September 13, 2011, as a special 70th-anniversary edition.
Owned by the charitable Dax Foundation, it was auctioned for $861,542 in 2011 to an anonymous buyer.
In 2011 WarnerMedia's Warner Bros.
In 2007 she was allowed to proceed with the lawsuit, overturning the 2004 decision in favor of Turner Entertainment on the issue of video rights. In 2011, it was released on Blu-ray and DVD in a 70th Anniversary Edition.
In 2012, the Hearst estate agreed to screen the film at Hearst Castle in San Simeon, breaking Hearst's ban on the film. ===Release=== Radio City Music Hall's management refused to screen Citizen Kane for its premiere.
In 2005 the film was included on Time's All-Time 100 best movies list. In 2012, the Motion Picture Editors Guild published a list of the 75 best-edited films of all time based on a survey of its membership.
Mankiewicz's Oscar was sold at least twice, in 1999 and again in 2012, the latest price being $588,455. In 1989, Mankiewicz's personal copy of the Citizen Kane script was auctioned at Christie's.
New York: Metropolitan Books, 2013.
Welles' working copy", was auctioned by Sotheby's in 2014 for $164,692.
A collection of 24 pages from a working script found in Welles's personal possessions by his daughter Beatrice Welles was auctioned in 2014 for $15,000. In 2014, a collection of approximately 235 Citizen Kane stills and production photos that had belonged to Welles was sold at auction for $7,812. ==Rights and home media== The composited camera negative of Citizen Kane is believed to be lost forever.
In his 2015 Welles biography, Patrick McGilligan reported that Mankiewicz himself stated that the word "Rosebud" was taken from the name of a famous racehorse, Old Rosebud.
In 2015, Citizen Kane ranked 1st on BBC's "100 Greatest American Films" list, voted on by film critics from around the world. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 99% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 116 reviews by approved critics, with an average rating of 9.70/10.
Kathryn Trosper Popper (died March 6, 2016) was reported to have been the last surviving actor to have appeared in Citizen Kane.
Jean Forward (died September 2016), a soprano who dubbed the singing voice of Susan Alexander, was the last surviving performer from the film. ===Filming=== Production advisor Miriam Geiger quickly compiled a handmade film textbook for Welles, a practical reference book of film techniques that he studied carefully.
This was partially rectified in 2016 with the release of the 75th Anniversary Edition in both the UK and US, which was a straight repackaging of the main disc from the 70th Anniversary Edition. ===Colorization controversy=== In the 1980s, Citizen Kane became a catalyst in the controversy over the colorization of black-and-white films.
Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2019.
However, in 2021, Nicolas Falacci revealed that he had been told "the real story" by a colleague, when he was one of two employees in the film restoration lab which assembled the 1991 "restoration" from the best available elements.
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