Battle Over Citizen Kane, The

Battle Over Citizen Kane, The

See also:
Citizen Kane (Uncle Cliff)

I remember my first day at University for three reasons:

1) I realised that I was one of only three dudes in a course of about 80. 2) I realised very quickly that the high girl-count was not as cool as it sounds. 3) That the Cinema Studies lecturer seemed to have the biggest boner for some flick called Citizen Kane .

Okay, I'm being glib (as Tom Cruise would say). I had heard of Citizen Kane before. Many times in fact, mostly when it was being elected, again, as the “Bestest Film Ever Ever Made” on some new list. And yet I had never wanted to watch it. Maybe because all the adulation meant I was bound to be disappointed, but most probably because it was an old film and in black & white and watching old films sometimes freaks me out when I see a hot chick and are like “Phroaw!” but then I realise she would be like 90 now, or dead.

Anyway, I'll save the stories about how the lecturer couldn't refrain from commenting “That's so brilliant” every ten seconds as he showed us the film, or made us do like 17 different assignments on the film, or how he almost cried when telling us that Orson Welles died penniless and alone for when I review the actual film. Here I'm supposed to be reviewing The Battle Over Citizen Kane , a documentary. All you need to know for now is that Citizen Kane fucking rocks. If there is a better film I haven't seen it yet.

Those familiar with the story would be aware that the battle over Citizen Kane refers to the well-publicised attempt by media mogul William Randolph Hurst to buy the film with the intent on destroying it after he realised that Welles was making a very thinly veiled stab at him with the masterpiece. Possibly the most interesting cinema stories there has ever been. Well, the second most interesting movie story ever, if that rumour about Harvey Keitel getting fired from Eyes Wide Shut for method acting in a masturbation scene in which he actually spoofed in Nicole Kidman's hair proves to be true.

This documentary came on the special features disc of the DVD release and starts interestingly with about ten minutes of the commercials that I can only assume screened with it when it originally aired on American TV years ago. Then we get some old guy pointlessly crapping on about everything we are just about to see. The documentary was already starting to test my patience before it had even begun.

Much like this review has taken until the 6 th paragraph to actually discuss the film being reviewed, the documentary takes its sweet-ass time getting to the meat of the story. Indeed, for a film called The Battle Over Citizen Kane , it's a good 75 minutes until they get to the freakin' battle. Before the depiction of these two larger-than-life figures butting heads, we are subjected to a half-assed comparative narrative, where we get a glimpse of Welles as a kid VS a glimpse of Hurst as a youngin' - then it's on to the teen years, then early careers etc, etc. until their fates entwine.

The Battle Over Citizen Kane could have been a great Welles biopic - there's some amazing interviews in here with the man himself and his early theatre and radio years is covered beautifully - but in aspiring to make a film about this specific part of his life there's a feeling they tried to stretch what they had to work with too far, and while the story is always interesting it is at times presented really quite poorly.

The limited footage they had of Hurst is repeated over again, and footage from Citizen Kane is drastically over-used. At times it's there as if it should ‘speak for itself' as a commentary on Hurst's life when the film really should be using it as a springboard to delve deeper. At times they let scenes run on for so long I was pretty close to just switching discs and watching the real Citizen Kane for the 58 th time instead.

There's a great documentary waiting to be made about Welles, Kane and Hurst, but this isn't it. Still, this is well worth a watch if you're a fan. Chances are my former lecturer is jerking off to it right now, or as I like to call it, "Having a Harvey."