Citizen Kane

When Turner Entertainment announced plans to colorize the film, both public outcry and a previous clause written by Orson Welles himself led to these plans being cancelled. Do not blink or else you will miss a cute bit where a male student leaves an apple for Professor Indiana Jones among the crowd of adoring female students. In the 1980s, the film became the catalyst in the fight against the trend of film colorization. However, the restored prints of the film that are transferred to video do not change the onscreen title from its original. Beatrice Welles also claimed that, if the courts did not uphold her claim of ownership, RKO nevertheless owes the estate 20% of the profits, from a previous contract which has not been lived up to. Newer video boxes of the movie (VHS and DVD) are titled Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, in order to correlate with its sequels. Her attorney said that Orson Welles had left RKO with an exit deal terminating his contracts with the studio, meaning that Welles still had an interest in the film and his previous contract giving the studio the ownership of the film was null and void. In 1999 the film was deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

In 2003, Orson Welles' daughter Beatrice sued Turner Entertainment and RKO Pictures, claiming that the Welles estate is the legal owner of the film. It won numerous other awards including seven Saturn Awards. DVD version (released by Warner Home Video) is taken from another digital restoration, supervised by Turner. Raiders of the Lost Ark was nominated for eight Academy Awards in 1982 and won four (Best Sound, Best Film Editing, Best Visual Effects, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration). The 2003 British DVD edition is taken from an interpositive held by the British Film Institute. The current U.S. The Indiana Jones franchise eventually expanded to books, games, a television series, and even theme park attractions. (See Indiana Jones for more information.). When the film became owned by Turner Entertainment (which bought the rights to the MGM and RKO film libraries), film restoration techniques were used to produce a pristine print for a 50th Anniversary theatrical revival reissue in 1991 (released by Paramount Pictures). A fourth, as yet titleless, movie is apparently in preproduction for 2006.

Until 1991, all existing theatrical prints of the film were made from copies of the original. The box office success of the film led to a prequel — Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and a sequel Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). Welles's original master film negative of Citizen Kane was destroyed in a fire in the 1970s. The film was a huge success, becoming the year's highest grossing film. Beginning in 1962, and every ten years since, it has been voted the best film ever made by the Sight and Sound critics' poll. Since James Bond could not be used, the film team created Indiana Jones, a character who is suave, handsome, and lives a jet-setting life, but has clear flaws (for example, a fear of snakes) and has much more comic attributes. Many critics consider the film the best ever made; the American Film Institute ranked it #1 on its "100 Greatest Movies" list; it has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry; and the film is consistently in the top 20 on the Internet Movie Database. Both George Lucas and Steven Spielberg had expressed their interests to make a James Bond film of their own, but to no avail from EoN, the production company which owned the rights to the character.

Hearst had been successful in blacklisting Welles in Hollywood so that no studio would agree to work with him. It should also be noted that the character of Indiana Jones was directly influenced by James Bond. For Welles, however, this was too late. 'Raiders' was conceived by Paramount Pictures as a star vehicle for Tom Selleck but he was not available due to other commitments so Harrison Ford was cast instead. Critics world-wide began crediting it as among the best films ever made. A new screenplay was commissioned from Lawrence Kasdan. Although it was little seen and virtually forgotten until its revival in the 1950s, its critical fortunes have skyrocketed since. At the time Spielberg's career was suffering due to the expensive bomb 1941 so it was agreed that Lucas would produce and Spielberg direct.

It should be noted that boos were heard almost every time "Citizen Kane" was referred to during the Oscars ceremony that year. Most of Hollywood did not want the film to ever see the light of day considering the threats that William Hearst had made if it did. While on holiday with his close friend Steven Spielberg the pair worked out the basis for the film. It was nominated, however, for another eight awards:. Lucas had conceived of the idea in discussion with Philip Kaufman who had worked on a treatment. Mankiewicz as the only Oscar awarded for the film. It was also limited in its ambitions as it was made in only 73 days, the plot is rather straightforward, and there are only a few principal characters. The 1941 Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Screenplay was shared by Welles and Herman J. By contrast Raiders of the Lost Ark is comic book-like in tone, with a glamorous heroine, over-the-top villains, and impressive stunt work combined with moments of comedy.

