View source for Citizen Kane

{{Short description|1941 drama film by Orson Welles}}
{{For|the hip hop duo|Citizen Kane (band)}}
{{good article}}
{{Use American English|date=September 2019}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2021}}
{{Infobox film
| name           = Citizen Kane
| image          = Citizen Kane poster, 1941 (Style B, unrestored).jpg
| alt            = Poster showing two women in the bottom left of the picture looking up toward a man in a white suit in the top right of the picture. "Everybody's talking about it. It's terrific!" appears in the top left of the picture. "Orson Welles" appears in block letters between the women and the man in the white suit. "Citizen Kane" appears in red and yellow block letters tipped 60° to the right. The remaining credits are listed in fine print in the bottom right.
| caption        = Theatrical release poster (Style B) by [[William Rose (illustrator)|William Rose]]
| director       = [[Orson Welles]]
| producer       = Orson Welles
| screenplay     = {{Plainlist|
* [[Herman J. Mankiewicz]]
* Orson Welles
}}
| starring       = {{Plainlist|
* Orson Welles
* [[Joseph Cotten]]
* [[Dorothy Comingore]]
* [[Everett Sloane]]
* [[Ray Collins (actor)|Ray Collins]]
* [[George Coulouris]]
* [[Agnes Moorehead]]
* [[Paul Stewart (actor)|Paul Stewart]]
* [[Ruth Warrick]]
* [[Erskine Sanford]]
* [[William Alland]]
}}
| music          = [[Bernard Herrmann]]
| cinematography = [[Gregg Toland]]
| editing        = [[Robert Wise]]
| studio         = {{Plainlist|
* [[RKO Radio Pictures]]
* [[Mercury Theatre|Mercury Productions]]
}}
| distributor    = RKO Radio Pictures
| released       = {{Film date|1941|05|01|[[Palace Theatre (New York City)|Palace Theatre]]|1941|09|05|United States}}
| runtime        = 119 minutes<!--Theatrical runtime: 119:27--><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/citizen-kane-q29sbgvjdglvbjpwwc0ynzm1mzk |title=''Citizen Kane'' (A) |work=[[British Board of Film Classification]] |date=August 1, 1941 |access-date=December 23, 2015 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160306060511/http://bbfc.co.uk/releases/citizen-kane-film | archive-date=March 6, 2016 | url-status=live}}</ref>
| country        = United States
| language       = English
| budget         = $839,727<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WEJDyUCS3S4C&pg=PA65 |title=The Making of Citizen Kane, Revised Edition |first=Robert L. |last=Carringer |date=October 24, 1996 |publisher=University of California Press |via=Google Books |isbn=9780520205673 |access-date=May 3, 2020 |archive-date=November 14, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201114035102/https://books.google.com/books?id=WEJDyUCS3S4C&pg=PA65&hl=en |url-status=live }}</ref>
| gross          = $1.8&nbsp;million {{nowrap|(re-release)}}<ref name="Paducah"/><ref name="BOM">{{cite web |url= https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0033467/ |title=Citizen Kane (1941) |website=Box Office Mojo |access-date=January 16, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170902180643/http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=citizenkane.htm |archive-date=September 2, 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref>
}}

'''''Citizen Kane''''' is a 1941 American [[Drama (film and television)|drama film]] directed and produced by, and starring [[Orson Welles]] and co-written by Welles and [[Herman J. Mankiewicz]]. It was Welles's [[List of directorial debuts|first feature film]].<ref name="AFI">{{cite web| title=AFI Catalog Citizen Kane| url=https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/27624}}</ref> The [[film à clef|quasi-biographical film]] examines the life and legacy of [[Charles Foster Kane]], played by Welles, a [[composite character]] based on American [[Media proprietor|media barons]] [[William Randolph Hearst]] and [[Joseph Pulitzer]], Chicago tycoons [[Samuel Insull]] and [[Harold Fowler McCormick|Harold McCormick]], as well as aspects of the screenwriters' own lives.

After the [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] success of Welles's [[Mercury Theatre]] and the controversial 1938 radio broadcast "[[The War of the Worlds (1938 radio drama)|The War of the Worlds]]" on ''[[The Mercury Theatre on the Air]]'', Welles was courted by Hollywood. He signed a contract with [[RKO Pictures]] in 1939. Although it was unusual for an untried director, he was given freedom to develop his own story, to use his own cast and crew, and to have [[final cut privilege]]. Following two abortive attempts to get a project off the ground, he wrote the [[Screenplay for Citizen Kane|screenplay for ''Citizen Kane'']] with Herman J. Mankiewicz. Principal photography took place in 1940, the same year [[Citizen Kane trailer|its innovative trailer]] was shown, and the film was released in 1941.

Upon its release, Hearst prohibited any mention of the film in his newspapers.<ref>{{Cite web |date=March 30, 2016 |last=Blakemore |first=Erin |title=How Hearst Tried to Stop 'Citizen Kane' |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-hearst-tried-stop-citizen-kane-180958602/ |website=[[Smithsonian Magazine]] |access-date=2022-04-01 }}</ref> Although it was a critical success, ''Citizen Kane'' failed to recoup its costs at the box office. The film faded from view after its release, but it returned to public attention when it was praised by French critics such as [[André Bazin]] and re-released in 1956. In 1958, the film was voted number nine on the prestigious [[Expo 58#International film poll|Brussels 12]] list at the 1958 World Expo.

''Citizen Kane'' is frequently cited as [[List of films voted the best|the greatest film ever made.]]<ref name="Sight & Sound">[[Sight & Sound#The Sight and Sound Poll of the Greatest Films of All Time|The ''Sight & Sound'' Poll of the Greatest Films of All Time]]
* {{cite web |url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/polls/greatest-films-all-time/1952 |title=1952 Critics' poll |publisher=[[British Film Institute]] |access-date=27 November 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141008052443/http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/polls/topten/history/1952.html|archive-date=8 October 2014|url-status=dead}}
* {{cite magazine |date=October–December 1952 |title=As the Critics Like It |magazine=Sight & Sound |publisher=British Film Institute |volume=22 |issue=2 |page=58}}
* {{cite web |url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/polls/greatest-films-all-time/1962 |title=1962 Critics' poll |publisher=[[British Film Institute]] |access-date=27 November 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141008051815/http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/polls/topten/history/1962.html|archive-date=8 October 2014|url-status=dead}}
* {{cite magazine |date=Winter 1961–1962 |title=Top Ten |magazine=Sight & Sound |publisher=British Film Institute |volume=31 |issue=1 |page=10}}
* {{cite web |url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/polls/greatest-films-all-time/1972 |title=1972 Critics' poll |publisher=[[British Film Institute]] |access-date=27 November 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141008052122/http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/polls/topten/history/1972.html|archive-date=8 October 2014|url-status=dead}}
* {{cite magazine |date=Winter 1971–1972 |title=Top Ten 72 |magazine=Sight & Sound |publisher=British Film Institute |volume=41 |issue=1 |pages=12–13}}
* {{cite web |url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/polls/greatest-films-all-time/1982 |title=1982 Critics' poll |publisher=[[British Film Institute]] |access-date=27 November 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141008062954/http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/polls/topten/history/1982.html|archive-date=8 October 2014|url-status=dead}}
* {{cite magazine |date=Autumn 1982 |title=Top Ten 1982 |magazine=Sight & Sound |publisher=British Film Institute |volume=51 |issue=4 |page=243}}
* {{cite web |url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/polls/greatest-films-all-time/1992 |title=1992 Directors' and Critics' poll |publisher=[[British Film Institute]] |access-date=27 November 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141008052127/http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/polls/topten/history/1992.html|archive-date=8 October 2014|url-status=dead}}
* {{cite magazine |date=December 1992 |title=Top Ten: 250 Verdicts |magazine=Sight & Sound |publisher=British Film Institute |volume=2 |issue=8 |pages=18–30}}
* {{cite web |url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/polls/greatest-films-all-time/introduction |title=2002 poll introduction |publisher=[[British Film Institute]] |access-date=27 November 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130716131639/http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/polls/topten/|archive-date=16 July 2013|url-status=dead}}
* {{cite web |url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/greatest-films-all-time |title=2002 Critics' poll |publisher=[[British Film Institute]] |access-date=27 November 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160813112813/http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/polls/topten/poll/critics-long.html|archive-date=13 August 2016|url-status=dead}}
* {{cite web |url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/polls/greatest-films-all-time/directors-100-best |title=2002 Directors' poll |publisher=[[British Film Institute]] |access-date=27 November 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170201155933/http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/polls/topten/poll/directors-long.html|archive-date=1 February 2017|url-status=dead}}
* {{cite web |url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/greatest-films-all-time |title=2012 Critics' poll |publisher=[[British Film Institute]] |access-date=27 November 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170301135739/http://www.bfi.org.uk/greatest-films-all-time|archive-date=1 March 2017|url-status=live}}
* {{cite web |url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/polls/greatest-films-all-time/directors-100-best |title=2012 Directors' poll |publisher=[[British Film Institute]] |access-date=27 November 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120811100640/http://www.bfi.org.uk/news/sight-sound-2012-directors-top-ten|archive-date=11 August 2012|url-status=live}}</ref> For 40 years (five decennial polls: 1962, 1972, 1982, 1992 and 2002), it stood at number one in the [[British Film Institute]]'s ''[[Sight and Sound]]'' [[The Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time 2022|decennial poll]],<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/f4c92833-af39-5cd6-a41e-8df5933d0dc1/citizen-kane | title=Citizen Kane (1941) }}</ref> and it topped the [[American Film Institute]]'s [[AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies|100 Years ... 100 Movies]] list in 1998, as well as its [[AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition)|2007 update]]. The [[Library of Congress]] selected ''Citizen Kane'' as an inductee of the 1989 inaugural group of 25 films for preservation in the United States [[National Film Registry]] for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".<ref>{{Cite web| url=https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/|title=Complete National Film Registry Listing – National Film Preservation Board &#124; Programs &#124; Library of Congress| website=[[Library of Congress]]|date=October 31, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161031213743/https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/|archive-date=October 31, 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite news| date=September 19, 1989|title=Entertainment: Film Registry Picks First 25 Movies| url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-09-19-mn-347-story.html|work=[[Los Angeles Times]]|access-date=April 22, 2020|archive-date=May 5, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200505082616/https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-09-19-mn-347-story.html|url-status=live}}</ref> The film was nominated for [[14th Academy Awards|Academy Awards]] in nine categories and it won for [[Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay|Best Writing (Original Screenplay)]] by Mankiewicz and Welles. ''Citizen Kane'' is praised for [[Gregg Toland]]'s cinematography, [[Robert Wise]]'s editing, [[Bernard Herrmann]]'s score and its narrative structure, all of which have been considered innovative and precedent-setting.

==Plot==
{{multiple image
<!-- Essential parameters -->
| direction         = vertical
| width             = 220
<!-- Image 1 -->
| image1            = Citizen-Kane-Welles-Podium.jpg
| alt1              = 
| caption1          = Favored to win election as governor, Kane makes a campaign speech at [[Madison Square Garden (1925)|Madison Square Garden]].
<!-- Image 2 -->
| image2            = Citizen-Kane-Comingore-Welles-Collins.jpg
| alt2              = 
| caption2          = The affair between Kane and Susan Alexander ([[Dorothy Comingore]]) is exposed by his political opponent, Boss Jim W. Gettys ([[Ray Collins (actor)|Ray Collins]]).
}}

In a mansion called [[Xanadu (Citizen Kane)|Xanadu]], part of a vast palatial estate in [[Florida]], the elderly [[Charles Foster Kane]] is on his deathbed. Holding a [[snow globe]], he utters his last word, "Rosebud", and dies. A [[newsreel]] obituary tells the life story of Kane, an enormously wealthy newspaper publisher and industry magnate. Kane's death becomes sensational news around the world, and the newsreel's producer tasks reporter Jerry Thompson with discovering the meaning of "Rosebud".

Thompson sets out to interview Kane's friends and associates. He tries to approach Kane's second wife, Susan Alexander Kane, now an [[alcoholic]] nightclub owner, but she refuses to talk to him. Thompson goes to the private archive of the late banker Walter Parks Thatcher. Through Thatcher's written memoirs, Thompson learns about Kane's rise from a [[Colorado]] boarding house and the decline of his fortune.

In 1871, gold was discovered through a mining deed belonging to Kane's mother, Mary Kane. She hired Thatcher to establish a trust that would provide for Kane's education and assume guardianship of him, protecting him from his brutal father. While the parents and Thatcher discussed arrangements inside the boarding house, the young Kane played happily with a [[sled]] in the snow outside. When his parents introduced him to Thatcher and told him he would live with him, the boy struck Thatcher with his sled and attempted to run away.

By the time Kane gained control of his trust at the age of 25, the mine's productivity and Thatcher's prudent investing had made Kane one of the richest men in the world. Kane took control of the ''New York Inquirer'' newspaper and embarked on a career of [[yellow journalism]], publishing scandalous articles that attacked Thatcher's (and his own) business interests. Kane sold his newspaper empire to Thatcher after the [[1929 stock market crash]] left him short of cash.

Thompson interviews Kane's personal business manager, Mr. Bernstein. Bernstein recalls that Kane hired the best journalists available to build the ''Inquirer''{{'}}s circulation. Kane rose to power by successfully manipulating [[public opinion]] regarding the [[Spanish–American War]] and marrying Emily Norton, the niece of the President of the United States.

Thompson interviews Kane's estranged best friend, Jedediah Leland, in a [[retirement home]]. Leland says that Kane's marriage to Emily disintegrated over the years, despite their having a son, and he began an affair with amateur singer Susan Alexander while running for [[Governor of New York]] as a "fighting liberal". His political opponent, corrupt boss Jim W. Gettys, discovered the affair and forced Susan to write to Emily about it; and the [[Political scandal|public scandal]] ended Kane's political career. 

Kane married Susan and forced her into a humiliating career as an [[opera]] singer (for which she had neither talent nor ambition). Kane then built a large [[opera house]] in [[Chicago]] for Susan to perform in. After Leland began to write a negative review of Susan's disastrous opera debut, Kane fired him but finished the negative review and printed it. Susan protested that she never wanted the opera career anyway, but Kane forced her to continue the season.

Susan consents to an interview with Thompson and describes the aftermath of her opera career. She attempted suicide, and Kane finally allowed her to abandon singing. After many unhappy years living at Xanadu with Kane, the two had an argument that culminated in Kane slapping Susan. Susan decided to leave Kane. Kane's butler Raymond recounts that, after Susan moved out of Xanadu, Kane began violently destroying the contents of her former bedroom. When Kane discovered a snow globe, he calmed down and tearfully said "Rosebud". Thompson concludes that he cannot solve the mystery and that the meaning of Kane's last word will remain unknown.

At Xanadu, Kane's belongings are cataloged or discarded by the mansion's staff as Thompson leaves. They find a sled, the one on which eight-year-old Kane was playing on the day he was taken from his home in Colorado, and throw it into a furnace with other items. Unknown to the staff, the sled's trade name, printed on top, becomes visible through the flames: "Rosebud". The sled's smoke rises from the chimney as the view pulls back to a sign on Xanadu's outer fence which also began the film: "No Trespassing".

==Cast==
{{multiple image
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| image1            = Citizen-Kane-Moorehead.jpg
| alt1              = 
| caption1          = [[Harry Shannon (actor)|Harry Shannon]], [[George Coulouris]] and [[Agnes Moorehead]]
<!-- Image 2 -->
| image2            = Citizen-Kane-Inquirer-Window.jpg
| alt2              = 
| caption2          = [[Joseph Cotten]], [[Orson Welles]] and [[Everett Sloane]]
<!-- Image 3 -->
| image3            = Citizen-Kane-Comingore-Welles.jpg
| alt3              = 
| caption3          = Dorothy Comingore and Orson Welles
<!-- Image 3 -->
| image4            = Citizen-Kane-Collins-Welles.jpg
| alt4              = 
| caption4          = Ray Collins, Dorothy Comingore, Orson Welles and [[Ruth Warrick]]
}}

The beginning of the film's ending credits states that "Most of the principal actors in ''Citizen Kane'' are new to motion pictures. The [[Mercury Theatre]] is proud to introduce them."<ref name="Aus DVD">{{cite AV media |title=Citizen Kane |medium=DVD |publisher=[[Warner Bros. Home Entertainment]] |date=March 2, 2009}}</ref> The cast is then listed in the following order, with [[Orson Welles]]' credit for playing Charles Foster Kane appearing last:<ref name="Aus DVD"/>
* [[Joseph Cotten]] as [[Sources for Citizen Kane#Jedediah Leland|Jedediah Leland]], Kane's best friend and a reporter for ''The Inquirer''. Cotten also appears (hidden in darkness) in the ''News on the March'' screening room.<ref name="AFIcat"/>
* [[Dorothy Comingore]] as [[Sources for Citizen Kane#Susan Alexander Kane|Susan Alexander Kane]], Kane's mistress and second wife.<ref name="AFIcat"/>
* [[Agnes Moorehead]] as Mary Kane, Kane's mother.<ref name="AFIcat"/>
* [[Ruth Warrick]] as Emily Monroe Norton Kane, Kane's first wife.<ref name="AFIcat"/>
* [[Ray Collins (actor)|Ray Collins]] as [[Sources for Citizen Kane#Jim W. Gettys|Jim W. Gettys]], Kane's political rival for the post of Governor of New York.<ref name="AFIcat"/>
* [[Erskine Sanford]] as Herbert Carter, editor of ''The Inquirer''. Sanford also appears (hidden in darkness) in the ''News on the March'' screening room.<ref name="AFIcat"/>
* [[Everett Sloane]] as Mr. Bernstein, Kane's friend and employee at ''The Inquirer''.<ref name="AFIcat"/>
* [[William Alland]] as Jerry Thompson, a reporter for ''News on the March''. Alland also voices the narrator of the ''News on the March'' newsreel.<ref name="AFIcat"/>
* [[Paul Stewart (actor)|Paul Stewart]] as Raymond, Kane's butler.<ref name="AFIcat"/>
* [[George Coulouris]] as Walter Parks Thatcher, a banker who becomes Kane's legal guardian.<ref name="AFIcat"/>
* [[Fortunio Bonanova]] as Signor Matiste, vocal coach of Susan Alexander Kane.<ref name="AFIcat"/>
* [[Gus Schilling]] as John, headwaiter at the El Rancho nightclub. Schilling also appears (hidden in darkness) in the ''News on the March'' screening room.<ref name="AFIcat"/>
* [[Philip Van Zandt]] as Mr. Rawlston, ''News on the March'' producer.<ref name="AFIcat"/>
* [[Georgia Backus]] as Bertha Anderson, attendant at the library of Walter Parks Thatcher.<ref name="AFIcat"/>
* [[Harry Shannon (actor)|Harry Shannon]] as Jim Kane, Kane's father.<ref name="AFIcat"/>
* [[Sonny Bupp]] as Charles Foster Kane III, Kane's son.<ref name="AFIcat"/>
* [[Buddy Swan]] as Charles Foster Kane, age eight.<ref name="AFIcat"/>
* [[Orson Welles]] as [[Charles Foster Kane]], a wealthy newspaper publisher.<ref name="AFIcat">{{cite web |url=http://www.afi.com/members/catalog/DetailView.aspx?s=&Movie=27624 |title=Citizen Kane Movie Detail |publisher=[[AFI Catalog of Feature Films|The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States: Feature Films, 1941&nbsp;– 1950]] |access-date=April 14, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141025073736/http://www.afi.com/members/catalog/DetailView.aspx?s=&Movie=27624 |archive-date=October 25, 2014 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Additionally, [[Charles Bennett (actor)|Charles Bennett]] appears as the entertainer at the head of the chorus line in the ''Inquirer'' party sequence,<ref name="Naremore Magic">{{cite book |last=Naremore |first=James |author-link=James Naremore |date=1989 |title=The Magic World of Orson Welles |edition=2nd |location=Dallas |publisher=Southern Methodist University Press |isbn=0-87074-299-X |url=https://archive.org/details/magicworldoforso00nare}}</ref>{{Rp|40–41}} and cinematographer [[Gregg Toland]] makes a [[cameo appearance]] as an interviewer depicted in part of the ''News on the March'' newsreel.<ref>{{cite news |title=The Maltese Falcon: A detective story |url=http://www.navhindtimes.in/the-maltese-falcon-a-detective-story/ |date=June 16, 2018 |access-date=July 27, 2018 |newspaper=[[Navhind Times]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180803232848/http://www.navhindtimes.in/the-maltese-falcon-a-detective-story/ |archive-date=August 3, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.hollywood.com/movies/oscars-academy-awards-best-pictures-ranked-best-to-worst-57278111/#/ms-2558/1 |title=Oscars: Ranking All 87 Best Picture Winners |access-date=July 27, 2018 |work=[[Hollywood.com]] |date=February 22, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180727054506/http://www.hollywood.com/movies/oscars-academy-awards-best-pictures-ranked-best-to-worst-57278111/#/ms-2558/1 |archive-date=July 27, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> Actor [[Alan Ladd]], still unknown at that time, makes a small appearance as a reporter smoking a pipe at the end of the film.<ref name=Companion>{{cite news| last=Ebert| first=Roger| author-link=Roger Ebert| title=A Viewer's Companion to 'Citizen Kane'| work=[[Chicago Sun Times]]| url= https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/a-viewers-companion-to-citizen-kane}}</ref>

==Production==
===Development===
[[File:George Schaefer.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Welles's 1938 radio broadcast of "[[The War of the Worlds (1938 radio drama)|The War of the Worlds]]" caught the attention of [[RKO Pictures|RKO]] studio chief [[George J. Schaefer]].]]

