Synopsis
Documentary about the battle between Orson Welles and William Randolph Hearst over Welles' Citizen Kane (1941). Features interviews with Welles' and Hearst's co-workers also acts as a relatively complete biograph of Hearst's career.
The Battle Over Citizen Kane
1996 Directed by Michael Epstein, Thomas Lennon
Cast
Richard Ben Cramer William Alland Thomas Anderson Peter Bogdanovich Jimmy Breslin Marion Davies Leonard de Paur Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Richard France William Randolph Hearst William Herz Sam Leve Norman Lloyd Nancy Loe Frank Mankiewicz Ruth Warrick Orson Welles Vern Whaley Robert Wise David McCullough
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Alternative Titles
The American Experience: The Battle Over Citizen Kane, Die Legende – Der Kampf um Citizen Kane, The Battle Over Citizen Kane - La sfida che segnò la storia del cinema, “公民凯恩”之外的战斗
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I have the sudden urge to buy some Scotts Turf Builder, even though I don't even have a lawn
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If you wanna get the keys to the kingdom before turning 25 you'll probably need the Wunderkind's energizing supper menu:
Two steaks, each with a baked potato, an entire pineapple, triple pistachio ice cream and a bottle of scotch.
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im anticipating the hellstorm of UNCSA students attacking letterboxd only seconds after the film ends
after they all wake up, of course -
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As I languidly prepare myself for eventually viewing MANK, I thought I'd go through this doc, which I've owned for years but only ever watched piecemeal. It's a good little doc, but in the spirit of Hearst's journalism racket, it's misleading aggrandizement to consider this film a detailing of the 'battle' over Welles' classic.
Instead of the story of CITIZEN KANE following two converging megalomaniac media-manipulators, THE BATTLE OVER takes more of a stroll through the early 20th century Hollywood and newspaper businesses on parallel lines. Only about 20 minutes of the interviews and archive footage is dedicated to the tug of war over Citizen Kane's release. Somewhat frustratingly, the film teases and teases and teases the details of Welles'…
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A good and informative documentary that I always enjoyed watching but the way they end it by basically saying Orson Welles' life mirrors Charles Foster Kane's is complete bullshit. Like I'm sorry he couldn't continue to top Citizen Kane with every movie he made after that? Even if he didn't (and who could?) that is no reason to discredit his filmography, he continued to make great films like The Magnificent Ambersons, The Stranger, The Lady from Shanghai, Mr. Arkadin, Touch of Evil, The Trial, Chimes at Midnight, F for Fake, and one of his greatest achievements that unfortunately he never saw finished in his lifetime, The Other Side of the Wind. Anybody would be proud to make any of these movies, let alone all of them.
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That's a bit Reductionist
This is a disappointingly dull "American Experience" episode from PBS. It reduces one of the most fascinating films, the oft-proclaimed "greatest film ever made," "Citizen Kane," to a contest of wills between two men who were supposedly a lot alike (no, they weren't), filmmaker Orson Welles and newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst. Indeed, Charles Foster Kane was notoriously based on Hearst (as well as other rich men, but I guess that'd undermine the narrative here), but it's hardly the most interesting thing about the film despite occupying much of the space in popular assessments such as this TV documentary. "Kane" was an artfully unique way to tell a story, cinematographically (pan focus, unusual angles, etc.) and…
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This is worse and less informational than the fake documentary at the beginning of Citizen Kane
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