Swanberg's extensive biography entitled Citizen Hearst. The early 1970s had been dominated by action films either with a certain gritty realism, such as the Dirty Harry series or that were massive productions with huge casts and elaborate special effects such as The Poseidon Adventure. A. Like Star Wars he saw it as an opportunity to create a modern version of the serials of the 1930s and 1940s. This connection was reinforced by the publication in 1961 of W. George Lucas originally became involved in the project in 1977. The irony of Hearst's efforts is that the film is now inexorably connected to him. Back in Washington D.C., the two Army intelligence representatives tell Indy that "top men" are studying the Ark, and Marion invites the disappointed Indy to a drink, but in dramatic irony the Ark is sealed in a wooden crate and stored in a giant government warehouse filled with countless other similar crates.

Although these efforts damaged the film's success, they ultimately failed considering that almost every reference of Hearst's life and career made today typically includes a reference to the film's parallel to it. Indy and Marion are spared because they do not watch the ritual, shutting their eyes, and they escape with the Ark. This struggle was, itself, turned into a movie, RKO 281. Marion and Indy are tied up and forced to view a ceremony where Belloq opens the Ark in front of a group of German soldiers, but strange and mysterious spirits emerge (perhaps those sinners during the Exodus who disobeyed God's laws?) killing Belloq, Dietrich, Toht, the soldiers, and evaporating their souls into the afterlife. When RKO refused Hearst's offer, Hearst was so angry that he banned every newspaper and station in his media conglomerate from reviewing or even mentioning the movie. Threatening to destroy the Ark with a rocket launcher, Indy is soon convinced by Belloq to surrender, giving in to his own deep desires as an archaeologist to see the Ark's contents. Roger Ebert, in his full-length commentary of "Citizen Kane," suggested that the Alexander character had very little to do with Davies, but, rather, that it was based on the wife of another famous man upon which the Kane character was developed. It docks at a submarine pen on an island in the Aegean Sea, where Indy steals a soldier's uniform.

Davies was a gifted light comedic actress who was talked by Hearst into starring in pompous costume dramas many thought were out of her depth. A Nazi U-boat with Belloq and Dietrich stops the ship and takes the Ark and Marion, but Indy covertly follows the sub (either stowing away onboard or, in a deleted scene, holding onto the periscope). On hearing about the film, Hearst offered RKO Pictures $800,000 to destroy all prints of the film and burn the negative. Although it's often said that Hearst was upset because the film was about him, one alternative theory is that Hearst was more upset about the portrayal of Davies (as talentless singer Susan Alexander) than himself in the film. Retaking the Ark, Indy and Marion depart from a happy Sallah and sail with it on the Bantu Wind a ship bound for England. The most notable reference to Hearst comes early in the film, as Kane (played by Welles) provides a quote that mirrors Hearst's own comment on the Spanish American War: "You provide the pictures, I'll provide the war." (An often-debated Hollywood legend says that the reference to "Rosebud" was also an attack on Hearst: allegedly, it was a nickname used by Hearst to refer to the private anatomy of his mistress, Marion Davies). Stealing a horse and charging off at the truck convoy, Indy manages to take the wheel of the truck, throw the passengers off the back, fend off the other support vehicles, and escape, all in a rather dramatic chase scene. Much of Kane's life is seen by critics as a fictional parody of (or attack on) media baron William Randolph Hearst. Gas ignites the plane, and Belloq and Dietrich put the Ark on a truck instead.

