The Complete Citizen Kane

You may learn more about the making of Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" (1941) by reading one or two of the several books about it, but you're not likely to find a more thorough and well-executed documentary than this. It's informative, entertaining, and fascinating.

Everyone the producers could get their hands on has something to contribute in their interviews. And if the subjects are dead, there are archived interviews. At the very end, we hear Orson Welles exchanging compliments with H. G. Wells on the radio.

Here are Pauline Kael, Robert Wise, Anita Loos, all having their say. The story of Welles and the making of -- and disposition of -- the film are a parody of the "March of Time" segment of "Citizen Kane." We hear the stentorian narrator's voice. "With glory came fame. Then, 1929 -- disaster. Welles falls from grace. Excluded from tony parties. Backward ran sentences until bogggled the mind." Well, not that last sentence. And who is reading this? William Alland, the now-aged actor who played the inquiring reporter, Mr. Thompson, and who also did the voice for the "March of Time" parody. And Alland still has the SAME VOICE. It's as if every sentence is announcing the Second Coming.

I don't really want to get into the story. It's dense, tangled, and some details are in dispute. I'll just leave it with the suggestion that it might as well have a different title: "Everything you've always wanted to know about 'Citizen Kane' but didn't know whom to ask." The makers of this extraordinary documentary will give you the dish.

Heart of the matter: this is a British documentary about the making of one of the greatest films of all time, "Citizen Kane", in the light of its (at the time) 50th year of release, gathering film critics and the known individuals who worked with Orson Welles in that magnificent and ambitious project. And there's also some clips from a 1982 interview with Welles.

The presentation: good with peaks of high greatness when the directors decided to call William Alland to be the narrator, in the same way he was the voice-over behind the "News on the March" clip - the newsreel within the movie. The man hasn't lost his voice through the years. They present a brief historical and cultural context to make us have a better comprehension of Kane's importance and characteristics included in the script.

The problems (if I should call it this way): "The Battle Over Citizen Kane" exists, I watched first and it's a more complete and enthusiastic experience. Much of what's here is also there and that is quite disappointing to go through the same interviews and clips all over again. But there's different things too: a great testimony from Maurice Seiderman, the make-up designer who made Kane's models to be used in Welles, and this is one of his last interviews; and the whole controversy surrounding Pauline Kael's essay "Raising Kane" and she appears to set things straight once and for all (I could sense some retraction of her).

I guess everything we needed know about Welles classic we already know, through this site or other sites, books, documentaries, and the film itself. It remains a mandatory picture and it never gets old. "The Complete Citizen Kane" is very well-made, worth watching and worth having if you can find it. 8/10