Amazon.com essential video
Arguably the greatest of American films, Orson Welles's 1941 masterpiece, made when he was only 26, still unfurls like a dream and carries the viewer along the mysterious currents of time and memory to reach a mature (if ambiguous) conclusion: people are the sum of their contradictions, and can't be known easily. Welles plays newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane, taken from his mother as a boy and made the ward of a rich industrialist. The result is that every well-meaning or tyrannical or self-destructive move he makes for the rest of his life appears in some way to be a reaction to that deeply wounding event. Written by Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz, and photographed by Gregg Toland, the film is the sum of Welles's awesome ambitions as an artist in Hollywood. He pushes the limits of then-available technology to create a true magic show, a visual and aural feast that almost seems to be rising up from a viewer's subconsciousness. As Kane, Welles even ushers in the influence of Bertolt Brecht on film acting. This is truly a one-of-a-kind work, and in many ways is still the most modern of modern films from the 20th century. --Tom Keogh
DVD features
No minuscule "featurette" for the greatest movie ever made. The backbone for this grand two-disc set is the 1995 Oscar®-nominated documentary The Battle over Citizen Kane, a very rich two-hour film on how this masterpiece was almost destroyed by Welles's adversary, William Randolph Hearst. A great remastered print is complemented by two running commentaries, the better one by critic Roger Ebert. Don't think you want a two-hour lecture by Mr. Ebert? Just listen to his 10-minute talk over the gallery of photographs from the movie (which you can flip through manually with your remote or see as a slide show), and you'll want more. Ad campaigns, storyboards, and even call sheets are included in this must-have DVD. --Doug Thomas
DVD Features:
Available Subtitles: English, Spanish, French, Portuguese
Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
Commentary by: Orson Welles biographer Peter BogdanovichUnknown Format,Roger EbertUnknown Format
Disc 1:
Feature Film
1941 Movie Premiere Newsreel
Gallery of storyboards, rare photos, alternate ad campaign, studio and personal correspondence, call sheets and other memorabilia
Disc 2:
Two-Hour Documentary: The Battle Over Citizen Kane, details the power struggle between Orson Welles and William Randolph Hearst
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