He understood their desire to control projects and he knew they were expecting him to do an exciting film that would correspond to his The War of the Worlds radio broadcast. Welles' RKO contract had given him complete control over the production of the film when he signed on with the studio, something that he never again was allowed to exercise when making motion pictures. Marion knocks out the pilot and fends off some infantrymen with the plane's coaxial machine gun while Indy (beated to the ground) hides his face when his opponent is torn apart off-camera by a propellor. During the filming (June 29, 1940 - October 23, 1940), Welles prevented studio executives of RKO from visiting the set. Attempting to stop the pilot, a large fight breaks out instead between Indy and a big muscular soldier around the spinning propellors of the plane. Kane's performance was shot by panning a camera upwards over the performance scene, matching it with a painting showing the upper regions of the house, and then matching it again with the scene of the workmen. They escape though a weak stone wall and arrive in time to see a Luftwaffe plane being prepared to ship the Ark to Berlin. For example, the scene where the camera in the opera house rises dramatically to the rafters to show the workman showing a lack of appreciation for the second Mrs. Dietrich and his assistant Gobler, surround the entrace, take the Ark, and leave Indy and Marion to die in the snake-infested pit.

Welles also pioneered several visual effects in order to cheaply shoot things like crowd scenes and large interior spaces. Belloq and the Germans, led by the sadistic Col. For example, in Erich von Stroheim's masterpiece Greed, the breakdown of the marriage of the main characters takes almost an hour of screen time, even in the most abbreviated cut. Infiltrating the dig, Indy and Sallah use the headpeice in the map room to then find the Ark deep within the snake-infested Well of Souls. Prior to this technique, filmmakers often had to use a long period of screen time to explain the character's changed circumstances. It appears that the Nazis have misread the headpiece, their staff is too long, and they are thus digging for the Ark in the wrong place in Tanis. In this way, Welles chronicled the breakdown of Kane's first marriage, which took years of story time, in a matter of minutes. That evening, Sallah takes Indy to an old wiseman who decodes the markings.

One of the story-telling techniques introduced in this film was using a series of jump cuts shot on the same set while the characters changed costume and make-up between cuts so that the scene following the cut would look as if it took place at a time long after the previous cut. Fearing that Marion was most likely killed in the blast, Indy in a rage encounters Belloq once more in a Cairo tavern and wishes to kill him despite Belloq's sermon about the Ark's wonders, but Sallah and his children rescue him from the other Egyptian gunmen. Since movies were primarily filmed on sound stages and not on location during the era of the Hollywood studio system, it was impossible to film at an angle that showed ceilings because the stages had none. Welles' crew used black cloth draped above the set to produce the illusion of a regular room with a ceiling, while the boom mikes were hidden above the cloth. Nazi operatives grab Marion and throw her in a truck, but the vehicle crashes and explodes when Indy dispatches the driver with his pistol. Another unorthodox method used in the film was the way low-angle cameras were used to display a point of view facing upwards, thus allowing ceilings to be shown in the background of several scenes. While touring about Cairo's markets, Marion and Indy are chased by hired swordsmen. Anytime the deep focus was impossible—for example in the scene when Kane finishes a bad review of Alexander's opera while at the same time firing the person who started the review—Toland used an optical printer to make the whole screen appear in focus (one piece of film is printed onto another piece of film). They fly to Cairo and meet Indy's friend Sallah, a skilled Egyptian digger and archaeologist, to find help in decoding the markings in the headpiece that specify the height of the staff needed to hold the headpiece.

This was done by legendary cinematographer Gregg Toland through his experimentation with lenses and lighting. Marion teams up with Indy following a shootout between him and Toht's hired thugs in Marion's tavern. In nearly every scene in the film, the foreground, background and everything in between are all in sharp focus. A Nazi agent named Toht (perhaps Gestapo) who had followed Indy to Marion tries to take the piece from her by provoking her with a hot iron. The most innovative technical aspect of "Kane" is the unprecedented use of deep focus. Indy flies to snowy, mountainous Nepal to speak with Marion Ravenwood, the professor's tough-minded and independent daughter, only to find that her father died and that she's reluctant to part with the headpiece. (Welles actually tripped and broke his ankle during the filming of that scene, but the scene continued and made it into the final print of the film.). According to Ravenwood, the Pharaoh Shishaq stole the Ark from Jerusalem but then buried it in the desert sands of his capital city, Tanis, also the city where the Nazis have begun a massive archaeological dig for the Well of Souls which houses the Ark.

