1104 Citizen Kane

[hearthesilence]

Was it ever confirmed that Criterion has the rights to this? I know that the 2 companies have a close relationship but I can't imagine Warner Bros would be ok with letting the rights go to one of their biggest titles ever.

I wouldn't think they would do that either, but if physical media continues to be less of a concern for them, I can see how they'd be open to letting it go to Criterion under the right deal. I'm not sure if it's analogous, but I remember when Sony Music licensed off the Miles Davis and Bob Dylan catalog to an audiophile label, for both vinyl and the format they recently pioneered SACD - it was already difficult to license anything from them for reissue, and it even made more logical sense for them not to even though sales in physical media had already begun to decline.

[swo17]

Watch Criterion release a deluxe Blu-ray and Warner put out a UHD

[FrauBlucher]

Was it ever confirmed that Criterion has the rights to this? I know that the 2 companies have a close relationship but I can't imagine Warner Bros would be ok with letting the rights go to one of their biggest titles ever.

As I posted several years back, a reliable source told me that Criterion did acquire Citizen Kane. It was around the time that CC gave us Magnificent Ambersons clue from the Newsletter. The source also said Journey Into Fear as well.

[ianthemovie]

Was it ever confirmed that Criterion has the rights to this? I know that the 2 companies have a close relationship but I can't imagine Warner Bros would be ok with letting the rights go to one of their biggest titles ever.

I believe there was a member of the forum, I can't remember which, who claimed to have inside knowledge that it was coming from Criterion, but that was some years ago, and I can't recall any other confirmation in the meantime. And there's still a chance that it won't happen. But I also have a hard time believing that WB would commission a scholarly commentary track by the likes of Naremore and Rosenbaum, especially when Roger Ebert's highly accessible commentary track (arguably one of the best ever recorded, to be fair) already exists.

EDIT: Thanks, Frau Blucher, for confirming that!

[dwk]

Watch Criterion release a deluxe Blu-ray and Warner put out a UHD

Since WB doesn't license UHD rights, this is most likely going to be what happens.

[beamish14]

Would be a perfect inaugural UHD release. I'm not being entirely facetious, the stock BD already looks great, so having a UHD option would be a very helpful selling point. Regardless, if it's a Criterion release I'm sure the extras will be better this time around - the crappy HBO movie and even crappier American Experience documentary piled on to the other one actually took the entire package down a few notches.

Oh, god, don't even remind me about RKO 281 or Tim Robbins' The Cradle Will Rock

Call me crazy, but I'd actually be interested in hearing a commentary that has Welles' daughters on it. I'd be interested to hear their first-hand knowledge of what their father said about the film.

[Drucker]

Would be a perfect inaugural UHD release. I'm not being entirely facetious, the stock BD already looks great, so having a UHD option would be a very helpful selling point. Regardless, if it's a Criterion release I'm sure the extras will be better this time around - the crappy HBO movie and even crappier American Experience documentary piled on to the other one actually took the entire package down a few notches.

Oh, god, don't even remind me about RKO 281 or Tim Robbins' The Cradle Will Rock

Call me crazy, but I'd actually be interested in hearing a commentary that has Welles' daughters on it. I'd be interested to hear their first-hand knowledge of what their father said about the film.

At a Q&A a few years ago, I asked one of his daughters about her father's reaction to Kane being named the greatest film of all time. She said her father's response was, "I've made way better films since then."

[yoloswegmaster]

Was it ever confirmed that Criterion has the rights to this? I know that the 2 companies have a close relationship but I can't imagine Warner Bros would be ok with letting the rights go to one of their biggest titles ever.

As I posted several years back, a reliable source told me that Criterion did acquire Citizen Kane. It was around the time that CC gave us Magnificent Ambersons clue from the Newsletter. The source also said Journey Into Fear as well.

Thank you for confirming that! It seems that Criterion now has the rights to Citizen Kane, Journey Into Fear, The Other Side of the Wind (presumably they also have the rights to Morgan Neville's documentary), and It's All True, alongside The Eyes of Orson Welles.

[beamish14]

Was it ever confirmed that Criterion has the rights to this? I know that the 2 companies have a close relationship but I can't imagine Warner Bros would be ok with letting the rights go to one of their biggest titles ever.

As I posted several years back, a reliable source told me that Criterion did acquire Citizen Kane. It was around the time that CC gave us Magnificent Ambersons clue from the Newsletter. The source also said Journey Into Fear as well.

Thank you for confirming that! It seems that Criterion now has the rights to Citizen Kane, Journey Into Fear, The Other Side of the Wind (presumably they also have the rights to Morgan Neville's documentary), and It's All True, alongside The Eyes of Orson Welles.

It's All True is in a tricky place, as there is so much unused material still sitting in UCLA's archives. I'm sure the makers of the documentary would want another pass at it, but restoring and properly ensuring the longterm viability of that footage is a very expensive proposition. Catherine Benamou's book on it has some interesting information I haven't encountered before.