Hollywood had shown interest in Welles as early as 1936.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Johnston |first1=Alva |last2=Smith |first2=Fred |date=February 3, 1940 |title=How to Raise a Child (part 3) |url=http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/wp-content/flbk/How_to_Raise_a_Child_part_iii/#/1/ |journal=[[The Saturday Evening Post]] |pages=27, 28, 40, 45 |access-date=December 5, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924094616/http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/wp-content/flbk/How_to_Raise_a_Child_part_iii/#/1/ |archive-date=September 24, 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref>{{Rp|40}} He turned down three scripts sent to him by [[Warner Bros.]] In 1937, he declined offers from [[David O. Selznick]], who asked him to head his film company's story department, and [[William Wyler]], who wanted him for a supporting role in ''[[Wuthering Heights (1939 film)|Wuthering Heights]]''. "Although the possibility of making huge amounts of money in Hollywood greatly attracted him," wrote biographer Frank Brady, "he was still totally, hopelessly, insanely in love with the theater, and it is there that he had every intention of remaining to make his mark."<ref name="Brady">{{cite book |last=Brady |first=Frank |author-link=Frank Brady (writer) |title=Citizen Welles: A Biography of Orson Welles |publisher=[[Charles Scribner's Sons]] |location=New York |date=1989 |isbn=0-385-26759-2 |url=https://archive.org/details/citizenwellesbio00brad}}</ref>{{Rp|118–119, 130}}

Following the 1938 "[[The War of the Worlds (1938 radio drama)|The War of the Worlds]]" broadcast of his CBS radio series ''[[The Mercury Theatre on the Air]]'', Welles was lured to Hollywood with a remarkable contract.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK">{{cite book |last=Carringer |first=Robert L. |title=The Making of Citizen Kane |url=https://archive.org/details/makingofcitizenk00carr |url-access=registration |publisher=[[University of California Press]] |location=Berkeley and Los Angeles |date=1985 |isbn=978-0-520-20567-3}}</ref>{{Rp|1–2, 153}} [[RKO Pictures]] studio head [[George J. Schaefer]] wanted to work with Welles after the notorious broadcast, believing that Welles had a gift for attracting mass attention.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|170}} RKO was also uncharacteristically profitable and was entering into a series of independent production contracts that would add more artistically prestigious films to its roster.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|1–2, 153}} Throughout the spring and early summer of 1939, Schaefer constantly tried to lure the reluctant Welles to Hollywood.<ref name="Leaming OW">{{cite book |last=Leaming |first=Barbara |title=Orson Welles, A Biography |url=https://archive.org/details/orsonwellesbiogr00leam |url-access=registration |publisher=[[Viking Press]] |location=New York |date=1985 |isbn=978-0-618-15446-3}}</ref>{{Rp|170|December 2014}} Welles was in financial trouble after failure of his plays ''[[Chimes at Midnight#Five Kings (1939)|Five Kings]]'' and ''[[The Green Goddess (play)|The Green Goddess]]''. At first he simply wanted to spend three months in Hollywood and earn enough money to pay his debts and fund his next theatrical season.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|170|December 2014}} Welles first arrived on July 20, 1939,<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|168|December 2014}} and on his first tour, he called the movie studio "the greatest electric train set a boy ever had".<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|174}}

Welles signed his contract with RKO on August 21, which stipulated that Welles would act in, direct, produce and write two films. Mercury would get $100,000 for the first film by January 1, 1940, plus 20% of profits after RKO recouped $500,000, and $125,000 for a second film by January 1, 1941, plus 20% of profits after RKO recouped $500,000. The most controversial aspect of the contract was granting Welles complete artistic control of the two films so long as RKO approved both projects' stories<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|169|December 2014}} and the budget did not exceed $500,000.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|1–2, 153}} RKO executives would not be allowed to see any footage until Welles chose to show it to them, and no cuts could be made to either film without Welles's approval.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|169|December 2014}} Welles was allowed to develop the story without interference, select his own cast and crew, and have the [[final cut privilege|right of final cut]]. Granting the final cut privilege was unprecedented for a studio because it placed artistic considerations over financial investment. The contract was deeply resented in the film industry, and the Hollywood press took every opportunity to mock RKO and Welles. Schaefer remained a great supporter<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|1–2, 153}} and saw the unprecedented contract as good publicity.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|170|December 2014}} Film scholar Robert L. Carringer wrote: "The simple fact seems to be that Schaefer believed Welles was going to pull off something really big almost as much as Welles did himself."<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|1–2, 153}}

[[File:Orson-Home-1939.jpg|thumb|left|Orson Welles at his Hollywood home in 1939, during the long months it took to launch his first film project]]
Welles spent the first five months of his RKO contract trying to get his first project going, without success. "They are laying bets over on the RKO lot that the Orson Welles deal will end up without Orson ever doing a picture there," wrote ''[[The Hollywood Reporter]]''.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|15}} It was agreed that Welles would film ''[[Heart of Darkness]]'', previously adapted for ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air'', which would be presented entirely through a [[Point-of-view shot|first-person camera]]. After elaborate pre-production and a day of test shooting with a hand-held camera—unheard of at the time—the project never reached production because Welles was unable to trim $50,000 from its budget.{{efn|"I did a very elaborate production for [''Heart of Darkness''], such as I've never done again—never could," Welles said. "I shot my bolt on preproduction on that picture. We designed every camera setup and everything else—did enormous research in aboriginal, Stone Age cultures in order to reproduce what the story called for. I'm sorry not to have got the chance to do it."<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|31}}}}{{efn| Welles later used the subjective camera in ''The Magnificent Ambersons'', in a sequence that was later all but eliminated because it did not work in that picture. "''Heart of Darkness'' is one of the few stories that it's very well adapted to, because it relies so heavily on narration," Welles said. "The camera was going to be Marlow&nbsp;... He's in the pilot house and he can see himself reflected in the glass through which you see the jungle. So it isn't that business of a hand-held camera mooching around pretending to walk like a man."<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|31}}}}<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|30–31}} Schaefer told Welles that the $500,000 budget could not be exceeded; as war loomed, revenue was declining sharply in Europe by the fall of 1939.<ref name="Brady"/>{{Rp|215–216}}

He then started work on the idea that became ''Citizen Kane''. Knowing the script would take time to prepare, Welles suggested to RKO that while that was being done—"so the year wouldn't be lost"—he make a humorous political thriller. Welles proposed ''The Smiler with a Knife'', from a novel by [[Cecil Day-Lewis]].<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|33–34}} When that project stalled in December 1939, Welles began brainstorming other story ideas with screenwriter [[Herman J. Mankiewicz]], who had been writing Mercury radio scripts. "Arguing, inventing, discarding, these two powerful, headstrong, dazzlingly articulate personalities thrashed toward ''Kane''", wrote biographer [[Richard Meryman]].<ref name=Meryman/>{{Rp|245–246}}

===Screenplay===
{{main|Screenplay for Citizen Kane|l1=Screenplay for ''Citizen Kane''}}
{{multiple image
<!-- Essential parameters -->
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<!-- Image 1 -->
| image1    = Herman-Mankiewicz.jpg
| alt1      =
| caption1  = [[Herman J. Mankiewicz]] co-wrote the script in early 1940. He and Welles separately re-wrote and revised each other's work until Welles was satisfied with the finished product.
<!-- Image 2 -->
| image2    = Citizen-Kane-Book-FE.jpg
| alt2      =
| caption2  = [[Pauline Kael]]'s controversial essay "[[Raising Kane]]" was published in ''[[The New Yorker]]'' and in ''The Citizen Kane Book'' (1971).
}}
{{blockquote|I wished to make a motion picture which was not a narrative of action so much as an examination of character. For this, I desired a man of many sides and many aspects. It was my idea to show that six or more people could have as many widely divergent opinions concerning the nature of a single personality...There have been many motion pictures and novels rigorously obeying the formula of the "success story". I wished to do something quite different. I wished to make a picture which might be called a "failure story".|Press statement issued by Welles regarding the impending release of ''Citizen Kane'' (January 15, 1941)<ref>{{cite web |last= |first= |date=February 25, 2013 |title=Rosebud meaning in ''Citizen Kane'' as given by Orson Welles|url=https://www.wellesnet.com/orson-welles-the-meaning-of-rosebud-in-citizen-kane/ |website=Wellesnet |location= |publisher= |access-date=February 9, 2025}}</ref><ref name="Brady"/>{{Rp|283–285}}}}

One of the long-standing controversies about ''Citizen Kane'' has been the authorship of the screenplay.<ref name=Meryman>{{cite book |last=Meryman |first=Richard |author-link=Richard Meryman |title=Mank: The Wit, World and Life of Herman Mankiewicz |publisher=[[William Morrow and Company]], Inc. |location=New York |date=1978 |isbn=978-0-688-03356-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/mankwitworldlife00mery}}</ref>{{Rp|237}} Welles conceived the project with screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, who was writing radio plays for Welles's CBS Radio series, ''[[The Campbell Playhouse (radio series)|The Campbell Playhouse]]''.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|16}} Mankiewicz based the original outline on the life of [[William Randolph Hearst]], whom he knew socially and came to hate after being exiled from Hearst's circle.<ref name=Meryman/>{{Rp|231}}

In February 1940 Welles supplied Mankiewicz with 300 pages of notes and put him under contract to write the first draft screenplay under the supervision of [[John Houseman]], Welles's former partner in the [[Mercury Theatre]]. Welles later explained, "I left him on his own finally, because we'd started to waste too much time haggling. So, after mutual agreements on storyline and character, Mank went off with Houseman and did his version, while I stayed in Hollywood and wrote mine."<ref name="Welles TIOW">{{cite book |last1=Welles |first1=Orson |author-link1=Orson Welles |last2=Bogdanovich |first2=Peter |author-link2=Peter Bogdanovich |last3=Rosenbaum |first3=Jonathan |author-link3=Jonathan Rosenbaum |title=This is Orson Welles |publisher=[[HarperCollins]] Publishers |location=New York |date=1992 |isbn=0-06-016616-9|title-link=This is Orson Welles }}</ref>{{Rp|54}} Taking these drafts, Welles drastically condensed and rearranged them, then added scenes of his own. The industry accused Welles of underplaying Mankiewicz's contribution to the script, but Welles countered the attacks by saying, "At the end, naturally, I was the one making the picture, after all—who had to make the decisions. I used what I wanted of Mank's and, rightly or wrongly, kept what I liked of my own."<ref name="Welles TIOW" />{{Rp|54}}

The contract stated that Mankiewicz was to receive no credit for his work, as he was hired as a [[script doctor]].<ref name="Callow">{{cite book |last=Callow |first=Simon |author-link=Simon Callow |title=Orson Welles: The Road to Xanadu |publisher=[[Viking]] |location=New York |date=1996 |isbn=978-0-670-86722-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/orsonwellesvolum00simo}}</ref>{{Rp|487}} Before he signed the contract Mankiewicz was advised by his agents that all credit for his work belonged to Welles and the Mercury Theatre, the "author and creator".<ref name="Brady"/>{{Rp|236–237}} As the film neared release, however, Mankiewicz began wanting a writing credit and even threatened to take out full-page advertisements in trade papers and to get his friend [[Ben Hecht]] to write an exposé for ''[[The Saturday Evening Post]]''.<ref>{{Cite book| last=Stern| first=Sydney Ladensohn| title=The Brothers Mankiewicz: Hope, Heartbreak, and Hollywood Classics| publisher=University Press of Mississippi| year=2019|isbn=978-1617032677|location=Jackson| pages=}}</ref> Mankiewicz also threatened to go to the [[Screen Writers Guild]] and claim full credit for writing the entire script by himself.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|204}}

After lodging a protest with the Screen Writers Guild, Mankiewicz withdrew it, then vacillated. The question was resolved in January 1941 when the studio, [[RKO Pictures]], awarded Mankiewicz credit. The guild credit form listed Welles first, Mankiewicz second. Welles's assistant [[Richard Wilson (director)|Richard Wilson]] said that the person who circled Mankiewicz's name in pencil, then drew an arrow that put it in first place, was Welles. The official credit reads, "Screenplay by Herman J. Mankiewicz and Orson Welles".<ref name=Meryman/>{{Rp|264–265}} Mankiewicz's rancor toward Welles grew over the remaining twelve years of his life.<ref name="Whaley">{{cite book |last=Whaley |first=Barton |date=2005 |title=Orson Welles: The Man Who Was Magic |url=https://www.lybrary.com/orson-welles-the-man-who-was-magic-p-400.html |publisher=Lybrary.com |asin=B005HEHQ7E |access-date=December 21, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171222104859/https://www.lybrary.com/orson-welles-the-man-who-was-magic-p-400.html |archive-date=December 22, 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref>{{Rp|498}}

Questions over the authorship of the ''Citizen Kane'' screenplay were revived in 1971 by influential film critic [[Pauline Kael]], whose controversial 50,000-word essay "[[Raising Kane]]" was commissioned as an introduction to the shooting script in ''The Citizen Kane Book'',<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|494}} published in October 1971.<ref name="CK Book Coming">{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Citizen Kane Film Book Due in Fall |newspaper=[[The Bakersfield Californian]] |date=June 6, 1971 |quote=On Oct. 28, Atlantic–Little, Brown will publish ''The Citizen Kane Book'', an outsize volume that will include not only 'Raising Kane' but also, as Miss Kael had always intended, the complete, original text of the Mankiewicz–Welles shooting script, published here for the first time.}}</ref> In it she callsed ''Citizen Kane'' the "culmination" of that "sustained feat of careless magic we call 'thirties comedy.'"<ref>{{Cite book |last=Schwartz |first=Sanford |title=The Age of Movies: Selected Writings of Pauline Kael |publisher=The Library of America |year=2011 |isbn=9781598535082}}</ref> The book-length essay first appeared in February 1971, in two consecutive issues of ''[[The New Yorker]]'' magazine.<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|494}}<ref name="Raising Kane">{{cite book |last1=Kael |first1=Pauline |author-link1=Pauline Kael |last2=Welles |first2=Orson |author-link2=Orson Welles |last3=Mankiewicz |first3=Herman J. |author-link3=Herman J. Mankiewicz |year=1971 |title=The Citizen Kane Book |chapter=Raising Kane by Pauline Kael |chapter-url=http://www.paulrossen.com/paulinekael/raisingkane.html |location=Boston |publisher=[[Little, Brown and Company]] |pages=1–84 |oclc=209252 |access-date=August 18, 2015 |archive-date=June 20, 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060620060353/http://www.paulrossen.com/paulinekael/raisingkane.html |url-status=live }}</ref>
In the ensuing controversy, Welles was defended by colleagues, critics, biographers and scholars, but his reputation was damaged by its charges.<ref name="Whaley"/>{{Rp|394}} The essay's thesis was later questioned and some of Kael's findings were also contested in later years.<ref>{{cite news |last=McCarthy |first=Todd |author-link=Todd McCarthy |date=August 22, 1997 |title=Welles pic script scrambles H'wood history |url=https://variety.com/1997/voices/columns/welles-pic-script-scrambles-h-wood-history-1116678396/ |newspaper=[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]] |access-date=January 7, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150112143336/http://variety.com/1997/voices/columns/welles-pic-script-scrambles-h-wood-history-1116678396/ |archive-date=January 12, 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Patterson |first=John |date=September 6, 2001 |title=Exit the hatchet woman: Why Pauline Kael was bad for world cinema |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2001/sep/07/artsfeatures |newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |access-date=January 6, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150107222152/http://www.theguardian.com/film/2001/sep/07/artsfeatures |archive-date=January 7, 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Rich">{{cite news |last=Rich |first=Frank |author-link=Frank Rich |date=October 27, 2011 |title=Roaring at the Screen with Pauline Kael |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/books/review/roaring-at-the-screen-with-pauline-kael.html |newspaper=The New York Times |access-date=August 18, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150825010419/http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/books/review/roaring-at-the-screen-with-pauline-kael.html |archive-date=August 25, 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Questions of authorship continued to come into sharper focus with Carringer's 1978 thoroughly researched essay, "The Scripts of ''Citizen Kane''".<ref name="Carringer Scripts"/>{{efn|First published in ''[[Critical Inquiry]]'', "The Scripts of Citizen Kane" was described by Rosenbaum as "the definitive piece of scholarship on the authorship of ''Kane''—and sadly one of the least well known". He wrote that many biographers may wrongly assume that Carringer included all of its facts in his later book, ''The Making of Citizen Kane''.<ref name="Discovering OW">{{cite book |editor-last=Rosenbaum |editor-first=Jonathan |title=Discovering Orson Welles |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley, California|date=2007 |isbn=978-0-520-25123-6}}</ref>{{Rp|18, 247}}}} Carringer studied the collection of script records—"almost a day-to-day record of the history of the scripting"—that was then still intact at RKO. He reviewed all seven drafts and concluded that "the full evidence reveals that Welles's contribution to the ''Citizen Kane'' script was not only substantial but definitive."<ref name="Carringer Scripts">{{cite book |last=Carringer |first=Robert L. |editor-last=Naremore |editor-first=James |title=Orson Welles's Citizen Kane: A Casebook |url=https://archive.org/details/orsonwellessciti00nare |url-access=limited |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |date=2004 |orig-year=first published 1978 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/orsonwellessciti00nare/page/n89 79]–121 |chapter=The Scripts of ''Citizen Kane'' |isbn=978-0-19-515892-2}}</ref>{{Rp|80}}

===Casting===
[[File:Citizen-Kane-Mercury.jpg|right|thumb|The [[Mercury Theatre]] was an independent [[repertory theatre]] company founded by Orson Welles and John Houseman in 1937. The company produced theatrical presentations, radio programs, films, [[promptbook]]s and phonographic recordings.]]
''Citizen Kane'' was a rare film in that its principal roles were played by actors new to motion pictures. Ten were billed as Mercury Actors, members of the skilled repertory company assembled by Welles for the stage and radio performances of the [[Mercury Theatre]], an independent theater company he founded with Houseman in 1937.<ref name="Brady"/>{{Rp|119–120}}<ref name="NYT Winged Mercuries">{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Ten Little Winged Mercuries; Introducing the Band of Lads and Lassies in 'Citizen Kane' |newspaper=The New York Times |date=May 4, 1941}}</ref> "He loved to use the Mercury players," wrote biographer Charles Higham, "and consequently he launched several of them on movie careers."<ref name="Higham">{{cite book |last=Higham |first=Charles |author-link=Charles Higham (biographer) |title=Orson Welles: The Rise and Fall of an American Genius |url=https://archive.org/details/orsonwellesrisea00high |url-access=registration |publisher=[[St. Martin's Press]] |location=New York |date=1985 |isbn=0-312-31280-6}}</ref>{{Rp|155}}

The film represents the feature film debuts of [[William Alland]], [[Ray Collins (actor)|Ray Collins]], [[Joseph Cotten]], [[Agnes Moorehead]], [[Erskine Sanford]], [[Everett Sloane]], [[Paul Stewart (actor)|Paul Stewart]] and Welles himself.<ref name="AFIcat"/> Despite never having appeared in feature films, some of the cast members were already well known to the public. Cotten had recently become a Broadway star in the hit play ''[[The Philadelphia Story (play)|The Philadelphia Story]]'' with [[Katharine Hepburn]]<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|187|December 2014}} and Sloane was well known for his role on the radio show ''[[The Goldbergs (broadcast series)|The Goldbergs]]''.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|187|December 2014}}{{Efn|According to RKO records, Sloane was paid $2,400 for shaving his head.<ref name="AFIcat"/>}} Mercury actor [[George Coulouris]] was a star of the stage in New York and London.<ref name="NYT Winged Mercuries"/>

Not all of the cast came from the Mercury Players. Welles cast [[Dorothy Comingore]], an actress who played supporting parts in films since 1938 using the name "Linda Winters",<ref>{{cite news |last1=Lowrance |first1=Dee |title=Lady Luck: Movieland's Best Talent Scout |newspaper=The San Bernardino County Sun |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/4052098/the_san_bernardino_county_sun/ |agency=The San Bernardino County Sun |date=July 19, 1942 |location=The San Bernardino County Sun |page=24 |via=[[Newspapers.com]] |access-date=January 16, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160911063432/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/4052098/the_san_bernardino_county_sun/|archive-date=September 11, 2016|url-status=live}} {{Open access}}</ref> as Susan Alexander Kane. A discovery of [[Charlie Chaplin]], Comingore was recommended to Welles by Chaplin,<ref name="Lunches">{{cite book |last1=Biskind |first1=Peter |author-link1=Peter Biskind |last2=Jaglom |first2=Henry |author-link2=Henry Jaglom |last3=Welles |first3=Orson |title=My Lunches with Orson: Conversations between Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles |publisher=[[Metropolitan Books]] |location=New York |date=2013 |isbn=978-0-8050-9725-2}}</ref>{{Rp|170}} who then met Comingore at a party in Los Angeles and immediately cast her.<ref name="Howard">{{cite book |last=Howard |first=James |title=The Complete Films of Orson Welles |publisher=Carol Publishing Group |location=New York |date=1991 |isbn=0-8065-1241-5}}</ref>{{Rp|44}}

Welles had met stage actress [[Ruth Warrick]] while visiting New York on a break from Hollywood and remembered her as a good fit for Emily Norton Kane,<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|188|December 2014}} later saying that she looked the part.<ref name="Lunches"/>{{Rp|169}} Warrick told Carringer that she was struck by the extraordinary resemblance between herself and Welles's mother when she saw a photograph of Beatrice Ives Welles. She characterized her own personal relationship with Welles as motherly.<ref>{{cite book |last=Carringer |first=Robert L. |date=1993 |title=The Magnificent Ambersons: A Reconstruction |location=Berkeley and Los Angeles |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=0-520-07857-8}}</ref>{{Rp|14}}

"He trained us for films at the same time that he was training himself," recalled Agnes Moorehead. "Orson believed in good acting, and he realized that rehearsals were needed to get the most from his actors. That was something new in Hollywood: nobody seemed interested in bringing in a group to rehearse before scenes were shot. But Orson knew it was necessary, and we rehearsed every sequence before it was shot."<ref name="Directors in Action">{{cite book |editor-last=Thomas |editor-first=Bob |title=Directors in Action: Selections from Action, The Official Magazine of the Directors Guild of America |publisher=The Bobbs Merrill Company, Inc. |location=Indianapolis |year=1973 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/directorsinactio00thom/page/1 1–11] |chapter=Citizen Kane Remembered [May–June 1969] |chapter-url=http://www.dga.org/Craft/DGAQ/All-Articles/0601-Spring-2006/Features-Raising-Kane.aspx |isbn=0-672-51715-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/directorsinactio00thom/page/1 }}</ref>{{Rp|9}}