The film is even seen as one of the predecessors of method acting, as seen during the scene where Kane vents his anger at his political opponent, Jim Gettys, at the top of a flight of stairs. Furthermore, they believe that Ravenwood has the headpiece of the Staff of Ra needed to pinpoint the Ark's resting place. Using a specifically high staff to hold it, the headpiece is a golden disk that uses the sun's rays cast its crystal to then shine a spot on the city model in the map room, of Tanis, an ancient Egyptian city. Examination of the techniques used by Welles and his crew reveals elements of expressionism in the use of light and shadow, noting the influence of German and Russian filmmakers. Indy, a former student of Ravenwood, helps interpret the message as an indication that the Nazis are close to finding the Ark of the Covenant — a golden and jeweled chest constructed under the guidance of God and Moses that housed the remnants of the tablets of the Ten Commandments, a relic that Hitler could use to render his rising army invincible, or at least what the legend implies. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation did in 1915). Ravenwood being under the scrutiny of German intelligence. W. The men explain that the US has intercepted a cryptic Nazi message that mentions a Prof.

Film scholars and historians view Citizen Kane as Welles' attempt to create a new style of filmmaking by studying the various forms of movie making, and combining them all into one (much like D. Back at his American college, two US Army intelligence men summon Jones into the auditorium along with Marcus, head of the department and a good friend of Indy. Welles' from his stint at the Mercury Theater, such as Joseph Cotten and Agnes Moorehead. Jones manages to flee with his pilot, Jock, in their pontoon plane. Mankiewicz -- though most film history circles consider Mankiewicz's contribution to the screenplay to be far greater than that of Welles), and a lineup of first time silverscreen actors, associates of Mr. Outside, his French counterpart and nemesis Rene Belloq has actually befriended the natives, who take the idol from Indy and chase him down. The film combines revolutionary cinematography (by Gregg Toland, whom Welles shared a title card with, which was considered a massive nod of approval for Toland's overall contribution to the film) with an Oscar-winning screenplay (by Welles and Herman J. In the temple, Jones avoids various traps when retrieving the idol, is duped by another guide, Satipo, who turns on him but is then killed by a trap himself, and manages to escape a giant rolling boulder that chases Jones out of the temple.

At the end we realize that the fragments are not governed by a secret unity: the detested Charles Foster Kane is a simulacrum, a chaos of appearances". With his famous whip, he chases away a guide who attempts to shoot him in the back. Forms of multiplicity and incongruity abound in the film: the first scenes record the treasures amassed by Kane; in one of the last, a poor woman, luxuriant and suffering, plays with an enormous jigsaw puzzle on the floor of a palace that is also a museum. Set in 1936, the story begins with Indy's journey into the South American jungle with a few local guides to find a hidden temple that houses a golden idol head (perhaps of the Inca civilization?). Overwhelmingly, endlessly, Orson Welles shows fragments of the life of the man, Charles Foster Kane, and invites us to combine them and reconstruct him. His bête noire is Rene Belloq (Paul Freeman). [Its] subject (both psychological and allegorical) is the investigation of a man's inner self, through the works he has wrought, the words he has spoken, the many lives he has ruined.. On his adventure he is accompanied by Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) and Sallah (John Rhys-Davies).

What is revealed has been described by Jorge Luis Borges, in a 1941 review, as a "metaphysical detective story. Raiders of the Lost Ark is a feature film released by Paramount Pictures in 1981. Directed by Steven Spielberg, it is a fantasy adventure and the first in a series of film and TV productions about the adventures of the heroic fictional archaeologist Indiana Jones, who was played by actor Harrison Ford. Indy is a professor of archaeology and also acquires artifacts for Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott), who works for a museum. Kane's dying word, "rosebud". Producers: Howard Kazanjian, George Lucas, Frank Marshall, Robert Watts. The remainder of the movie is told through flashbacks being related to a reporter trying to improve the newsreel — the newsreel is regarded as functional but not especially profound, and furthermore the reporter is searching for the meaning behind Mr. Anderson, who included the Wilhelm scream in the film. Kane dies in the opening scene of the film; this is followed by a newsreel pastiche documenting Kane's public life (this segment was produced by RKO's actual newsreel department). Sound effects editor: Richard L.

