Review: Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane on 4K UHD from the Criterion Collection

Criterion brings this quintessentially vital film into present-tense greatness once again.

Citizen KaneThe ghosts that haunt barons of industry and commerce—breeding obsession, greed, arrogance, vanity, and cruelty of the most malicious sort—are the same as those that envelope, corrupt, and exhaust the titans of the screen and those most talented of artists, a fact that has never more evident than in Citizen Kane. Wunderkind Orson Welles’s deeply haunting depiction of the life of William Randolph Hearst, from working-class hero to failed political powerhouse to newspaper baron, has long been synonymous with the director’s spectacularly odd and genuinely tragic career, and for good reason. Hunger for power and control were at once central to both Hearst and Welles’s legacies and the fatal wound that led to their most devastating pitfalls.

To now return to that famous image of Welles’s Kane in his paper-strewn office after losing a bid at political office, towering above Gregg Toland’s camera as he gets a proper moral thrashing from his only true friend in the world, it becomes impossible to not consider all those similar thrashings that friends, colleagues, and complete strangers gave Welles at the impetus of the project, during its production and upon its release. Hollywood threw an epic hissy fit, but what appeared on the screen was immediately recognizable of a singular artistic vision that made many, if not all, of Welles’s peers and colleagues look behind the times.

Structured largely through the recollections of supporting characters, including Kane’s best friend, Jedediah Leland (Joseph Cotton), and the showgirl, Susan (Dorothy Comingore), who inadvertently bungled his political aspirations, Kane’s story is as much about locating the psychological bruises that shape public figures as it is about the essential enigmas of said figures. The pioneering of gossip journalism and the social ills proliferated by that advent are here just as interesting and important as the building of Xanadu and the collecting of all those exotic treasures. Following the investigative pursuits of reporter Jerry Thompson (William Alland), we see Kane as the adopted son of a steel-hearted tycoon, Walter Parks Thatcher (George Coulouris), but miss that crucial hint to the elusive “Rosebud,” which Welles, in a beautiful stroke, reveals only long enough for it to be destroyed and lost forever.

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Considering that “Rosebud” was rumored to be a nickname for Hearst’s mistress’s, er, loins, it’s not completely surprising that most of Welles’s projects met a similar fate as that most memorable of all sleighs. But like most great cinematic artists, it’s less the drama of Citizen Kane that’s remembered than it is the rich, vivid look of the picture. One remembers the vast, echoing main hall of Xanadu, where Comingore’s showgirl wastes away while piecing together puzzles, or the newspaper office transformed into a den of indulgence and shadowy sin following Kane’s ascension to the upper echelons of the newspaper industry.

Rather than overwrite the dramatic turns, however, these glorious set pieces, each one more jaw-dropping than the last, accentuate those forgotten moments of tension, grief, disappointment, good humor, and potent heartbreak. Less famous scenes, such as when we finally see Kane’s political opponent James W. Gettys (Ray Collins) quietly eviscerate Kane with his own sense of pride, is all the more powerful in the cramped environs of Susan’s dinky apartment than it is, nowadays, over the phone or in massive meeting rooms.

Citizen Kane remains as hard to talk about as ever, due largely to its symbiotic relationship with its own making and its reception forever complicating and deepening the psychological and philosophical valleys that exist within the proper narrative. You may stare at it, amazed and entertained, but feel dwarfed by the very idea of attempting to untangle the crow’s nest that’s formed through its ever-expanding histories. And what continuously stupefies this critic is that time works no miracles on the film: Scenes remain familiar, but the narrative seems to shift every time that you return to it. No wonder it’s such a pain to pin down. It sounds hyperbolic, but I might as well be trying to say something new about the life of Jesus.

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Image/Sound

You’ve got to feel for the Criterion Collection. For decades now, every time the distributor’s spine numbers reached round figures, boutique home video collectors ramped up their speculation that Citizen Kane was finally coming (with particularly virulent speculation when spines 500 and 1000 neared). It remained the crown jewel of Criterion’s laserdisc titles that had yet to move onto any of the next phases in digital media up to this point, and with a steady crescendo of power moves from new kids on the block like Indicator, Arrow, Severin, Grasshopper, Cinema Guild, and Eureka’s Masters of Cinema! imprimatur all doing their part to knock Criterion off its pedestal, the stakes could hardly have been higher in this moment.