When ''The March of Time'' narrator [[Westbrook Van Voorhis]] asked for $25,000 to narrate the ''News on the March'' sequence, Alland demonstrated his ability to imitate Van Voorhis, and Welles cast him.<ref name="BBC Complete"/>

Welles later said that casting character actor [[Gino Corrado]] in the small part of the waiter at the El Rancho broke his heart. Corrado had appeared in many Hollywood films, often as a waiter, and Welles wanted all of the actors to be new to films.<ref name="Lunches"/>{{Rp|171}} Other uncredited roles went to [[Thomas A. Curran]] as [[Teddy Roosevelt]] in the faux newsreel; [[Richard Barr|Richard Baer]] as Hillman, a man at Madison Square Garden, and a man in the ''News on the March'' screening room; and [[Alan Ladd]], [[Arthur O'Connell]] and [[Louise Currie]] as reporters at Xanadu.<ref name="AFIcat"/>

===Filming===
[[File:Citizen-Kane-Soundstage.jpg|thumb|right|Sound stage entrance, as seen in the [[Citizen Kane trailer|''Citizen Kane'' trailer]]]]

Production advisor Miriam Geiger quickly compiled a handmade film textbook for Welles, a practical reference book of film techniques that he studied carefully. He then taught himself filmmaking by matching its visual vocabulary to ''[[The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari]]'', which he ordered from the [[Museum of Modern Art]],<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|173|date=December 2014}} and films by [[Frank Capra]], [[René Clair]], [[Fritz Lang]], [[King Vidor]]<ref name="Wakeman">{{cite book |last=Wakeman |first=John |title=World Film Directors, Volume 1 |publisher=The H. W. Wilson Company |location=New York |date=1987 |isbn=978-0-8242-0757-1 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/worldfilmdirecto0000unse }}</ref>{{Rp|1172}}{{Rp|1171}} and [[Jean Renoir]].<ref name="Brady"/>{{Rp|209}} The one film he genuinely studied was [[John Ford]]'s ''[[Stagecoach (1939 film)|Stagecoach]]'',<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|29}} which he watched 40 times.<ref>{{cite book |last=McBride |first=Joseph |author-link=Joseph McBride (writer) |title=Searching for John Ford: A Life |publisher=[[Macmillan Publishers (United States)|Macmillan Publishers]] |location=New York |date=2003 |isbn=978-0-312-31011-0 |pages=299–300}}</ref> "As it turned out, the first day I ever walked onto a set was my first day as a director," Welles said. "I'd learned whatever I knew in the projection room—from Ford. After dinner every night for about a month, I'd run ''Stagecoach'', often with some different technician or department head from the studio, and ask questions. 'How was this done?' 'Why was this done?' It was like going to school."<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|29}}

Welles's cinematographer for the film was [[Gregg Toland]], described by Welles as "just then, the number-one cameraman in the world." To Welles's astonishment, Toland visited him at his office and said, "I want you to use me on your picture." He had seen some of the Mercury stage productions (including ''[[Caesar (Mercury Theatre)|Caesar]]''<ref name="Whaley"/>{{Rp|66}}) and said he wanted to work with someone who had never made a movie.<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|59}} RKO hired Toland on loan from [[Samuel Goldwyn Productions]]<ref name="Mulvey"/>{{Rp|10}} in the first week of June 1940.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|40}}

"And he never tried to impress us that he was doing any miracles," Welles recalled. "I was calling for things only a beginner would have been ignorant enough to think anybody could ever do, and there he was, ''doing'' them."<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|60}} Toland later explained that he wanted to work with Welles because he anticipated the first-time director's inexperience and reputation for audacious experimentation in the theater would allow the cinematographer to try new and innovative camera techniques that typical Hollywood films would never have allowed him to do.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|186|December 2014}} Unaware of filmmaking protocol, Welles adjusted the lights on set as he was accustomed to doing in the theater; Toland quietly re-balanced them, and was angry when one of the crew informed Welles that he was infringing on Toland's responsibilities.<ref name="Welles TIOW 1A"/>{{Rp|5:33–6:06}} During the first few weeks of June, Welles had lengthy discussions about the film with Toland and art director Perry Ferguson in the morning, and in the afternoon and evening he worked with actors and revised the script.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|69}}

[[File:Gregg Toland.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Cinematographer [[Gregg Toland]] wanted to work with Welles for the opportunity of trying experimental camera techniques that other films did not allow.<ref name="theasc/realism-citizen-kane">{{cite news |last1=Toland |first1=Gregg |author1-link=Gregg Toland |title=Realism for Citizen Kane |url=https://theasc.com/articles/realism-for-citizen-kane |access-date=7 July 2024 |work=[[American Society of Cinematographers]] |date=February 1941 |language=en}}</ref>]]
On June 29, 1940—a Saturday morning when few inquisitive studio executives would be around—Welles began filming ''Citizen Kane''.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|69}}<ref name="Whaley"/>{{Rp|107}} After the disappointment of having ''Heart of Darkness'' canceled,<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|30–31}} Welles followed Ferguson's suggestion{{efn|Speaking to Bogdanovich, Welles corrects himself when speaking about who suggested the "test" shooting: "That was Toland's idea—no, it was Ferguson's idea, the art director."<ref name="Welles TIOW 1A">Welles, Orson, and Peter Bogdanovich, ''[[This is Orson Welles]]''. HarperAudio, September 30, 1992. {{ISBN|1-55994-680-6}} Audiotape 1A.</ref>{{Rp|19:25–19:31}}}}<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|57}} and deceived RKO into believing that he was simply shooting [[Screen test|camera tests]]. "But we were shooting the ''picture''," Welles said, "because we wanted to get started and be already into it before anybody knew about it."<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|57}}

At the time RKO executives were pressuring him to agree to direct a film called ''The Men from Mars'', to capitalize on "The War of the Worlds" radio broadcast. Welles said that he would consider making the project but wanted to make a different film first. At this time he did not inform them that he had already begun filming ''Citizen Kane''.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|186}}

The early footage was called "Orson Welles Tests" on all paperwork.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|69}} The first "test" shot was the ''News on the March'' projection room scene, economically filmed in a real studio projection room in darkness that masked many actors who appeared in other roles later in the film.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|69}}<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|77–78}}{{efn|"I used the whole Mercury cast, heavily disguised by darkness," Welles said. "And there they all are—if you look carefully, you can see them. Everybody in the movie is in it.&nbsp;... Yes, I'm there."<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|78}}}} "At $809 Orson did run substantially beyond the test budget of $528—to create one of the most famous scenes in movie history," wrote Barton Whaley.<ref name="Whaley"/>{{Rp|107}}

The next scenes were the El Rancho nightclub scenes and the scene in which Susan attempts suicide.{{efn|No figures can be found for the cost of filming Susan's attempted suicide, but filming the nightclub scene was budgeted at $1,038 and cost $1,376.79.<ref name=Lebo>{{cite book |last=Lebo |first=Harlan |title=Citizen Kane: The Fiftieth Anniversary Album |publisher=[[Doubleday (publisher)|Doubleday]] |location=New York |date=1990 |isbn=978-0-385-41473-9}}</ref>{{Rp|74}}}}<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|69}} Welles later said that the nightclub set was available after another film had wrapped and that filming took 10 to 12 days to complete. For these scenes Welles had Comingore's throat sprayed with chemicals to give her voice a harsh, raspy tone.<ref name="Lunches"/>{{Rp|170–171}} Other scenes shot in secret included those in which Thompson interviews Leland and Bernstein, which were also shot on sets built for other films.<ref name="BBC Complete">{{cite video |author=BBC Arena |author-link=Arena (UK TV series)|title=The Complete Citizen Kane |publisher=[[BBC Two]] |date=October 13, 1991}}</ref>

[[File:Oheka Castle.jpg|thumb|Aerial view of [[Otto Hermann Kahn]]'s [[Oheka Castle]] that portrays the fictional ''Xanadu'']]
During production, the film was referred to as ''RKO 281''. Most of the filming took place in what is now Stage 19 on the [[Paramount Pictures]] lot in Hollywood.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.paramountstudios.com/stages-backlots/stages/stage-19.html |title=The Studios – Paramount |publisher=[[Paramount Pictures]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140812062236/http://www.paramountstudios.com/stages-backlots/stages/stage-19.html |archive-date=August 12, 2014 |url-status=dead}}</ref> There was some location filming at [[Balboa Park (San Diego)|Balboa Park]] in San Diego and the [[San Diego Zoo]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Williams |first=Gregory L. |title=Filming San Diego |url=http://www.sandiegohistory.org/journal/2002-2/filming.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110521030941/http://www.sandiegohistory.org/journal/2002-2/filming.htm |archive-date=May 21, 2011 |access-date=April 6, 2012 |publisher=San Diego History Center}}</ref> Photographs of German-Jewish investment banker [[Otto Hermann Kahn]]'s real-life estate [[Oheka Castle]] were used to portray the fictional [[Xanadu (Citizen Kane)|Xanadu]].<ref>Levin, Eric. [http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/the-open-island/1 "The Open Island"], ''[[Travel + Leisure]]'', May 2002</ref><ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/19/nyregion/follow-up-on-the-news-citizen-kane-site-changing-hands.html "'Citizen Kane' Site Changing Hands"] ''[[The New York Times]]'' (February 19, 1989, corrected April 6, 1989)</ref>

In the end of July, RKO approved the film and Welles was allowed to officially begin shooting, despite having already been filming "tests" for several weeks. Welles leaked stories to newspaper reporters that the "tests" had been so good that there was no need to re-shoot them. The first "official" scene to be shot was the breakfast montage sequence between Kane and his first wife Emily. To strategically save money and appease the RKO executives who opposed him, Welles rehearsed scenes extensively before actually shooting and filmed very few takes of each shot set-up.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|193|December 2014}} Welles never shot [[master shot]]s for any scene after Toland told him that Ford never shot them.<ref name="Lunches"/>{{Rp|169}} To appease the increasingly curious press, Welles threw a cocktail party for selected reporters, promising that they could watch a scene being filmed. When the journalists arrived Welles told them they had "just finished" shooting for the day but still had the party.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|193|December 2014}} Welles told the press that he was ahead of schedule (without factoring in the month of "test shooting"), thus discrediting claims that after a year in Hollywood without making a film he was a failure in the film industry.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|194|December 2014}}

[[File:Citizen-Kane-Welles-Collins.jpg|thumb|left|Welles fell {{convert|10|ft|m|spell=in}} while shooting the scene in which Kane shouts at the departing Boss Jim W. Gettys; his injuries required him to direct from a wheelchair for two weeks.]]
Welles usually worked 16 to 18 hours a day on the film. He often began work at 4&nbsp;a.m. since the special effects make-up used to age him for certain scenes took up to four hours to apply. Welles used this time to discuss the day's shooting with Toland and other crew members. The special contact lenses used to make Welles look elderly proved very painful, and a doctor was employed to place them into Welles's eyes. Welles had difficulty seeing clearly while wearing them, which caused him to badly cut his wrist when shooting the scene in which Kane breaks up the furniture in Susan's bedroom. While shooting the scene in which Kane shouts at Gettys on the stairs of Susan Alexander's apartment building, Welles fell ten feet; an X-ray revealed two bone chips in his ankle.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|194|December 2014}}

The injury required him to direct the film from a wheelchair for two weeks.<ref name="cinephiliabeyond/citizen-kane">{{cite web |title='Citizen Kane': The Astonishing Debut of Hollywood's Greatest Wunderkind |url=https://cinephiliabeyond.org/citizen-kane-the-astonishing-debut-of-hollywoods-greatest-wunderkind/ |website=Cinephilia & Beyond |access-date=7 July 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303221450/https://cinephiliabeyond.org/citizen-kane-the-astonishing-debut-of-hollywoods-greatest-wunderkind/ |archive-date=3 March 2016 |date=3 March 2016 |quote=Orson Welles (seated by the giant megaphone) directs a scene from 1941′s 'Citizen Kane' while laid up with a broken ankle he suffered during the shoot. The visor-adorned gentleman next to the camera is cinematographer Gregg Toland. Production still photographer: Alexander Kahle}}</ref><ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|194–195|December 2014}} He eventually wore a steel brace to resume performing on camera; it is visible in the low-angle scene between Kane and Leland after Kane loses the election.{{efn|"It took nerve to shoot from down there, with that steel brace right in front of the camera, but I thought rightly that at that point they'd be looking at Leland and not at me."<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|61–62}}}}<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|61}} For the final scene, a stage at the Selznick studio was equipped with a working furnace, and multiple takes were required to show the sled being put into the fire and the word "Rosebud" consumed. Paul Stewart recalled that on the ninth take the Culver City Fire Department arrived in full gear because the furnace had grown so hot the flue caught fire. "Orson was delighted with the commotion", he said.<ref name="Directors in Action"/>{{Rp|8–9}}<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.dga.org/Craft/DGAQ/All-Articles/0601-Spring-2006/Features-Raising-Kane.aspx|title=Raising Kane|date=Spring 2006|access-date=December 13, 2020}}</ref>

When "Rosebud" was burned, Welles precisely [[Blocking (stage)|choreographed]] every aspect of the scene while he had composer [[Bernard Herrmann]]'s cue playing on the set.<ref name="alexross">{{cite magazine |last=Ross |first=Alex |date=June 27, 2005 |title=Sound and Vision: Glass's 'Koyaanisqatsi' and the art of film scoring |url=http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/06/27/050627crmu_music |magazine=[[The New Yorker]] |access-date=December 18, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140425172558/http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/06/27/050627crmu_music |archive-date=April 25, 2014 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Unlike Schaefer, many members of RKO's board of governors did not like Welles or the control that his contract gave him.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|186|December 2014}} However such board members as [[Nelson Rockefeller]] and NBC chief [[David Sarnoff]]<ref name="Wakeman"/>{{Rp|1170}} were sympathetic to Welles.<ref name="Wellesnet Memos">{{cite web |url=http://www.wellesnet.com/?p=1585 |title=The Memos Part X: George Schaefer resigns as RKO president&nbsp;... |publisher=Wellesnet.com |date=July 5, 2012 |access-date=December 11, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121018200036/http://www.wellesnet.com/?p=1585 |archive-date=October 18, 2012 |url-status=live}}</ref> Throughout production Welles had problems with these executives not respecting his contract's stipulation of non-interference and several spies arrived on set to report what they saw to the executives. When the executives would sometimes arrive on set unannounced the entire cast and crew would suddenly start playing softball until they left. Before official shooting began the executives intercepted all copies of the script and delayed their delivery to Welles. They had one copy sent to their office in New York, resulting in it being leaked to press.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|195|December 2014}}

[[Principal shooting]] wrapped October 24. Welles then took several weeks away from the film for a lecture tour, during which he also scouted additional locations with Toland and Ferguson. Filming resumed November 15<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|87}} with some re-shoots. Toland had to leave due to a commitment to shoot [[Howard Hughes]]' ''[[The Outlaw]]'', but Toland's camera crew continued working on the film and Toland was replaced by RKO cinematographer [[Harry J. Wild]]. The final day of shooting on November 30 was Kane's death scene.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|85}} Welles boasted that he only went 21 days over his official shooting schedule, without factoring in the month of "camera tests".<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|195|December 2014}} According to RKO records, the film cost $839,727. Its estimated budget had been $723,800.<ref name="AFIcat"/>

===Post-production===
''Citizen Kane'' was edited by [[Robert Wise]] and assistant editor [[Mark Robson (film director)|Mark Robson]].<ref name="Mulvey"/>{{Rp|85}} Both would become successful film directors. Wise was hired after Welles finished shooting the "camera tests" and began officially making the film. Wise said that Welles "had an older editor assigned to him for those tests and evidently he was not too happy and asked to have somebody else. I was roughly Orson's age and had several good credits." Wise and Robson began editing the film while it was still shooting and said that they "could tell certainly that we were getting something very special. It was outstanding film day in and day out."<ref name="Wakeman"/>{{Rp|1210}}

Welles gave Wise detailed instructions and was usually not present during the film's editing.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|109}} The film was very well planned out and intentionally shot for such post-production techniques as slow [[Dissolve (filmmaking)|dissolves]].<ref name="BBC Complete"/> The lack of coverage made editing easy since Welles and Toland edited the film "in camera" by leaving few options of how it could be put together.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|110}} Wise said the breakfast table sequence took weeks to edit and get the correct "timing" and "rhythm" for the [[whip pan]]s and overlapping dialogue.<ref name="BBC Complete"/> The ''News on the March'' sequence was edited by RKO's newsreel division to give it authenticity.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|110}} They used [[stock footage]] from [[Pathé News]] and the General Film Library.<ref name="AFIcat"/>

During post-production Welles and special effects artist [[Linwood G. Dunn]] experimented with an [[optical printer]] to improve certain scenes that Welles found unsatisfactory from the footage.<ref name="BBC Complete"/> Whereas Welles was often immediately pleased with Wise's work, he would require Dunn and post-production audio engineer James G. Stewart to re-do their work several times until he was satisfied.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|109}}

Welles hired Bernard Herrmann to compose the film's score. Where most Hollywood film scores were written quickly, in as few as two or three weeks after filming was completed, Herrmann was given 12 weeks to write the music. He had sufficient time to do his own orchestrations and conducting, and worked on the film reel by reel as it was shot and cut. He wrote complete musical pieces for some of the montages, and Welles edited many of the scenes to match their length.<ref name=Herrmann/>

==Style==
Film scholars and historians view ''Citizen Kane'' as Welles's attempt to create a new style of filmmaking by studying various forms of it and combining them into one. However, Welles stated that his love for cinema began only when he started working on the film. When asked where he got the confidence as a first-time director to direct a film so radically different from contemporary cinema, he responded, "Ignorance, ignorance, sheer ignorance—you know there's no confidence to equal it. It's only when you know something about a profession, I think, that you're timid or careful."<ref name="Estrin"/>{{Rp|80}}

[[David Bordwell]] wrote that "The best way to understand ''Citizen Kane'' is to stop worshipping it as a triumph of technique." Bordwell argues that the film did not invent any of its famous techniques such as deep focus cinematography, shots of the ceilings, chiaroscuro lighting and temporal jump-cuts, and that many of these stylistics had been used in [[German expressionist cinema|German Expressionist films]] of the 1920s, such as ''The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari''. But Bordwell asserts that the film did put them all together for the first time and perfected the medium in one single film.<ref name="Wakeman"/>{{Rp|1171}} In a 1948 interview, [[D. W. Griffith]] said, "I loved ''Citizen Kane'' and particularly loved the ideas he took from me."<ref>{{cite news |last=Goodman |first=Ezra |title=Flash-Back to Griffith |publisher=PM |date=May 19, 1948}}</ref>

Arguments against the film's cinematic innovations were made as early as 1946 when French historian [[Georges Sadoul]] wrote, "The film is an encyclopedia of old techniques." He pointed out such examples as compositions that used both the foreground and the background in the films of [[Auguste and Louis Lumière]], special effects used in the films of [[Georges Méliès]], shots of the ceiling in [[Erich von Stroheim]]'s [[Greed (1924 film)|''Greed'']] and newsreel montages in the films of [[Dziga Vertov]].<ref>{{cite news |last=Sadoul |first=Georges |author-link=Georges Sadoul |title=Le Cinéma: Hypertrophie ducerveau ̄ Review of ''Citizen Kane'' |publisher=[[Les Lettres Françaises]], number 115 |location=Paris, France |date=July 5, 1946 |page=9}}</ref>

French film critic [[André Bazin]] defended the film, writing: "In this respect, the accusation of plagiarism could very well be extended to the film's use of panchromatic film or its exploitation of the properties of gelatinous silver halide." Bazin disagreed with Sadoul's comparison to Lumière's cinematography since ''Citizen Kane'' used more sophisticated lenses,<ref name=BazinatWork>{{cite book |last1=Bazin |first1=André |editor-last=Cardullo |editor-first=Bert |author-link1=André Bazin |title=Bazin at Work: Major Essays & Reviews From the Forties & Fifties |publisher=Rutledge |location=New York & London |date=1997 |isbn=978-0-415-90018-8}}</ref>{{Rp|232}} but acknowledged that it had similarities to such previous works as ''[[The Power and the Glory (1933 film)|The Power and the Glory]]''. Bazin stated that "even if Welles did not invent the cinematic devices employed in ''Citizen Kane'', one should nevertheless credit him with the invention of their ''meaning''."<ref name=BazinatWork/>{{Rp|233}} Bazin championed the techniques in the film for its depiction of heightened reality, but Bordwell believed that the film's use of special effects contradicted some of Bazin's theories.<ref name="Minding">{{cite book |last1=Bordwell |first1=David |last2=Thompson |first2=Kristin |title=Minding Movies. Observations on the Art, Craft, and Business of Filmmaking |publisher=The University of Chicago Press |location=Chicago and London |date=2011 |isbn=978-0-226-06698-1}}</ref>{{Rp|75}}

===Storytelling techniques===
''Citizen Kane'' rejects the traditional linear, chronological narrative and tells Kane's story entirely in flashbacks using different points of view, many of them from Kane's aged and forgetful associates, the cinematic equivalent of the [[unreliable narrator]] in literature.<ref name="watched">{{cite book |last=Fabe |first=Marilyn |title=Closely Watched Films: an introduction to the art of narrative film technique |publisher=University of California Press |location=Oakland, California|date=2004 |isbn=978-0-520-23891-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/closelywatchedfi00fabe_0}}</ref>{{Rp|83}} Welles also dispenses with the idea of a single storyteller and uses multiple narrators to recount Kane's life, a technique not used previously in Hollywood films.<ref name="watched"/>{{Rp|81}} Each narrator recounts a different part of Kane's life, with each story overlapping another.<ref name="politics">{{cite book |last=Gianos |first=Phillip |title=Politics and politicians in American film |publisher=[[Greenwood Publishing Group]] |location=Santa Barbara, California |date=1999 |isbn=978-0-275-96766-6 |pages=170–184}}</ref> The film depicts Kane as an enigma, a complicated man who leaves viewers with more questions than answers as to his character, such as the newsreel footage where he is attacked for being both a communist and a fascist.<ref name="watched"/>{{Rp|82–84}}

