Citizen Kane

Citizen Kane is a film from 1941, the first feature film by Orson Welles , which besides also directing produced the film, co-wrote the script and played the title role.Citizen Kane is considered by many film critics' best film of all time. " The film was innovative in many ways: story structure, assembly, the deep-focus photography but also the use of grime . Citizen Kane is about the life and work of newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane, a character who is probably based on William Randolph Hearst . The film follows a journalist who goes in search of the meaning of his last words , Rosebud.

Citizen Kane was the debut film for several people, including a large number of future stars. Except for Welles was the first feature film for actors Joseph Cotten , Everett Sloane , Ray Collins , Agnes Moorehead and Ruth Warrick . The film music was by Bernard Herrmann written, which made ​​its debut as a film music composer.

Contents

 * 1 Story
 * 2 Cast
 * 3 Origins
 * 4 Reception
 * 4.1 Awards and nominations
 * 5 Trivia
 * 6 External links

[Story edit ]
Spoiler warning : The following text contains details of the content and / or the end of the story.

The film tells the story of Charles Foster Kane, a man who is unable to express love for anything other than power. Kane, a wealthy newspaper magnate (played by Orson Welles) dies at the beginning of the film Xanadu, are large but dilapidated mansion in Florida . He utters his last word, Rosebud (rosebud), and a glass snow globe with a winter landscape slides out of his hand. A newsreel tells hereafter Kane's life, as it is known in the media.

Reporter Jerry Thompson ( William Alland ) is by newsreel -producer Rawlston ( Phil Van Zandt ) sent in to investigate what does this last word. He interviewing family, friends and colleagues and unravels as Kane's life. He was born poor, but his parents (Agnes Moorehead and Harry Shannon ) leave him at a young age in the lurch when they inherit a gold mine. He was raised by his guardian, strict industrial Walter Parks Thatcher ( George Coulouris ), with whom he very badly hurry. In later life he takes the impulsive decision to join his school friend Jedediah Leland (Joseph Cotten) and loyal assistant Mr. Bernstein (Everett Sloane) to take a newspaper. This newspaper, The Inquirer, grows out of a newspaper sensation to one of America's largest newspaper chains, and Kane is the head of a media empire.

Kane marries Emily Norton (Ruth Warrick), the niece of the president. He also decides to attempt a throw in politics and is a candidate for the governorship, but looks pale his chances as his political opponent, the corrupt Jim Gettys (Ray Collins) reveals that he has a relationship with the novice singer Susan Alexander ( Dorothy Comingore). He is forced to separate from Emily and withdrawing from the election. Susan is his second wife, and Kane tries her an opera star to make. This does not succeed. By his dominating, tyrannical behavior he knows his friends and acquaintances to alienate him, and he withdraws into his huge, unfinished palace, Xanadu, where he lives as a hermit .

Thompson knows how to unravel his past and finds out how Kane got his power and tyrannical personality, but gives the search for the origin of the word Rosebud. To the public the secret, however, abandoned the name is written on the sled from Kane's childhood, when he lived with his parents. The sledge is, with some other stuff from Kanes huge collection burned.

Origins [ edit ]
Orson Welles was already known for his work for radio and theater (including the radio play The War of the Worlds in 1938) when he was in 1939 at the age of 24 signed a contract with RKO Pictures . George Shaefer, then head of RKO, Welles gave complete creative control over his film, he was allowed to write the film, directing and producing, the actors figure out, and got the full right to determine how the final cut (the final result) would look like. Along with screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz wrote them a scenario that was different from the time in Hollywood prevailing norm that a story had to be told in a linear film. Instead of Kane's life was in flashback told at that illuminate the story always from a different starting point. Film critic Pauline Kael wrote in 1971 in The New Yorker article Raising Kane, which argued that Mankiewicz is the sole author of the scenario, and Welles had written no sense. [1] The article was attacked by several other critics, including Peter Bogdanovich, a good friend of Welles.

For the cinematography approached Welles renowned cinematographer Gregg Toland, who in 1940 won an Oscar for his work on the film adaptation of Wuthering Heights . Welles and Toland took the scenes on Long shots ( long takes ) in deep focus and used a high contrast black and white. The film is considered a pioneer of deep focus, a technique in which both objects in the foreground, in the middle as in the background at the same time sharp (in focus ) can be seen. Some scenes made ​​Toland, using either an optical printer, making certain pieces of film were shot on different pieces of film.

Mighty characters like Kane and Jedediah Leland, were a big part of the movie filmed with a low angle, and weaker characters like Susan Alexander from a high angle, a technique that was taken from Stagecoach ofJohn Ford . To newsreel, seen after the death of Kane, there is grainy and old show, was editor Robert Wise (later director include The Sound of Music ) with the idea of dragging the recordings on a stone floor and him to pick up a cloth filled with sand.

