Tag Archives: william randolph hearst

JOSEPH PULITZER: VOICE OF THE PEOPLE

The life and times of Joseph Pulitzer are explored in Oren Rudavsky documentary

JOSEPH PULITZER: VOICE OF THE PEOPLE (Oren Rudavsky, 2018)
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Opens March 1
212-255-2243
quadcinema.com
www.josephpulitzerfilm.com

“It is not enough to refrain from publishing fake news . . . accuracy is to a newspaper what virtue is to a woman,” Joseph Pulitzer, voiced by a thickly Hungarian-accented Liev Schreiber, says in Oren Rudavsky’s Joseph Pulitzer: Voice of the People, opening March 1 at the Quad. Made for PBS’s American Masters series, the documentary, narrated by Adam Driver, gets off to a slow start, with numerous talking heads, wearisome reenactments, and modern-day B-roll shots. There’s some fascinating information about Pulitzer, who was born in Hungary in 1847, came to America penniless to fight in the Civil War, and eventually built a publishing empire that made him extremely wealthy even as he still fought aggressively for the poor, the disenfranchised, the overlooked, the underrepresented. Of course, Rudavsky (A Life Apart: Hasidism in America) — who directed the film, wrote it with Robert Seidman and editor Ramon Rivera Moret, and produced it with Seidman and Andrea Miller — had limited pictorial resources for the first half of Pulitzer’s life, before photography became more mainstream and before Pulitzer bought and ran the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the New York World.

Thus, the second half of the film is significantly better, as Rudavsky explores Pulitzer’s battles with William Randolph Hearst, which led to the concept of “yellow journalism,” then with President Theodore Roosevelt over possible corruption involving the Panama Canal deal, and finally with his health, as he loses his eyesight but continues to run his paper. The fight with Hearst over circulation numbers and who can get the most sensationalistic stories first is downright exciting, evoking the current 24/7 news cycle on social media, while elements of the Roosevelt scandal are echoed today by President Donald Trump’s relationship with the press. Among those celebrating Pulitzer, who was a firm believer in justice and was not afraid to stand up and defend it loudly, is novelist Nicholson Baker, who acquired and preserved many issues of the World and reviews several of them on camera, turning the pages as if examining priceless treasures, which in many ways they are. The voice cast also features Lauren Ambrose as Kate Davis, Rachel Brosnahan as Nellie Bly, Hugh Dancy as Alleyne Ireland, Billy Magnussen as Hearst, and Tim Blake Nelson as Roosevelt. Rudavsky will be at the Quad for Q&As following the 6:55 screenings March 1 and 2 and after the 3:05 show March 3.

ORSON WELLES 100: CITIZEN KANE

Orson Welles masterpiece kicks off centennial celebration of controversial auteur’s birth

CITIZEN KANE (Orson Welles, 1941)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
January 1-8
Series continues through February 3
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org
www2.warnerbros.com

Film Forum is ringing in 2015 with the greatest American movie ever made, the epic Citizen Kane, kicking off a massive centennial celebration of the birth of its creator, the rather iconoclastic writer, director, producer, actor, and wine spokesman Orson Welles. In 1941, a young, brash, determined Welles shocked Hollywood with a masterpiece unlike anything seen before or since — a beautifully woven complex narrative with a stunning visual style (compliments of director of photography Gregg Toland) and a fabulous cast of veterans from his Mercury radio days, including Everett Sloane, Joseph Cotten, Ray Collins, Paul Stewart, and Agnes Moorehead. Each moment in the film is unforgettable, not a word or shot out of place as Welles details the rise and fall of a self-obsessed media mogul. The film is prophetic in many ways; at one point Kane utters, “The news goes on for twenty-four hours a day,” foreseeing today’s 24/7 news overload. And it doesn’t matter if you’ve never seen it and you know what Rosebud refers to; the film is about a whole lot more than just that minor mystery. Like every film the Wisconsin-born Welles made, Citizen Kane was fraught with controversy, not the least of which was a very unhappy William Randolph Hearst seeking to destroy the negative of a film he thought ridiculed him. Kane won only one Oscar, for writing — which also resulted in controversy when Herman J. Mankiewicz claimed that he was the primary scribe, not Welles. The film lost the Academy Award for Best Picture to John Ford’s How Green Was My Valley, but it has topped nearly every greatest-films-of-all-time list ever since.

