Citizen Kane / an RKO Radio Picture ; a Mercury production by Orson Welles ; original screen play, Herman J. Mankiewicz, Orson Welles ; director-producer, Orson Welles.
Edition:
Three-Blu-ray special edition.
Publisher:
The Criterion Collection,
Copyright Date:
2021
Description:
3 videodiscs (119 min.) : sound, black and white ; 4 3/4 in.
Container of (work): Citizen Kane (Motion picture)
Notes:
Title from sell sheet. Originally released as a motion picture in 1941. Special edition features: Three audio commentaries from 2021 featuring Orson Welles scholars James Naremore and Jonathan Rosenbaum; from 2002 featuring filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich; and from 2002 featuring film critic Roger Ebert; The complete Citizen Kane (1991): a rarely seen feature-length BBC documentary; new interviews with critic Farran Smith Nehme and film scholar Racquel J. Gates; new video essay by Orson Welles scholar Robert Carringer; new porgram on the film's special effects by film scholars and effects experts Craig Barron and Ben Burtt; Interviews from 1990 with editor Robert Wise, actor Ruth Warrick, optical-effects designer Linwood Dunn, Bogdanovich, filmmakers Martin Scorsese, Henry Jaglom, Martin Ritt, and Frank Marshall, and cinematographers Allen Daviau, Gary Graver, and Vilmos Zsigmond; New documentary featuring archival interviews with Welles; Interviews with actor Joseph Cotten from 1966 and 1975; The hearts of age: a brief silent film made by Welles as a student in 1934; Television programs from 1979 and 1988 featuring appearances by Welles and Mercury Theatre producer John Houseman; Program featuring a 1996 interview with actor William Alland on his collaborations with Welles; Selection of The mercury theatre on the Air radio plays featuring many of the actors from Citizen Kane; trailer. Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Agnes Moorehead, Ruth Warrick, Ray Collins, Erskine Sanford, Everett Sloane, William Alland, Paul Stewart, George Coulouris, Fortunio Bonanova, Gus Schilling, Philip Van Zandt, Georgia Backus, Harry Shannon, Sonny Bupp, Buddy Swan.
Summary:
In the most dazzling debut feature in cinema history, twenty-five-year-old writer-producer-director-star Orson Welles synthesized the possibilities of sound-era filmmaking into what could be called the first truly modern movie. In telling the story of the meteoric rise and precipitous fall of a William Randolph Hearst-like newspaper magnate named Charles Foster Kane, Welles not only created the definitive portrait of American megalomania, he also unleashed a torrent of stylistic innovations, from the jigsaw-puzzle narrative structure to the stunning deep-focus camera work of Gregg Toland, that have ensured that this film remains fresh and galvanizing for every new generation of moviegoers to encounter it.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.