Much of the actors, including Joseph Cotten and Agnes Moorehead, Welles knew of the Mercury Theatre . Because the film spanned several decades, the actors were using makeup made ​​older. Cotten even wore fuzzy lenses to make his eyes are older look. Welles himself gave to him, to have to look like a young, charismatic man, wearing a lot of makeup, but also strategically placed tape wore a sort of facelift to get.

Production began on June 29 1940 and ended on October 23 . During the filming of the movie RKO 281 was named to the production number of the film. Halfway through the production Welles broke his ankle and he had two weeks in a wheelchair directing.

Reception [ edit ]
Orson Welles 'Citizen' Kane

William Randolph Hearst, an influential newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane recognized in an unflattering description of himself. A known reference Kanes remark about the Spanish-American War, "You providence the pictures, I'll providence the war", similar to a quote from Hearst about this war. Rosebud would, according to Gore Vidal, even the nickname that Hearst gave to the clitoris of his mistress, Marion Davies . [2] Another story goes that Hearst was not so much disappointed in the way Orson Welles gave rise to life, but more in the way Davies was portrayed in the form of talentless singer Susan Alexander. Davies was a light comedy actress, who, thanks to Hearst in heavy costume drama 's landed.

Therefore he tried to prevent the film was a success. First he offered to RKO boss George Shaefer the cost of making the film as he compensate the negativescould destroy, but when he refused, he caused a boycott of the film. All newspapers and radio stations from his media conglomerate was forbidden to mention the film or to place advertisements. Partly because of the boycott Citizen Kane was not a success in theaters and considered a flop. Welles later this was no longer the creative freedom he enjoyed in the making of this film.

Welles, however, has always denied that Kane is based solely on Hearst or any other person, but a collection of several powerful figures in the thirties . Several elements can for example be attributed to life in the Chicago -based business magnate Samuel Insull and Robert McCormick, publisher of the Chicago Tribune .Other people who formed a possible inspiration for Kane airplane magnate and film producer Howard Hughes and Jules Brulatour , co-founder of Universal Studios . Through his efforts, however, to work against the film the film and the character is now forever linked with Hearst.

Most non Hearst newspapers were affiliated Citizen Kane but a masterpiece . The New York Film Critics Circle, an association of New York film critics, Citizen Kane named the best film of 1941 . The Academyrewarded the film with nine Oscar nominations, including four for Welles. Citizen Kane finally received only one Oscar, for best screenplay, awarded to Welles and Mankiewicz. The award for Best Film, which Citizen Kane was nominated, went to How Green Was My Valley by John Ford . All times that the movie was called by reading out the nominees sounded boos from the audience, probably from actors who feared Hearst.

After 1942 the film in the US fell into oblivion until he in 1946, after the Second World War , was released in several European countries. Especially the French critics, including André Bazin, were very impressed by the film, and the film received worldwide attention again. Today the film as one of the best movies of all time is considered. The film is mentioned in several film lists as the best film of all time. So once he heads the list of the 100 best American films of AFI to [3] . The film has since 1962 every decade by critics of the renowned film magazine Sight & Sound named the best film of all time until the film in 2012, fell to second place in the list. Citizen Kane also belonged in 1989 to the first batch of films which was included in the National Film Registry, along with other classics like Casablanca and Gone With the Wind .

[Awards and nominations edit ]

 * Oscars 1942
 * Best Picture - Orson Welles (nomination)
 * Best Actor - Orson Welles (nomination)
 * Best Director - Orson Welles (nomination)
 * Best Original Screenplay - Herman J. Mankiewicz and Orson Welles (won)
 * Best Cinematography, Black-and-white - Gregg Toland (nomination)
 * Best Editing - Robert Wise (nomination)
 * Best art direction, black and white - Perry Ferguson , Van Nest Polglase , A. Roland Fields & Darrell Silvera (nomination)
 * Best Film Score, Drama - Bernard Herrmann (nomination)
 * Best Sound, Recording - John Aalberg (nomination)

[Trivia edit ]

 * During a scene in the film, with a picnic in the Everglades, a jungle projected in the background. The projected background of the prehistoric monster movie The Son of Kong in 1933 , and in the background flying birds are actually pterosaurs .
 * In the eighties, the rumor went around that Ted Turner was planning to release a colored version of Citizen Kane, which led to violent protests. In reality, he could not even do this, since the rights for the film were still in the hands of Orson Welles. Turner would have helped the rumor in the world to bully opponents of colored black-and-white films, and probably never had the plan to color the film.
 * Actor Alan Ladd is seen as one of the reporters at the end of the movie (the reporter "with pipe," according to the credits)
 * The screenplay of Citizen Kane released in March 2014 at an auction in London for almost $ 10,000. [1]