The technique of flashbacks had been used in earlier films, notably ''[[The Power and the Glory (1933 film)|The Power and the Glory]]'' (1933),<ref name="Robbin Coons">{{cite news |last=Coons |first=Robbin |date=May 1, 1941 |title=Hollywood Sights and Sounds |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1755&dat=19410501&id=yOIcAAAAIBAJ&pg=3353,2902994 |newspaper=[[Sarasota Herald-Tribune]] |location=[[Associated Press]] |access-date=April 3, 2016 |archive-date=October 22, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201022121934/https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1755&dat=19410501&id=yOIcAAAAIBAJ&pg=3353,2902994 |url-status=live }}</ref> but no film was as immersed in it as ''Citizen Kane''. Thompson the reporter acts as a surrogate for the audience, questioning Kane's associates and piecing together his life.<ref name="politics"/>

Films typically had an "omniscient perspective" at the time, which Marilyn Fabe says give the audience the "illusion that we are looking with impunity into a world which is unaware of our gaze". ''Citizen Kane'' also begins in that fashion until the ''News on the March'' sequence, after which we the audience see the film through the perspectives of others.<ref name="watched"/>{{Rp|81}} The ''News on the March'' sequence gives an overview of Kane's entire life (and the film's entire story) at the beginning of the film, leaving the audience without the typical suspense of wondering how it will end. Instead, the film's repetitions of events compels the audience to analyze and wonder why Kane's life happened the way that it did, under the pretext of finding out what "Rosebud" means. The film then returns to the omniscient perspective in the final scene, when only the audience discovers what "Rosebud" is.<ref name="watched"/>{{Rp|82–83}}

===Cinematography===
{{multiple image
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| image1    = Citizen-Kane-Filming-Low-Angle.jpg
| alt1      =
| caption1  = Welles and cinematographer Gregg Toland prepare to film the post-election confrontation between Kane and Leland, shot from an extremely low angle that required cutting into the set floor.
<!-- Image 2 -->
| image2    =Title Card for Citizen Kane.jpg
| alt2      =
| caption2  = Welles placed Toland's credit with his own to acknowledge the cinematographer's contributions.
}}

The most innovative technical aspect of ''Citizen Kane'' is the extended use of [[deep focus]],<ref name="Ogle">{{cite news |last1=Ogle |first1=Patrick L. |last2=Nichols |first2=Bill |author-link2=Bill Nichols (film critic)|title=Technological and Aesthetic Influences Upon the Development of Deep Focus Cinematography in the United States |publisher=University of California Press |date=1985 |page=73}}</ref> where the foreground, background and everything in between are all in sharp focus. Cinematographer Toland did this through his experimentation with lenses and lighting. Toland described the achievement in an article for ''Theatre Arts'' magazine, made possible by the sensitivity of modern speed film:

<blockquote>New developments in the science of motion picture photography are not abundant at this advanced stage of the game but periodically one is perfected to make this a greater art. Of these I am in an excellent position to discuss what is termed "Pan-focus", as I have been active for two years in its development and used it for the first time in ''Citizen Kane''. Through its use, it is possible to photograph action from a range of eighteen inches from the camera lens to over two hundred feet away, with extreme foreground and background figures and action both recorded in sharp relief. Hitherto, the camera had to be focused either for a close or a distant shot, all efforts to encompass both at the same time resulting in one or the other being out of focus. This handicap necessitated the breaking up of a scene into long and short angles, with much consequent loss of realism. With pan-focus, the camera, like the human eye, sees an entire panorama at once, with everything clear and lifelike.<ref name=Toland>{{cite news| last=Toland| first=Gregg| author-link=Gregg Toland| title=The American Cameraman| date=September 1941| work=Theater Arts| url=https://www.wellesnet.com/gregg-toland-on-working-with-orson-welles-on-citizen-kane/}}</ref></blockquote>

Another unorthodox method used in the film was the low-angle shots facing upwards, thus allowing ceilings to be shown in the background of several scenes. Every set was built with a ceiling,<ref name=Toland/> which broke with studio convention, and many were constructed of fabric that concealed microphones.<ref name=Companion/> Welles felt that the camera should show what the eye sees, and that it was a bad theatrical convention to pretend that there was no ceiling—"a big lie in order to get all those terrible lights up there," he said. He became fascinated with the look of low angles, which made even dull interiors look interesting. One extremely low angle is used to photograph the encounter between Kane and Leland after Kane loses the election. A hole was dug for the camera, which required drilling into the concrete floor.<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|61–62}}

Welles credited Toland on the same title card as himself. "It's impossible to say how much I owe to Gregg," he said. "He was superb."<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|59}}<ref>{{cite book |last1=Eyman |first1=Scott |last2=Duncan |first2=Paul |date=2004 |title=John Ford, The Complete Films |location= Köln; Los Angeles |publisher=Taschen |page=116 |isbn=978-3-8228-3093-2}}</ref> He called Toland "the best director of photography that ever existed."<ref name="Cahiers 65">{{cite news |last1=Rubio |first1=Juan Cobos Miguel |last2=Pruneda |first2=Jose Antonio |title=Interview with Orson Welles |publisher=Cahiers du Cinéma, number 165 |location=Paris, France |date=April 1965}}</ref>

===Sound===
''Citizen Kane''{{'}}s sound was recorded by Bailey Fesler and re-recorded in post-production by audio engineer [[James G. Stewart]],<ref name="Mulvey"/>{{Rp|85}} both of whom had worked in radio.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|102}} Stewart said that Hollywood films never deviated from a basic pattern of how sound could be recorded or used, but with Welles "deviation from the pattern was possible because he demanded it."<ref name="BBC Complete"/> Although the film is known for its complex soundtrack, much of the audio is heard as it was recorded by Fesler and without manipulation.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|102}}

Welles used techniques from radio like overlapping dialogue. The scene in which characters sing "Oh, Mr. Kane" was especially complicated and required mixing several soundtracks together.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|104}} He also used different "sound perspectives" to create the illusion of distances,<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|101}} such as in scenes at Xanadu where characters speak to each other at far distances.<ref name="BBC Complete"/> Welles experimented with sound in post-production, creating audio montages,<ref name="Schatz">{{cite book |last1=Schatz |first1=Thomas |title=History of the American Cinema, volume 6: Boom and bust, the American cinema in the 1940s |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London |date=1997 |isbn=0-520-22130-3}}</ref>{{Rp|94}} and chose to create all of the sound effects for the film instead of using RKO's library of sound effects.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|100}}

Welles used an aural technique from radio called the "lightning-mix". Welles used this technique to link complex [[film editing|montage]] sequences via a series of related sounds or phrases. For example, Kane grows from a child into a young man in just two shots. As Thatcher hands eight-year-old Kane a sled and wishes him a Merry Christmas, the sequence suddenly jumps to a shot of Thatcher fifteen years later, completing the sentence he began in both the previous shot and the chronological past. Other radio techniques include using a number of voices, each saying a sentence or sometimes merely a fragment of a sentence, and splicing the dialogue together in quick succession, such as the projection room scene.<ref name="Cook">{{cite book |last=Cook |first=David A. |title=A History of Narrative Film |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofnarrati00cook |url-access=registration |publisher=[[W. W. Norton & Company]] |location=New York |date=1982 |isbn=978-0-393-09022-2}}</ref>{{Rp|413–412}} The film's sound cost $16,996, but was originally budgeted at $7,288.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|105}}

Film critic and director [[François Truffaut]] wrote that "Before ''Kane'', nobody in Hollywood knew how to set music properly in movies. ''Kane'' was the first, in fact the only, great film that uses radio techniques.&nbsp;... A lot of filmmakers know enough to follow [[Auguste Renoir]]'s advice to fill the eyes with images at all costs, but only Orson Welles understood that the sound track had to be filled in the same way."<ref>{{cite book |url=http://thedancingimage.blogspot.com/2009/06/three-by-truffaut.html |last1=Truffaut |first1=François |author-link1=François Truffaut |translator-last=Mayhew |translator-first=Leonard |title=The Films in My Life |publisher=Simon and Schuster |location=New York |date=1978 |isbn=0-306-80599-5 |page=282 |access-date=June 2, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120323111502/http://thedancingimage.blogspot.com/2009/06/three-by-truffaut.html |archive-date=March 23, 2012 |url-status=live}}</ref> [[Cedric Belfrage]] of ''The Clipper'' wrote "of all of the delectable flavours that linger on the palate after seeing ''Kane'', the use of sound is the strongest."<ref name="Wakeman"/>{{Rp|1171}}

===Make-up===
The make-up for ''Citizen Kane'' was created and applied by Maurice Seiderman, a junior member of the RKO make-up department.<ref name="Citizen Seiderman">{{cite journal |last=Smith |first=Dick |author-link=Dick Smith (make-up artist) |date=October–November 1999 |title=Citizen Seiderman |url=http://mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?i=211197&p=18# |journal=Make-Up Artist Magazine |issue=21 |pages=18–25 |access-date=January 25, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150207215356/http://mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?i=211197&p=18 |archive-date=February 7, 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref>{{Rp|19}} He had not been accepted into the union, which recognized him as only an apprentice, but RKO nevertheless used him to make up principal actors.<ref name="Citizen Seiderman"/>{{Rp|19}} "Apprentices were not supposed to make up any principals, only extras, and an apprentice could not be on a set without a journeyman present," wrote make-up artist [[Dick Smith (make-up artist)|Dick Smith]], who became friends with Seiderman in 1979. "During his years at RKO I suspect these rules were probably overlooked often."<ref name="Citizen Seiderman"/>{{Rp|19}} "Seiderman had gained a reputation as one of the most inventive and creatively precise up-and-coming makeup men in Hollywood," wrote biographer Frank Brady.<ref name="Brady"/>{{Rp|253}}

On an early tour of RKO, Welles met Seiderman in the small make-up lab that he created for himself in an unused dressing room.<ref name="Citizen Seiderman"/>{{Rp|19}} "Welles fastened on to him at once," wrote biographer Charles Higham, as Seiderman had developed his own makeup methods "that ensured complete naturalness of expression—a naturalness unrivaled in Hollywood."<ref name="Higham"/>{{Rp|157}} Seiderman developed a thorough plan for aging the principal characters, first making a plaster cast of the face of each of the actors who aged. He made a plaster mold of Welles's body down to the hips.<ref name="Gambill">{{cite journal |last=Gambill |first=Norman |date=November–December 1978 |title=Making Up Kane |journal=[[Film Comment]] |volume=14 |issue=6 |pages=42–48}}</ref>{{Rp|46}}

"My sculptural techniques for the characters' aging were handled by adding pieces of white modeling clay, which matched the plaster, onto the surface of each bust," Seiderman told Norman Gambill. When Seiderman achieved the desired effect, he cast the clay pieces in a soft plastic material<ref name="Gambill"/>{{Rp|46}} that he formulated himself.<ref name="Citizen Seiderman"/>{{Rp|20}} These appliances were then placed onto the plaster bust and a four-piece mold was made for each phase of aging. The castings were then fully painted and paired with the appropriate wig for evaluation.<ref name="Gambill"/>{{Rp|46–47}}

Before the actors went before the cameras each day, the pliable pieces were applied directly to their faces to recreate Seiderman's sculptural image. The facial surface was underpainted in a flexible red plastic compound;<ref name="Gambill"/>{{Rp|43}} The red ground resulted in a warmth of tone that was picked up by the [[panchromatic film]]. Over that was applied liquid grease paint, and finally a colorless translucent talcum.<ref name="Gambill"/>{{Rp|42–43}} Seiderman created the effect of skin pores on Kane's face by stippling the surface with a negative cast made from an orange peel.<ref name="Gambill"/>{{Rp|42, 47}}

Welles often arrived on the set at 2:30&nbsp;am,<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|69}} as application of the sculptural make-up took 3½ hours for the oldest incarnation of Kane. The make-up included appliances to age Welles's shoulders, breast, and stomach.<ref name="Citizen Seiderman"/>{{Rp|19–20}} "In the film and production photographs, you can see that Kane had a belly that overhung," Seiderman said. "That was not a costume, it was the rubber sculpture that created the image. You could see how Kane's silk shirt clung wetly to the character's body. It could not have been done any other way."<ref name="Gambill"/>{{Rp|46}}

Seiderman worked with Charles Wright on the wigs. These went over a flexible skull cover that Seiderman created and sewed into place with elastic thread. When he found the wigs too full, he untied one hair at a time to alter their shape. Kane's mustache was inserted into the makeup surface a few hairs at a time, to realistically vary the color and texture.<ref name="Gambill"/>{{Rp|43, 47}} He also made [[scleral lens]]es for Welles, Dorothy Comingore, George Coulouris, and Everett Sloane to dull the brightness of their young eyes. The lenses took a long time to fit properly, and Seiderman began work on them before devising any of the other makeup. "I painted them to age in phases, ending with the blood vessels and the ''[[arcus senilis]]'' of old age."<ref name="Gambill"/>{{Rp|47}} Seiderman's tour de force was the breakfast montage, shot all in one day. "Twelve years, two years shot at each scene," he said.<ref name="Gambill"/>{{Rp|47}}

[[File:Citizen-Kane-Welles-Breakfast.jpg|thumb|right|Kane ages convincingly in the breakfast montage, make-up artist Maurice Seiderman's tour de force]]

The major studios gave screen credit for make-up only to the department head. When RKO make-up department head [[Mel Berns]] refused to share credit with Seiderman, who was only an apprentice, Welles told Berns that there would be no make-up credit. Welles signed a large advertisement in the Los Angeles newspaper:<ref name="Citizen Seiderman"/>{{Rp|22}}<ref name="Gambill"/>{{Rp|48}}

<blockquote>THANKS TO EVERYBODY WHO GETS SCREEN CREDIT FOR "CITIZEN KANE"<br />AND THANKS TO THOSE WHO DON'T<br />TO ALL THE ACTORS, THE CREW, THE OFFICE, THE MUSICIANS, EVERYBODY<br />AND PARTICULARLY TO MAURICE SEIDERMAN, THE BEST MAKE-UP MAN IN THE WORLD<ref name="Citizen Seiderman"/>{{Rp|20}}</blockquote>

===Sets===
Although credited as an assistant, the film's art direction was done by [[Perry Ferguson]].<ref name="Mulvey"/>{{Rp|85}} Welles and Ferguson got along during their collaboration.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|37}} In the weeks before production began Welles, Toland and Ferguson met regularly to discuss the film and plan every shot, set design and prop. Ferguson would take notes during these discussions and create rough designs of the sets and story boards for individual shots. After Welles approved the rough sketches, Ferguson made miniature models for Welles and Toland to experiment on with a [[periscope]] in order to rehearse and perfect each shot. Ferguson then had detailed drawings made for the set design, including the film's lighting design. The set design was an integral part of the film's overall look and Toland's cinematography.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|42}}

In the original script the Great Hall at Xanadu was modeled after the Great Hall in Hearst Castle and its design included a mixture of [[Renaissance architecture|Renaissance]] and [[Gothic architecture|Gothic]] styles.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|50–51}} "The Hearstian element is brought out in the almost perverse juxtaposition of incongruous architectural styles and motifs," wrote Carringer.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|54}} Before RKO cut the film's budget, Ferguson's designs were more elaborate and resembled the production designs of early [[Cecil B. DeMille]] films and ''[[Intolerance (film)|Intolerance]]''.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|55}} The budget cuts reduced Ferguson's budget by 33 percent and his work cost $58,775 total,<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|65}} which was below average at that time.<ref name="Schatz"/>{{Rp|93}}

To save costs Ferguson and Welles re-wrote scenes in Xanadu's living room and transported them to the Great Hall. A large staircase from another film was found and used at no additional cost.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|56–57}} When asked about the limited budget, Ferguson said "Very often—as in that much-discussed 'Xanadu' set in ''Citizen Kane''—we can make a foreground piece, a background piece, and imaginative lighting suggests a great deal more on the screen than actually exists on the stage."<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|65–66}} According to the film's official budget there were 81 sets built, but Ferguson said there were between 106 and 116.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|64}}

Still photographs of [[Oheka Castle]] in [[Huntington, New York]], were used in the opening montage, representing Kane's Xanadu estate.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.oheka.com/film-photo-shoots.htm |title=Oheka Castle&nbsp;– Film, Television and Photography Productions |publisher=Oheka.com |access-date=May 29, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150403203423/http://www.oheka.com/film-photo-shoots.htm |archive-date=April 3, 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/06/nyregion/c-corrections-910389.html |title=Corrections |newspaper=The New York Times |date=April 6, 1989 |access-date=February 6, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171219230154/http://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/06/nyregion/c-corrections-910389.html |archive-date=December 19, 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref> Ferguson also designed statues from Kane's collection with styles ranging from [[Ancient Greek sculpture|Greek]] to [[Gothic art|German Gothic]].<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|61}} The sets were also built to accommodate Toland's camera movements. Walls were built to fold and furniture could quickly be moved. The film's famous ceilings were made out of [[muslin]] fabric and camera boxes were built into the floors for low angle shots.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|64–65}} Welles later said that he was proud that the film production value looked much more expensive than the film's budget. Although neither worked with Welles again, Toland and Ferguson collaborated in several films in the 1940s.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|65}}

===Special effects===
The film's special effects were supervised by RKO department head [[Vernon L. Walker]].<ref name="Mulvey"/>{{Rp|85}} Welles pioneered several visual effects to cheaply shoot things like crowd scenes and large interior spaces. For example, the scene in which the camera in the opera house rises dramatically to the rafters, to show the workmen showing a lack of appreciation for Susan Alexander Kane's performance, was shot by a camera [[Crane shot|craning]] upwards over the performance scene, then a [[wipe (transition)|curtain wipe]] to a miniature of the upper regions of the house, and then another curtain wipe matching it again with the scene of the workmen. Other scenes effectively employed miniatures to make the film look much more expensive than it truly was, such as various shots of Xanadu.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Thomas |first1=François |editor-last=Naremore |editor-first=James |chapter=''Citizen Kane'': The Sound Track |title=Orson Welles's Citizen Kane: A Casebook |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford, UK and New York |date=2004 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KzCH4UgSUr8C&pg=PA173 |isbn=978-0-19-515891-5 |access-date=November 10, 2007 |page=173 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111226021819/http://books.google.com/books?id=KzCH4UgSUr8C&pg=PA173 |archive-date=December 26, 2011 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Some shots included [[Rear projection effect|rear screen projection]] in the background, such as Thompson's interview of Leland and some of the ocean backgrounds at Xanadu.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|88}} Bordwell claims that the scene where Thatcher agrees to be Kane's guardian used rear screen projection to depict young Kane in the background, despite this scene being cited as a prime example of Toland's deep focus cinematography.<ref name="Minding"/>{{Rp|74}} A special effects camera crew from Walker's department was required for the [[Close-up#Types of close-up|extreme close-up]] shots such as Kane's lips when he says "Rosebud" and the shot of the typewriter typing Susan's bad review.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|88}}

Optical effects artist Dunn claimed that "up to 80 percent of some reels was optically printed." These shots were traditionally attributed to Toland for years.<ref>{{cite book |last=Jewell |first=Richard B. |title=The Golden Age of Cinema. Hollywood 1929–1945 |publisher=Blackwell Publishing |location=Oxford, UK |date=2007 |isbn=978-1-4051-6373-6}}</ref>{{Rp|110}} The [[optical printer]] improved some of the deep focus shots.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|92}} One problem with the optical printer was that it sometimes created excessive [[graininess]], such as the optical zoom out of the snow globe. Welles decided to superimpose snow falling to mask the graininess in these shots.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|94}} Toland said that he disliked the results of the optical printer,<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|92}} but acknowledged that "RKO special effects expert Vernon Walker, ASC, and his staff handled their part of the production—a by no means inconsiderable assignment—with ability and fine understanding."<ref name="Minding"/>{{Rp|74–75}}

Any time deep focus was impossible—as in the scene in which Kane finishes a negative review of Susan's opera while at the same time firing the person who began writing the review—an optical printer was used to make the whole screen appear in focus, visually layering one piece of film onto another.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|92}} However, some apparently deep-focus shots were the result of [[in-camera effect]]s, as in the famous scene in which Kane breaks into Susan's room after her suicide attempt. In the background, Kane and another man break into the room, while simultaneously the medicine bottle and a glass with a spoon in it are in closeup in the foreground. The shot was an in-camera [[Matte (filmmaking)|matte]] shot. The foreground was shot first, with the background dark. Then the background was lit, the foreground darkened, the film rewound, and the scene re-shot with the background action.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|82}}

===Music===
[[File:Citizen-Kane-Welles-Showgirls.jpg|thumb|right|Incidental music includes the publisher's theme, "Oh, Mr. Kane", a tune by [[Pepe Guízar]] with special lyrics by Herman Ruby.]]

