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Home , A Song Is Born, A Storm in Summer, Crack in the Mirror, Dorothy Comingore, Everett Sloane, Filming The Trial

September 15, 2015 (XXXI:3) , (1941, 119 min)

(The version of this handout on the website has color images and hot urls.)

Winner of one Academy Award in 1942 for Best Writing, Original Screenplay for Herman J. Mankiewicz and Orson Welles. Citizen Kane also received seven 1942 Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Actor in a Leading Role (Orson Welles), Best Director (Orson Welles), Best , Black-and-While (), Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black- and-White (Perry Ferguson, Van Nest Polglase, A. Roland Fields, Darrell Silvera), Best Sound, Recording (John Aalberg, RKO Radio SSD) and Best Film Editing (). In 1941 the film won both National Board of Review for Best Film and Film Critics Circle Awards for Best Film.

National Film Registry—1989

Directed by Orson Welles Written by Herman J. Mankiewicz & Orson Welles ... (original screen play), (contributing writer) (uncredited) 1984 he won the Lifetime Achievement Award from Directors Produced by Orson Welles Guild of America. Welles directed 47 films and TV shows Music by Bernard Herrmann including, 1955-2000 Around the World with Orson Welles (TV Cinematography by Gregg Toland Series documentary, 7 episodes), 1993 It's All True Film Editing by Robert Wise (Documentary), 1992 Don Quixote (original footage), 1981 Filming 'The Trial' (Documentary), 1978 Filming 'Othello' Cast (Documentary), 1973 (Documentary), 1970 The Deep, Orson Welles … Kane 1965 , 1962 The Trial, 1958 , ... Jedediah Leland 1955 Confidential Report, 1952 Othello, 1948 Macbeth, 1947 The ... Susan Alexander Kane Lady from Shanghai (uncredited), 1946 The Stranger, 1943 ... Mary Kane Journey Into Fear (uncredited), 1942 The Magnificent Ambersons, ... Emily Monroe Norton Kane 1941 Citizen Kane, 1938 Too Much Johnson. Additionally, he ... James W. Gettys acted in 121 films and TV shows: 1987 Someone to Love, 1986 …Mr. Bernstein The Transformers: The Movie, 1981-1983 Magnum, P.I. (TV ... Jerry Thompson Series), 1981 The Man Who Saw Tomorrow, 1980 Shogun (TV ... Raymond Movie), 1979 The Muppet Movie, 1972 , 1971 ... Walter Parks Thatcher Malpertuis, 1970 The Deep, 1970 Waterloo, 1970 Catch-22, 1970 Start the Revolution Without Me, 1970 The Kremlin Letter, 1969 Orson Welles (director, writer, actor) (b. May 6, 1915 in The Southern Star, 1968 House of Cards, 1968 Oedipus the King, Kenosha, WI—d. October 10, 1985, age 70, , CA) won 1967 I'll Never Forget What's'isname, 1967 Casino Royale, 1966 A the 1942 Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Screenplay, Man for All Seasons, 1966 Is Paris Burning?, 1965 Chimes at Citizen Kane (1941); shared with: Herman J. Mankiewicz. That Midnight, 1963 The V.I.P.s, 1962 The Trial, 1961 King of Kings, same year, he was also nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role 1960 The Battle of Austerlitz, 1960 Crack in the Mirror, 1960 (Citizen Kane, 1941) and Best Director (Citizen Kane, 1941). In David and Goliath, 1959 Compulsion, 1958 The Roots of Heaven, Welles—CITIZEN KANE-—2

1958 Touch of Evil, 1958 The Long, Hot Summer, 1956 Moby Man (TV Series), 1975 Three Days of the Condor, 1975 Dick, 1955 Confidential Report, 1955 , 1952 Trent's Last Rollerball, 1973 The Paper Chase, 1964 Seven Days in May, 1938 Case, 1952 Othello, 1950 The Black Rose, 1949 Prince of Foxes, Too Much Johnson. Houseman produced 29 films including 1980 1949 The Third Man, 1949 Black Magic, 1948 Macbeth, 1947 The Gideon's (TV Movie, executive producer), 1966 This Lady from Shanghai, 1946 Duel in the Sun, 1946 The Stranger, Property Is Condemned, 1962 Two Weeks in Another Town, 1956 1946 Tomorrow Is Forever, 1943 Jane Eyre, 1943 Journey Into Lust for Life, 1953 Julius , 1952 The Bad and the Beautiful, Fear, 1942 The Magnificent Ambersons, 1941 Citizen Kane, 1940 1946 The Dahlia, 1938 Too Much Johnson. Swiss Family Robinson, 1938 Too Much Johnson. He also has 53 writer’s credits, Bernard Herrmann (music) (b. among them 1970 The Deep, June 29, 1911 in , 1965 Chimes at Midnight, 1962 NY—d. December 24, 1975, age The Trial (written by), 1958 64, in Hollywood, CA) won two Touch of Evil (screenplay), in 1977 for Best 1955 Confidential Report Music, Original Score (Taxi Driver, (screenplay) / (story), The War 1976) and in 1942 for Best Music, of the Worlds (1955, Scoring of a Dramatic Picture (All uncredited), 1952 Othello That Money Can Buy, 1941). He (uncredited), 1949 The Third was also nominated for 3 Academy Man (uncredited), 1948 Awards including, 1977’s Best Macbeth (adaptation - Music—Original Score (Obsession, uncredited), 1947 The Lady 1976), 1947’s Best Music, Scoring from Shanghai (screenplay), of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture 1946 The Stranger (Anna and the King of Siam, 1946), (uncredited), 1942 The and 1942’s Best Music, Scoring of Magnificent Ambersons (script a Dramatic Picture (Citizen Kane, writer), 1941 Citizen Kane 1941). He was also nominated for (original screenplay), 1938 Too a Grammy in 1977 for Best Album Much Johnson (writer). of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or Television Special (Taxi Driver, 1976). Hermann composed for 85 films and Herman J. Mankiewicz (writer) (b. November, 7, 1897 in New TV shows including, 2013 The Audition (Short), 2012 The Man in York City, NY—d. 5, 1953 at the age of 55 from uremic the Silo, 1998 Psycho, 1976 Obsession, 1976 Taxi Driver, 1974 It's poisoning in Hollywood, CA) won one Academy Award in 1942, Alive, 1973 Sisters, 1968 The Bride Wore Black, 1966 Fahrenheit which he shared with Orson Welles, for Best Writing, Original 451, 1965 Convoy (TV Series), 1964 Marnie, 1959-1963 The Screenplay for Citizen Kane (1941). Mankiewicz was also Twilight Zone, 1963 Jason and the Argonauts, 1962 Cape Fear, nominated in 1943 with Jo Swerling for Best Writing, Screenplay 1962 Tender Is the Night, 1961 (TV Series), 1960 for (1942). He has written for 93 films Psycho, 1959 Journey to the Center of the Earth, 1959 North by including, 1952 The Pride of St. Louis (screenplay), 1942 The Northwest, 1958 The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, 1958 The Naked and Pride of the Yankees (screenplay), 1941 Citizen Kane (original the Dead, 1958 Vertigo, 1957 A Hatful of Rain, 1956 The Man screenplay), 1941 The Wild Man of Borneo (based on the play), Who Knew Too Much, 1956 The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, 1932 Dancers in the Dark, 1931 Ladies' Man, 1930 The Vagabond 1955 Prince of Players, 1954 The Egyptian, 1953 King of the King (screenplay, story), 1929 The Man I Love (story), 1928 Abie's Khyber Rifles, 1953 Beneath the 12-Mile Reef, 1952 The Snows of Irish Rose (titles), 1926 to Mandalay. Kilimanjaro, 1952 5 Fingers, 1951 On Dangerous Ground, 1951 The Day the Earth Stood Still, 1947 The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, John Houseman (writer) (b. September 22, 1902 in Bucharest, 1946 Anna and the King of Siam,1943 Jane Eyre, 1942 The Romania—d. October 31, 1988, age 86, in Malibu, CA) won the Magnificent Ambersons, 1941 The Devil and , 1941 1974 Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for The Citizen Kane. Paper Chase (1973). He was also nominated in 1954 for Best Picture for (1953). Houseman wrote, acted and Gregg Toland (cinematography) (b. May 29, 1904, Charleston, produced in over 80 films including writing for 1964 Journey to Illinois—d. September 26, 1948, age 44, in Hollywood, ) America (Documentary), 1954 Your Favorite Story (TV Series, won one Academy Award in 1940 for Best Cinematography, “Inside Out: The Story of Bunder-Runger the Jailbird” episode), Black-and-White for Wuthering Heights (1939). He was nominated 1943 Jane Eyre (screenplay) and 1941 Citizen Kane (contributing for five Academy Awards including 1942’s Best Cinematography, writer, uncredited). He has acted in 1988 The Naked Gun: From Black-and-White for Citizen Kane (1941), 1941’s Best the Files of Police Squad!, 1988 Another Woman, 1988 Bright Cinematography, Black-and-White for Lights, Big City, 1988 Lincoln (TV Mini-Series), 1988 Noble (1940), 1940’s Best Cinematography, Black-and-White for House (TV Mini-Series), 1982-1987 Silver Spoons (TV Series), Intermezzo: A Love Story (1939), 1938’s Best Cinematography for 1978-1986 The Paper Chase (TV Series),1985 A.D. (TV Mini- Dead End (1937) and 1936’s Best Cinematography Les Series), 1983 A Rose for Emily (Short),1983 The Winds of War Misérables (1935). Toland was for 66 films, (TV Mini-Series),1983 American Playhouse (TV Series), 1981 some of which were 1948 Enchantment, 1948 Ghost Story, 1947 The Bishop's Wife, 1946 The Best Years of Our Lives, 1946 1980 Gideon's Trumpet (TV Movie), 1978 The Cheap Detective, ,1946 , 1943 December 1976 The Bionic Woman (TV Series), 1976 The Six Million Dollar 7th, 1943 , 1941 The Little Foxes, 1941 Citizen Kane, Welles—CITIZEN KANE-—3