As a result, Kane eventually alienates every loved one around him and dies a lonely recluse in an opulent, but crumbling estate. Editor: Michael Kahn. Instead Kane has only "Love on my own terms". Composer: John Williams. Produced in 1941, the film deals with the inability of Charles Foster Kane (played by Welles) to truly love. Writing credits: George Lucas (story), Philip Kaufman (story) and Lawrence Kasdan (screenplay). The only remaining living cast members are Buddy Swan and Sonny Bupp, who played Kane at age 8 and Kane's young son, respectively. Cast: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman, Ronald Lacey, John Rhys-Davies, Alfred Molina, and Denholm Elliott.

She died on January 5, 2005. Direction: Steven Spielberg. Ruth Warrick was the last main cast member still living. The movie has some parallels to the 1933 movie The Power and the Glory. The film premiered on May 1, 1941. Endlessly discussed and dissected by critics and viewers alike, this innovative film is perhaps the most influential ever in film history.

Internally while it was under production, it was referred to as RKO 281. Welles maintained that the character is a composite of several historical individuals. Citizen Kane is the first feature film directed by Orson Welles (he had directed two short films previously), and is loosely based on the life of the newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, the reclusive aerospace and movie mogul Howard Hughes, and the Chicago utilities magnate Samuel Insull. In the video game Final Fantasy 6, in the part where Locke is asked to choose a password from 3 words, one of them is "Rosebud".

In episode 137 of "Cheers" ("A Tale of Two Cuties", aired 1/21/88), Frasier, upset that the regulars have ruined the ending of the book he is reading, takes revenge by revealing the endings to several classic films in rapid succession, including the fact that Rosebud was Kane's sled. In 2004 a documentary film titled Citizen Black detailed the career and downfall of newspaper baron Lord Conrad Black. In this show it became a recurring gag to make references to this film when Phoebe was in the scene. Ruth Warrick who played Emily Monroe Norton in Citizen Kane became better known later in her career for playing Phoebe Tyler Wallingford on the America soap opera All My Children from 1970 until her death in January 2005.

In an episode of the children's television show Arthur the rich Muffy has a sled identical to Kane's. A level in the computer game Oh No! More Lemmings is called Citizen Lemming. Several animated programs, including Animaniacs and Family Guy have revealed what "rosebud" is in a satirical manner; one of Family Guy's more memorable quotes involves Peter Griffin taping over the film and revealing the ending for the next viewer, exclaiming, "There, I just saved you two boring boobless hours.". In the children's television show The Adventures of Pete and Pete, Pete drops a snow globe in the episode Sick Day just like in Citizen Kane.

In DVD commentary for another episode, one of the show's producers half-jokingly claims that all the Citizen Kane references made throughout the series could be pieced together to comprise the entire film from start to finish. The animated television program The Simpsons has had many, many references to Citizen Kane, including an episode entitled "Rosebud", which concerned tycoon Montgomery Burns recovering his teddy bear Bobo, which he had lost as a young man, ala Charles Foster Kane and his sled. The flash-backs to childhood in Oliver Stone's Nixon closely resemble Citizen Kane stylistically. It also features the "Charlie Kane" song in a breakdown.

The chorus, "it can't be love for there is no true love", is originally sung by the jazz band during the camping trip. A young Kane yells the title while playing in the snow. The White Stripes song "The Union Forever" is made up entirely of quotes from Citizen Kane. The last chapter of the comic book The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck by Keno Don Rosa is heavily influenced by Citizen Kane.

Russ Meyer's movie Up! - Sweet Li'l Alice (Janet Wood) says "rosebud" and looks at the camera after seeing the flower tattoo of Margo Winchester (Raven De La Croix). Best Sound, Recording - John Aalberg. Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic Picture - Bernard Herrmann. Best Film Editing - Robert Wise.

Best Director - Orson Welles. Best Cinematography, Black-and-White - Gregg Toland. Roland Fields, Van Nest Polglase, and Darrell Silvera. Academy Award for Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White - Perry Ferguson, A.

Best Actor in a Leading Role - Orson Welles. Academy Award for Best Picture - Orson Welles, producer.