Citizen Kane

26 11 2007

By Pablo, Terminale S6, Lycée des Arènes, Toulouse.

CITIZEN KANE

Summary of the movie

This movie tells about Charles Foster Kane’s life, a high-powered press owner. The viewer follows a journalist, Tompson, in his quest to understand the meaning of Kane’s words on his deathbed: “Rosebud…”

In the end, only the viewer will know the meaning of the riddle because the inquiry will fail.

Orson Welles

He was born in 1915 at Kinosha, Wisconsin (United-States). He played his first part at the age of thee at the Opera of Chicago in Sanson and Dalila.

His mother died in 1924 and his father in 1930.

In 1939, Orson Welles signed his first contract with RKO and began the shooting of Citizen Kane on July, 30th 1940, which would know it first showing on May, 1st 1941. The movie met mitigated reactions in the United States because of the polemic about William Randolph Hearst and about the yellow press in general.

In the fifties, Welles emigrated to Europe where he hoped to meet more favorable conditions of production. There, critics depicted him as the stringent example of the author who knew how to cope with the power of money and the power of the press.

Orson Welles shot many films after Citizen Kane, and he died of a heart attack in his house in Hollywood, in October 10th 1985.

Orson Welles was an undisputed master of the cinema. He is considered as a genius of the seventh art.

Filmography:

  • -The hearts of age 1934
  • -Citizen Kane 1941
  • -The magnificient Ambersons 1943
  • -Journey into fear 1943
  • -The stranger 1946
  • -The lady from Shangai 1947
  • -Macbeth 1948
  • -Othello 1952
  • -Mr. Arkadin / confidential report 1955
  • -Touch of Evil 1958
  • -The trial 1962
  • -Falstaff 1966
  • -The inmortal story 1968
  • -F for fake 1973
  • -Filming Othello 1977

William Randolph Hearst

William Randolph Hearst was a high-powered press owner. He was born in San Francisco on April 29th 1863, and died at Beverly Hills in August 14th 1951.

Between 1882 and 1885, he studied at the university of Harvard. Later, he ran the San Francisco Examiner that his father had let him. Hearst gave the newspaper the name of Monarch of the Dailies and he put at it disposal the best materiel and the best journalists. The newspaper started publishing scandals with big banner headlines that would induce a huge circulation.

William Randolph Hearst

At his height, William Randolph Hearst was the owner of twenty-eight newspapers, eighteen magazines, radios and cinema companies.

William Randolph Hearst

Hearst was accused of provoking war between Spain and America in 1898 to increase the sales of his newspaper, and in the twenties he had a very big castle built in california.

These episodes of his life inspired Orson Welles to create the character of Citizen Kane. Some blamed a film for being a “nasty and irresponsible attack of a great man”.

For a complete analysis of the movie, click here.

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Catégories : BTS Audio-Visuel, Général, Terminale
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