Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film by Orson Welles, its producer, co-screenwriter, director and star. The picture was Welles’s first feature film. Nominated for Academy Awards in nine categories, it won an Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay) by Herman J. Mankiewicz and Welles.
Considered by many critics, filmmakers, and fans to be the greatest film ever made, Citizen Kane was voted as such in five consecutive British Film Institute Sight & Sound polls of critics, and it topped the American Film Institute’s 100 Years … 100 Movies list in 1998, as well as its 2007 update. Citizen Kane is particularly praised for Gregg Toland’s cinematography, Robert Wise’s editing, Bernard Herrmann’s music, and its narrative structure, all of which have been considered innovative and precedent-setting.
- Starring : Orson Welles / Joseph Cotten / Dorothy Comingore
- Genre : Drama / Mystery
- Country : United States
- Language : English / Italian
- Director : Orson Welles
- Production : RKO Radio Pictures / Mercury Productions
- Distributor : RKO Radio Pictures / Filmes Lusomundo / RKO Radio Films / Titanus / Motion Picture Export Association (MPEA) / C&C Television Corporation / Constantin Film / Art Theatre Guild (ATG) / Actueel Film / Yleisradio (YLE) / Media Home Entertainment / The Nostalgia Merchant / House of Dare / VidAmerica / Thorn EMI / Cine-Studio / DOFRA / RCA (II) / RKO Home Video / Channel 5 Video Distribution / Fox Hills Video / Paramount Pictures / Astral Video / The Criterion Collection / Tohokushinsha Film Corporation (TFC) / Turner Home Entertainment / 4 Front Video / PolyGram Video / Warner Home Video / I.V.C. / Kinowelt Home Entertainment / PolyGram Filmed Entertainment / Universal Home Entertainment / Universal Pictures / Universal / Manga Films / Argentina Video Home / Warner Home Vídeo / Éditions Montparnasse / Atlantic Film / Cosmic Publishing / Indies Home Entertainment / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / GP Museum Soft / Emerald / Epoca / First Trading / Nippon Sports Publishing / Neue Visionen Filmverleih / Orustak Pictures / PSG / International DVD Group / Chapel Distribution / ARC / Asociace Ceských Filmových Klubu (ACFK) / Continental Home Vídeo / Future Film / Gerit / Pan Vision Publishing Video / Sesam Video / Tone / YLE Teema / StudioCanal / Classics Films Distribución / Star Entertainment
Citizen Kane movie
Citizen Kane release date
- May 1, 1941 : USA (New York City, New York) (premiere)
- May 6, 1941 : USA (Chicago, Illinois)
- May 8, 1941 : USA (Los Angeles, California)
- May 16, 1941 : USA (Washington, D.C.)
- May 19, 1941 : USA (Boston, Massachusetts)
- May 27, 1941 : USA (San Francisco, California)
- September 5, 1941 : USA
- October 12, 1941 : UK (London)
- January 23, 1942 : Australia
- January 24, 1942 : UK
- January 26, 1942 : Sweden
- April 17, 1942 : Ireland
- February 11, 1946 : Spain
- July 3, 1946 : France
- April 15, 1954 : Philippines (Davao)
- June 14, 1966 : Japan
- September 26, 1980 : Australia (re-release)
- May 1, 1991 : USA (re-release)
- April 11, 1997 : UK (re-release)
- April 20, 1999 : Germany (video premiere)
- June 4, 1999 : UK (re-release)
- March 20, 2002 : France (re-release)
- September 27, 2007 : Germany (re-release)
- September 10, 2008 : France (re-release)
- October 30, 2009 : UK (re-release)
- January 1, 2015 : USA (New York City, New York) (re-release)
- March 21, 2015 : Spain (Phenomena – Barcelona) (re-release)
- May 20, 2015 : France (digitally restored version) (Cannes Film Festival)
- July 17, 2015 : Spain (Barcelona) (re-release)
- September 8, 2015 : France (digitally restored version) (Deauville Film Festival)
- November 13, 2016 : USA (AFI Fest)
- April 6, 2017 : USA (San Francisco International Film Festival)
Citizen Kane cast
- Joseph Cotten as Jedediah Leland / Screening Room Reporter
- Dorothy Comingore as Susan Alexander Kane
- Agnes Moorehead as Mary Kane
- Ruth Warrick as Emily Monroe Norton Kane
- Ray Collins as James W. Gettys
- Erskine Sanford as Herbert Carter / Screening Room Reporter
- Everett Sloane as Mr. Bernstein
- William Alland as Jerry Thompson
- Paul Stewart as Raymond
- George Coulouris as Walter Parks Thatcher
- Fortunio Bonanova as Matiste
- Gus Schilling as The Headwaiter / Screening Room Reporter
- Philip Van Zandt as Mr. Rawlston
- Georgia Backus as Miss Anderson
- Harry Shannon as Kane’s Father
The quasi-biographical film examines the life and legacy of Charles Foster Kane, played by Welles, a character based in part upon the American newspaper magnates William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, Chicago tycoons Samuel Insull and Harold McCormick, and aspects of the screenwriters’ own lives. Upon its release, Hearst prohibited mention of the film in any of his newspapers. Kane’s career in the publishing world is born of idealistic social service, but gradually evolves into a ruthless pursuit of power. Narrated principally through flashbacks, the story is told through the research of a newsreel reporter seeking to solve the mystery of the newspaper magnate’s dying word: “Rosebud”.
After the Broadway successes 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 given the freedom to develop his own story, to use his own cast and crew, and to have final cut privilege. Following two abortive attempts to get a project off the ground, he wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane, collaborating on the effort with Herman Mankiewicz. Principal photography took place in 1940 and the film received its American release in 1941.
While a critical success, Citizen Kane failed to recoup its costs at the box office. The film faded from view after its release, but was subsequently returned to the public’s attention when it was praised by such French critics as André Bazin and given an American revival in 1956. The film was released on Blu-ray on September 13, 2011, for a special 70th-anniversary edition.
In a mansion in Xanadu, a vast palatial estate in Florida, the elderly Charles Foster Kane is on his deathbed. Holding a snow globe, he utters a word, “Rosebud”, and dies; the globe slips from his hand and smashes on the floor. A newsreel obituary tells the life story of Kane, an enormously wealthy newspaper publisher. Kane’s death becomes sensational news around the world, and the newsreel’s producer tasks reporter Jerry Thompson with discovering the meaning of “Rosebud”.
Thompson sets out to interview Kane’s friends and associates. He tries to approach his wife, Susan Alexander Kane, now an alcoholic who runs her own nightclub, but she refuses to talk to him. Thompson goes to the private archive of the late banker Walter Parks Thatcher. Through Thatcher’s written memoirs, Thompson learns that Kane’s childhood began in poverty in Colorado.
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