1940 The Long Voyage Home, 1940 The Westerner, 1940 The December 30, 1971, age 58, in Stonington, CT) acted in 28 films Grapes of Wrath, 1939 Raffles, 1939 Intermezzo: A Love Story, and TV shows among them, 1952 The Doctor (TV Series), 1951 1939 Wuthering Heights, 1938 Kidnapped, 1936 , The Big Night, 1949 Any Number Can Play, 1944 , 1935 The Dark Angel, 1935 Les Misérables, 1934 Nana, 1933 1941 Citizen Kane, 1940 Convicted Woman, 1940 Cafe Hostess, Tugboat Annie, 1932 The Tenderfoot, 1931 Street Scene 1939 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, 1939 , 1939 Five (uncredited), 1931 Indiscreet, 1930 Raffles, 1929 Condemned, Little Peppers and How They Grew, 1939 Coast Guard, 1939 1929 Bulldog Drummond, 1929 (uncredited), 1928 Good Girls Go to Paris, 1939 North of the Yukon, 1939 Blondie The Winning of Barbara Worth, 1926 The Bat. Meets the Boss, 1938 Prison Train.

Robert Wise (film editor) (b. September 10, 1914 in Winchester, IN—d. September 14, 2005, age 91, in , CA) won five Academy Awards including, 1967’s Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, 1966’s Best Picture (The Sound of Music, 1965) and Best Director (The Sound of Music, 1965), 1962’s Best Picture (West Side Story, 1961) and Best Director (West Side Story, 1961), shared Oscar win with Jerome Robbins. This was the first time a directing award was shared. Wise received 3 Academy Award nominations including 1967’s Best Picture (The Sand Pebbles, 1966), 1959’s Best Director (I Want to Live!, 1958), and 1942’s Best Film Editing (Citizen Kane, 1941). He directed 41 films and TV shows, among them, 2000 (TV Movie), 1979 : The Motion Picture, 1971 The Andromeda Strain, 1968 Star!, 1966 The Sand Pebbles, 1965 The Sound of Music, 1963 The Haunting, 1962 , 1961 West Side Agnes Moorehead... Mary Kane (b. December 6, 1900 in Story, 1959 , 1958 I Want to Live!, 1958 Clinton, MA—d. April 30, 1974, age 73, in Rochester, MN) was Run Silent Run Deep, 1956 Somebody Up There Likes Me, 1956 nominated for 5 Academy Awards including 1965’s Best Actress Helen of Troy, 1954 , 1953 So Big, 1953 The Desert in a Supporting Role for Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), Rats, 1951 The Day the Earth Stood Still, 1951 The House on 1949’s Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Johnny Belinda Telegraph Hill, 1949 The Set-Up, 1947 Born to Kill, 1945 The (1948), 1945’s Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Mrs. Body Snatcher, 1944 The Curse of the Cat People, 1942 The Parkington (1944), and 1943’s Best Actress in a Supporting Role Magnificent Ambersons (additional sequences, uncredited). He for The Magnificent Ambersons (1942). Moorehead also won the edited 12 films, among them, 1943 The Iron Major, 1943 The 1967 Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Performance by an Actress Fallen Sparrow, 1943 Bombardier, 1942 Seven Days' Leave, 1942 in a Supporting Role in a Drama (The Wild Wild West, 1965, for The Magnificent Ambersons, 1941 The Devil and Daniel Webster, the episode "Night of the Vicious Valentine"). Additionally she 1941 Citizen Kane, 1940 Dance, Girl, Dance, 1940 My Favorite was nominated for 6 Primetime Emmys in 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, Wife, 1939 The Hunchback of Notre Dame, 1939 5th Ave Girl, 1970 and in 1971 all for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in 1939 Bachelor Mother. a Supporting Role in Comedy (Bewitched, 1964). She also acted in 115 films and TV shows including, 1973 Frankenstein: The True Joseph Cotten...Jedediah Leland (b. May 15, 1905 in Petersburg, Story (TV Movie), 1973 Charlotte's Web, 1964-1972 Bewitched VA—d. February 6, 1994, age 88, in Westwood, CA) acted in 132 (TV Series), 1971 Love, American Style (TV Series), 1970 The films and television shows including, 1981 The Survivor Virginian (TV Series), 1967 The Wild Wild West (TV Series) 1966 1981 Delusion 1980 Heaven's Gate, 1979 Guyana: Cult of the Alice Through the Looking Glass (TV Movie), 1966 The Lone Damned, 1979 Concorde Affaire '79, 1979 Screamers, 1978 Last Ranger (TV Series), 1966 The Singing Nun, 1964 Hush...Hush, In, First Out, 1978 The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, 1977 Sweet Charlotte, 1962 How the West Was Won, 1961 My Sister Airport '77, 1977 Twilight's Last Gleaming, 1976 The Lindbergh Eileen (TV Series), 1961 (TV Series), 1960 Kidnapping Case (TV Movie), 1973 , 1972 Baron Pollyanna, 1958 Tempest, 1957 Raintree County, 1957 Jeanne Blood, 1971 Lady Frankenstein, 1970 The Virginian, 1970 Tora! Eagels, 1957 The True Story of Jesse James, 1956 The Opposite Tora! Tora!, 1968 White Comanche, 1968 Ironside, 1968 Petulia, Sex, 1956 The Revolt of Mamie Stover, 1956 The Swan, 1956 Meet 1967 Jack of Diamonds, 1966 The Oscar, 1965 The Money Trap, Me in Las Vegas, 1956 The Conqueror, 1955 The Left Hand of 1965 The Great Sioux Massacre, 1964 Hush...Hush, Sweet God, 1955 All That Heaven Allows, 1955 Untamed, 1954 Charlotte, 1962 Dr. Kildare, 1956-1959 The Joseph Cotten Show: Magnificent Obsession, 1953 The Story of Three Loves, 1951 Show On Trial (TV Series), 1958 From the Earth to the Moon, 1958 Boat, 1950 Caged, 1949 The Great Sinner, 1949 The Stratton Touch of Evil, 1957 , 1953 Niagara, 1952 The Wild Story, 1948 Johnny Belinda, 1948 The Woman in White, 1947 Heart, 1952 Othello, 1951 Peking Express, 1950 , Dark Passage, 1945 Our Vines Have Tender Grapes, 1945 Keep 1949 The Third Man, 1948 Portrait of Jennie,1947 The Farmer's Your Powder Dry, 1944 Tomorrow, the World!, 1944 Mrs. Daughter, 1946 Duel in the Sun, 1944 I'll Be Seeing You, 1944 Parkington, 1944 The Seventh Cross, 1944 Dragon Seed, 1944 Since You Went Away, 1944 Gaslight, 1943 Shadow of a Doubt, Since You Went Away, 1943 Jane Eyre, 1943 Journey Into Fear, 1943 Journey Into Fear, 1942 The Magnificent Ambersons, 1941 1942 , 1942 The Magnificent Ambersons, 1941 Citizen Kane, 1938 Too Much Johnson. Citizen Kane. Dorothy Comingore...Susan Alexander Kane (b. Margaret Louise Comingore on August 24, 1913 in Lost Angeles, CA—d. Welles—CITIZEN KANE-—4

