To mark the 75th anniversary of Orson Welles' cinematic masterpiece CITIZEN KANE, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment (WBHE) will release a new Blu-ray™ and DVD on November 15, and the American Film Institute (AFI) will mount a special screening of the restored master on November 13. The screening will take place at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood at 1:30 p.m., followed by an AFI Master Class, featuring close personal Welles friend Peter Bogdanovich and a celebrity and academic panel to be announced.
The film's central character is powerful publisher Charles Foster Kane, who aspires to be president of the United States. Newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst claimed "Citizen Kane" was a thinly veiled and slanderous account of his own life and sought to use his formidable muscle to halt the film's production and distribution and ultimately to destroy Welles himself.
By the early 1960s "Citizen Kane" had been out of circulation for many years when a panel of top industry tastemakers, selected by the AFI, voted it as the Greatest Film of All Time. Since then, "Citizen Kane" has remained # 1 or # 2 on countless critics' lists and other surveys including those from Roger Ebert, The BBC, Rolling Stone Magazine, Pauline Kael, among many others.
One-time dean of American movie reviewers, Pauline Kael, noted, "Citizen Kane is perhaps the one American talking picture that seems as fresh now as the day it opened. It may seem even fresher." Ebert echoed, "This towering achievement is as fresh, as provoking, as entertaining, as sad, as brilliant as it ever was. Many agree it is the greatest film of all time."
According to Martin Scorsese, Welles and the film are "responsible for inspiring more people to be film directors than anyone else in the history of cinema." Woody Allen: "Welles takes a quantum leap above every American director with that intangible thing called genius. Just an exhilarating movie." Mel Brooks: "Maybe the best American picture ever. A masterpiece with artistic genius on a 'Beethoven' level." Richard Dreyfuss: "I usually avoid questions about my favorite movie but then people keep pressing me. 'OK, 'Citizen Kane' is my favorite movie. It's the greatest movie ever made, OK?' Without a doubt the only film you can watch 138 times, and each time you'll still see something new." And finally, Steven Spielberg: "Just one of the great movies ever made. A great
AMERICAN EXPERIENCE in cinema."
Citizen Kane" also heads a long list of film dramas about the media including such classics as "All The President's Men," "Sweet Smell of Success," "The Killing Fields," "Absence of Malice," "The Paper," and last year's Academy Award®-winning Best Picture, "Spotlight."
Not only did he star in the film, but the then only 25-year-old Orson Welles also produced, directed and co-wrote the film which won the Academy Award® for Best Writing, Original Screenplay (Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz) and captured nine nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Director (Welles).
Joseph Cotten made an impressive screen debut as Jedidiah Leland, newspaper reporter and Kane's longtime friend, from whom he had become estranged over the issue of journalistic integrity. Other actors included Everett Sloane, Agnes Moorehead, Ruth Warrick, Paul Stewart and William Alland as the investigative reporter who delves into Kane's life and his mysterious "Rosebud." Alan Ladd and Arthur O'Connell appear uncredited as reporters. Gregg Toland was the film's cinematographer and Robert Wise, later a two-time Academy Award-winning director, edited the picture.
Remastered and restored from original nitrate elements in 4K resolution, the film (certified 100% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) will be available on DVD ($14.97) and Blu-ray ($19.98). A wide variety of DVD and Blu-ray extras will be included in all editions.
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