''Kane'' was the first film scored by [[Bernard Herrmann]],<ref name="stephensmith">{{cite book |last=Smith |first=Steven C. |title=A Heart at Fire's Center: The Life and Music of Bernard Herrmann |publisher=University of California Press |location=Oakland, California |date=2002 |isbn=978-0-520-22939-6}}</ref>{{Rp|72}} who had composed for Welles's ''[[Mercury Theatre on the Air]]''.<ref name="stephensmith"/>{{Rp|63}} Because it was Herrmann's first film score, RKO wanted to pay him only a small fee, but Welles insisted he be paid at the same rate as [[Max Steiner]].<ref name="stephensmith"/>{{Rp|72}}

Herrmann drew on radio techniques for his score: "The movies frequently overlook opportunities for musical cues that last only a few seconds—that is, from five to fifteen seconds at the most—the reason being that the eye usually covers this transition. On the other hand, in radio drama, every scene must be bridged by some sort of sound device, so that even five seconds of music becomes a vital instrument in telling the ear the scene is shifting. I felt that in this film, where photographic contrasts were often so sharp and sudden, a brief cue—even two or three chords—might heighten the effect immeasurably ... Sound effects were often blended in ''Citizen Kane'', with the music, to add intensity to certain scenes. This was also a carry-over from radio technique."<ref name=Herrmann/>

The score established Herrmann as an important new film composer<ref name="americancomposers">{{cite web |url=http://www.americancomposers.org/raksin_herrmann.htm |title=American Composers Orchestra&nbsp;– David Raksin remembers his colleagues |publisher=Americancomposers.org |access-date=January 22, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081209041005/http://www.americancomposers.org/raksin_herrmann.htm |archive-date=December 9, 2008 |url-status=live}}</ref> and eschewed the typical Hollywood practice of scoring a film with virtually non-stop music. Instead Herrmann used what he later described as "radio scoring", musical cues typically 5–15 seconds in length that bridge the action or suggest a different emotional response.<ref name="stephensmith"/>{{Rp|77–78}} The breakfast montage sequence begins with a graceful waltz theme and gets darker with each variation on that theme as the passage of time leads to the hardening of Kane's personality and the breakdown of his first marriage.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.americanmusicpreservation.com/CitizenKanefilmscore.htm |title=70th anniversary of Citizen Kane and Bernard Herrmann's film score |access-date=April 27, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110718223803/http://www.americanmusicpreservation.com/CitizenKanefilmscore.htm |archive-date=July 18, 2011 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.filmsite.org/citi4.html |last=Dirks |first=Tim |title=Citizen Kane, page 4 |publisher=filmsite.org |access-date=November 29, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141205054250/http://www.filmsite.org/citi4.html |archive-date=December 5, 2014 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Herrmann realized that musicians slated to play his music were hired for individual unique sessions; there was no need to write for existing ensembles. This meant that he was free to score for unusual combinations of instruments, even instruments that are not commonly heard. In the opening sequence, for example, the tour of Kane's estate Xanadu, Herrmann introduces a recurring [[leitmotif]] played by low woodwinds, including a quartet of [[alto flute]]s.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.filmscorerundowns.net/herrmann/citizenkane.pdf |last=Wrobel |first=Bill |title=Herrmann's "Citizen Kane" |date=November 4, 2001 |access-date=July 31, 2013 |page=2 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120412125013/http://www.filmscorerundowns.net/herrmann/citizenkane.pdf |archive-date=April 12, 2012 |url-status=live}}</ref>

For Susan Alexander Kane's operatic sequence, Welles suggested that Herrmann compose a witty parody of a [[Mary Garden]] vehicle, an aria from ''[[Salammbô]]''.<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|57}} "Our problem was to create something that would give the audience the feeling of the quicksand into which this simple little girl, having a charming but small voice, is suddenly thrown," Herrmann said.<ref name="stephensmith"/>{{Rp|79}} Writing in the style of a 19th-century French Oriental opera,<ref name=Herrmann/> Herrmann put the aria in a key that would force the singer to strain to reach the high notes, culminating in a high D, well outside the range of Susan Alexander.<ref name="stephensmith"/>{{Rp|79–80}} Soprano Jean Forward dubbed the vocal part for Comingore.<ref name="americancomposers"/> Houseman claimed to have written the libretto, based on [[Jean Racine]]'s ''[[Athalie]]'' and ''[[Phedre]]'',<ref name="Houseman RT"/>{{Rp|460–461}} although some confusion remains since [[Lucille Fletcher]] remembered preparing the lyrics.<ref name="stephensmith"/>{{Rp|80}} Fletcher, then Herrmann's wife, wrote the libretto for his opera ''[[Wuthering Heights (Herrmann)|Wuthering Heights]]''.<ref name="stephensmith"/>{{Rp|11}}

Music enthusiasts consider the scene in which Susan Alexander Kane attempts to sing the famous cavatina "Una voce poco fa" from ''[[Il barbiere di Siviglia]]'' by [[Gioachino Rossini]] with vocal coach Signor Matiste as especially memorable for depicting the horrors of learning music through mistakes.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=2748 |last=Kirshnit |first=Frederick L. |title=Champagne and Pomade |publisher=ConcertoNet.com |location=Paris, France |date=December 31, 2004 |access-date=December 11, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923210138/http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=2748 |archive-date=September 23, 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Some incidental music came from other sources. Welles heard the tune used for the publisher's theme, "Oh, Mr. Kane", in Mexico.<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|57}} Called "A Poco No", the song was written by [[Pepe Guízar]] and special lyrics were written by Herman Ruby.<ref name="Herrmann Cues">{{cite web |url=http://folk.uib.no/smkgg/midi/soundtrackweb/herrmann/db/cuesheets/film_citizenkane.html |title=Cue Sheet: Citizen Kane |date=April 22, 1941 |publisher=The Bernard Herrmann Society |access-date=December 26, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141226211724/http://folk.uib.no/smkgg/midi/soundtrackweb/herrmann/db/cuesheets/film_citizenkane.html |archive-date=December 26, 2014 |url-status=live}}</ref> "In a Mizz", a 1939 jazz song by [[Charlie Barnet]] and Haven Johnson, bookends Thompson's second interview of Susan Alexander Kane.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|108}}<ref name="Herrmann Cues"/> "I kind of based the whole scene around that song," Welles said. "The music is by [[Nat Cole]]—it's his trio."<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|56}} Later—beginning with the lyrics, "It can't be love"—"In a Mizz" is performed at the Everglades picnic, framing the fight in the tent between Susan and Kane.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|108}} Musicians including bandleader [[Cee Pee Johnson]] (drums), Alton Redd (vocals), Raymond Tate (trumpet), [[Buddy Collette]] (alto sax) and [[Buddy Banks (saxophonist)|Buddy Banks]] (tenor sax) are featured.<ref name="Meeker">{{cite web |url=http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.natlib.jots.200014490/default.html |title=Jazz on the Screen: A jazz and blues filmography by David Meeker |publisher=[[Library of Congress]] |access-date=February 21, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140228215909/http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.natlib.jots.200014490/default.html |archive-date=February 28, 2014 |url-status=live}}</ref> All of the music used in the newsreel came from the RKO music library, edited at Welles's request by the newsreel department to achieve what Herrmann called "their own crazy way of cutting". The ''News on the March'' theme that accompanies the newsreel titles is "Belgian March" by [[Anthony Vincent Collins|Anthony Collins]], from the film ''[[Nurse Edith Cavell]]''. Other examples are an excerpt from [[Alfred Newman]]'s score for ''[[Gunga Din (film)|Gunga Din]]'' (the exploration of Xanadu), [[Roy Webb]]'s theme for ''[[Reno (1939 film)|Reno]]'' (the growth of Kane's empire), and bits of Webb's score for ''[[Five Came Back]]'' (introducing Walter Parks Thatcher).<ref name="stephensmith"/>{{Rp|79}}<ref name="Herrmann Cues"/>

Herrmann concluded that "two full weeks were spent in the dubbing room, and music under our supervision was often re-recorded six or seven times before the proper dynamic level was achieved. The result is an exact projection of the original musical ideas in the score. Technically, no composer could ask for more."<ref name=Herrmann>{{cite news| title=Score For a Film| last=Herrmann| first=Bernard| author-link=Bernard Herrmann| date=May 25, 1941| work=[[The New York Times]]| url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1941/05/25/85499646.html?pageNumber=179}}</ref>

Herrmann explained his use of motifs: 
<blockquote>I am not a great believer in the [[leitmotiv]] as a device for motion picture music—but in this film its use was practically imperative, because of the story itself and the manner in which it is unfolded.

There are two main motifs. One—a simple four-note figure in the brass—is that of Kane's power. It is given out in the first two bars of the film. The second motif is that of Rosebud. Heard as a solo in the vibraphone, it first appears in the death scene at the very beginning of the picture. It is heard again and again throughout the film in various guises, and if followed closely, is a clue to the ultimate identity of Rosebud itself.

The motif of power is also transformed, becoming a vigorous piece of ragtime, a hornpipe polka and, at the end of the picture, a commentary on Kane's life.<ref name=Herrmann/></blockquote>

In 1972, Herrmann said, "I was fortunate to start my career with a film like ''Citizen Kane'', it's been a downhill run ever since!" Welles loved Herrmann's score and told director [[Henry Jaglom]] that it was 50 percent responsible for the film's artistic success.<ref name="stephensmith"/>{{Rp|84}}

===Editing===
[[File:Citizen-Kane-Welles-Warrick-Breakfast.jpg|thumb|right|Orson Welles and Ruth Warrick in the breakfast montage]]

One of the editing techniques used in ''Citizen Kane'' was the use of montage to collapse time and space, using an episodic sequence on the same set while the characters changed costume and make-up between cuts so that the scene following each cut would look as if it took place in the same location, but at a time long after the previous cut. In the breakfast montage, Welles chronicles the breakdown of Kane's first marriage in five vignettes that condense 16 years of story time into two minutes of screen time.<ref>{{cite book |last=Costanzo Cahir |first=Linda |title=Literature into film: theory and practical approaches |publisher=[[McFarland & Company]] |location=Jefferson, North Carolina |date=2006 |isbn=978-0-7864-2597-6 |pages=59–60}}</ref> Welles said that the idea for the breakfast scene "was stolen from ''[[The Long Christmas Dinner]]'' by [[Thornton Wilder]]&nbsp;... a one-act play, which is a long Christmas dinner that takes you through something like 60 years of a family's life."<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|51|date=June 2012}} The film often uses long dissolves to signify the passage of time and its psychological effect of the characters, such as the scene in which the abandoned sled is covered with snow after the young Kane is sent away with Thatcher.<ref name="watched"/>{{Rp|90–91}}

Welles was influenced by the editing theories of [[Sergei Eisenstein]] by using jarring cuts that caused "sudden graphic or associative contrasts", such as the cut from Kane's deathbed to the beginning of the ''News on the March'' sequence and a sudden shot of a shrieking [[cockatoo]] at the beginning of Raymond's flashback.<ref name="watched"/>{{Rp|88–89}} Although the film typically favors mise-en-scène over montage, the scene in which Kane goes to Susan Alexander's apartment after first meeting her is the only one that is primarily cut as close-ups with shots and counter shots between Kane and Susan.<ref name="Mulvey"/>{{Rp|68}} Fabe says that "by using a standard Hollywood technique sparingly, [Welles] revitalizes its psychological expressiveness."<ref name="watched"/>{{Rp|88}}

==Sources==
{{Main|Sources for Citizen Kane|l1=Sources for ''Citizen Kane''}}

{{multiple image
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<!-- Image 1 -->
| image1    = WilliamRandolphHearst.jpg
| alt1      =
| caption1  = Although various sources were used as a model for Kane, [[William Randolph Hearst]] was the primary inspiration.
<!-- Image 2 -->
| image2    = Marion Davies - Emerald Green.jpg
| alt2      =
| caption2  = Hearst was disturbed by the film's supposed depiction of [[Marion Davies]], but Welles always denied that Susan Alexander Kane was based on Davies.
}}
Welles never confirmed a principal source for the character of [[Charles Foster Kane]]. Houseman wrote that Kane is a [[Composite character|synthesis]] of different personalities, with Hearst's life used as the main source. Some events and details were invented,<ref name="Houseman RT">{{cite book |last=Houseman |first=John |author-link=John Houseman |title=Run-Through: A Memoir |url=https://archive.org/details/runthroughmemoir00hous |url-access=registration |publisher=[[Simon & Schuster]] |location=New York |date=1972 |isbn=0-671-21034-3}}</ref>{{Rp|444}} and Houseman wrote that he and Mankiewicz also "grafted anecdotes from other giants of journalism, including [[Joseph Pulitzer|Pulitzer]], [[Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe|Northcliffe]] and Mank's first boss, [[Herbert Bayard Swope]]".<ref name="Houseman RT"/>{{Rp|444}} Welles said, "Mr. Hearst was quite a bit like Kane, although Kane isn't really founded on Hearst in particular. Many people sat for it, so to speak".<ref name="Estrin">{{cite book |editor-last=Estrin |editor-first=Mark W. |title=Orson Welles: Interviews |publisher=[[University Press of Mississippi]] |location=Jackson, Mississippi |date=2002 |isbn=978-1-57806-209-6}}</ref>{{Rp|78}} He specifically acknowledged that aspects of Kane were drawn from the lives of two business tycoons familiar from his youth in Chicago—[[Samuel Insull]] and [[Harold Fowler McCormick]].{{efn|Welles states, "There's all that stuff about McCormick and the opera. I drew a lot from that from my Chicago days. And Samuel Insull." A known supporter of President Roosevelt, the fact that both McCormick and Hearst were opposed to FDR's successful attempts to control radio and moderate control of print may have been an incentive for Welles to use his film as a smear against both men.<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|49}}}}<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|49}}

The character of Jedediah Leland was based on drama critic [[Ashton Stevens]], [[George Stevens]]'s uncle and Welles's close boyhood friend.<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|66}} Some detail came from Mankiewicz's own experience as a drama critic in New York.<ref name=Meryman/>{{Rp|77–78}}

Many assumed that the character of Susan Alexander Kane was based on Marion Davies, Hearst's mistress whose career he managed. This assumption was a major reason Hearst tried to destroy ''Citizen Kane''.<ref name="PBS">{{cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/kane2/kane2ts.html |last1=Epstein |first1=Michael |last2=Lennon |first2=Thomas |title=The Battle Over Citizen Kane |publisher=[[PBS]] |date=1996 |access-date=January 14, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071216132713/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/kane2/kane2ts.html |archive-date=December 16, 2007 |url-status=dead}}</ref>{{efn|Charlie Lederer insisted that Hearst and Davies never saw ''Citizen Kane'' and condemned it based on the outrage of trusted friends, wrote his stepdaughter (and Welles's daughter) Chris Welles Feder. "In Charlie's view, Hearst was more distressed by the movie's insinuation&nbsp;... that Marion was a failed and pathetic alcoholic that he was by any unflattering references to himself."<ref name="Feder">{{cite book |last=Feder |first=Chris Welles |date=2009 |title=In My Father's Shadow: A Daughter Remembers Orson Welles |location=Chapel Hill, North Carolina |publisher=Algonquin Books |page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781565125995/page/44 44] |isbn=978-1-56512-599-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781565125995/page/44}}</ref>}} Welles denied that the character was based on Davies,<ref name="Davies, Marion 1975">{{cite book |last=Davies |first=Marion |author-link=Marion Davies |editor1-last=Pfau |editor1-first=Pamela |editor2-last=Marx |editor2-first=Kenneth S. |title=The Times We Had: Life with William Randolph Hearst. ''Foreword by Orson Welles (two pages preceding unpaginated chapter index)'' |url=https://archive.org/details/timeswehadlivewi00davirich |url-access=registration |publisher=[[Bobbs-Merrill Company]], Inc. |location=Indianapolis and New York |date=1975 |isbn=978-0-672-52112-6}}</ref> whom he called "an extraordinary woman—nothing like the character [[Dorothy Comingore]] played in the movie."<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|49}} He cited Insull's building of the [[Civic Opera House (Chicago)|Chicago Opera House]], and McCormick's lavish promotion of the opera career of his second wife, [[Ganna Walska]], as direct influences on the screenplay.<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|49}}

The character of [[political boss]] Jim W. Gettys is based on [[Charles F. Murphy]], a leader in New York City's infamous [[Tammany Hall]] political machine.<ref name="Raising Kane"/>{{Rp|61}}

Welles credited "Rosebud" to Mankiewicz.<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|53}} Biographer [[Richard Meryman]] wrote that the symbol of Mankiewicz's own damaged childhood was a treasured bicycle, stolen while he visited the public library and not replaced by his family as punishment. He regarded it as the prototype of Charles Foster Kane's sled.<ref name=Meryman/>{{Rp|300}} In his 2015 Welles biography, [[Patrick McGilligan (biographer)|Patrick McGilligan]] reported that Mankiewicz himself stated that the word "Rosebud" was taken from the name of a famous racehorse, [[Old Rosebud]]. Mankiewicz had a bet on the horse in the [[1914 Kentucky Derby]], which he won, and McGilligan wrote that "Old Rosebud symbolized his lost youth, and the break with his family". In testimony for a copyright infringement suit brought by Hearst biographer [[Ferdinand Lundberg]], Mankiewicz said, "I had undergone psycho-analysis, and Rosebud, under circumstances slightly resembling the circumstances in [''Citizen Kane''], played a prominent part."<ref>{{cite book |last=McGilligan |first=Patrick |author-link=Patrick McGilligan (biographer) |date=2015 |title=Young Orson |location=New York |publisher=[[Harper (publisher)|Harper]] |page=697 |isbn=978-0-06-211248-4}}</ref> [[Gore Vidal]] has argued in the ''[[New York Review of Books]]'' that "Rosebud was what Hearst called his friend Marion Davies's clitoris".<ref>{{cite magazine | url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1989/08/17/rosebud/ |title=''Rosebud'' – Gore Vidal|magazine=[[The New York Review of Books]]|last1=Topkis | first1=Jay | last2=Vidal | first2=Gore|author2-link=Gore Vidal}}</ref>

The ''News on the March'' sequence that begins the film satirizes the journalistic style of ''[[The March of Time]]'', the news documentary and dramatization series presented in movie theaters by [[Time Inc.]]<ref>{{cite news |last=Gilling |first=Ted |date=May 7, 1989 |title=Real to Reel: Newsreels and re-enactments help trio of documentaries make history come alive |newspaper=[[Toronto Star]]}}</ref> From 1935 to 1938<ref name="MOB">{{cite book |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |date=1988 |title=Orson Welles on the Air: The Radio Years. Catalogue for exhibition October 28 – December 3, 1988 |location=New York |publisher=[[Paley Center for Media|The Museum of Broadcasting]]}}</ref>{{Rp|47}} Welles was a member of the uncredited company of actors that presented the original [[The March of Time (radio program)|radio version]].<ref name="Bret Wood"/>{{Rp|77}}

Houseman claimed that banker Walter P. Thatcher was loosely based on [[J. P. Morgan]].<ref name="Mulvey">{{cite book |last=Mulvey |first=Laura |author-link=Laura Mulvey |title=Citizen Kane |url=https://archive.org/details/citizenkane00mulv |url-access=registration |publisher=BFI Publishing |location=London, UK |date=1992 |isbn=978-1-84457-497-1}}</ref>{{Rp|55}} Bernstein was named for Dr. Maurice Bernstein, appointed Welles's guardian;<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|65–66}} Sloane's portrayal was said to be based on Bernard Herrmann.<ref name="americancomposers"/> Herbert Carter, editor of ''The Inquirer'', was named for actor [[Jack Carter (stage actor)|Jack Carter]].<ref name="Higham"/>{{Rp|155}}

==Political themes==
[[Laura Mulvey]] explored the anti-fascist themes of ''Citizen Kane'' in her 1992 monograph for the [[British Film Institute]]. The ''News on the March'' newsreel presents Kane keeping company with Hitler and other dictators while he smugly assures the public that there will be no war.<ref name="McBride">{{cite book |last=McBride |first=Joseph |date=2006 |title=What Ever Happened to Orson Welles? A Portrait of an Independent Career |url=https://archive.org/details/whateverhappened00jose |location=Lexington, Kentucky |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |isbn=0-8131-2410-7}}</ref>{{Rp|44}} She wrote that the film reflects "the battle between intervention and isolationism" then being waged in the United States; the film was released six months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, while President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] was laboring to win public opinion for entering World War II. "In the rhetoric of ''Citizen Kane''," Mulvey writes, "the destiny of isolationism is realised in metaphor: in Kane's own fate, dying wealthy and lonely, surrounded by the detritus of European culture and history."<ref name="Mulvey"/>{{Rp|15}}

Journalist [[Ignacio Ramonet]] has cited the film as an early example of [[mass media|mass]] [[media manipulation]] of public opinion and the power that media conglomerates have on influencing the democratic process. He believes that this early example of a media mogul influencing politics is outdated and that today "there are media groups with the power of a thousand Citizen Kanes."<ref>{{cite news |last=Ramonet |first=Ignacio |author-link=Ignacio Ramonet |title=Set the media free|newspaper=[[Le Monde diplomatique]]|location=Paris, France |url=http://mondediplo.com/2003/10/01media |date=October 2003 |access-date=December 7, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141009054523/http://mondediplo.com/2003/10/01media |archive-date=October 9, 2014 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Dedijer |first=Miki |title=The man behind Attac |publisher=Dedijer Media AB |location=Stockholm, Sweden |url=http://dedijer.com/article_frames.asp?picts=1&article=The_man_behind_Attac |date=2000 |access-date=December 9, 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304132406/http://dedijer.com/article_frames.asp?picts=1&article=The_man_behind_Attac |archive-date=March 4, 2016}}</ref> Media mogul [[Rupert Murdoch]] is sometimes labeled as a latter-day ''Citizen Kane''.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/2162658.stm |last=Walker |first=Andrew |title=Rupert Murdoch: Bigger than Kane |work=[[BBC News]] |date=July 31, 2002 |access-date=June 21, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110131210822/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/2162658.stm |archive-date=January 31, 2011 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Tuccille |first=Jerome |author-link=Jerome Tuccille |title=Rupert Murdoch: Creator of a Worldwide Media Empire |publisher=Beard Books |location=Washington D.C. |date=1989 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2mj1FcArTE8C&pg=PR14 |isbn=978-1-58798-224-8 |page=xiv |access-date=October 26, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160507051931/https://books.google.com/books?id=2mj1FcArTE8C&pg=PR14 |archive-date=May 7, 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Comparisons have also been made between the career and character of [[Donald Trump]] and Charles Foster Kane.<ref>{{cite news |title= People think this scene from Citizen Kane predicted Trump's reaction to the election 79 years ago |url= https://www.indy100.com/ents/trump-us-election-citizen-kane-9724414 |newspaper= [[The Independent]] |date= November 5, 2020 |first= Greg |last= Evans |access-date= February 18, 2021 |archive-date= April 16, 2021 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20210416085305/https://www.indy100.com/ents/trump-us-election-citizen-kane-9724414 |url-status= dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title= How Trump's Favorite Movie Explains Him |url= https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/06/donald-trump-2016-citizen-kane-213943/ |newspaper= [[Politico]]|date= June 6, 2016|first=Benjamin|last=Hufbauer}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title= Is Donald Trump Charles Foster Kane in disguise? |url= https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/movies/ct-donald-trump-citizen-kane-similarities-politics-20150826-column.html |newspaper=[[Chicago Tribune]]|date=August 26, 2015 |first=Michael|last=Phillips}}</ref> ''Citizen Kane'' is reported to be one of Trump's favorite films, and his biographer [[Timothy L. O'Brien|Tim O'Brien]] has said that Trump is fascinated by and identifies with Kane.<ref>{{cite AV media |people=Tim O'Brien |date= January 20, 2021|title= The Trump Show: Donald Trump and Citizen Kane |medium= Television production |url= https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p094kbgc |publisher= BBC}}</ref>