Orson Welles was one of a kind, as splendid Film Forum series shows

A classic American story that never gets old, Citizen Kane, in a 4K restoration, will run at Film Forum January 1-8, igniting “Orson Welles 100,” a four-week festival programmed by Bruce Goldstein along with consultant Joseph McBride, author of What Ever Happened to Orson Welles? A Portrait of an Independent Career. Welles’s career was fraught with controversy, with battles over editorial control, finances, and politics, with more unfinished projects than completed ones. As McBride points out at the start of his 2006 book, “‘God, how they’ll love me when I’m dead!’ Welles was fond of saying in his later years, with a mixture of bitterness and ironic detachment. But that’s a half-truth at best. More than two decades after Welles’s death, his career is, in a very real sense, still flourishing. But it is a disturbing irony that Welles is more ‘bankable’ now than when he was living.” The Film Forum series confirms this statement, consisting of more than thirty films that Welles directed and/or appeared in, including multiple versions of Touch of Evil and Macbeth; the lineup ranges from the familiar (The Magnificent Ambersons, The Third Man, Compulsion, A Man for All Seasons) to the obscure (Prince of Foxes, The Black Rose, Man in the Shadow, Black Magic), from the Shakespearean (Chimes at Midnight, Macbeth, Othello) to the Muppets (The Muppet Movie). Among the double features are The Immortal Story and F for Fake, The Stranger and Journey into Fear, and Jane Eyre and Tomorrow Is Forever. McBride will be on hand to present the rarities collection “Wellesiana” as well as the “Preview version” of Touch of Evil on January 14 and the “Scottish version” of Macbeth on January 16, joined by Welles’s daughter Chris Welles Feder.

CITIZEN KANE VS. VERTIGO

CITIZEN KANE is back on the campaign trail, seeking victory

CITIZEN KANE (Orson Welles, 1941
Film Forum
209 West Houston St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
September 5-11
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.com
www2.warnerbros.com

Citizen Kane is the best-made film we have ever had the pleasure to watch — again and again and again — and it is even more brilliant on the big screen. A young, brash, determined Orson Welles created a masterpiece unlike anything seen before or since — a beautifully woven complex narrative with a stunning visual style (compliments of director of photography Gregg Toland) and a fabulous cast of veterans from his Mercury radio days, including Everett Sloane, Joseph Cotten, Ray Collins, Paul Stewart, and Agnes Moorehead. Each moment in the film is unforgettable, not a word or shot out of place as Welles details the rise and fall of a self-obsessed media mogul. The film is prophetic in many ways; at one point Kane utters, “The news goes on for twenty-four hours a day,” foreseeing today’s 24/7 news overload. And it doesn’t matter if you’ve never seen it and you know what Rosebud refers to; the film is about a whole lot more than just that minor mystery. Like every film Welles made, Citizen Kane was fraught with controversy, not the least of which was a very unhappy William Randolph Hearst seeking to destroy the negative of a film he thought ridiculed him. Kane won only one Oscar, for writing — which also resulted in controversy when Herman J. Mankiewicz claimed that he was the primary scribe, not Welles. The film lost the Oscar for Best Picture to John Ford’s How Green Was My Valley, but it has topped nearly every greatest-films-of-all-time list ever since. However, after being number one on Sight & Sound’s poll that comes out every ten years (in 1962, 1972, 1982, 1992, and 2002), Citizen Kane has shockingly been beaten out this year by Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 thriller Vertigo, which has been climbing the Sight & Sound spiral staircase from number 7 in 1982 to number 4 in 1992 and number 2 in 2002 after not having even made the top ten in 1962 and 1972. Film Forum is setting the two films against each other this month, with Citizen Kane screening September 5-11, followed by Vertigo, which isn’t even the best Hitchcock film, being shown September 12-18, giving everyone a chance to see just how wrong Sight & Sound, the magazine of the British Film Institute, is.

YOU MUST REMEMBER THIS: CITIZEN KANE

Rubin Museum screening of Orson Welles masterpiece focuses on memory

CITIZEN KANE (Orson Welles, 1941
Cabaret Cinema, Rubin Museum of Art
150 West 17th St. at Seventh Ave.
Friday, March 30, free with $7 bar minimum, 9:30
212-620-5000
www.rmanyc.org/cabaretcinema
www2.warnerbros.com/citizenkane