[PfR73]

Oh, god, don't even remind me about RKO 281 or Tim Robbins' The Cradle Will Rock

I watched Cradle Will Rock [no "The", BTW] for the first time about a month or so ago and it's maybe my favorite movie seen so far this year. It's way more Altman-influenced than Welles, though, and with Altman being my favorite director that's a very positive thing IMO.

I also watched RKO 281 and I will agree that one wasn't very interesting.

[domino harvey]

Cradle Will Rock is terrific, I don’t get the swipe either. Uber energetic and fun show offy directing by Robbins. Kinda dreamily left wing, but it works

[beamish14]

Cradle Will Rock is terrific, I don’t get the swipe either. Uber energetic and fun show offy directing by Robbins. Kinda dreamily left wing, but it works

The swipe wasn't really so much at the film as its characterization of Welles (which I liked more in Linklater's underrated Me and Orson Welles). But then, I haven't seen it in decades, and perhaps my recollection of it is quite off.

[Ribs]

Watch Criterion release a deluxe Blu-ray and Warner put out a UHD

Since WB doesn't license UHD rights, this is most likely going to be what happens.

This is not true - they have not included UHD rights on their extant deals, which MGM has (that, for example, Kino could theoretically upgrade a bunch of their MGM titles without cutting a new deal). But Kino and Arrow don’t have WB deals - Shout and Criterion do, and thus far neither has shown any interest in releasing anything in 4K (in Shout’s case, that doesn’t already have an extant international release reducing their overhead). So we don’t really have anything to say they don’t license UHD rights because in all likelihood the only partners they would discuss them with have been slow to enter the fold.

[dwk]

When asked about their Friday the 13th box being Blu-ray only, Scream said that neither would license UHD rights.

[hearthesilence]

Oh, god, don't even remind me about RKO 281 or Tim Robbins' The Cradle Will Rock

Joseph McBride made the excellent point that whenever Welles has been portrayed in film, it's typically a terrible portrayal in a not-so-good film. I actually like Ed Wood but even its otherwise entertaining tribute is marred by the fact that it gets everything wrong about Welles. (Heston playing a Mexican wasn't forced on him - Welles himself changed the locale to the Mexican border and made Heston's character a Mexican - and as Drucker already pointed out, he believed he did better films after Citizen Kane). Richard Linklater and Christian McKay are probably the only ones who came up with an excellent portrayal of him in Me and Orson Welles.

[knives]

To be fair to Ed Wood the scene, and film at large, are clearly intended to be imagined to relay to us the experience of being Ed Wood. What matters for that scene is how Wood feels about Welles and nothing historic.

[hearthesilence]

To be fair to Ed Wood the scene, and film at large, are clearly intended to be imagined to relay to us the experience of being Ed Wood. What matters for that scene is how Wood feels about Welles and nothing historic.

Yeah, the whole thing's like a sweet little fantasy, even with the darker and tragic elements (like Bela Lugosi and Wood's bad break-up with Dolores Fuller), but I wish they were a little less sloppy or lazy about the details in that scene - doing so wouldn't compromise the tone.

[knives]

I’m saying they’re not being lazy nor sloppy. To adhere to historical facts in that scene, which never happened in real life to begin with, if anything would be sloppy as the thematic pull and joke is this idea,iced version of Welles that Wood sees as himself
.

[hearthesilence]

Imaginary or speculative works based on real life characters still have some basis in reality and it's always something you have to navigate - obviously the dramatization is all fiction, that's inherent in the whole concept, but unless it's needed to contribute to an overall point, it can still be lazy to disregard any and all real life details simply because "hey this story's imaginary, so everything can be made up however we want." It's one scene and not exactly a fatal flaw, but it was no surprise when the same writers wrote a far less successful film in Man on the Moon because they seemed to have no idea where to go with the real life details except re-enact them - the excuse one of them gave even sounded like outright laziness (i.e. it's impossible to figure out Andy Kaufman, so we decided why bother? His life was entertaining, isn't that enough?)

[knives]

Why would they need any basis?

[hearthesilence]

Because it's inherent in the whole idea.

[knives]

How? Some of the best pieces of art based on historical people has nothing to do with reality let alone those historical people. Would The Social Network be any better if it stayed closer to reality?

[PfR73]

Or for that matter, would Citizen Kane?

[Michael Kerpan]

Citizen Kane is based on a composite of real people, not purporting to be "historical" or "biographical"... (Unlike Amadeus, for instance)

[beamish14]

Citizen Kane is based on a composite of real people, not purporting to be "historical" or "biographical"... (Unlike Amadeus, for instance)

Amadeus is not, strictly speaking, a biographical work, either. Peter Shaffer limned the surface of real figures' lives to devise a work of his own. It's so brilliant and popular, though, that some confuse facets of the characters from the play/film with research-corroborated fact.