So when Criterion admitted a few days ago that there was an issue with their ace in the hole, you could almost picture the label’s staff angrily writing up the press release announcing that they would replace the set’s faulty disc in much the same manner as Kane himself does typing up Leland’s pan of Susan’s opera debut. It’s not that Criterion has never screwed up (the first printing transfer on their release of Brian De Palma’s Dressed to Kill immediately springs to mind), but at this precise moment? Yes, the transfer on the Blu-ray disc is compromised, as the monochromatic variety of the film’s images is crushed down into a nondescript, dark murk some two reels in, and stays there through the final Rosebud reveal.

But to be fair, and since Criterion was so quick to own up to the blunder, this release’s main headline is that it’s part of the label’s new commitment to the 4K UHD format, and that transfer isn’t just fine—it’s dazzling. Incredible textures, flawless delineation of cinematographer Gregg Toland’s high-contrast compositions, velveteen blacks, and heritage levels of grain accuracy. It’s all there, and all the more impressive for being the oldest film yet announced among Criterion’s 4K efforts, and a film whose original negative is MIA. The uncompressed monaural sound mix is perhaps not quite the revelation, but it’s still clearly as good as can be expected while still faithful to the source material. For those in the game for the UHD version, there are absolutely no deductions to be made from the overall score here.

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Extras

It’s no small feat to put together the most definitive trove of Citizen Kane bonus features; most releases have shown due reverence for the commonly accepted “greatest film of all time” and loaded their discs up with reiterations of said fact. The meatiest previous release, Warner’s 2011 Blu-ray celebrating the film’s 70th anniversary, was built around the separate Roger Ebert and Peter Bogdanovich commentary tracks that were recorded about a decade prior. That earlier edition also tossed in the 1995 documentary The Battle Over Citizen Kane (for the better) and the 1999 biopic RKO 281 (for the significantly worse). Criterion jettisons both of those in favor of the 1991 BBC documentary The Complete Citizen Kane, which if not inherently superior to the ‘95 doc, is at least not accompanied on this release by a disc including David Fincher’s abysmal Mank. Criterion also throws in a third and brand-new commentary track, this one featuring Welles historians James Naremore and Jonathan Rosenbaum. Each of the commentaries covers a particular niche, and which one you find the most edifying is likely to depend strictly on personal preference.

For every person who revels in how characteristically fearless Rosenbaum is when it comes to making unabashed political links (and, in the process, respecting the film as a living text), there’s another who will balk and opt for the reliable populist perspicacity of Ebert’s analysis. Even Bogdanovich’s toadying superciliousness pays off in this specific context; a film this slavishly worshipped deserves an unrepentant acolyte. In the end, all four participants bring a wealth of knowledge to the table, and each deserves at least one spin.

The remaining extras are split between the third and fourth discs (both Blu-rays), and include welcome reprises from Criterion’s 50th anniversary laserdisc edition: interviews with Robert Wise, a tribute to Toland by noted cinematographers like Haskell Wexler, a collection of interviews from filmmakers who crossed paths with Welles or learned from him (including Henry Jaglom and Martin Ritt), and a reliably effusive Martin Scorsese’s endorsement of Citizen Kane. On the flip side, there are new bonus features that Criterion produced specifically for this release, including one that stares down the challenge that new audiences must surmount when approaching the film today in the shadow of its unshakable reputation.

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Also welcome: a 45-minute documentary on the last years of Welles’s life in which he was arguably more famous for being a stalwart talk show guest, spokesperson, and voiceover artist; an examination of Citizen Kane’s arsenal of practical effects work; a fresh look at the William Randolph Hearst problem by critic Farran Smith Nehme; and even a tongue-in-cheek look at Welles’s propensity for giving each of his characters unique schnozes. Add to that hours of archival reels from the Mercury Theatre, Welles’s 1934 avant-adjacent short The Hearts of Age, and a booklet anchored by critic Bilge Ebiri’s authoritative introductory essay, and you’ve got easily the fullest roster of extras that Criterion has yet amassed for a single title.

Overall

With this 80th anniversary 4K release boasting a luxuriant new transfer, Criterion brings this quintessentially vital film into present-tense greatness once again.

Score: 
 Cast: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotton, Dorothy Comingore, Agnes Moorehead, Ruth Warrick, Ray Collins, Erskine Sanford, Everett Sloane, William Alland, Paul Stewart, George Coulouris  Director: Orson Welles  Screenwriter: Orson Welles, Herman J. Mankiewicz  Distributor: The Criterion Collection  Running Time: 119 min  Rating: NR  Year: 1941  Buy: Video

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