Sorry for the absense for the second half of June, readers, but I am back to divulge more awesome and fascinating trivia for beloved movies. This week, I am concentrating on the MOST revered movie of all time according to many, many critics and lists of movie rankings, Citizen Kane.
- Despite all the publicity, the film was a box office flop and was quickly consigned to the RKO vaults. At 1941's Academy Awards the film was booed every time one of its nine nominations was announced. It was only re-released for the public in the mid-1950s.
- Xanadu's design is based on William Randolph Hearst's elaborate home in San Simeon and Mont St Michel in France.
- Orson Welles always claimed that this picture was not the biography of one specific individual, but a composite of characters from that era in America. Though universally recognized as based on the life of William Randolph Hearst, there were also elements in the story that applied to the life of Chicago utilities magnate Samuel Insulll.
Orson Welles chipped his anklebone halfway through production and had to direct for 2 weeks from a wheelchair. When he was called upon to stand up onscreen, he wore metal braces. The injury occurred in the scene where Kane chases Gettys down the stairs and Welles tripped.
The original nitrate negatives are gone; they were lost in a fire during the 1970s.
The movie's line "Rosebud." was voted as the #17 movie quote by the American Film Institute
In the scene where Jedediah confronts Kane, Joseph Cotten had stayed awake for 24 hours before the shoot so as to finish in order to start a play in New York. He makes an error and says "dramatic crimiticism," a flub that Cotten inadvertently made in rehearsals that Welles decided to use.
The audience that watches Kane make his speech is, in fact, a still photo. To give the illusion of movement, hundreds of holes were pricked in with a pin, and lights moved about behind it.
For this movie Orson Welles, along with cinematographer Gregg Toland, pioneered "deep focus", a technique that keeps every object in the foreground, center and background in simultaneous focus. This brought a sense of depth to the two-dimensional world of movies.
Citizen Kane was nominated for 8 Oscars: Best Sound, Recording; Best Picture; Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic Picture; Best Film Editing; Best Director, Orson Welles; Best Cinematography, Black and White; Best Art Direction-Interior Direction, Black and White; Best Actor in a Leading Role, Orson Welles; and Best Writing, Original Screenplay.
It only took home one Oscar for Best Writing, Original Screenplay.
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