Ruth Warrick... Emily Monroe Norton Kane (b. June 29, 1916 Patsy, 1959-1964 Wagon Train (TV Series), 1963 The Virginian in St. Joseph, MO—d. January 15, 2005, age 88, in New York (TV Series), 1962 Brushfire, 1962 (TV Series), 1961 City, NY) won a Daytime Emmy in 2004 for the Lifetime By Love Possessed, 1961 The Dick Tracy Show (TV Series), 1960 Achievement Award. She was also nominated in 1967 for a The Aquanauts (TV Series), 1960 The Twilight Zone (TV Series), Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a 1959 Zorro (TV Series), 1958 , 1956 Massacre at Supporting Role in a Drama for Sand Creek (TV Movie), 1956 Peyton Place (1964). Warrick acted The Joseph Cotten Show: On in 57 films and TV shows including, Trial (TV Series), 1956 Lust 1970-2005 All My Children (TV for Life, 1956 Somebody Up Series), 1985 Peyton Place: The There Likes Me, 1956 Next Generation (TV Movie), 1984 Patterns, 1955 , Death Mask, 1969 The Great Bank 1951 The Desert Fox: The Robbery, 1965-1969 Peyton Place Story of Rommel, 1951 (TV Series), 1968 The Man from Sirocco,1951 Pulitzer Prize U.N.C.L.E. (TV Series), 1961-1962 Playhouse (TV Series), 1951 Father of the Bride (TV Series), The Enforcer, 1950 The Men, 1956-1960 As the World Turns (TV 1949 Prince of Foxes, 1949 Series), 1953 Guiding Light (TV Jigsaw, 1947 The Lady from Series), 1950 Three Husbands, 1950 Shanghai, 1943 Journey Into Beauty on Parade, 1949 The Great Fear, 1941 Citizen Kane. Dan Patch, 1948 Arch of Triumph, 1947 Daisy Kenyon, 1946 Song of William Alland... Jerry the South, 1944 Secret Command, Thompson (b. March 4, 1916 1943 The Iron Major, 1943 Forever and a Day, 1941 The in Delmar, DE—d. November 11, 1997, age 81, in Long Beach, Corsican Brothers, 1941 Citizen Kane . CA) produced 28 films and TV episodes, among them, 1966 The Rare Breed, 1964 , 1958 The Party Crashers 1958 Ray Collins...James W. Gettys (b. December 10, 1889 in The Colossus of New York, 1956 The Creature Walks Among Us, Sacramento, CA—d. July 11, 1965, age 75, in Santa Monica, CA) 1955 Tarantula, 1955 Chief Crazy Horse, 1955 Revenge of the acted in myriad films and television including, 1957-1965 Perry Creature, 1954 Four Guns to the Border, 1954 Johnny Dark, 1954 Mason (TV Series), 1960 I'll Give My Life, 1958 Touch of Evil, Creature from the Black Lagoon, 1953 The Lawless Breed, 1952 1956 The Joseph Cotten Show: On Trial (TV Series), 1956 Father The Raiders. Alland also acted in 7 films: 1948 Macbeth, 1947 Knows Best (TV Series), 1956 The Solid Gold Cadillac, 1956 Real , 1947 Riffraff, 1942 The Falcon Takes George (TV Movie), 1956 Never Say Goodbye, 1955 The Over, 1941 Tom, Dick and Harry, 1941 Citizen Kane, 1939 The Desperate Hours, 1953 Bad for Each Other, 1953 The Desert Green Goddess (Short). Song, 1953 on Vacation, 1951 The Racket, 1951 Ma and Pa Kettle Back on the Farm, 1951 You're in the Navy Paul Stewart... Raymond (b. March 13, 1908 in New York City, Now, 1950 The Reformer and the Redhead, 1950 Kill the Umpire, New York—d. February 17, 1986, age 77, in Los Angeles, 1950 Francis, 1949 , 1949 The Fountainhead, 1948 California) acted in 114 films and TV shows including, 1983 Command Decision, 1948 For the Love of Mary, 1948 The Remington Steele (TV Series), 1982 Tempest, 1981 S.O.B., 1979 Swordsman, 1947 The Senator Was Indiscreet, 1947 A Double Lou Grant (TV Series), 1978 Revenge of the Pink Panther, 1976 Life, 1947 The Red Stallion, 1947 The Bachelor and the Bobby- W.C. Fields and Me, 1975 Murph the Surf, 1975 The Day of the Soxer, 1946 The Return of Monte Cristo, 1946 The Best Years of Locust, 1973 (TV Series), 1971 Hawaii Five-O (TV Our Lives, 1946 Crack-Up, 1946 Two Years Before the Mast, 1946 Series), 1970 Gunsmoke (TV Series), 1969 Mission: Impossible Miss Susie Slagle's, 1945 , 1944 The Seventh (TV Series), 1968 Jigsaw, 1967 In Cold Blood, 1965 The Greatest Cross, 1944 , 1944 See Here, Private Hargrove, Story Ever Told, 1963 , 1960 Johnny Staccato 1943 Madame Curie, 1943 Salute to the Marines, 1943 Crime (TV Series), 1958 , 1956 The Wild Party, 1955 Hell on Doctor, 1943 The Human Comedy, 1942 Commandos Strike at Frisco Bay, 1955 , 1953 The Joe Louis Story, 1952 Dawn, 1942 The Navy Comes Through, 1942 The Big Street, 1942 The Bad and the Beautiful, 1952 Loan Shark, 1952 Carbine The Magnificent Ambersons, 1941 Citizen Kane, 1932 Hot Dog Williams, 1950 Walk Softly, Stranger, 1949 Twelve O'Clock High, (Short), 1932 His Honor -- Penrod (Short), 1931 Season's 1949 The Window, 1949 Champion, 1943 Mr. Lucky, 1941 Johnny Greetings (Short), 1931 Words & Music (Short), 1931 One Way Eager, 1941 Citizen Kane, 1937 Ever Since Eve. He also directed Out (Short), 1930 The Pest of Honor (Short). 44 TV episodes in various series 1954-1964.

Everett Sloane…Mr. Bernstein (b. October 1, 1909 in New York George Coulouris...Walter Parks Thatcher (b. October 1, 1903 City, NY—d. August 6, 1965, age 55, in Los Angeles, CA) in Manchester, —d. April 25, 1989, age 85, in London, directed four TV series: 1960 The Show (TV Series, England) acted in 139 films and TV shows, among them, 1985 2 episodes), 1960 Hawaiian Eye (TV Series, 1 episode), 1960 77 Mussolini: The Untold Story (TV Mini-Series), 1978 The Sunset Strip (TV Series, 1 episode), 1959 Lawman (TV Series,1 Doombolt Chase (TV Series), 1976 Shout at the Devil, 1974 The episode). Sloane also acted in 109 films and TV shows including, Antichrist, 1974 Murder on the Orient Express, 1974 It's Not the 1965 Honey West (TV Series), 1965 Hercules and the Princess of Size That Counts, 1974 Mahler, 1973 Papillon, 1973 The Last Troy (TV Movie), 1965 Ben Casey (TV Series), 1963-1965 Days of Man on Earth, 1969 The Assassination Bureau, 1968 The Gunsmoke (TV Series), 1960-1965 (TV Series), 1964 The Other People, 1967 The Prisoner (TV Series), 1964 Doctor Who Welles—CITIZEN KANE-—5