Citizen Kane is the best-made film we have ever had the pleasure to watch — again and again and again — and it is even more brilliant on the big screen. A young, brash, determined Orson Welles created a masterpiece unlike anything seen before or since — a beautifully woven complex narrative with a stunning visual style (compliments of director of photography Gregg Toland) and a fabulous cast of veterans from his Mercury radio days, including Everett Sloane, Joseph Cotten, Ray Collins, Paul Stewart, and Agnes Moorehead. Each moment in the film is unforgettable, not a word or shot out of place as Welles details the rise and fall of a self-obsessed media mogul. The film is prophetic in many ways; at one point Kane utters, “The news goes on for twenty-four hours a day,” foreseeing today’s 24/7 news overload. And it doesn’t matter if you’ve never seen it and you know what Rosebud refers to; the film is about a whole lot more than just that minor mystery. Like every film Welles made, Citizen Kane was fraught with controversy, not the least of which was a very unhappy William Randolph Hearst seeking to destroy the negative of a film he thought ridiculed him. Kane won only one Oscar, for writing — which also resulted in controversy when Herman J. Mankiewicz claimed that he was the primary scribe, not Welles. The film lost the Oscar for Best Picture to John Ford’s How Green Was My Valley, but it has topped nearly every greatest-films-of-all-time list ever since. Citizen Kane will be screening March 30 at 9:30 as part of the Rubin Museum series “You Must Remember This,” focusing on memory in conjunction with its current Brainwave series and will be introduced by Israeli journalist Rula Jebreal. Admission to the Rubin is free on Friday nights, so you should also check out the exhibitions “Hero, Villain, Yeti,” “Modernist Art from India,” and the outstanding “Casting the Divine.”

STRANGER THAN FICTION: ZELIG

Woody Allen examines personal and cultural identity in the hysterical but poignant ZELIG

ZELIG (Woody Allen, 1983)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Tuesday, February 14, $16, 8:00
212-924-7771
www.stfdocs.com

The IFC Center’s Stranger Than Fiction series generally consists of classic and new documentaries, often with the filmmakers and/or subjects participating in postscreening Q&As. But on Valentine’s Day, it takes a slightly different approach, showing Woody Allen’s Zelig, a story of love and acceptance disguised as a historical newsreel. Allen stars as the fictional Leonard Zelig, a lonely little man who becomes known as the Human Chameleon for his ability to change not only the way he talks and acts but how he looks, based on whatever situation he is currently involved in. Zelig becomes a cultural phenomenon, hobnobbing with Charles Lindbergh, Al Capone, William Randolph Hearst, Charlie Chaplin, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and many other famous figures of the 1920s and 1930s while also being studied by eminent psychiatrist Dr. Eudora Fletcher (Mia Farrow). Master cinematographer Gordon WIllis (The Godfather) earned an Oscar nomination for the way he was able to insert Allen and Farrow into existing footage, including literally stepping on the film to make it look older. As wildly funny as Zelig is, it is also an extremely insightful examination of identity, individuality, and the basic human need to be part of something. The STF series continues February 21 with Lisa Katzman’s Tootie’s Last Suit, February 28 with The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town, and March 6 with Leon Gast’s Smash His Camera.

AN AUTEURIST HISTORY OF FILM: CITIZEN KANE

Orson Welles masterpiece is screening at MoMA this week as part of month-long look at 1941

CITIZEN KANE (Orson Welles, 1941
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
May 4-6, 1:30
Tickets: $10, in person only, may be applied to museum admission within thirty days, same-day screenings free with museum admission, available at Film and Media Desk
212-708-9400
www.moma.org
www2.warnerbros.com/citizenkane

Citizen Kane is the best-made film we have ever had the pleasure to watch — again and again and again — and it is even more brilliant on the big screen. A young, brash, determined Orson Welles created a masterpiece unlike anything seen before or since — a beautifully woven complex narrative with a stunning visual style (compliments of director of photography Gregg Toland) and a fabulous cast of veterans from his Mercury radio days, including Everett Sloane, Joseph Cotten, Ray Collins, Paul Stewart, and Agnes Moorehead. Each moment in the film is unforgettable, not a word or shot out of place as Welles details the rise and fall of a self-obsessed media mogul. The film is prophetic in many ways; at one point Kane utters, “The news goes on for twenty-four hours a day,” foreseeing today’s 24/7 news overload. And it doesn’t matter if you’ve never seen it and you know what Rosebud refers to; the film is about a whole lot more than just that minor mystery. Like every film Welles made, Citizen Kane was fraught with controversy, not the least of which was a very unhappy William Randolph Hearst seeking to destroy the negative of a film he thought ridiculed him. Kane won only one Oscar, for writing — which also resulted in controversy when Herman J. Mankiewicz claimed that he was the primary scribe, not Welles. The film lost the Oscar for Best Picture to John Ford’s How Green Was My Valley, but it has topped nearly every greatest-films-of-all-time list ever since. Citizen Kane will be screening May 4-6 at 1:30 as part of MoMA’s ongoing series “An Auteurist History of Film,” focusing on the director as creator and which this month looks back at that banner year of 1941 with How Green Was My Valley (May 11-13, 1:30), John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon (May 18-20, 1:30), and Preston Sturges’s The Lady Eve (May 25-27, 1:30).