==Pre-release controversy==
To ensure that Hearst's life's influence on ''Citizen Kane'' was a secret, Welles limited access to [[dailies]] and managed the film's publicity. A December 1940 feature story in ''Stage'' magazine compared the film's narrative to ''[[Faust]]'' and made no mention of Hearst.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|111}}

The film was scheduled to premiere at RKO's flagship theater [[Radio City Music Hall]] on February 14, but in early January 1941 Welles was not finished with post-production work and told RKO that it still needed its musical score.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|205|December 2014}} Writers for national magazines had early deadlines and so a rough cut was previewed for a select few on January 3, 1941<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|111|date=April 2012}} for such magazines as ''[[Life (magazine)|Life]]'', ''[[Look (American magazine)|Look]]'' and ''[[Redbook]]''. Gossip columnist [[Hedda Hopper]] (an arch-rival of [[Louella Parsons]], the Hollywood correspondent for Hearst papers) showed up to the screening uninvited. Most of the critics at the preview said that they liked the film and gave it good advanced reviews. Hopper wrote negatively about it, calling the film a "vicious and irresponsible attack on a great man" and criticizing its corny writing and old fashioned photography.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|205|December 2014}}

''Friday'' magazine ran an article drawing point-by-point comparisons between Kane and Hearst and documented how Welles had led on Parsons.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|111|date=April 2012}} Up until this Welles had been friendly with Parsons. The magazine quoted Welles as saying that he could not understand why she was so nice to him and that she should "wait until the woman finds out that the picture's about her boss." Welles immediately denied making the statement and the editor of ''Friday'' admitted that it might be false. Welles apologized to Parsons and assured her that he had never made that remark.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|205|December 2014}}

[[File:Louella-Parsons-1937.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Film columnist and Hearst employee [[Louella Parsons]] was humiliated by ''Citizen Kane'' and made numerous threats to prevent the film's release.]]
Shortly after ''Friday''{{'}}s article, Hearst sent Parsons an angry letter complaining that he had learned about ''Citizen Kane'' from Hopper and not her. The incident made a fool of Parsons and compelled her to start attacking Welles and the film. Parsons demanded a private screening of the film and personally threatened Schaefer on Hearst's behalf, first with a lawsuit and then with a vague threat of consequences for everyone in Hollywood. On January 10 Parsons and two lawyers working for Hearst were given a private screening of the film.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|206|December 2014}} James G. Stewart was present at the screening and said that she walked out of the film.<ref name="Directors in Action"/>{{Rp|11}}

Soon after, Parsons called Schaefer and threatened RKO with a lawsuit if they released ''Kane''.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|111|date=April 2012}} She also contacted the management of Radio City Music Hall and demanded that they should not screen it.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|206|December 2014}} The next day, the front page headline in ''Daily Variety'' read, "HEARST BANS RKO FROM PAPERS."<ref name="dailyvariety">{{cite magazine |title=Hearst Bans RKO From Papers |magazine=[[Daily Variety]] |date=January 10, 1941}}</ref> Hearst began this ban by suppressing promotion of RKO's ''[[Kitty Foyle (film)|Kitty Foyle]]'',<ref name="Schatz"/>{{Rp|94}} but in two weeks the ban was lifted for everything except ''Kane''.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|111|date=April 2012}}

When Schaefer did not submit to Parsons she called other studio heads and made more threats on behalf of Hearst to expose the private lives of people throughout the entire film industry.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|206|December 2014}} Welles was then threatened with an exposé about his romance with the married actress [[Dolores del Río]], who wanted the affair kept secret until her divorce was finalized.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|207|December 2014}} In a statement to journalists Welles denied that the film was about Hearst. Hearst began preparing an injunction against the film for libel and invasion of privacy, but Welles's lawyer told him that he doubted Hearst would proceed due to the negative publicity and required testimony that an injunction would bring.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|209|December 2014}}

''[[The Hollywood Reporter]]'' ran a front-page story on January 13 that Hearst papers were about to run a series of editorials attacking Hollywood's practice of hiring refugees and immigrants for jobs that could be done by Americans. The goal was to put pressure on the other studios to force RKO to shelve ''Kane''.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|111|date=April 2012}} Many of those immigrants had fled Europe after the rise of fascism and feared losing the haven of the United States.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|209|December 2014}} Soon afterwards, Schaefer was approached by [[Nicholas Schenck]], head of [[Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer]]'s parent company, with an offer on the behalf of [[Louis B. Mayer]] and other Hollywood executives to RKO Pictures of $805,000 to destroy all prints of the film and burn the negative.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|111–112|date=April 2012}}<ref name="thomson2001">{{cite news |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/the-greatest-story-ever-told-sixty-years-of-citizen-kane-682857.html |last=Thomson |first=David |title=The greatest story ever told: Sixty years of Citizen Kane |newspaper=[[The Independent]] |location=London |date=April 28, 2001 |access-date=December 26, 2009}}</ref>

Once RKO's legal team reassured Schaefer, the studio announced on January 21 that ''Kane'' would be released as scheduled, and with one of the largest promotional campaigns in the studio's history. Schaefer brought Welles to New York City for a private screening of the film with the New York corporate heads of the studios and their lawyers.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|112|date=April 2012}} There was no objection to its release provided that certain changes, including the removal or softening of specific references that might offend Hearst, were made.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|112–113|date=April 2012}} Welles agreed and cut the running time from 122 minutes to 119 minutes. The cuts satisfied the corporate lawyers.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|113|date=April 2012}}

==Trailer==
{{Main|Citizen Kane trailer|l1=''Citizen Kane'' trailer}}
[[File:Citizen Kane Trailer (1940).webm|thumb|The film's trailer]]
Now that the film was completed, RKO had to sell it to moviegoers. The usual method was for a studio film editor to compile a montage of highlights for a coming-attractions [[trailer (promotion)|trailer]], which would be shown to audiences shortly before the film came to their local theater. The trailer for ''Citizen Kane'', like the feature, was unusual and radically different from the general run. It was really a pioneer of what is now known as a [[teaser trailer]], which piqued viewers' curiosity about the film without actually revealing any of the content. At the time, it was almost unprecedented for a trailer to ''not'' include any scenes or photos of the film being promoted.

The trailer does include the only existing behind-the-scenes footage of the film: Welles narrates a tour around the film set, introduces the principal cast members, and offers a brief overview of Kane's character.<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|360}} 

While ''Citizen Kane'' is frequently cited as a groundbreaking, influential film, [[Simon Callow]] argues its trailer was no less original in its approach. Callow writes that it has "great playful charm&nbsp;... it is a miniature [[documentary]], almost an introduction to the cinema&nbsp;... Teasing, charming, completely original, it is a sort of conjuring trick: Without his face appearing once on the screen, Welles entirely dominates its five [sic] minutes' duration."<ref name="Callow"/>{{Rp|558–9}}

==Release==
[[File:Citizen Kane poster, 1941 (Style A).jpg|thumb|right|upright|Theatrical release poster {{nowrap|(Style A)}}]]
[[Radio City Music Hall]]'s management refused to screen ''Citizen Kane'' for its premiere. A possible factor was Parsons's threat that ''[[The American Weekly]]'' would run a defamatory story on the grandfather of major RKO stockholder Nelson Rockefeller.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|115|date=April 2012}} Other exhibitors feared being sued for libel by Hearst and refused to show the film.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|216|December 2014}} In March Welles threatened the RKO board of governors with a lawsuit if they did not release the film. Schaefer stood by Welles and opposed the board of governors.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|210|December 2014}} When RKO still delayed the film's release Welles offered to buy the film for $1&nbsp;million and the studio finally agreed to release the film on May 1.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|215|December 2014}}

Schaefer managed to book a few theaters willing to show the film. Hearst papers refused to accept advertising.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|115|date=April 2012}} RKO's publicity advertisements for the film erroneously promoted it as a love story.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|217|December 2014}}

''Kane'' opened at the [[RKO Palace Theatre]] on [[Broadway (Manhattan)|Broadway]] in New York on May 1, 1941,<ref name="AFIcat"/> in Chicago on May 6, and in Los Angeles on May 8.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|115|date=April 2012}} Welles said that at the Chicago premiere that he attended the theater was almost empty.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|216|December 2014}}

===Contemporary response===
Reviews fell into three categories: great, mixed, and negative. The day following the premiere of ''Citizen Kane'', ''[[The New York Times]]'' critic [[Bosley Crowther]] wrote that "it comes close to being the most sensational film ever made in Hollywood... Count on Mr. Welles: he doesn't do things by halves.&nbsp;... Upon the screen he discovered an area large enough for his expansive whims to have free play. And the consequence is that he has made a picture of tremendous and overpowering scope, not in physical extent so much as in its rapid and graphic rotation of thoughts. Mr. Welles has put upon the screen a motion picture that really moves".<ref name="crowther19410502">{{Cite news |last=Crowther |first=Bosley |author-link=Bosley Crowther |date=May 2, 1941 |title=Orson Welles's Controversial 'Citizen Kane' Proves a Sensational Film at Palace |page=25 |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/106087578 |id={{ProQuest|106087578}} }}</ref> [[Cecilia Ager]], reviewing it in ''[[PM (newspaper)|PM]]'', wrote: "Seeing it, it's as if you never really saw a movie before."<ref name="Kael">{{cite magazine |last=Kael |first=Pauline |author-link=Pauline Kael |date=February 12, 1971 |title=Raising Kane |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1971/02/20/raising-kane-i |magazine=[[The New Yorker]]}}</ref>

''[[The Washington Post]]'' called it "one of the most important films in the history" of filmmaking.<ref>Bell, Nelson B. (May 17, 1941).[https://www.proquest.com/docview/151465622/22FE7A725A824D3BPQ/ ''Citizen Kane'', at Keith's, Stamps Welles a Genius: Simple Biographical Story Distinguished By Productional Values That Makes It a Revolutionary Contribution to the Cinema]". ''[[The Washington Post]]''. p. 14.</ref> ''[[The Washington Evening Star]]'' said Welles was a genius who created "a superbly dramatic biography of another genius" and "a picture that is revolutionary".<ref>Carmody, Jay. "Mr Welles' ''Citizen Kane'' Was Well Worth the Wait: His Portrait of a Spectacular Eccentric Is Superbly Made Screen Entertainment, And a Striking One-Man Exploit", ''[[The Washington Evening Star]]'', May 17, 1941, p. B16.</ref> ''[[New York Daily News]]'' critic Kate Cameron called it "one of the most interesting and technically superior films that has ever come out of a Hollywood studio".<ref name="Cameron">{{cite news |last=Cameron |first=Kate |title=Citizen Kane |newspaper=[[Daily News (New York)|New York Daily-News]] |date=May 2, 1941}}</ref> ''[[New York World-Telegram]]'' critic William Boehnel said that the film was "staggering and belongs at once among the greatest screen achievements".<ref name="Boehnel">{{cite news |last=Boehnel |first=William |title=Citizen Kane |publisher=[[New York World-Telegram]] |date=May 2, 1941}}</ref> ''Time'' magazine wrote that "it has found important new techniques in picture-making and story-telling."<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|211|December 2014}} ''[[Life (magazine)|Life]]'' magazine's review said that "few movies have ever come from Hollywood with such powerful narrative, such original technique, such exciting photography."<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|211|December 2014}} [[John Mosher (writer)|John C. Mosher]] of ''The New Yorker'' called the film's style "like fresh air" and raved "Something new has come to the movie world at last."<ref name="Roberts"/>{{Rp|68}} Anthony Bower of ''[[The Nation]]'' called it "brilliant" and praised the cinematography and performances by Welles, Comingore and Cotten.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Bower |first=Anthony |title=Citizen Kane |magazine=[[The Nation]] |location=New York |date=April 26, 1941}}</ref> [[John O'Hara]]'s ''[[Newsweek]]'' review called it the best picture he'd ever seen and said Welles was "the best actor in the history of acting."<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|211|December 2014}} Welles called O'Hara's review "the greatest review that anybody ever had."<ref name="Lunches"/>{{Rp|100}}

In the UK [[C. A. Lejeune]] of ''[[The Observer]]'' called it "The most exciting film that has come out of Hollywood in twenty-five years"<ref>{{cite news |last=Lejeune |first=C. A. |author-link=C. A. Lejeune |title=The most exciting film that has come out of Hollywood in twenty-five years |newspaper=[[The Observer]] |location=London, UK |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/1941/oct/12/derekmalcolmscenturyoffilm |date=October 12, 1941 |access-date=December 11, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141215003710/http://www.theguardian.com/film/1941/oct/12/derekmalcolmscenturyoffilm |archive-date=December 15, 2014 |url-status=live}}</ref> and [[Dilys Powell]] of ''[[The Sunday Times]]'' said the film's style was made "with the ease and boldness and resource of one who controls and is not controlled by his medium."<ref name=Heylin>{{cite book |last=Heylin |first=Clinton |author-link=Clinton Heylin |title=Despite the System: Orson Welles Versus the Hollywood Studios |publisher=[[Chicago Review Press]] |location=Chicago, Illinois |year=2006 |isbn=978-1-55652-547-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/despitesystemors00heyl}}</ref>{{Rp|63|December 2014}} [[Edward Tangye Lean]] of ''[[Horizon (British magazine)|Horizon]]'' praised the film's technical style, calling it "perhaps a decade ahead of its contemporaries."<ref>{{cite news |last=Lean |first=Tangye |author-link=Edward Tangye Lean |title=Pre-War Citizen |publisher=[[Horizon (British magazine)|Horizon]] |location=London, UK |date=November 1941}}</ref>{{efn|Kevin Brownlow believes that Lean's brother [[David Lean|David]] was influential on (if not co-writer of) this review. Years later Welles thanked David Lean for the article.<ref>{{cite book |last=Brownlow |first=Kevin |author-link=Kevin Brownlow |title=David Lean: A Biography |publisher=[[Macmillan Publishers]] |location=London, UK |date=1996 |isbn=978-1-4668-3237-4}}</ref>{{Rp|notes }}}} 

Other reviews were mixed. Edwin Schallert of the ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' said it was brilliant and skillful at times, but had an ending that "rather fizzled".<ref name="schallert19410509">{{Cite news |last=Schallert |first=Edwin |date=1941-05-09 |title=Welles' ''Citizen Kane'' Revolutionary Film|page=18|newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]]|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-los-angeles-times-welles-citizen-k/184116950/ |access-date=2023-04-11}}</ref>  The ''[[Chicago Tribune]]'' called the film interesting and different but "its sacrifice of simplicity to eccentricity robs it of distinction and general entertainment value".<ref>{{Cite news |last=Mae |first=Tinee |date=1941-05-07 |title=''Citizen Kane'' Fails to Impress Critis as Greatest Ever Filmed |page=25|newspaper=[[Chicago Tribune]]|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/chicago-tribune-citizen-kane-spe/149529839/ |access-date=2025-11-01}}</ref> [[Otis Ferguson]] of ''[[The New Republic]]'' said it was "the boldest free-hand stroke in major screen production since [[D. W. Griffith|Griffith]] and [[Billy Bitzer|Bitzer]] were running wild to unshackle the camera", but also criticized its style, calling it a "retrogression in film technique" and stating that "it holds no great place" in film history.<ref name="Ferguson">{{cite magazine |last=Ferguson |first=Otis |author-link=Otis Ferguson |title=Citizen Kane |magazine=[[The New Republic]] |date=June 2, 1941}}</ref> Ferguson reacted to some of the film's celebrated visual techniques by calling them "just willful dabbling" and "the old shell game." In a rare film review, filmmaker [[Erich von Stroheim]] criticized the film's story and non-linear structure, but praised the technical style and performances, and wrote "Whatever the truth may be about it, ''Citizen Kane'' is a great picture and will go down in screen history. More power to Welles!"<ref>{{cite news |last=von Stroheim |first=Erich |author-link=Erich von Stroheim |title=Citizen Kane |publisher=Decision, a review of free culture, Volume 1, number 6 |url=http://www.fredcamper.com/M/VonStroheim.html |date=June 6, 1941 |access-date=December 16, 2014 |pages=91–93 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141211151919/http://www.fredcamper.com/M/VonStroheim.html |archive-date=December 11, 2014 |url-status=live}}</ref> 

Some prominent critics wrote negative reviews. None of them dismissed the film as being altogether bad, noting the film's undeniable technical effects, but they did find fault with the narrative. Eileen Creelman of ''[[The Sun (New York)|The New York Sun]]'' called it "a cold picture, unemotional, a puzzle rather than a drama".<ref name="Higham"/>{{Rp|178}} In his 1941 review for ''[[Sur (magazine)|Sur]]'', [[Jorge Luis Borges]] famously called the film "a labyrinth with no center" and predicted that its legacy would be a film "whose historical value is undeniable but which no one cares to see again."<ref name="Borges">{{cite magazine |last=Borges |first=Jorge Luis |author-link=Jorge Luis Borges |title=El Ciudadano |magazine=[[Sur (magazine)|Sur]], Number 83 |location=Buenos Aires, Argentina |url=http://www.canaltrans.com/lalinternamagica/005.html |date=August 1941 |access-date=December 7, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141220192854/http://www.canaltrans.com/lalinternamagica/005.html |archive-date=December 20, 2014 |url-status=live}}</ref> ''[[The Argus (Australia)|The Argus Weekend Magazine]]'' critic Erle Cox called the film "amazing" but thought that Welles's break with Hollywood traditions was "overdone".<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8231805 |last=Cox |first=Erle |author-link=Erle Cox |title=Screen Realism May Be a Little Too Real |magazine=[[The Argus (Australia)|The Argus Weekend Magazine]] |location=Melbourne, Australia |date=February 7, 1942 |page=6}}</ref> ''[[Tatler]]''{{'}}s [[James Agate]] called it "the well-intentioned, muddled, amateurish thing one expects from high-brows";<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Agate |first=James |author-link=James Agate |title=Citizen Kane |magazine=[[The Tatler]] |date=October 22, 1941 |pages=227–229 |postscript=none}}, reprinted in ''Around Cinemas'' (1946) Home & Van Thal Ltd.</ref> he admitted that it was "a quite good film" but insisted that it "tries to run the psychological essay in harness with your detective thriller, and doesn't quite succeed."<ref>{{cite news |last=Agate |first=James |title=More About Citizen Kane |publisher=[[The Tatler]] |date=November 5, 1941 |pages=229–231 |postscript=none}}, reprinted in ''Around Cinemas'' (1946) Home & Van Thal Ltd.</ref> Other people who disliked the film were [[W. H. Auden]]<ref name="Lunches"/>{{Rp|98}} and [[James Agee]].<ref name= "Lunches"/>{{Rp|99}} After watching the film on January 29, 1942, future British star [[Kenneth Williams]], then aged 15, curtly described the film in his first diary as "boshey rot".<ref>{{cite book |last=Davies |first=Russell |date=1993 |title=The Kenneth Williams Diaries |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=z_Xmifzm8cUC&dq=%22boshey+rot%22+%22citizen+Kane%22&pg=PA2 |publisher=Harper Collins |page=2 |isbn=0-00-638090-5}}</ref>

===Reception from the public===
The film did well in cities and larger towns, but it fared poorly in more remote areas. RKO still had problems getting exhibitors to show the film. For example, one chain controlling more than 500 theaters got Welles's film as part of a package but refused to play it, reportedly out of fear of Hearst.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|117|date=April 2012}} Hearst's disruption of the film's release damaged its box office performance and, as a result, it lost $160,000 during its initial run.<ref name="Jewell">{{cite book |last1=Jewell |first1=Richard B. |last2=Harbin |first2=Vernon |title=The RKO Story |publisher=[[Arlington House Publishers]]/[[Crown Publishing Group]] |location=New York |date=1982 |isbn=978-0-517-54656-7}}</ref>{{Rp|164|date=April 2012}}<ref name="rko">{{cite news |last=Jewell |first=Richard |title=RKO Film Grosses: 1931–1951 |publisher=Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol 14 No 1 |date=1994 |page=45}}</ref> The film earned $23,878 during its first week in New York. By the ninth week it only made $7,279. Overall it lost money in New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., but made a profit in Seattle.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|216|December 2014}}