(TV Series), 1961-1963 Maigret (TV Series), 1960 The Boy Who From my mother I inherited a real and lasting love of music and Stole a Million, 1960 BBC Sunday-Night Play (TV Series), 1958 the spoken word.” Son of Robin Hood, 1958 Law and Disorder, 1958 Tank Force, Welles was the second and youngest child. (His brother 1958 I Accuse!, 1957 Kill Me Tomorrow, 1957 Tarzan and the Richard, ten years his senior, is said to have been a quietly Lost Safari, 1955 Doctor at Sea, 1954 Duel in the Jungle, 1953 A eccentric character. At one point he joined a monastery in Day to Remember, 1952 The Assassin, 1951 Outcast of the Islands, California from which he was later ejected.) Orson Welles was 1948 Joan of Arc, 1947 Mr. District Attorney, 1947 California, treated virtually as a nadult from infancy. Tales of his precocity 1946 The Verdict, 1945 Confidential Agent, 1945 Lady on a Train, have passed into legend. At two, he spoke “fluent and considered 1945 A Song to Remember, 1944 None But the Lonely Heart, 1944 English” and rejected Lamb’s Tales From Shakespeare, which his The Master Race, 1944 Mr. Skeffington, 1943 Watch on the Rhine, mother was reading to him, demanding “the real thing.” At three, 1943 , 1941 Citizen Kane, 1940 The Lady he was reading Shakespeare for himself, starting with in Question, 1940 All This, and Heaven Too, 1933 Christopher Midsummer’s Night’s Dream. He made his public stage debut the Bean. same year in Madame Butterfly, as ’s infant son. At four, he was writing, designing, and presenting his own stage plays in a miniature theatre given him by Dr. Maurice Bernstein, a Kenosha physician and family friend who was fascinated by his prodigious talents. At eight, Welles said “I was a Wunderkind of music. I played the violin, , and I conducted.” He could also draw, paint, and perform conjuring tricks with professional facility, and had written a well-researched paper on “The Universal History of the Drama,” His parents separated when he was six, and he went to live with his mother, mainly in Chicago. Two years later died, and the boy passed from a world of international high culture into one that involved (according to John Houseman) “long, wild nights...with his father, in the red-light districts of the Mediterranean, Hong Kong and Singapore.” Welles seems to have found both environments equally stimulating. A term at the Washington School in Madison, Wisconsin when he was nine, was not a success; a year later, at the suggestion of Dr. Bernstein, he was sent to Roger Hill’s progressive Todd School for Boys at Woodstock, Illinois. Among the school’s assets was a well- equipped theatre, where Welles promptly staged Androcles and the Lion, not only directing but playing both title roles. During his five years at Todd he mounted some thirty productions, including a widely acclaimed Julius Caesar in which he played Antony, Cassius, and the Soothsayer. He also coauthored with Roger Hill a popular textbook entitled Everybody’s Shakespeare, which sold twenty thousand copies. During his vacations Welles continued globetrotting with his father. Richard Welles took his son to most of the great cities of Europe and the Far East and made him at ease in a world of actors, circus folk, and conjurers. “My father loved magic; that’s what bound us together.” In 1928 Richard Welles killed himself in a from World Film Directors, V. I. Ed John Wakeman. The H.W. Chicago hotel, flat broke. His son became the ward of Dr. Wilson Co. NY 1987. Entry by Philip Kemp Bernstein, of whom he later said, “I have never known a person of Born—to his lasting chagrin—in Kenosha, Wisconsin. more real kindness, nor with a greater capacity for love and (Having been conceived in Paris and named in Rio de Janeiro, he friendship.” felt that Kenosha lacked, as a birthplace, a certain éclat.) Welles left Todd in 1930 and studied for a time at the Wisconsin happened to be where his father, Richard Head Welles, Chicago Art Institute. At sixteen he was supposed to enter who hailed from Virginia, owned two factories. A dilettante Harvard. Instead he took off to Ireland, where he bought a donkey engineer and idiosyncratic inventor, sixty-four years old when and cart and traveled round the country painting. By the time he Orson Welles was born, his preferred occupations were travel and reached Dublin, his money had run out. “I guess I could have gambling; “a wandering bon viveur” was his son’s description. gotten an honest job, as a dishwasher or gardener, but I became an Welles’ mother, Beatrice Ives Welles, was an accomplished actor.”... concert pianist whose acquaintances included Ravel and Back in America in 1933, he was hired by Katherine Stravinsky; she was also exceptionally beautiful, a crack rifle shot, Cornell, on the recommendation of and and a political radical who had once been imprisoned as a Alexander Woollcott, to join her national repertory company of suffragist. Welles adored both his parents. “[My father] was a Candida and Romeo and Juliet. ...Around this time Welles directed gentle, sensitive soul....To him I owe the advantage of not having his first film. (1934) was a four-minute had a formal education until I was ten years old. From him I surrealist spoof, satirizing such avant-garde works as Cocteau’s Le inherited the love of travel which has become ingrained within me. Sang d’un poete.... Filmmaking, at this stage in Welles’ career, was Welles—CITIZEN KANE-—6 a lighthearted diversion. The theatre was where he planned to For his first Hollywood movie, Welles announced an make his mark. He first did so in the spring of 1936, when he and adaptation of Conrad’s with himself as Kurtz, John Houseman staged their all-black “” for the and Marlowe, the narrator, to be represented by a subjective in Harlem. It was the sensation of the camera. But months passed and nothing was filmed except a few season....In 1937 he and Houseman formed their own company, the tests. Welles spent much of his time watching movies, especially , which rapidly became one of the most influential those of Lang, Clair, Capra, Vidor—and Ford, whose Stagecoach companies in the history of Broadway.... he screened over forty times....It was a full year after his arrival in Much of the funding for Mercury productions was Hollywood that Welles began shooting his first feature film. provided by Welles’ prolific radio work. His rich, commanding More has been written about Citizen Kane (1941) than baritone voice, once described by Kenneth Tynan as “bottled about any other film ever made. Acclaimed on its release as a work thunder,” suited him ideally for the medium, and while producing of striking originality, it has since attained an unassailable position and acting on stage he was also providing as a landmark in American filmmaking voices for, among others, and the most influential film in the history (“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of of the cinema. “ by imitation than by men” The Shadow knows....”), Emperor inspiration,” wrote Arthur Knight in Action Haile Selassie, and a chocolate pudding. (May-June 1969). “Citizen Kane has Starting in July 1938, he persuaded CBS to altered the look not only of American employ the Mercury Company in a weekly films, but of films the world over.” Since it dramatization of a literary classic, initially is, as François Truffaut pointed out, “the under the title of First Person Singular, and only first film made by a man who was later as The Merucry Theatre of the Air. On already famous,” Welles therefore “felt the evening of October 30,1938. The chosen constrained to make a movie which would work was H.G. Welles’ The War of the sum up everything that had come before in Worlds. cinema, and would prefigure everything to Accounts of mass hysteria, fleeing come.” multitudes, packed congregations weeping in Citizen Kane recounts, by means churches, panic calls to police and army, and of a complex and ingenious flashback even suicides were undoubtedly exaggerated structure, the life of a great American press by a gloating press. Nonetheless, an tycoon. —despite astounding number of people, hoodwinked Welles’ subsequent disclaimers—is by Welles’ narrative method of simulated modeled fairly closely on William newsflashes, evidently did believe that Martians had landed at Randolph Hearst. Kane’s mistress Susan Alexander, a talentless Grovers Mill, New Jersey, intent on annihilating the human race. singer whom he tries to mold into a diva, is an unjust caricature of By the next morning a highbrow radio show had become the most Hearst’s mistress , whose career as a movie actress famous program in broadcasting history. Editorials thundered of was backed by Hearst and his newspaper empire. Kane’s mansion criminal irresponsibility; writs and lawsuits were threatened; CBS Xanadu was obviously inspired by Hearst’s San Simeon. groveled in apology; and Welles, delighted beyond measure, expressed his heartfelt contrition. Macbeth and Julius Caesar had The film starts with Kane’s death, then cuts with jarring made him famous among the intelligentsia, but with War of the abruptness to the blare of a fake newsreel—a perfect imitation of Worlds he had become, a twenty-three, a household name.... the March of Time series—recounting the late tycoon’s life and Of all the major Hollywood studios, RKO had the most exploits. The newsreel editor, though, is dissatisfied, and —rather trouble in establishing a consistent identity for itself—partly thanks implausibly—assigns one of his reporters to find out not just what to frequent changes of ownership, invariably followed by Kane did, but “who he was,” and why he died with the word management reshuffles. Lacking the long-term leadership—for “rosebud” on his lips. The rest of the film follows the reporter as good or bad—of a Mayer, Zukor, or Cohn, the studio had veered he sifts the recollections of five people who knew Kane well. indecisively from prestige ventures to cut-price programmers and Trying to arrive at the truth, he fails, but the camera (as well as back again. The current studio head, George Shaefer, was hoping audience) discovers at least part of the answer. At the very end we to establish a reputation for progressive, sophisticated filmmaking, watch the casual destruction of Kane’s “junk,” including the sled an aim backed by the more highbrow board members such as he had used as a boy in the Midwest. The sled is thrown into the Nelson Rockefeller and NBC chief David Sarnoff. Hence the offer furnace and the camera catches for a moment the word painted on to Welles. its side: “Rosebud.” There is a dissolve to the exterior of Xanadu— The terms of the contract were unprecedented. Welles and the sign we had seen at the beginning of the film: “No was to make one picture a year for three years, receiving for each trespassing” $150,000 plus 25 percent of the gross. He could produce, direct, “The best way to understand Citizen Kane,” David write, and/or star as he wished. He could choose his own subjects, Bordwell asserted in Film Comment (Summer 1971), is to stop cast whomever he liked, and no studio executive had the right to worshiping it as a triumph of technique.” Bordwell points out, as interfere in any way before or during filming, nor even to ask to have other writers, that none of the technical devices employed by see what had been shot until the film was complete. Hollywood Welles in Kane were brand-new. Deep-focused photography, was full of veterans who had been struggling for years to achieve a ceilinged sets, chiaroscuro lighting, temporal jump cuts, fraction of the autonomy that was being handed to “the boy expressionist distortion—all had been used before, mostly by the wonder.”... great German silent directors whose influence pervaded Hollywood in the 1930s. But never before in America had they all Welles—CITIZEN KANE-—7 been used together with such exuberance, style, and ferocious anamorphic lens exacerbates this sense of a distorted, nightmare narrative intensity. Welles’ inexperience worked for him: unaware universe where spatial dimensions cannot be trusted. Touch of Evil of the “right way” to make a film, he created from the first a style generates a miasma of total instability, both moral and physical— completely his own, one that David Thomson characterized as anything may give. Corruption oozes from walls and furniture like “simultaneously baroque and precise, overwhelmingly emotional a palpable presence; the very buildings become emanations of and deeply founded in reality.” Perhaps no other director’s work is Quinlan’s bulbous, looming person. When, in the film’s final so immediately recognizable; “his signature,” as Ronald moments, his vast cadaver sinks slowly into a canal turgid with oil- Gottesman wrote, “is unmistakably inscribed in virtually every slicked garbage, it seems an inevitable symbiosis, a reabsorption frame.” into the constituent elements. Yet, as Truffaut observed, “we are brought somehow to In a contemporary review (The Clipper, May 1941), Cedric shed real tears over the corpse of the magnificent monster.” At one Belfrage noted that “of all the delectable flavours that linger on the point Quinlan encounters the local madam, Tanya (Marlene palate after seeing Kane, the use of sound is the strongest.” Though Dietrich); she first fails to recognize him, then comments Welles was a novice—albeit a staggeringly gifted one—at laconically, “You’re a mess, honey. You better lay off those candy filmmaking, he could bring to bear bars.” Quinlan grunts disconsolately, more knowledge of radio techniques surveying his own decrepit bulk; the moment than anyone else in Hollywood. The conveys unexpected pathos. Even this soundtrack of Kane—as of his other truculent, crooked cop, we realize, has a lost American films, Macbeth excepted— innocence to look back on. Welles always is of a complexity and subtlety acknowledged, in regard to Quinlan, Kane, unprecedented at the time. Dialogue Arkadin and the rest of his overreaching overlaps, cuts across spatial and villains, a feeling of “human sympathy for temporal dissolves; sounds are these different characters that I have created, dislocated, distorted, deployed non- though morally I find them detestable.” naturalistically to comment on or Around his own central performance Welles counterpoint the visuals; voices alter deploys a vivid range of supporting roles: in timbre according to distance, “Uncle” Joe Gandi, the local gang boss placing or physical surroundings; (Akim Tamiroff at his most greasily music and sound are used across repellent); Mercedes McCambridge as a transitions, to effect narrative butch hoodlum in black leather; Dennis ellipses.... Weaver;’s twitching, giggling motel clerk, By the time Macbeth was described by Welles as “the complete released, Welles had quit Hollywood in disgust, setting out on the Shakespearean clown...a real Pierrot Lunaire: and Dietrich’s restless, peripatetic career he followed to the end of his life. Sternbergian Tanya, left to speak Quinlan’s off-hand epitaph, “He Increasingly, acting in other people’s films began to occupy his was some kind of a man....What does it matter what you say about time, to the exclusion of directing his own; though he always people?” insisted that he only acted in order to finance his own films.... The unbroken three-minute take that opens Touch of Evil Touch of Evil (1958), freely adapted from a pulp novel by has become deservedly famous. Starting on a close-up of a hand Whit Masterson, was Welles’ finest film since The Magnificent placing a time bomb in a car, the camera pulls back to show a dark Ambersons —even, in the opinion of some critics, since Kane. Set figure vanishing round a corner as a couple enter, get in the car, in a squalid, peeling township straddling the US-Mexican border and drive off; then cranes up, over a building, and down to follow (for which the sleazy California resort town of Venice stood in the couple as they drive slowly along a busy street alongside admirably), it centers around the clash between an upright Mexican another couple on foot (Vargas and his wife), stop at the border narcotics investigator, Mike Vargas (Heston) and a bloated, corrupt post to swap casual banter with the customs officer, and drive on American cop, Quinlan (a sweaty and mountainously padded into the desert; finally holds on Vargas and his wife kissing in Welles). When a local magnate is killed by a bomb, Quinlan close-up as, deep-focus in the background, the car explodes in a followings usual practices, plants evidence on the likeliest suspect. sheet of flame. Even the producer’s inane decision to run the To prevent Vargas exposing him, he then arranges to have the credits over this shot could do little to detract from its masterly Mexican’s young American wife framed in compromising buildup of tension. circumstances, Vargas manages to convince Quinlan’s deputy, Universal, who had intended a run-of-the-mill thriller, Menzies, of his boss’ crooked methods, and Menzies helps to trick were bewildered to find an offbeat masterpiece on their hands— Quinlan into a taped confession. not that Touch of Evil (“What a silly title,” said Welles) was Welles was a lifelong sufferer from insomnia, and many acknowledged as such at the time, except in . Inevitably, the of his films suggest an insomniac’s vision of the world—shadowed studio tampered with the film, calling in a hack director (Harry and ominous, shot through with a heightened, unreal clarity. In Keller) for additional scenes to “explain” the action. The essence Touch of Evil, wrote Terry Comito (Film Comment, Summer of Welles’ conception nevertheless survived intact. His temporary 1971), “any place a character may for an instant inhabit is only the return to Hollywood was received by most American reviewers edge of the depth that opens dizzily behind him.... Menace lurches with contempt or indifference (“Pure Orson Welles and impure suddenly forward, and chases disappear down long balderdash, which may be the same thing,” sneered Gerald Weales perspectives....By opening the vertiginous ambiguities of space in the Reporter) and flopped at the box office. Europe, as usual, [Welles denies us] the safety of the frame of reference through proved rather more receptive; the film was praised at Cannes, won which we habitually contemplate the world.” Frequent use of an Welles—CITIZEN KANE-—8 an award at Brussels, and played for months to packed houses in the camera, force it to deliver everything it has to give, because it’s Paris. nothing but a machine. It’s the poetry that counts. —The thing that I noticed. . .which I don’t think has been digested at all, is the notion of making a film with a team of actors who’ve been brought from one theatre. W: It’s very interesting you should say that, because nobody’s ever pointed it out as far as I know. The whole cast of that play, the entire cast, were a team from a theatre; we worked together for years. There was nobody who didn’t belong to it except the second girl and the wife, but I mean the great body of the people were, and all of them were new to films—nobody had ever been in front of a camera before in the entire picture.

