"The American Experience" The Battle Over Citizen Kane (1996)

User Rating:

7.8/10   

Directors:

Michael Epstein
Thomas Lennon

Writers:

Richard Ben Cramer (writer) and
Thomas Lennon (writer)

TV Series:

"The American Experience" (1988)

Original Air Date:

29 January 1996 (Season 8, Episode 7)

Genre:

Documentary | Biography | Crime | History | War

Plot:

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 as a relative complete bio of Hearst.

Plot Keywords:

Director | Voice Over Narration | Mistress | Publisher | Behind The Scenes

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 4 nominations

Cast

William Alland	...	Himself
Thomas Anderson	...	Himself
Richard Ben Cramer	...	Narrator (voice)
Peter Bogdanovich	...	Himself
Jimmy Breslin	...	Himself
Marion Davies	...	Herself (archive footage)
Leonard De Bur	...	Himself
Douglas Fairbanks Jr.	...	Himself
Richard France	...	Himself
William Randolph Hearst	...	Himself (archive footage)
William Herz	...	Himself
Sam Leve	...	Himself
Norman Lloyd	...	Himself
Nancy Loe	...	Herself
Frank Mankiewicz	...	Himself
David Nasaw	...	Himself
Lon Etta Santucci	...	Himself
John Tebbel	...	Himself
Ruth Warrick	...	Herself
Orson Welles	...	Himself (archive footage)
Vern Whaley	...	Himself
Gloria Widelock	...	Herself
Robert Wise	...	Himself

Runtime:

108 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White | Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Lennon Documentary Group

Movie Connections:

Edited from We Work Again (1937)

Good Documentary

Battle Over Citizen Kane, The (The American Experience) (1996)

*** (out of 4)

Season eight of The American Experience featured this documentary about the making of Orson Welles Citizen Kane, which would cause the director to do battle with William Randolph Hearst, the man Kane is based on. There's one huge problem with this film and that's that the film takes way too much time to dig into the actual making of the movie. We spend about an hour getting to know both Welles and Hearst, which is fine but I think too much time is spent here. We learn how Hearst ended up making his fortune (as well as losing) and how Welles became an overnight sensation with The War of the Words radio show. The most interesting aspects happen when we get to the making of the film and how Welles was running out of time to get a movie on the screen as many felt he'd never film anything. When the actual battle starts between the two men it's rather shocking and perhaps sad that neither Welles or Hearst had the decency to try and meet with one another to settle this thing instead of letting it take both of them over. The even sadder thing is that the movie Citizen Kane ended up being a bio of Welles as he ended up just like the character. I've often wondered if Welles got lost in the Kane character or perhaps he was the Kane character and this documentary makes it seem like he was the Kane character.