Moviegoers who saw the picture generally spread negative word of mouth among their neighbors, and exhibitors in the United States and Canada were not shy about voicing their reactions, as published in ''Motion Picture Herald''. A few theater owners were discerning, recognizing the startling new techniques but conceding the poor box office performance: "Is likely to make your auditorium resound from vacuousness like the giant stone walls in Kane's incredible castle. Boxoffice or no boxoffice, this unusual film is without doubt a step toward elevating the artistic plane of the motion picture in general."<ref>C. T. Cooney. Jr., Waldo Theatre, Waldoboro, Maine, published in ''Motion Picture Herald'', Dec. 13, 1941, p. 46.</ref> A college-town exhibitor reported, "I thought it was fine, as did the majority of people who attended the performances. However, there were some who either did not like it or did not get it. Business was just average."<ref>W. Varick Nevins III, Alfred Co-op Theatre, Alfred, N. Y., published in ''Motion Picture Herald'', Nov. 29, 1941, p. 70.</ref> "Don't try to tell me Orson Welles isn't a genius; herein he has produced a mighty fine picture, and herewith he has established for me the lowest gross that I have ever, ever experienced. I would have sworn that such ridiculous receipts were utterly impossible. If you cater to film connoisseurs, this picture is made for you. But me, I hurt all over."<ref>Delmare C. Fox, Fox Theatre, Alberta, Canada, published in ''Motion Picture Herald'', Feb. 8, 1942, p. 52.</ref> Others were more blunt: "Nobody liked this and said so. We took in just enough to pay for it so considered ourselves very lucky."<ref>Al Eliasen, Koronis Theatre, Paynesville, Minnesota, published in ''Motion Picture Herald'', May 30, 1942, p. 45.</ref> "One day after showing this we still feel hesitant about walking abroad without an escort. Half of the few dozen that paid to see this masterpiece walked out, and the other half remained only to think up new dirty cracks to cast in our direction on the way out."<ref>A. C. Edwards, Winema Theatre, Scotia, California, published in ''Motion Picture Herald'', May 23, 1942, p. 50.</ref> "High priced picture. But I made a little money on my help. They took off three days because they were afraid of being all alone in the theatre."<ref>Saul Korman, Grant Theatre, Detroit, Michigan, published in ''Motion Picture Herald'', Mar. 7, 1942, p. 78.</ref> "You can stand in front of a mirror and call yourself 'sucker' when you play this one. It does not have one redeeming feature. It will not draw; those that do come will not know what it is all about."<ref>A. E. Andrews, Emporium Theatre, Emporium, Pennsylvania, published in ''Motion Picture Herald'', Mar. 7, 1942, p. 78.</ref> A Minnesota exhibitor summed up the situation for rural areas: "My patrons still don't know what it was all about. Too long and too deep. No boxoffice value to small towns."<ref>E. L. Danielson, Castle Theatre, Mabel, Minnesota, published in ''Motion Picture Herald'', Mar. 7, 1942, p. 78.</ref>

===Hearst's response===
Hearing about ''Citizen Kane'' enraged Hearst so much that he banned any advertising, reviewing, or mentioning of it in his papers, and had his journalists [[libel]] Welles.<ref name="thomson2001"/> Welles used Hearst's opposition as a pretext for previewing the film in several opinion-making screenings in Los Angeles, lobbying for its artistic worth against the hostile campaign that Hearst was waging.<ref name="thomson2001"/> A special press screening took place in early March. Henry Luce was in attendance and reportedly wanted to buy the film from RKO for $1&nbsp;million to distribute it himself. The reviews for this screening were positive. A ''Hollywood Review'' headline read: "Mr. Genius Comes Through; 'Kane' Astonishing Picture". The ''[[Motion Picture Herald]]'' reported about the screening and Hearst's intention to sue RKO. [[Time (magazine)|''Time'']] wrote that "The objection of Mr. Hearst, who founded a publishing empire on sensationalism, is ironic. For to most of the several hundred people who have seen the film at private screenings, ''Citizen Kane'' is the most sensational product of the U.S. movie industry." A second press screening occurred in April.<ref name="Schatz"/>{{Rp|94}}

When Schaefer rejected Hearst's offer to suppress the film, Hearst banned every newspaper and station in his media [[Conglomerate (company)|conglomerate]] from reviewing—or even mentioning—the film. He also had many movie theaters ban it, and many did not show it through fear of being socially exposed by his massive newspaper empire.<ref name="Street, Sarah 1996">{{cite magazine |last=Street |first=Sarah |title=Citizen Kane |magazine=History Today |date=March 1996}}</ref> The Oscar-nominated documentary ''[[The Battle Over Citizen Kane]]'' solely blames the failure of ''Citizen Kane'' on Hearst's actions. The film did decent business at the box office; it went on to be the sixth highest grossing film in its year of release, a modest success its backers found acceptable. Nevertheless, the film's commercial performance fell short of its creators' expectations.<ref name="PBS"/> Hearst's biographer David Nasaw points out that Hearst's actions were not the only reason ''Kane'' failed, however: the innovations Welles made with narrative, as well as the dark message at the heart of the film (that the pursuit of success is ultimately futile) meant that a popular audience could not appreciate its merits.<ref name="Nasaw">{{cite book |last=Nasaw |first=David |author-link=David Nasaw |title=The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst |url=https://archive.org/details/chieflifeofwilli0000nasa |url-access=registration |publisher=[[Houghton Mifflin Harcourt]] |location=Boston, MA |date=2000 |isbn=0-395-82759-0}}</ref>{{Rp|572–573|date=April 2012}}

Hearst's attacks against Welles went beyond attempting to suppress the film. Welles said that while he was on his post-filming lecture tour a police detective approached him at a restaurant and advised him not to go back to his hotel. A 14-year-old girl had reportedly been hidden in the closet of his room, and two photographers were waiting for him to walk in. Knowing he would be jailed after the resulting publicity, Welles did not return to the hotel but waited until the train left town the following morning. "But that wasn't Hearst," Welles said, "that was a hatchet man from the local Hearst paper who thought he would advance himself by doing it."<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|85–86}}

In March 1941, Welles directed a Broadway version of [[Richard Wright (author)|Richard Wright]]'s ''[[Native Son]]'' (and, for luck, used a "Rosebud" sled as a prop). ''[[Native Son (play)|Native Son]]'' received positive reviews, but Hearst-owned papers used the opportunity to attack Welles as a communist.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|213|December 2014}} The Hearst papers vociferously attacked Welles after his April 1941 radio play, "His Honor, the Mayor",<ref>{{cite web |url=https://archive.org/details/otr_freecompany |title=His Honor, the Mayor |date=April 6, 1941 |publisher=Internet Archive |access-date=February 21, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151009225441/https://archive.org/details/otr_freecompany |archive-date=October 9, 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref> produced for The Free Company radio series on CBS.<ref name="Bret Wood">{{cite book |last=Wood |first=Bret |author-link=Bret Wood |title=Orson Welles: A Bio-Bibliography |publisher=Greenwood Press |location=Westport, Connecticut |date=1990 |isbn=0-313-26538-0}}</ref>{{Rp|113}}<ref name="Wellesnet His Honor">{{cite web |url=http://www.wellesnet.com/?p=186 |title=Orson Welles defends American civil liberties in His Honor the Mayor |publisher=Wellesnet.com |date=August 4, 2007 |access-date=December 26, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131224030954/http://www.wellesnet.com/?p=186 |archive-date=December 24, 2013 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Welles described his chance encounter with Hearst in an elevator at the [[Fairmont San Francisco|Fairmont Hotel]] on the night ''Citizen Kane'' opened in San Francisco. Hearst and Welles's father were acquaintances, so Welles introduced himself and asked Hearst if he would like to come to the opening. Hearst did not respond. "As he was getting off at his floor, I said, 'Charles Foster Kane would have accepted.' No reply", recalled Welles. "And Kane would have, you know. That was his style—just as he finished Jed Leland's bad review of Susan as an opera singer."<ref name="Welles TIOW"/>{{Rp|49–50}}{{r|chawkins20120123}}

In 1945, Hearst journalist Robert Shaw wrote that the film got "a full tide of insensate fury" from Hearst papers, "then it ebbed suddenly. With one brain cell working, the chief realized that such hysterical barking by the trained seals would attract too much attention to the picture. But to this day the name of Orson Welles is on the official son-of-a-bitch list of every Hearst newspaper".<ref name="Roberts">{{cite book |last=Roberts |first=Jerry |title=The Complete History of American Film Criticism |publisher=Santa Monica Press LLC |location=Santa Monica, California|date=2010 |isbn=978-1-59580-049-7}}</ref>{{Rp|102}}

Despite Hearst's attempts to destroy the film, since 1941 references to his life and career have usually included a reference to ''Citizen Kane'', such as the headline "Son of Citizen Kane Dies" for the obituary of Hearst's son.<ref>{{cite news |last=King |first=Susan |title=Raising 'Kane' With Hearst : An 'American Experience' Recounts the Attempts of the Publishing Magnate to Quash a Film Masterpiece |newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]]|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-01-28-tv-29475-story.html |date=January 28, 1996 |access-date=December 11, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141223030428/http://articles.latimes.com/1996-01-28/news/tv-29475_1_citizen-kane |archive-date=December 23, 2014 |url-status=live}}</ref> In 2012, the Hearst estate agreed to screen the film at Hearst Castle in San Simeon, breaking Hearst's ban on the film.<ref name=chawkins20120123>{{cite news |last=Chawkins |first=Steve |title=Family 'Citizen Kane' gets inside the castle |newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]]|url=https://www.latimes.com/local/la-xpm-2012-jan-23-la-me-citizen-kane-20120123-story.html |date=January 23, 2012 |access-date=December 11, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141221115331/http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jan/23/local/la-me-citizen-kane-20120123 |archive-date=December 21, 2014 |url-status=live}}</ref>

== Re-evaluation==
Modern critics have given ''Citizen Kane'' an even more positive response. Review aggregation website [[Rotten Tomatoes]] reports that 99% of 133 critics gave the film a positive review, with an average rating of 9.70/10.<ref name="Rotten Tomatoes">{{Cite web |title=Citizen Kane (1941) |url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/citizen_kane |work=[[Rotten Tomatoes]] |date=May 1941 |publisher=[[Fandango Media]] |access-date=September 29, 2025 |archive-date=June 10, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190610183403/https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/citizen_kane/ |url-status=live }}</ref> In April 2021, it was noted that the addition of an 80-year-old negative review from the ''[[Chicago Tribune]]'' reduced the film's rating from [[List of films with a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes|100%]] to 99% on the site; ''Citizen Kane'' held its 100% rating until early 2021.<ref>{{cite news |last=Pulver |first=Andrew |title=80-year-old review wrecks Citizen Kane's 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/apr/28/80-year-old-review-wrecks-citizen-kanes-100-rating-on-rotten-tomatoes |access-date=April 28, 2021 |work=The Guardian |date=April 28, 2021}}</ref> On [[Metacritic]], however, the film still has a rare weighted average score of 100 out of 100 based on 19 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".<ref name="Metacritic">{{Cite web |title=Citizen Kane (1941) Reviews |work=[[Metacritic]] |publisher=[[Red Ventures]] |url=https://www.metacritic.com/movie/citizen-kane-1941 |access-date=March 25, 2022 }}</ref>

The film was included by the Vatican in [[Vatican's list of films|a list of important films]] compiled in 1995, under the category of "Art".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://old.usccb.org/movies/vaticanfilms.shtml |title=Vatican Best Films List |work=Official website of the [[United States Conference of Catholic Bishops|U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops]] |access-date=2012-04-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120422064928/http://old.usccb.org/movies/vaticanfilms.shtml |archive-date=2012-04-22 |url-status=dead }}</ref> The February 2020 issue of ''[[New York Magazine]]'' lists ''Citizen Kane'' as among "The Best Movies That Lost Best Picture at the Oscars."<ref>{{cite news|title=The Best Movies That Lost Best Picture at the Oscars|url=https://www.vulture.com/article/best-oscar-best-picture-losers.html|magazine=[[New York Magazine]]|access-date=March 17, 2025}}</ref>

[[Roger Ebert]] wrote of it: "Its surface is as much fun as any movie ever made. Its depths surpass understanding. I have analyzed it a shot at a time with more than 30 groups, and together we have seen, I believe, pretty much everything that is there on the screen. The more clearly I can see its physical manifestation, the more I am stirred by its mystery."<ref name="Ebert">{{cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |author-link=Roger Ebert |date=May 24, 1998 |title=Great Movies: Citizen Kane |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-citizen-kane-1941 |work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]]}}</ref>

===Accolades===

{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders"
|-
! Award
! Category
! Nominee(s)
! Result
|-
| rowspan="9"| [[14th Academy Awards|Academy Awards]]<ref name="Oscars1942">{{cite web |url=http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1942 |title=The 14th Academy Awards (1942) Nominees and Winners |date=October 3, 2014 |publisher=Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science |access-date=November 29, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402003256/http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1942 |archive-date=April 2, 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref>
| [[Academy Award for Best Picture|Outstanding Motion Picture]]
| [[Mercury Theatre|Mercury]]
| {{nom}}
|-
| [[Academy Award for Best Director|Best Director]]
| rowspan="2"| [[Orson Welles]]
| {{nom}}
|-
| [[Academy Award for Best Actor|Best Actor]]
| {{nom}}
|-
| [[Best Original Screenplay]]
| [[Herman J. Mankiewicz]] and Orson Welles
| {{won}}
|-
| [[Academy Award for Best Production Design|Best Art Direction–Interior Decoration – Black-and-White]]
| [[Perry Ferguson]], [[Van Nest Polglase]], [[Al Fields]] and [[Darrell Silvera]]
| {{nom}}
|-
| [[Academy Award for Best Cinematography|Best Cinematography – Black-and-White]]
| [[Gregg Toland]]
| {{nom}}
|-
| [[Academy Award for Best Film Editing|Best Film Editing]]
| [[Robert Wise]]
| {{nom}}
|-
| [[Academy Award for Best Original Score|Best Scoring of a Dramatic Picture]]
| [[Bernard Herrmann]]
| {{nom}}
|-
| [[Academy Award for Best Sound|Best Sound Recording]]
| [[John Aalberg]]
| {{nom}}
|-
| [[DVD Exclusive Awards]]
| Best Audio Commentary
| [[Roger Ebert]]
| {{won}}
|-
| rowspan="4"| [[National Board of Review Awards 1941|National Board of Review Awards]]<ref>{{Cite journal |date=January 1942 |title=Ten Best 1941 |url=https://archive.org/stream/nationalboardofr1415nati#page/4/mode/1up |journal=National Board of Review Magazine |publisher=[[National Board of Review]] |volume=XVII |issue=1 |page=4 |access-date=February 23, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160326141648/http://archive.org/stream/nationalboardofr1415nati#page/4/mode/1up |archive-date=March 26, 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |date=January 1942 |title=Ten Best 1941 |url=https://archive.org/stream/nationalboardofr1415nati#page/6/mode/1up |journal=National Board of Review Magazine |publisher=[[National Board of Review]] |volume=XVII |issue=1 |page=6 |access-date=February 23, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160326141648/http://archive.org/stream/nationalboardofr1415nati#page/6/mode/1up |archive-date=March 26, 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref>
| colspan="2"| [[National Board of Review Award for Best Film|Best Film]]
| {{won}}
|-
| colspan="2"| [[National Board of Review: Top Ten Films|Top Ten Films]]
| {{won}}
|-
| rowspan="2"| Best Acting
| [[George Coulouris]]
| {{won}}
|-
| Orson Welles
| {{won}}
|-
| [[National Film Preservation Board]]
| colspan="2"| [[National Film Registry]]
| {{won|Inducted}}
|-
| rowspan="3"| [[1941 New York Film Critics Circle Awards|New York Film Critics Circle Awards]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nyfcc.com/awards/?awardyear=1941 |title=1941 Awards |publisher=[[New York Film Critics Circle]] |access-date=February 23, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304093319/http://www.nyfcc.com/awards/?awardyear=1941 |archive-date=March 4, 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref>
| colspan="2"| [[New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Film|Best Film]]
| {{won}}
|-
| [[New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director|Best Director]]
| rowspan="2"| Orson Welles
| {{nom}}
|-
| [[New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor|Best Actor]]
| {{nom}}
|-
| Online Film & Television Association Awards
| colspan="2"| Hall of Fame – Motion Picture
| {{won}}
|-
| [[Online Film Critics Society Awards 2001|Online Film Critics Society Awards]]
| colspan="2"| Best Overall DVD
| {{nom}}
|-
| [[16th Satellite Awards|Satellite Awards]]
| [[Satellite Award for Best Classic DVD|Best Classic DVD]]
| ''Citizen Kane: Ultimate Collector's Edition''
| {{nom}}
|-
| [[38th Saturn Awards|Saturn Awards]]
| [[Saturn Award for Best Special Edition DVD Release|Best DVD/Blu-Ray Special Edition Release]]
| ''Citizen Kane: 70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition''
| {{nom}}
|-
| [[Village Voice Film Poll]]
| colspan="2"| Best Film of the Century
| {{won}}
|}

[[File:Citizen-Kane-Welles-Coulouris.jpg|thumb|right|The [[National Board of Review]] recognized both Welles and [[George Coulouris]] for their performances in ''Citizen Kane'', which was also voted the best film of 1941.]]
It was widely believed the film would win most of its [[Academy Award]] nominations, but it received only the award for [[Best Original Screenplay]]. ''Variety'' reported that block voting by screen extras deprived ''Citizen Kane'' of [[Academy Award for Best Picture|Best Picture]] and [[Academy Award for Best Actor|Best Actor]], and similar prejudices were likely to have been responsible for the film receiving no technical awards.<ref name="Carringer TMOCK"/>{{Rp|117}}<ref>{{Cite journal |date=March 4, 1942 |title=Extras Scuttled Welles |url=https://archive.org/stream/variety145-1942-03#page/n3/mode/1up |journal=Variety |access-date=February 23, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170317171257/http://www.archive.org/stream/variety145-1942-03#page/n3/mode/1up |archive-date=March 17, 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref>

==Legacy==
{{main|Legacy of Citizen Kane|l1=Legacy of ''Citizen Kane''}}
''Citizen Kane'' was the only film made under Welles's original contract with RKO Pictures, which gave him complete creative control.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|223}} Welles's new business manager and attorney permitted the contract to lapse. In July 1941,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.wellesnet.com/jack-moss-the-man-who-ruined-welles/ |title=Jack Moss: The Man Who Ruined Welles? |last=Wilson |first=Jeff |date=November 29, 2006 |website=Wellesnet |access-date=April 12, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160630155335/http://www.wellesnet.com/jack-moss-the-man-who-ruined-welles/ |archive-date=June 30, 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.wellesnet.com/orson-welless-the-magnificent-ambersons-turns-70-triumph-or-tragedy/ |title=The Memos—Orson Welles' ''The Magnificent Ambersons'' turns 70: Triumph or Tragedy? |last=French |first=Lawrence |date=March 2, 2012 |website=Wellesnet |access-date=April 12, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160313035207/http://www.wellesnet.com/orson-welless-the-magnificent-ambersons-turns-70-triumph-or-tragedy/ |archive-date=March 13, 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref> Welles reluctantly signed a new and less favorable deal with RKO<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|223}} under which he produced and directed ''[[The Magnificent Ambersons (film)|The Magnificent Ambersons]]'' (1942), produced ''[[Journey into Fear (1943 film)|Journey into Fear]]'' (1943), and began ''[[It's All True (film)|It's All True]]'', a film he agreed to do without payment. In the new contract Welles was an employee of the studio<ref>{{cite news |last=Brady |first=Thomas |date=November 16, 1941 |title=Genius Under Stress: Spending RKO's Money Worries Orson Welles |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1941/11/16/archives/spending-rkos-money-worries-orson-welles-four-on-the-road-back.html |newspaper=The New York Times |access-date=April 12, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180729051833/https://www.nytimes.com/1941/11/16/archives/spending-rkos-money-worries-orson-welles-four-on-the-road-back.html |archive-date=July 29, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> and lost the right to final cut, which later allowed RKO to modify and re-cut ''The Magnificent Ambersons'' over his objections.<ref name="Leaming OW"/>{{Rp|223}} In June 1942, Schaefer resigned the presidency of RKO Pictures and Welles's contract was terminated by [[Charles Koerner|his successor]].<ref name="Wellesnet Memos"/>

The European release of ''Kane'' was delayed until after World War II, premiering in Paris in 1946. Initial reception by French critics was influenced by negative views from [[Jean-Paul Sartre]] and [[Georges Sadoul]], who criticized Hollywood's cultural sophistication and the film's nostalgic use of flashbacks. However, critic [[André Bazin]] delivered a transformative speech in 1946 that shifted public opinion. Bazin praised the film for its innovative use of [[mise-en-scène]] and [[deep focus]] cinematography, advocating for a filmic realism that allows audiences to engage more actively with the narrative. Bazin's essays, especially "The Technique of Citizen Kane", played a crucial role in enhancing the film's reputation, arguing it revolutionized film language and aesthetics. His defense of ''Citizen Kane'' as a work of art influenced other critics and contributed to a broader re-evaluation of the film in Europe and the United States.<ref name=WIC>{{cite book |last=Bazin |first=André |author-link=André Bazin |translator-last=Gray |translator-first=Hugh |year=1950 |chapter=The Evolution of the Language of Cinema |chapter-url=https://archive.org/stream/Bazin_Andre_What_Is_Cinema_Volume_1#page/n32/mode/1up |title=What is Cinema? |publisher=University of California Press |location=Oakland, California|publication-date=1967 |pages=23–40 |isbn=978-0-520-24227-2}}</ref>{{Rp|37}}

In the U.S., the film was initially neglected until it began appearing on television in the 1950s and was re-released in theaters. American film critic [[Andrew Sarris]] was significant in reviving its reputation, describing it as a profoundly influential American film. Over the decades, ''Citizen Kane'' has been consistently ranked highly in critical surveys and polls, often cited as the greatest film ever made.'<ref name="Sight & Sound"/>