from “Realism for Citizen Kane,” Gregg Toland, ASC. American Cinematographer (February, 1941) Citizen Kane is by no means a conventional, run-of-the- mill movie. Its keynote is realism. As we worked together over the script and the final, pre-production planning, both Welles and I felt this, and felt that if it was possible, the picture should be brought to From Orson Welles Interviews. Ed Mark W. Estrin. U Miss , the screen in such a way that the audience would feel it was Jackson, 2002 looking at reality, rather than merely a movie. “Most people aren’t afraid of death when it comes,” Welles said to Closely interrelated with this concept were two L’Avant-Scène Cinéma interviewers in 1982. “They fear pain, age perplexing cinetechnical problems. In the first place, the settings solitude, being abandoned. Death is only real for a few poets in the for this production were designed to play a definite role in the world. For the others, it isn’t real. Because if death really meant picture—one as vital as any player’s characterization. They were something to human sensibility, we wouldn’t have the atomic more than mere backgrounds: they helped trace the rise and fall of bomb, because the bomb is, quite simply, death.” the central character. Secondly—but by no means of secondary importance— W: Really for me, Montaigne is the greatest writer of any time, was Welles’ concept of the visual flow of the picture. He anywhere. I literally read him every week like some people read instinctively grasped a point which many other far more the Bible, not very much at a time; I open my Montaigne, I read a experienced directors and producers never comprehend: that the page or two, at least once a week, just because I like it so much. scenes and sequences should flow together so smoothly that the There is nothing I like more. audience should not be conscious of the mechanics of picture- —In French, or making. And in spite of the fact that his previous experience had W: In French, for the pleasure of his company. Not so much for been in directing for the stage and for radio, he had a full what he says, but it’s a bit like meeting a friend, you know. It’s realization of the great power of the camera in conveying dramatic something very dear to me, something marvellous. Montaigne is a ideas without recourse to words. friend for whom I have a great affection. And he has some things Therefore, from the moment the production began to take in common with Shakespeare, too Not the violence of course. shape in script form, everything was planned with reference to —So you’re a self-made cameraman, if one can put it like that? what the camera could bring to the eyes of the audience. Direct W: I’ve only been influenced by somebody once: prior to making cuts, we felt, were something that should be avoided whenever Citizen Kane I saw Stagecoach forty times. I didn’t need to learn possible. Instead, we tried to plan action so that the camera could from somebody who had something to say, but from somebody pan or dolly from one angle to another whenever this type of who would show me how to say what I had in mind; and treatment was desirable. In other scenes, we preplanned our angles is perfect for that. I took Gregg Toland as cameraman because he and compositions so that action which ordinarily would be shown came and said he would like to work with me. In the first ten days I in direct cuts would be shown in a single longer scene—often one did the lighting myself, because I thought the directors should do in which important action might take place simultaneously in everything, even the lights. Gregg Toland said nothing but widely separated points in the extreme foreground and discreetly put things right behind my back. I finally realized, and background. . . . apologized. At the time, apart from John Ford, I admired Eisenstein—but not the other Russians—and Griffith, Chaplin, In passing, it may be mentioned that this technique of Clair, and Pagnol, especially La Femme du Boulanger. Today I using completely ceilinged sets so extensively gave us another admire the Japanese cinema, Mizoguchi and Kurosawa, advantage: it eliminated that perpetual bane of the Monogatori and Living. I liked the cinema better before I began to cinematographer—microphone shadows. The ceilings were made do it. Now I can’t stop myself hearing the clappers at the beginning of muslin, so the engineers found no difficulty at all placing their of each shot; all the magic is destroyed. This is how I’d classify the mikes just above this acoustically porous roof. In this position they arts, in order of the pleasure they gave me: literature first, then were always completely out of camera range, and as there was no music, then painting, then the theatre. In the theatre there is an overhead lighting, they couldn’t cast any shadows. Yet the ceilings unpleasant impression that one gets; the people are looking at you, were so low that the mike was almost always in a favorable and for two hours you’re a prisoner of the stage. But I am going to position sound pickup. I must admit, however, that working this tell you a more terrible confidence; I don’t like the cinema except way for 18 or 19 weeks tends to spoil one for working under more when I’m shooting; then you have to know how not to be afraid of Welles—CITIZEN KANE-—9 conventional conditions, where one must always be on the lookout effectually fading out on it, and then dimming the lights on the lest the mike or its shadow get into the picture! people, to produce the fade on them. The fade-in is made the same The next problem was to obtain the definition and depth way, fading in the lighting on the set first, and then the lighting on necessary to Welles’ conception of the picture. While the human the players. eye is not literally a universal-focus optical instrument, its is so great and its focus change so completely automatic that from “Citizen Kane Turns 50,” George Turner. American for all practical purposes it is a perfect universal-focus lens. Cinematographer (August 1991) In a motion picture, on the other hand, especially in Fifty years ago, on May 1, 1941, RKO Radio unleashed interior scenes filmed at the large apertures commonly employed, its much-publicized and very controversial Citizen Kane on an there are inevitable limitations. Even with the 24mm lenses used expectant show world. It was the first feature film produced by a for extreme wide-angle effects, the depth of field—especially at multi-talented young man from radio and stage, Orson Welles, the focal settings most frequently who celebrated his 26th birthday five days used in studio work (on the average after the New York premiere. Most of the picture, between 8 and 10 feet for the critics loved it, some panned it. The great majority of shots)—is very Hearst newspapers pointedly ignored it, small. Of course, audiences have then attacked it because of the widely become accustomed to seeing things held opinion that it was based on the life this way on the screen, with a single of . point of perfect focus, and everything The general public hated it, with falling off with greater or less rapidity theater men reporting more walkouts and in front of and behind this particular demands for refunds than they could point. But it is a little note of remember. Some exhibitors declared conventionalized artificiality which Kane an illustration of why blockbooking bespeaks the mechanics and by film distributors should be outlawed. limitations of photography. And we (Which it was, years later. RKO at the wished to eliminate these suggestions time would only allow theaters to book wherever possible…. programs only in blocks of five features of RKO’s choice, plus It was therefore possible to work at apertures infinitely selected short subjects.) smaller than anything that has been used for conventional interior Within the industry there was a great deal of resentment cinematography in many years. While in conventional practice, against the “boy-wonder” producer/director/star/co-author. He even with coated lenses, most normal interior scenes are filmed at was, many complained, too self-assured, too inexperienced and maximum aperture or close to it—say within the range between had been given too much power. His chubby, mischievous face f:2.3 and f:2.8, with an occasional drop to an aperture of f:3.5 reminded everybody of that smartass kid who received all the sufficiently out of the ordinary to cause comment—we straight A report cards in high school. The word “genius” took on photographed nearly all of our interior scenes at apertures not an ugly connotation. The most popular gag in town was attributed greater than f:8—and often smaller. Some scenes were filmed at to the hard-drinking and sharp-witted author of the screenplay, f:11, and one even at f:16! Herman J. Mankiewicz. Glancing up as Welles walked past, he is How completely this solved our depth of field problem alleged to have remarked, “There, but for the grace of God, goes may easily be imagined. Even the standard 50mm and 47mm God.” objectives conventionally used have tremendous depth of field It is said that Louis B. Mayer offered RKO president when stopped down to such apertures. Wide-angle lenses such as George Schaefer $842,000—the combined negative and the 35mm, 28mm and 24mm objectives, when stopped down to production costs—to destroy the negative and all prints. Mayer had f:11 or f:16, become for all intents and purposes universal-focus done this before on a couple of occasions when he considered a lenses. picture to be un-American or anti-Hollywood. But we needed every bit of depth we could possibly At the 1941 Academy Awards ceremony (February obtain. Some of the larger sets extended the full length of two 26,1942), Citizen Kane received nominations for Best Picture, Best stages at the RKO-Pathe Studio, and necessitated holding an Actor (Welles), Best Direction, Original Screenplay (Mankiewicz acceptably sharp focus over a depth of nearly 200 feet. In other and Welles), Cinematography (Gregg Toland, ASC), Art Direction shots, the composition might include two people talking in the (Perry Ferguson and Van Nest Polglase), Interior Decoration (Al immediate foreground—say two or three feet from the lens—and Fields and Darrell Silvera), Sound Recording (John Aalberg), Film framing between them equally important action taking place in the Editing (Robert Wise), and Music—Scoring of a Dramatic Picture background of the set, 30 or 40 feet away. Yet both the people in (Bernard Herrmann). Boos from the audience greeted each the immediate foreground and the action in the distance had to be announcement. Miraculously, Citizen Kane did receive an award kept sharp! for its screenplay and also was named Best Picture by both the National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics. A further innovation in this picture will be seen in the The picture was a boxoffice flop, going some $150,000 transitions, many of which are lap-dissolves in which the into the red, and Welles had become as popular as the pox among background dissolves from one scene to another a short but the RKO executives. measurable interval before the players in the foreground dissolve. This is done quite simply, by having the lighting on the set and photography had been utilized from time to people rigged through separate dimmers. Then all that is necessary time, most notably in 1931 by , ASC in is to commence the dissolve by dimming the background lights, Transatlantic; by John Mescall, ASC in the 1935 Bride of Welles—CITIZEN KANE-—10

