A few months before its release, Orson Welles' iconic film Citizen Kane began to cause so much controversy that Radio City Music Hall eventually refused to show it. Instead, Citizen Kane, now hailed as one of the greatest films of all time, debuted on May 1, 1941 at the smaller RKO Palace Theatre.
By the time he started working for Citizen Kane, Wells, 24, was already known for being the scary little kids in Hollywood. He was first successful on Broadway and radio; his science fiction classic War of the Worlds, which aired in October 1938, was so realistic that some listeners actually believed that the Martians had invaded New Jersey.
Wells's 1938 broadcast of World Wars caught RKO's attention
After signing a lucrative contract with RKO Studios, Wells was struggling to find a theme for his first feature film when his friend and writer Herman Mankelitz suggested that he build the film on the life of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst.
In 1939, Orson Wells was at his home in Hollywood, and over the course of several long months, he began his first film project
Hearst ran the country's leading newspaper empire, ruling it from San Simeon, a sprawling estate on a hilltop on California's central coastline. Citizen Kane Preview in early February 1941 was almost universally praised by critics. However, one viewer, Hollywood gossip columnist Heda Hopper, was outraged by the film and Wells' portrayal of the protagonist, Charles Foster Kane.
Dorothy Cummingol and Orson Wells
She shared her concerns with Hearst herself, and he soon began a sweeping publicity campaign for Wells and his films, banning Hearst's newspapers from advertising for them and enlisting the support of big Hollywood personalities such as Metro-Goldwyn's Louis B. Mayer-Meyer.
Harry Shannon, George Curulris and Agnes Moorehead
Hearst is said to be particularly angry at the role in the film based on his companion Marion Davis, the former cabaret girl he helped become a popular actress in Hollywood. For his part, Wells threatened to sue Hearst for trying to suppress the film, and if the company didn't release the film, he would also sue RKO.
Joseph Cotton, Orson Wells and Everett Sloan
When Citizen Kane was finally released in May 1941, it failed miserably at the box office. Despite rave reviews and nine Oscar nominations, Wells was booed at that year's Oscars ceremony, and RKO quietly archived the film. Only a few years later, when it was reissued, Citizen Kane began to earn well-deserved acclaim for its groundbreaking photographic and sound work, as well as for its complex blend of drama, black comedy, history, biography, and even fake.
Kane, who was favored in winning the gubernatorial election, delivered a campaign speech at Madison Square Garden
Newsreels, or "simulation" clips, have provided information for hundreds of films since then. It consistently topped the list of film critics, most notably in the American Film Institute's poll of 100 of America's greatest films. After Citizen Kane, Wells' diverse work covered everything from Shakespeare adaptations to documentaries. His best-known films include Stranger (1946), Miss Shanghai (1948) and Midnight Bells (1966). In his later years, he recounted documentaries and appeared in advertisements, and died on October 10, 1985, at the age of 70, leaving behind several unfinished films.
plot
Charlie Kane dies in a mansion with only one word, "rosebud," a mystery that cannot be solved. So Thomson, a journalist, in the shadow of a rose bud, was ordered to investigate, outlining the life of five people who had worked or lived with Kane (Kane's guardian banker, newspaper general manager, Kane's friend and columnist, his second wife, the housekeeper of the luxurious mansion and the librarian).
Citizen Kane, Orson Wells, 1941, straddling a pile of newspapers
However, in the eyes of different people, Kane obviously has different characteristics, or the evolution of Kane's career, feelings, political ideas and personal character. When he was young, his adoptive father Thatcher told his partner Bernstein that Kane was an ambitious, ambitious, and obsessed character who led his kingdom to glory. But after he experienced the failure of his first marriage and the defeat of the election, he gradually revealed his dark side, narrow-mindedness made his partner Li Lan break up, and forced his wife Susan to become an opera star, and even later lived a semi-reclusive life in a luxurious mansion, and even rebelled, when he died, only the housekeeper Raymond and some servants were on the side, and even the reporter himself still did not understand the meaning of "rose bud".
In the end, when the workers cleaned up Kane's relics, the word "rose bud" appeared from the burning sleigh, and it turned out that he could not forget the sad past of his childhood until his death, and was forced to separate from his mother when playing with the sled in the snow, embarrassing the past, making the media juggler unforgettable throughout his life, losing his most beloved possession, and finally ending up alone.
Spielberg bought a sleigh
The "Rose Bud" is Kane's childhood sleigh. During the production of the film, they reportedly made three prop sleds, only one of which was not burned. In 1982, the sleigh was bought by Steven Spielberg.