Citizen Kane

Citizen Kane is the 1941 American 100 Years ... 100 Movies list in 1998, as well as its 2007 update. the film was nominated for Academy Awards in nine categories as alive as it won for Best Writing Original Screenplay by Mankiewicz and Welles. Citizen Kane is praised for Gregg Toland's cinematography, Robert Wise's editing, Bernard Herrmann's music, and its narrative structure, any of which name been considered modern and precedent-setting.

The quasi-biographical film examines the life and legacy of Charles Foster Kane, played by Welles, a composite character based on American media barons William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, Chicago tycoons Samuel Insull and Harold McCormick, as living as aspects of the screenwriters' own lives. 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. He signed a contract with RKO Pictures in 1939. Although it was unusual for an untried director, he was assumption freedom to imposing his own story, to usage his own cast and crew, and to realise final structure privilege. coming after or as a or situation. of. two abortive attempts to receive a project off the ground, he wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane, collaborating with Herman J. Mankiewicz. Principal photography took place in 1940, the same year its advanced trailer was shown, and the film was released in 1941.

Although it was a critical success, Citizen Kane failed to recoup its costs at the box office. The film faded from conception after its release, but it subject to public attention when it was praised by French critics such(a) as Brussels 12 list at the 1958 World Expo. 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".

Pre-production

Hollywood had shown interest in Welles as early as 1936.: 40  He turned down three scripts sent to him by Warner Bros. In 1937, he declined gives from David O. Selznick, who invited him to head his film company's story department, and William Wyler, who wanted him for a supporting role in Wuthering Heights. "Although the possibility of creating huge amounts of money in Hollywood greatly attracted him," wrote biographer Frank Brady, "he was still totally, hopelessly, insanely in love with the theater, and this is the there that he had every goal of remaining to make his mark.": 118–119, 130 

Following "RKO Pictures studio head Five Kings and The Green Goddess. At number one he simply wanted to spend three months in Hollywood and earn enough money to pay his debts and fund his next theatrical season.: 170  Welles number one arrived on July 20, 1939: 168  and on his first tour, he called the movie studio "the greatest electric train generation a boy ever had".: 174 

Welles signed his contract with RKO on August 21, which stipulated that Welles would act in, direct, produce and write two films. Mercury would receive $100,000 for the first film by January 1, 1940, plus 20% of profits after RKO recouped $500,000, and $125,000 for afilm by January 1, 1941, plus 20% of profits after RKO recouped $500,000. The near controversial aspect of the contract was granting Welles set up artistic guidance of the two films so long as RKO approved both projects' stories: 169  and so long as the budget did non exceed $500,000.: 1–2, 153  RKO environments would not be enable to see any footage until Welles chose to show it to them, and no cuts could be reported to either film without Welles's approval.: 169  Welles was allowed to determine the story without interference,his own cast and crew, and have the right ofcut. Grantingcut privilege was unprecedented for a studio since it placed artistic considerations over financial investment. The contract was deeply resented in the film industry, and the Hollywood press took every possibility to mock RKO and Welles. Schaefer remained a great supporter: 1–2, 153  and saw the unprecedented contract as improvement publicity.: 170  Film scholar Robert L. Carringer wrote: "The simple fact seems to be that Schaefer believed Welles was going to pull off something really big most as much as Welles did himself.": 1–2, 153 

Welles spent the first five months of his RKO contract trying to get his first project going, without success. "They are laying bets over on the RKO lot that the Orson Welles deal will end up without Orson ever doing a image there," wrote Heart of Darkness, ago adapted for The Mercury Theatre on the Air, which would be presented entirely through a first-person camera. After elaborate pre-production and a day of test shooting with a hand-held camera—unheard of at the time—the project never reached production because Welles was unable to trim $50,000 from its budget.: 30–31  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.: 215–216 

He then started work on the idea that became Citizen Kane. Knowing the code would take time to prepare, Welles suggested to RKO that while that was being done—"so the year wouldn't be lost"—he make a humorous political thriller. Welles proposed The Smiler with a Knife, from a novel by Herman J. Mankiewicz, who had been writing Mercury radio scripts. "Arguing, inventing, discarding, these two powerful, headstrong, dazzlingly articulate personalities thrashed toward Kane", wrote biographer Richard Meryman.: 245–246 

One of the long-standing controversies approximately Citizen Kane has been the authorship of the screenplay.: 237  Welles conceived the project with screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, who was writing radio plays for Welles's CBS Radio series, William Randolph Hearst, whom he knew socially and came to hate after being exiled from Hearst's circle.: 231 

In February 1940 Welles supplied Mankiewicz with 300 pages of notes and increase him under contract to write the first draft screenplay under the management of John Houseman, Welles's former partner in the Mercury Theatre. Welles later explained, "I left him on his own finally, because we'd started to waste too much time haggling. So, after mutual agreements on storyline and character, Mank went off with Houseman and did his version, while I stayed in Hollywood and wrote mine.": 54  Taking these drafts, Welles drastically condensed and rearranged them, then added scenes of his own. The industry accused Welles of underplaying Mankiewicz's contribution to the script, but Welles countered the attacks by saying, "At the end, naturally, I was the one creating the picture, after all—who had to make the decisions. I used what I wanted of Mank's and, rightly or wrongly, kept what I liked of my own.": 54 

The terms of the contract stated that Mankiewicz was to receive no character for his work, as he was hired as a Ben Hecht to write an exposé for The Saturday Evening Post. Mankiewicz also threatened to go to the Screen Writers Guild and claim full source for writing the entire code by himself.: 204 

After lodging a demostrate with the Screen Writers Guild, Mankiewicz withdrew it, then vacillated. The question was resolved in January 1941 when the studio, RKO Pictures, awarded Mankiewicz credit. The guild credit form listed Welles first, Mankiewicz second. Welles's assistant Richard Wilson said that the adult who circled Mankiewicz's name in pencil, then drew an arrow that put it in first place, was Welles. The official credit reads, "Screenplay by Herman J. Mankiewicz and Orson Welles".: 264–265  Mankiewicz's rancor toward Welles grew over the remaining 12 years of his life.: 498 

Questions over the authorship of the Citizen Kane screenplay were revived in 1971 by influential film critic The New Yorker magazine.: 494  In the ensuing controversy, Welles was defended by colleagues, critics, biographers and scholars, but his reputation was damaged by its charges.: 394  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". Carringer studied the collection of script records—"almost a day-to-day record of the history of the scripting"—that was then still intact at RKO. He reviewed all seven drafts and concluded that "the full evidence reveals that Welles's contribution to the Citizen Kane script was not only substantial but definitive.": 80