Frankenstein, and by Toland in 1940 in both The Westerner and and gone to sleep on the flower bed. He is an active loafer, a wise The Long Voyage Home. After Citizen Kane its use became madman, a solitude surrounded by humanity. widespread, especially in the so-called films of the following decade. Welles “I want to use the motion picture camera as an instrument of poetry.” The fact that all principal players (however excellent) were strangers to the screen also mitigated against audience acceptance. Today it’s hard to imagine that Welles, Joseph Cotten, PB: What was your initial reaction to the Hearst blacklist on Ruth Warrick, Agnes Moorehead, Everett Sloance, Ray Collins, Citizen Kane? Paul Stewart and were completely unknown to OW: We expected it before it happened. What we didn’t expect moviegoers. was that the film might be destroyed. And that was nip and tuck; it was very close. from . Orson Welles and Peter PB: To the negative being burned? Bogdanovich. Edited by Jonathan Rosenbaun. DaCapo Press OW: Yes. It was only not burned because I dropped a rosary NY 1998 PB: What? I [Bogdanovich] had told Welles how difficult it was for many of OW: There was A SCREENING FOR Joe Breen, who was the the older directors we both admired to get a job. Not that it was head of censorship then, to decide whether it would be burned or anything new: D.W. Griffith, who practically invented it all, not. Because there was tremendous payola on from all the other wasn’t allowed to make a film the last seventeen years of his life. studios to get it burned. Orson himself had written very movingly of his single meeting PB: All because of Hearst’s people? with Griffith, and a lot of OW: Yes. Everybody said, directors’ stories were similar: “Don’t make trouble, burn it up, Josef von Sternberg, Fritz Lang, who cares? Let them take their , Jean Renoir, John losses.” And I got a rosary, put it Ford. Without ever saying so, in my pocket, and when the Orson must have connected running was over, in front of Joe himself to that sort of fate and Breen, a good Irish Catholic, I he told me he had been deeply stood up and dropped my rosary affected by our conversation. on the floor and said, “Oh excuse Now, out by the lake, he said: me,” and picked it up and put it in “You told me last night about all my pocket. If I hadn’t done that, these old directors whom people there would be no Citizen Kane. in Hollywood say are ‘over the hill,’ and it made me so sick I PB: After Kane, you once couldn’t sleep. I started thinking said, “Someday, if Mr. Hearst about all those conductors— isn’t frightfully careful, I’m going Klemperer, Beecham, to make a film that’s really based Toscanini—I could name almost on his life.” a hundred in the last century—who were at the height of their OW: Well, you know, the real story of Hearst is quite different powers after 75. And were conducting at eighty. Who says they’re from Kane’s. And Hearst himself—as a man, I mean—was very over the hill! I think it’s just terrible what happens to old people. different. There’s all that stuff about [Robert] McCormick and the But the public isn’t interested in that—never has been. That’s why opera. I drew a lot from that, from my Chicago days. And Samuel Lear has always been a play people hate.” Insull. As for Marion [Davies], she was an extraordinary woman— Did he think Lear became senile? I asked, and Orson nothing like the character Dorothy Comingore played in the movie. answered: “he became senile by giving power away. The only I always felt he had a right to be upset about that. thing that keeps people alive in their old age is power. . . .Take PB: Davies was actually quite a good actress— power away from De Gaulle or Churchill or Tito or Mao or Ho or OW: And a fine woman. She pawned all her jewels for the old any of these old men who run the world—in this world that man when he was broke. Or broke enough to need a lot of cash. belongs only to young people—and you’ll see a ‘babbling, She gave him everything, stayed by him—just the opposite of slippered pantaloon.’ It’s only in your twenties and in your Susan. That was the libel. In other words, Kane was better than seventies and eighties that you do the greatest work. The enemy of Hearst, and Marion was much better than Susan—whom people life is middle age. Youth and old age are the great times—and we wrongly equated with her. must treasure old age and give genius the capacity to function in PB: You once said that Kane would have enjoyed seeing a old age—and not send them away.” The very last film Orson film based on his life, but not Hearst. Welles would prepare and almost make—the deal for which would OW: Well, that’s what I said to Hearst. fall apart (in France) shortly before his death—was his own very PB: When!? intimate adaptation of King Lear. OW: I found myself alone with him in an elevator in the Fairmont Hotel on the night Kane was opening in San Francisco. Jean Cocteau wrote He and my father had been chums, so I introduced myself and Orson Welles is a giant with the face of a child, a tree filled with asked him if he’d like to come to the opening of the picture. He birds and shadows, a dog who has broken loose from his chains didn’t answer. And as he was getting off at his floor, I said, “Charles Foster Kane would have accepted.” No reply...And Kane Welles—CITIZEN KANE-—11 would have, you know. That was his style—just as he finished Jed “The Cameraman,” The New Yorker, June 19, 20067 Leland’s bad review of Susan as an opera singer. PB: Where did Kane’s trait of acquiring possessions come from? OW: That comes directly from Hearst. And it’s very curious— a man who spends his entire life paying cash for objects he never looked at. I know of no other man in history exactly like that. This jackdaw kind of mind.

