(2000) An HBO and BBC production, directed by Benjamin Ross, based on documentaries, dramatizing boy-genius (Liev Schreiber) Orson Welles's struggles to make and then get his movie, Citizen Kane, a film about how a man gains the world but loses his soul, into theaters against publishing tycoon (James Cromwell) William Randolph Hearst's fierce opposition.

After a brief review of the first 24 years of Welles's life, the young actor/director, famous for his radio broadcast of War of the Worlds, receives unprecedented artistic freedom from RKO Pictures to create a motion picture. Following the failure of his initial idea to make Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness into cinema, he considers the story of Spanish matador Manolete.

At Hearst's castle - a beautiful cage for Hearst's mistress Marion Davies (Melanie Griffith) - Welles, for whom movies are magic, receives an insult from the wealthy host: "In Hollywood the bull and the matador are both slaughtered." The incident inspires Welles to create an American biography, dramatizing a monster. When his friend Herman J. Mankiewicz (John Malkovich), a washed-up alcoholic writer, first hears of Welles's conception, he strongly urges Orson against attempting such an audacious project, telling the headstrong Welles of how Hearst one night accidentally shot and killed Thomas Inces, then had the body quickly cremated and witnesses, such as gossip columnist Louella Parsons, bought off.

But Welles can't be easily scared off, so using Mank's 350 pages of notes collected over the years about Hearst and the assistance of John Houseman, Welles gives birth to a script and sells the idea to RKO's George Schaefer (Roy Scheider).

A detail Mank learned from actress Carole Lombard, who heard it from Marion's lips, was that "Rosebud" was Hearst's pet name for her pussy. Thus, a sled begins its journey down a slippery slope.

At Welles's insistence the name Charles Foster Kane (as in Cain and Abel) was chosen in place of the original Charles Foster Craig; George Schaefer, who wanted Welles to make a movie of War of the Worlds, suggested changing the title from An American to Citizen Kane. Early on Welles jettisons Mank from the project and any credit for the screenplay but later brings his friend back to finish the picture. In a scene near the film's conclusion Welles demands 56 takes of the actor saying: "You wanna know about Rosebud? I'll tell you about Rosebud." Actors complain of not having enough sleep while Welles pops Benzedrine. The final scene shot is the tragic centerpiece of Kane and Jedediah after defeat in the campaign for governor with the line "Love on your own terms."

Hearst first hears from Hedda Hopper that "It's all about you." After hearing more from Parsons, whom he reams out for not having known earlier - she'd asked Welles if the film was about Hearst only to believe him when he denied it - interpreting the movie as a mockery of himself and Marion ("Crazy old man and his whore"), Hearst attempts to blackmail (threatening through Parsons to release scandalous photographs and lascivious stories of actors and other Hollywood figures) and then bully the other studio bosses (all Jews), beginning with Louis B. Mayer, into buying the negative of Citizen Kane and all extant prints for $800,000 for destruction.

Arguing with George, anxious about jobs, that "The film is our best defense," Welles goes to New York to face down the RKO stockholders and movie moguls, comparing Hearst to Hitler (who had recently invaded Greece and had begun bombing London): "No one can tell us what to say and how to say it." A pretty speech along with Hearst's being broke, $125 million in debt, gave Welles the triumph, though Hearst refused to grant RKO any advertising in his newspapers. Orson Welles's next picture was to have been a western about Christ, played by himself, set in the Mohave Desert; but at 26 the genius had completed his masterpiece to critical acclaim but poor showing at the box office.

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Copyright © 2008 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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