Citizen Kane
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Orson Welles' 1941 film, long celebrated as one of the greatest ever made, which went on to influence generations of film-makers
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Orson Welles' film, released in 1941, which is widely acclaimed as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, films yet made. Welles plays the lead role of Charles Foster Kane, a newspaper magnate, and Welles directed, produced and co-wrote this story of loneliness at the heart of a megalomaniac. The plot was partly inspired by the life of William Randolph Hearst, who then used the power of his own newspapers to try to suppress the film’s release. It was to take some years before Citizen Kane reached a fuller audience and, from that point, become so celebrated.
The image above is of Kane addressing a public meeting while running for Governor.
With
Stella Bruzzi
Professor of Film and Dean of Arts and Humanities at University College London
Ian Christie
Professor of Film and Media History at Birkbeck, University of London
And
John David Rhodes
Professor of Film Studies and Visual Culture at the University of Cambridge
Producer: Simon Tillotson
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LINKS AND FURTHER READING
READING LIST
André Bazin, What is Cinema? Vol II (University of California Press, 1971)
Simon Callow, Orson Welles: The Road to Xanadu (Penguin, 1995)
Pauline Kael, Raising Kane and other Essays (first published 1971; Marion Boyars, 1996)
Laura Mulvey, Citizen Kane: BFI Film Classics (first published 1992; Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019)
James Naremore, The Magic World of Orson Welles (Oxford University Press, 1978)
James Naremore (ed.), Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane: A Casebook (Oxford University Press, 2004)
RELATED LINKS
Citizen Kane – Â鶹Éç iPlayer
Broadcasts
- Thu 15 Dec 2022 09:00Â鶹Éç Radio 4
- Thu 15 Dec 2022 21:30Â鶹Éç Radio 4
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