PB: But Kane is a masterpiece of makeup. . . . OW: Yes, but you have no idea what work there was to that, because it was long ago; we didn’t have sophisticated things for makeup which made it easy. In those days—you don’t know what it was—I came to work many days on Kane at two-thirty in the morning, to be made up to start work at nine. It took that long, with the spraying and the building. Maurie Seiderman was one of the two or three great makeup men of our time, and he’s never really been allowed to do anything in the industry. PB: Because he’s too good? OW: Yeah. How he worked! Two thirty in the morning was normal all the time. With the contact lenses I wore, which in those days drove you mad with pain. Because I was a baby; you know, ANNALS OF HOLLYWOOD About pioneer cinematographer it’s very hard to be seventy years old and make it believable. But Gregg Toland. In 1936, an ambitious young director, William the thing that’s never been printed is the truth about me as a young Wyler, joined forces with producer . For his first man in that film. I was then twenty-five, twenty-six—I’ve Goldwyn picture, “,” Wyler was paired with a forgotten how old I was—but I had my face lifted up with fish skin cinematographer he'd never worked with before, the 32-year-old and wore corsets for the scenes as a young man. Gregg Toland. Like many other directors of the era, Wyler PB: Why? Were you heavier than you looked? regarded as little more than glorified mechanics. OW: Of course. Not only heavier, but I always had that terrible Toland, by the time of his death, in 1948, at the age of 44, had round moon face and it was all faked up with fish skins and tucked filmed 67 features, ranging from “” (1940) to under the hair. Everything. Just as though I were some terrible old “Song of the South” (1946), and he remains essential to the leading man at the end of his day [laughs]. So I was just as heavily grammar of filmmaking. “He thought like a cutter,” the director made up as a young man as I was as an old man! I could hardly Steven Soderbergh said. Cinematographer Harris Savides said of move for the corsets and the fish skin and everything else. I read “Intermezzo” (1939), which Toland filmed, “It's one of the most once— wrote something or other—that when I was beautiful movies ever shot...” Many of the techniques that Toland young, I was the most beautiful man anybody had ever seen. Yes! helped pioneer have since become standard practice. Before Made up for Citizen Kane! And only for five days! Toland, most Hollywood fare had actors shot straight on, sitting or PB: You mean you never looked like that? moving through naturalistic sets. By the mid-1930s, when Toland OW: Never! I wish I had! began producing his most resonant work, he was shooting actors with an impressionistic flair-filming them from below or PB: But the important similarity between the two films is that positioning them in front of mirrors. He also developed the first The Birth of a Nation summed up all the techniques that had come lighting cues that could accurately imitate candlelight. And he before in silent films. It brought everything to a head, and Kane did insisted that photography should serve the narrative. A wispy, that too, for the sound film. laconic man of five feet one, Toland was born in Charleston, OW: Yes, it summed things up, to a point. But it’s not the Illinois. In 1910, his parents divorced, and he and his mother went technical advances that I think are important about Kane, it’s the to live in L.A. By the time he was 15, Toland was working as an use of time and the way people are handled—that kind of thing. office boy at William Fox Studios. He moved on to become an Orson Welles in a 1958 interview with André Bazin and assistant cameraman. In 1926, he went to work for the pioneering Charles Bitsch cinematographer George Barnes. Not long after Toland became his One can only take control of a film during the editing. Well, in the assistant, Barnes was hired by Goldwyn, mentions editing room I work very slowly, which always enrages the cinematographer and film scholar Roger Dale producers who tear the film from my hands. I don’t know why it Wallace. In 1929, Toland devised a tool that silenced a movie takes me so long. I could work for an eternity editing a film. As far camera's grind—a big problem for talking pictures. This was as I’m concerned, the ribbon of film is played like a musical score, among the first of Toland's many technical innovations. Goldwyn and this performance is determined by the way it is edited. Just as first became aware of Toland when a dialogue coach named Laura one conductor interprets a musical phrase rubato, another will play Hope Crews observed him at work in 1929. Toland's first solo it very dryly and academically, a third romantically, etc. The credit was for the 1931 musical comedy “.” In the mid- images alone are insufficient. They are very important, but they are 1930s, Toland, who had already been married and divorced, only images. The essential thing is how long each images lasts, married Helene Barclay, an actress. In 1939, he earned his first what follows each image. All of the eloquence of film is created in Oscar for his work on Wyler's “Wuthering Heights.” His next the editing room. project was Orson Welles's “Citizen Kane.” Toland's aesthetic contribution to the film was critical. He wrote in American Welles—CITIZEN KANE-—12

