CITIZEN KANE!

It was inevitable and now here we are together for a film I could no longer avoid and whose timing here on "Friday Movie Suggestion Night" is so appropriate. If you are here for the first time, "Welcome!" Each Thursday, at Midnight I post a Movie that has been planned for more than a year in advance. For example, our 2007 season is already planned out. This feature is a source of genuine joy for me and I spend a great deal of time researching a wide variety of films from "The Golden Age", to Opera, Rock Concerts, Drama, Comedy and so much more. From the sublime to the ridiculous, FMSN began as a small feature. Then to my astonishment, a couple from England and another from Australia asked me if I could post on Thursday nights. This request, I later learned was driven by the subscriptions so many have to "NetFlix", while others yet simply needed a little extra time to visit a video store to rent (or better yet if available, visit a Library where VHS and of late, more and more DVD's are becoming available for FREE on loan). In either event, it's nice to present this next masterpeice. Stay tuned! You won't believe our wind-down of 2006! And a robust 2007 will take us to new heights!!

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Considered by millions the world-over to be "the best film ever made" by a brash 24-year old named Orson Welles, this movie was also very controversial. William Randolph Hearst (yes that would be Patty Hearst's Grandfather) legally fought to stop Welles from making what he had been told by hired "informers" would reveal his "virtual-biography" regarding how Hearst made his fortune in the media and influenced endless political pursuits. This is a bit of a stretch but imagine Donald Trump in 1941: ("Nice newspaper. Wanna sell it?") Hearst and the fictional Charles Foster Kane both constitute one of the most controversial multimillionaire sagas ever. The film, Co-Written by Welles and Herman Mankiewitz, uses what was at the time, truly revolutionary camera angles with sensibilities never before dared by traditional moguls of the film industry. Today, of course we have all of this and much more from present-era filmmakers such as George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Peter Bogdonovich (a real-life friend of Welles) and others too numerous to mention. From the ominous opening with a long-shot of "Xanadu"--the private estate (that may have well been the "Hearst Castle") of one of the world's richest men, we are privy to a dying man intensely examining a crystal ball that contains a Winter Season scene. As Kane drops the glass piece and it shatters onto the floor his final uttered word, "Rosebud" leads newspaper writers scrambling to figure out the meaning of his final word.

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From this scene, Welles, "works backwards" telling the story of the tycoon in a series of ingenious "flashbacks" with reporters tracking down people who were employed by Kane, lived with Kane and competed with Kane. Much is revealed and the rest...well, I refuse to ruin it for you!

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If you go back and read my previous BLOG post and also re-read the testimonial of the late Ingrid Bergman ("Casablanca") about Orson at the American Film Institute's coveted "Life Achievement Award" (and the brilliant speech that followed), you will have a fuller sense of how this wonderful Actor, Producer, Director, Choreographer, Set Designer, Casting Director, Writer, Film Editor and true "Renaissance Man" was unfairly trapped by the enormous success of this--his first film! He was perhaps too much of a Maverick much as Juan Trippe, the founder of Pan American World Airways had been as the amazing genius he was (for the Washington bi-partisan establishment). But this aspect is for you to glean from Barbara Leaming's excellent biography. There are others by protege Henry Jaglom and the aforementioned effort by Peter Bogdonovich, both interesting present-day men!

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Cast: Directed by Orson Welles; Writing credits Herman J. Mankiewicz (screenplay) and Orson Welles (screenplay); Joseph Cotten: ....Jedediah Leland; Dorothy Comingore: ....Susan Alexander Kane; Agnes Moorehead: ....Mary Kane; Ruth Warrick .... Emily Monroe Norton Kane; Ray Collins....James W. Gettys.

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ENJOY!

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"Friday Movie Suggestion Night" wishes to acknowledge the passing of Oscar-Winning filmmaker Sven Nykvist, who worked alongside director Ingmar Bergman. Sven won Academy Awards for Cinematography for Bergman's "Cries and Whispers" in 1973 and "Fanny and Alexander" in 1982. Though best known for his work as a collaborator with Bergman, Sven's long resume includes: "Sleepless in Seattle", "Pretty Baby", and projects with Woody Allen ("Crimes and Misdemeanors") and fellow Swede Lasse Hallstrom ("What's Eating Gilbert Grape?").