Friday 31 August 2012

The Battle Over Citizen Kane

 



After storming New York theatre with Haitian Shakespeare versions of Julius Caesar and that War of the Worlds that shook up the US24 year old prodigy Orson Welles moved to Hollywood. There he portrayed media mogul William Randolph Hearst in his movie Citizen Kane but also included Hearst's girlfriend as an untalented drunk and made reference to a Rosebud which was Hearsts nickname for Marion Davie's vagina (see photo above).

He never made another film again.

This is one of the best documentaries on media, fame, genius, money and power I've ever watched. It's not perfect but I had no idea that Hearst was the kind of guy who urged the assassination of president McKinley in his newspapers and it actually happened.

I would bookmark this one. I had just watched the movie too, so it added a lot of depth to the documentary but I think you could do it the other way round without diminishing the enjoyment of either.

Update: The original documentary was pulled so I've embedded another. It's either that one or this one below I'm referring to. Sorry.