Cinematographer that he and Welles felt that the film should be everything that is there on the screen. The more clearly I can see its “brought to the screen in such a way that the audience would feel it physical manifestation, the more I am stirred by its mystery. It is one of the miracles of cinema that in 1941 a first-time director; a cynical, hard-drinking writer; an innovative cinematographer, and a group of New York stage and radio actors were given the keys to a studio and total control, and made a masterpiece. “Citizen Kane” is more than a great movie; it is a gathering of all the lessons of the emerging era of sound, just as “Birth of a Nation” assembled everything learned at the summit of the silent era, and “2001” pointed the way beyond narrative. These peaks stand above all the others. The origins of “Citizen Kane” are well known. Orson Welles, the boy wonder of radio and stage, was given freedom by RKO Radio Pictures to make any picture he wished. Herman Mankiewicz, an experienced screenwriter, collaborated with him on a screenplay originally called “The American.” Its inspiration was the life of William Randolph Hearst, who had put together an empire of newspapers, radio stations, magazines and news services, and then built to himself the flamboyant monument of San Simeon, a castle furnished by rummaging the remains of nations. Hearst was Ted Turner, Rupert Murdoch and Bill Gates was looking at reality…” They also wanted the camera to rolled up into an enigma. reproduce the way we perceive space-with both foreground and Arriving in Hollywood at age 25, Welles brought a subtle background objects in focus. Toland's technique, which changed knowledge of sound and dialogue along with him; on his Mercury filmmaking forever, became known as “deep focus.” For all his Theater of the Air, he'd experimented with audio styles more lithe bravado, Toland had a soft touch on movie sets. Ralph Hoge and suggestive than those usually heard in the movies. As his described how he coaxed a performance out of Ingrid Berman for cinematographer he hired Gregg Toland, who on John Ford's “The David O. Selznick's “Intermezzo.” Describes Toland's work on Long Voyage Home” (1940) had experimented with deep focus Wyler's “The Little Foxes,” with . After these films, Toland became the highest-paid cinematographer in Hollywood; he also had supervision over sets, costumes, etc. The only movie he ever directed±-with John Ford as co-director—was a documentary about Pearl Harbor, which he made while serving in the Navy during WWII. After the war, he divorced again, and a few months later he married Virginia Thorpe, and they had two sons. On September 28, 1948, Toland died in his sleep, of coronary thrombosis. His legacy was secured by the film theorist Andre Bazin.

Roger Ebert on Citizen Kane: “I don't think any word can explain a man's life,” says one of the searchers through the warehouse of treasures left behind by Charles Foster Kane. Then we get the famous series of shots leading to the closeup of the word “Rosebud” on a sled that has been tossed into a furnace, its paint curling in the flames. We remember that this was Kane's childhood sled, taken from him as he was torn from and sent east to boarding school. Rosebud is the emblem of the security, hope and photography--with shots where everything was in focus, from the innocence of childhood, which a man can spend his life seeking to front to the back, so that composition and movement determined regain. It is the green light at the end of Gatsby's pier; the leopard where the eye looked first. For his cast Welles assembled his New atop Kilimanjaro, seeking nobody knows what; the bone tossed York colleagues, including Joseph Cotten as Jed Leland, the hero's into the air in “2001.” It is that yearning after transience that adults best friend; Dorothy Comingore as Susan Alexander, the young learn to suppress. “Maybe Rosebud was something he couldn't get, woman Kane thought he could make into an opera star; Everett or something he lost,” says Thompson, the reporter assigned to the Sloane as Mr. Bernstein, the mogul's business wizard; Ray Collins puzzle of Kane's dying word. “Anyway, it wouldn't have explained as Gettys, the corrupt political boss, and Agnes Moorehead as the anything.” True, it explains nothing, but it is remarkably boy's forbidding mother. Welles himself played Kane from age 25 satisfactory as a demonstration that nothing can be explained. until his deathbed, using makeup and body language to trace the “Citizen Kane” likes playful paradoxes like that. Its surface is as progress of a man increasingly captive inside his needs. “All he much fun as any movie ever made. Its depths surpass really wanted out of life was love,” Leland says. “That's Charlie's understanding. I have analyzed it a shot at a time with more than story--how he lost it.” 30 groups, and together we have seen, I believe, pretty much Welles—CITIZEN KANE-—13

The structure of “Citizen Kane” is circular, adding more Pulitzer is the model), the Hearst-supported Spanish-American depth every time it passes over the life. The movie opens with War, the birth of radio, the power of political machines, the rise of newsreel obituary footage that briefs us on the life and times of fascism, the growth of celebrity journalism. A newsreel subtitle Charles Foster Kane; this footage, with its portentous narration, is reads: “1895 to 1941. All of these years he covered, many of these Welles' bemused nod in the he was.” The screenplay by direction of the “March of Time” Mankiewicz and Welles (which got newsreels then being produced an Oscar, the only one Welles ever by another media mogul, Henry won) is densely constructed and Luce. They provide a map of covers an amazing amount of Kane's trajectory, and it will ground, including a sequence keep us oriented as the showing Kane inventing the popular screenplay skips around in time, press; a record of his marriage, from piecing together the memories of early bliss to the famous montage of those who knew him. increasingly chilly breakfasts; the Curious about Kane's story of his courtship of Susan dying word, “rosebud,” the Alexander and her disastrous opera newsreel editor assigns career, and his decline into the Thompson, a reporter, to find out remote master of Xanadu (“I think if what it meant. Thompson is you look carefully in the west wing, played by William Alland in a Susan, you'll find about a dozen thankless performance; he vacationists still in residence”). triggers every flashback, yet his “Citizen Kane” knows the face is never seen. He questions Kane's alcoholic mistress, his sled is not the answer. It explains what Rosebud is, but not what ailing old friend, his rich associate and the other witnesses, while Rosebud means. The film's construction shows how our lives, after the movie loops through time. As often as I've seen “Citizen we are gone, survive only in the memories of others, and those Kane,” I've never been able to firmly fix the order of the scenes in memories butt up against the walls we erect and the roles we play. my mind. I look at a scene and tease myself with what will come There is the Kane who made shadow figures with his fingers, and next. But it remains elusive: By flashing back through the eyes of the Kane who hated the traction trust; the Kane who chose his many witnesses, Welles and Mankiewicz created an emotional mistress over his marriage and political career, the Kane who chronology set free from time. entertained millions, the Kane who died alone. The movie is filled with bravura visual moments: the There is a master image in “Citizen Kane” you might towers of Xanadu; candidate Kane addressing a political rally; the easily miss. The tycoon has overextended himself and is losing doorway of his mistress dissolving into a front-page photo in a control of his empire. After he signs the papers of his surrender, he rival newspaper; the camera swooping down through a skylight turns and walks into the back of the shot. Deep focus allows toward the pathetic Susan in a nightclub; the many Kanes reflected Welles to play a trick of perspective. Behind Kane on the wall is a through parallel mirrors; the boy playing in the snow in the window that seems to be of average size. But as he walks toward background as his parents determine his future; the great shot as it, we see it is further away and much higher than we thought. the camera rises straight up from Susan's opera debut to a Eventually he stands beneath its lower sill, shrunken and stagehand holding his nose, and the subsequent shot of Kane, his diminished. Then as he walks toward us, his stature grows again. A face hidden in shadow, defiantly applauding in the silent hall. man always seems the same size to himself, because he does not Along with the personal story is the history of a period. stand where we stand to look at him. “Citizen Kane” covers the rise of the penny press (here Joseph

Welles—CITIZEN KANE-—14

COMING UP IN BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS 31

Sept 22 Robert Montgomery, Lady in the Lake, 1947 Sept 29 Claude Chabrol, Le Beau Serge. 1958 Oct 6 Andrei Tarkovsky, Ivan’s Childhood, 1962 Oct 13 Lawrence Kasdan, Body Heat, 1981 Oct 20 Costa-Gavras, Missing, 1982 Oct 27 Roland Joffé, The Mission, 1986 Nov 3 Mira Nair, Mississippi Masala, 1991 Nov 10 Hayao Miyazaki, Princess Mononoke, 1997 Nov 17 Elia Suleiman, The Time That Remains, 2009 Nov 24 Terry Gilliam, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, 2009 Dec 1 Béla Tarr, The Turin Horse, 2011 Dec 8 Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, A Matter of Life and Death/Stairway to Heaven, 1946

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