The film's narrative structure, cinematography and themes have influenced countless filmmakers and films worldwide, asserting its place as a cornerstone in the [[history of cinema]]. [[Martin Scorsese]] recalls: "I saw ''Citizen Kane'' on TV...And I began to become aware of editing and camera positions...Welles was not afraid of being self-conscious with the camera and making self-referential remarks with the camera."<ref name=AFI/> [[Steven Spielberg]] says <blockquote>It means everything to me... It is an icon of courage...It's about courage and audacity, and I'm making this my way, and I'm going to make this my way, and I'm going to deepen the focus...we're going to see from one inch to infinity in every shot, and we're going to see ceilings, and we're going to tell a very convoluted mystery story about a man's life. It is just one of the greatest movies ever made.<ref name=AFI/></blockquote> In 1982, Spielberg bought one of the prop sleds from ''Citizen Kane''. Spielberg called ''Kane'' 'the most classic movie ever made," and the sled "a symbolic emblem of quality in the film business."<ref>{{cite news| title=Sled of 'Citizen Kane' Brings $60,500| date=June 11, 1982| work=[[The New York Times]]| url= https://www.nytimes.com/1982/06/11/movies/sled-of-citizen-kane-brings-60500-sled-in-citizen-kane-is-sold-for-60500.html}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://tiff.net/cinematheque/orsonwelleslostandfound/citizen-kane |last=Quandt |first=James |title=Citizen Kane |publisher=[[Toronto International Film Festival]] |location=Toronto, Ontario, Canada |date=2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150107075132/http://tiff.net/cinematheque/orsonwelleslostandfound/citizen-kane |archive-date=January 7, 2015 |access-date=May 29, 2015}}</ref>

[[Roger Ebert]] wrote: 
{{Blockquote |text=
''Citizen Kane'' knows that the sled is not the answer. It explains what Rosebud is, but not what Rosebud means. The film's construction shows how our lives, after we're gone, survive only in the memories of others, and those memories butt up against the walls we erect and the roles we play. There is the Kane who made shadow figures with his fingers, and the Kane who hated the traction trust; the Kane who chose his mistress over his marriage and political career, the Kane who entertained millions, the Kane who died alone.}}

{{Blockquote |text=There is a master image in ''Citizen Kane'' that you might easily miss. The tycoon has overextended himself and is losing control of his empire. After he signs the papers of his surrender, he turns and walks into the back of the shot. Deep focus allows Welles to play a trick of perspective. Behind Kane on the wall is a window that seems to be of ordinary size. But as he walks towards it, we see it is farther away and much higher than we thought. Eventually he stands beneath its lower sill, shrunken and diminished. Then as he walks towards us, his stature grows again. A man always seems the same size to himself, because he does not stand where we stand when we look at him.<ref name=Ebert/>}}

==Rights and home media==
The composited camera negative of ''Citizen Kane'' is believed to be lost forever. The most commonly reported explanation is that it was destroyed in a New Jersey film laboratory fire in the 1970s. However, in 2021, [[Nicolas Falacci]] revealed that he had been told "the real story" by a colleague, when he was one of two employees in the film restoration lab which assembled the 1991 "restoration" from the best available elements. Falacci noted that throughout the process he had daily visits in 1990-91 from an unnamed "older RKO executive showing up every day – nervous and sweating". According to Falacci's colleague, this elderly man was keen to cover up a clerical error he had made decades earlier when in charge of the studio's inventory, which had resulted in the original camera negatives being sent to a silver reclamation plant, destroying the [[nitrate film]] to extract its valuable silver content. Falacci's account is impossible to verify, but it would have been fully in keeping with industry standard practice for many decades, which was to destroy prints and negatives of countless older films deemed non-commercially viable, to extract the silver.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.wellesnet.com/citizen-kane-negative/ |last=Falacci |first=Nicolas |author-link=Nicolas Falacci |title=Negative for 'Citizen Kane' may be lost forever |newspaper=Wellesnet |date=February 27, 2021 |access-date=February 28, 2021}}</ref>

Subsequent prints were derived from a master positive (a fine-grain preservation element) made in the 1940s and originally intended for use in overseas distribution.<ref>{{cite book |last1=McGreevey |first1=Tom |last2=Yeck |first2=Joanne L. |title=Our Movie Heritage |publisher=[[Rutgers University Press]] |location=New Brunswick, New Jersey|date=1997 |isbn=0-8135-2431-8 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/ourmovieheritage0000mcgr/page/135 135–36] |url=https://archive.org/details/ourmovieheritage0000mcgr/page/135}}</ref> Modern techniques were used to produce a pristine print for a 50th Anniversary theatrical reissue in 1991 which [[Paramount Pictures]] released for then-owner [[Turner Broadcasting System]],<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/20/movies/for-citizen-kane-a-fresh-start-at-50.html |last=Rohter |first=Larry |author-link=Larry Rohter |title=For 'Citizen Kane,' a Fresh Start at 50 |newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=February 20, 1991 |access-date=February 6, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170611053838/http://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/20/movies/for-citizen-kane-a-fresh-start-at-50.html |archive-date=June 11, 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref> which earned $1.6&nbsp;million in North America<ref name="Mojo">{{cite web |title=Citizen Kane (1941) |website=[[Box Office Mojo]] |url=http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=citizenkane.htm |access-date=December 8, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006101036/http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=citizenkane.htm |archive-date=October 6, 2014 |url-status=live}}</ref> and {{US$|1.8 million|long=no}} worldwide.<ref name="Paducah">{{cite news |last1=Thomas |first1=Bob |title=Treasure trove: Recycling movie classics financial success for film studio |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-paducah-sun-treasure-trove-recyclin/184115696/ |access-date=21 April 2022 |work=[[The Paducah Sun]] |via=[[Newspapers.com]] |date=3 August 1992 |page=58}}</ref>

In 1955, RKO sold the American television rights to its film library, including ''Citizen Kane'', to [[C&C Group|C&C Television Corp.]]<ref>{{cite book |last=Boddy |first=William |title=Fifties Television: The Industry and Its Critics |publisher=[[University of Illinois Press]] |location=Champaign, Illinois |date=1993 |access-date=November 29, 2014 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sWjhCESKy4AC&q=c%26c%20%2B%20rko%20%2B%201955&pg=PA138 |isbn=978-0-252-06299-5 |archive-date=November 14, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201114035151/https://books.google.com/books?id=sWjhCESKy4AC&pg=PA138&q=c%26c+%2B+rko+%2B+1955&hl=en |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1960, television rights to the pre-1959 RKO's live-action library were acquired by [[United Artists]]. RKO kept the non-broadcast television rights to its library.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=McCormick |first=Moira |title=RKO Focuses On Upscale Market for Classic Films |magazine=[[Billboard (magazine)|Billboard]] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UiQEAAAAMBAJ&q=%22rko%20home%20video%22%2B%20%22citizen%20kane%22%2B%201984&pg=PT75 |date=August 23, 1986 |page=64 |access-date=October 5, 2018 |archive-date=November 14, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201114035140/https://books.google.com/books?id=UiQEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT75&sqi=2&q=%22rko+home+video%22%2B+%22citizen+kane%22%2B+1984 |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 1976, when home video was in its infancy, entrepreneur [[Snuff Garrett]] bought cassette rights to the RKO library for what [[United Press International]] termed "a pittance". In 1978 The Nostalgia Merchant released the film through [[Media Home Entertainment]]. By 1980 the 800-title library of The Nostalgia Merchant was earning $2.3&nbsp;million a year. "Nobody wanted cassettes four years ago," Garrett told UPI. "It wasn't the first time people called me crazy. It was a hobby with me which became big business."<ref>{{cite news |last=Scott |first=Vernon |title=Nostalgia King |publisher=United Press International |date=October 11, 1980}}</ref> RKO Home Video released the film on [[VHS]] and [[Betamax]] in 1985.<ref>{{cite book |title=Citizen Kane (Film, 1985) |publisher=[[WorldCat]] |oclc = 016396308}}</ref>

On December 3, 1984, [[The Criterion Collection]] released the film as its first [[LaserDisc]].<ref>{{Cite tweet |author=Criterion Collection |author-link=The Criterion Collection |user=Criterion |number=672452401195040771 |date=December 3, 2015 |title=On this day in 1984, we released our first laserdisc: Orson Welles' CITIZEN KANE. |script-title= |trans-title= |language= |retweet= |location= |access-date=April 18, 2023 |link= |quote= |ref=}}</ref> It was made from a fine grain master positive provided by the [[UCLA Film and Television Archive]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/840-citizen-kane |last=Smith |first=Roger P. |title=From the Current&nbsp;– ''Citizen Kane'' |publisher=[[The Criterion Collection]] |access-date=March 29, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120603064847/http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/840-citizen-kane |archive-date=June 3, 2012 |url-status=live}}</ref> When told about the then-new concept of having an [[audio commentary]] on the disc, Welles was skeptical but said "theoretically, that's good for teaching movies, so long as they don't talk nonsense."<ref name="Lunches"/>{{Rp|283}} In 1992 Criterion released a new 50th Anniversary Edition LaserDisc. This version had an improved transfer and additional special features, including the documentary ''The Legacy of Citizen Kane'' and Welles's early short "[[The Hearts of Age]]".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.dvduell.de/criterion_website/criterion/catalogpage-58.html |title=Criterion: Citizen Kane: 50th Anniversary Edition |publisher=The Criterion Collection |access-date=July 31, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923221011/http://www.dvduell.de/criterion_website/criterion/catalogpage-58.html |archive-date=September 23, 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Turner Broadcasting System acquired broadcast television rights to the RKO library in 1986<ref>{{cite news |url=http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1986-03-26/business/8601220602_1_turner-broadcasting-system-ua-mgm |title=Turner Acquires MGM/UA |newspaper=[[Chicago Tribune]]|date=March 26, 1986 |access-date=December 28, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120129121208/http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1986-03-26/business/8601220602_1_turner-broadcasting-system-ua-mgm |archive-date=January 29, 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref> and the full worldwide rights to the library in 1987.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-12-10-fi-27906-story.html |title=Turner Buys Rights to 800 RKO Movies |newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]]|date=December 10, 1987 |access-date=December 28, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120120172828/http://articles.latimes.com/1987-12-10/business/fi-27906_1_rko-movie |archive-date=January 20, 2012 |url-status=live}}</ref> The RKO Home Video unit was reorganized into Turner Home Entertainment that year.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/1992/03/29/an-ok-for-rko/ |newspaper=[[Chicago Tribune]]|title=An OK For RKO |first=Richard|last=Fuller|date=March 29, 1992 |access-date=January 30, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120808172047/http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1992-03-29/entertainment/9201290077_1_old-time-hollywood-studios-turner-label-orson-welles |archive-date=August 8, 2012 |url-status=live}}</ref> In 1991 Turner released a 50th Anniversary Edition on VHS and as a collector's edition that includes the film, the documentary ''Reflections On Citizen Kane'', Harlan Lebo's 50th anniversary album, a poster and a copy of the original script.<ref>{{cite news |last=Wilkinson |first=Jack E. |title=VideoView – UPI Arts & Entertainment; What's new on the home video scene&nbsp;... |publisher=United Press International |location=Washington D.C. |date=August 29, 1991}}</ref> In 1996, [[Time Warner]] acquired Turner and [[Warner Home Video]] absorbed Turner Home Entertainment.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/1996/11/14/time-warner-phasing-out-turner-pictures-time/ |title=Time Warner phasing out Turner Pictures: Time Warner Inc |newspaper=[[Chicago Tribune]]|date=November 14, 1996 |access-date=December 28, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120130234600/http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1996-11-14/news/9611150315_1_turner-broadcasting-system-turner-pictures-time-warner |archive-date=January 30, 2012 |url-status=live}}</ref> In 2011, [[Time Warner]]'s [[Warner Bros.]] unit had distribution rights for the film.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www2.warnerbros.com/citizenkane/ |title=Citizen Kane |publisher=Warner Brothers |access-date=July 8, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111022174009/http://www2.warnerbros.com/citizenkane/ |archive-date=October 22, 2011 |url-status=live}}</ref>

In 2001, Warner Home Video released a 60th Anniversary Collectors Edition [[DVD]]. The two-disc DVD included feature-length commentaries by [[Roger Ebert]] and [[Peter Bogdanovich]], as well as a second DVD with the feature-length documentary ''[[The Battle Over Citizen Kane]]'' (1999). It was simultaneously released on VHS.<ref>{{cite book |title=Citizen Kane (VHS tape, 2001) |publisher=WorldCat |oclc = 48011082}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |first=Enrique |last=Rivero |url=http://www.hive4media.com/news/html/Product_article.cfm?article_id=1384 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010715124739/http://www.hive4media.com/news/html/Product_article.cfm?article_id=1384 |title=Warner Brings Orson Welles' 'Citizen Kane' to DVD Sept 25 |website=hive4media.com |archive-date=July 15, 2001 |date=June 29, 2001 |access-date=September 7, 2019|url-status=live}}</ref> The DVD was criticized for being "{{em|too}} bright, {{em|too clean}}; the dirt and grime had been cleared away, but so had a good deal of the texture, the depth, and the sense of film grain."<ref name="Kaplan">{{cite web |url=http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/dvdextras/2011/09/buy_the_citizen_kane_bluray.html |last=Kaplan |first=Fred |title=Buy the Citizen Kane Blu-ray |publisher=slate.com |date=September 13, 2011 |access-date=December 7, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141209204555/http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/dvdextras/2011/09/buy_the_citizen_kane_bluray.html |archive-date=December 9, 2014 |url-status=live}}</ref>

In 2003, Welles's daughter Beatrice Welles sued Turner Entertainment, claiming the Welles estate is the legal [[copyright]] holder of the film. She claimed that Welles's deal to terminate his contracts with RKO meant that Turner's copyright of the film was null and void. She also claimed that the estate of Orson Welles was owed 20% of the film's profits if her copyright claim was not upheld. In 2007 she was allowed to proceed with the lawsuit, overturning the 2004 decision in favor of Turner Entertainment on the issue of video rights.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-may-31-fi-kane31-story.html |title=Welles' daughter could get profit from 'Kane' |first=Josh|last=Friedman|newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]]|access-date=August 8, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111225143835/http://articles.latimes.com/2007/may/31/business/fi-kane31 |archive-date=December 25, 2011 |url-status=live}}</ref>

In 2011, it was released on [[Blu-ray]] and DVD in a 70th anniversary edition.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/movies/new-dvds-citizen-kane-going-places-birth-of-a-nation.html |last=Taylor |first=Charles |title=The New Season DVDs: Movies That Said, 'Look What I Can Do' |newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=September 16, 2011 |access-date=February 6, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180513224203/https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/movies/new-dvds-citizen-kane-going-places-birth-of-a-nation.html |archive-date=May 13, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> It was called “the Blu-ray release of the year” by the ''[[San Francisco Chronicle]]'', ironically owned by the Hearst family at this point.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/20/PK8B1LGVAR.DTL |last=Johnson |first=G. Allen |title=DVD Review: ''Citizen Kane'' |publisher=[[San Francisco Chronicle]] (1996) |date=October 23, 2011}}</ref> Supplements included everything available on the 2001 Warner Home Video release, including ''The Battle Over Citizen Kane'' DVD. A 70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition added a third DVD with ''[[RKO 281]]'' (1999), an award-winning [[TV movie]] about the making of the film. Its packaging extras included a hardcover book and a folio containing mini reproductions of the original souvenir program, lobby cards, and production memos and correspondence.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/50668/citizen-kane/ |last=McQuain |first=Christopher |title=Citizen Kane (Blu-ray) |publisher=[[DVD Talk]] |date=September 7, 2011 |access-date=March 27, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120502092849/http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/50668/citizen-kane/ |archive-date=May 2, 2012 |url-status=live}}</ref> The transfer for the US releases were scanned as [[4K resolution]] from three different 35mm prints and rectified the quality issues of the 2001 DVD.<ref name="Kaplan"/> The rest of the world continued to receive home video releases based on the older transfer. This was partially rectified in 2016 with the release of the 75th Anniversary Edition in both the UK and US, which was a straight repackaging of the main disc from the 70th Anniversary Edition.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.dvdcompare.net/comparisons/film.php?fid=1145 |title=DVDCompare.net: ''Citizen Kane'' (1941) DVD |access-date=March 24, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180324223856/http://www.dvdcompare.net/comparisons/film.php?fid=1145 |archive-date=March 24, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.dvdcompare.net/comparisons/film.php?fid=19703 |title=DVDCompare.net: ''Citizen Kane'' (1941) Blu-ray |access-date=March 24, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180324224030/http://www.dvdcompare.net/comparisons/film.php?fid=19703 |archive-date=March 24, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref>

On August 11, 2021, Criterion announced their first [[Ultra HD Blu-ray]] releases, a six-film slate, would include ''Citizen Kane''. Criterion indicated each title was to be available in a combo pack including a 4K UHD disc of the feature film as well as the film and special features on the companion Blu-rays.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Machkovech |first1=Sam |title=Criterion announces support for 4K UHD Blu-ray, beginning with Citizen Kane |url=https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/08/criterion-announces-support-for-4k-uhd-blu-ray-beginning-with-citizen-kane/ |access-date=August 12, 2021 |work=Ars Technica |date=August 11, 2021 |language=en-us}}</ref> ''Citizen Kane'' was released on November 23, 2021, as a 4K and 3-Blu-ray-disc package. However, the release was recalled because at the half-hour mark on the regular Blu-ray, the contrast fell sharply, which resulted in a much darker image than what was supposed to occur.<ref>{{cite news |title=How to Get Your ''Citizen Kane'' Blu⁠-⁠ray Disc 1 Replaced |url=https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/7615-how-to-get-your-citizen-kane-blu-ray-disc-1-replaced |date=November 24, 2021|access-date=November 25, 2021 |work=Criterion |language=en-us}}</ref> However, this issue does not affect the 4K disc.

===Colorization controversy===
In the 1980s, ''Citizen Kane'' became a catalyst in the controversy over the [[film colorization|colorization]] of [[black-and-white]] films. One proponent of film colorization was [[Ted Turner]],<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1986/11/04/movies/council-opposes-coloring-old-films.html |last=Molotsky |first=Irwin |title=Council Opposes Coloring Old Films |newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=November 4, 1986 |access-date=January 7, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140121055017/http://www.nytimes.com/1986/11/04/movies/council-opposes-coloring-old-films.html |archive-date=January 21, 2014 |url-status=live}}</ref> whose Turner Entertainment Company owned the RKO library.<ref>{{cite news |title=TBS acquires rights to RKO film and television library |publisher=[[Business Wire]] |date=December 9, 1987}}</ref> A Turner Entertainment spokesperson initially stated that ''Citizen Kane'' would not be colorized,<ref>{{cite news |last=O'Toole |first=Lawrence |title=No computer coloring for 'Kane' |newspaper=[[The Globe and Mail]] |date=December 18, 1987}}</ref> but in July 1988 Turner said, "''Citizen Kane?'' I'm thinking of colorizing it."<ref>{{cite news |last=Bawden |first=James |title=Colorful Turner sees ''Citizen Kane'' in a different light |newspaper=[[Toronto Star]] |date=July 28, 1988}}</ref> In early 1989 it was reported that two companies were producing color tests for Turner Entertainment. Criticism increased when filmmaker Henry Jaglom stated that shortly before his death Welles had implored him "don't let Ted Turner deface my movie with his crayons."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://apnews.com/4c23402df90437fb0816882f7e22ff27 |title=Turner Says It's Testing To Colorize 'Citizen Kane' |publisher=Associated Press |date=January 30, 1989 |access-date=January 5, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140106042154/http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1989/Turner-Says-It-s-Testing-To-Colorize-Citizen-Kane-/id-4c23402df90437fb0816882f7e22ff27 |archive-date=January 6, 2014 |url-status=live}}</ref>

In February 1989, Turner Entertainment President Roger Mayer announced that work to colorize the film had been stopped due to provisions in Welles's 1939 contract with RKO that "could be read to prohibit colorization without permission of the Welles estate."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://apnews.com/3da27b3969212eb7885db3dbd81b597e |last=Antczyk |first=John |title=We'll Never Know If Rosebud Was Red |publisher=Associated Press |date=February 14, 1989 |access-date=January 5, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140106042152/http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1989/We-ll-Never-Know-If-Rosebud-Was-Red/id-3da27b3969212eb7885db3dbd81b597e |archive-date=January 6, 2014 |url-status=live}}</ref> Mayer added that Welles's contract was "quite unusual" and "other contracts we have checked out are not like this at all."<ref>{{cite news |title=Turner won't colorize 'Kane' |publisher=[[United Press International]] |date=February 14, 1989 }}</ref> Turner had only colorized the final [[Reel#Motion picture terminology|reel]] of the film before abandoning the project. In 1991 one minute of the colorized test footage was included in the BBC ''[[Arena (UK TV series)|Arena]]'' documentary ''The Complete Citizen Kane''.{{efn| The colorized ''Citizen Kane'' footage appears at approximately 1:17:00.}}<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.wellesnet.com/the-complete-citizen-kane-is-now-online/ |title=The Complete Citizen Kane' documentary is now online |publisher=Wellesnet |date=May 13, 2013 |access-date=January 1, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150101213935/http://www.wellesnet.com/the-complete-citizen-kane-is-now-online/ |archive-date=January 1, 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref>

The colorization controversy was a factor in the passage of the [[National Film Preservation Act]] in 1988 which created the National Film Registry the following year. [[ABC News (United States)|ABC News]] anchor [[Peter Jennings]] reported that "one major reason for doing this is to require people like the broadcaster Ted Turner, who's been adding color to some movies and re-editing others for television, to put notices on those versions saying that the movies have been altered".<ref>{{cite news |last=Jennings |first=Peter |author-link=Peter Jennings |title=World News Tonight |publisher=[[ABC News (United States)|ABC News]] Transcripts, [[American Broadcasting Company]] |date=September 19, 1989 |title-link=ABC World News }}</ref>

==Bibliography==
{{div col|colwidth=45em}}
* [[André Bazin|Bazin, André]]. ''The Technique of Citizen Kane''. Paris, France: Les Temps modernes 2, number 17, 1947. pp.&nbsp;943–949.
* Biskind, Peter (ed.), Jaglom, Henry and Welles, Orson. ''My Lunches with Orson: Conversations between Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles''. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2013. {{ISBN|978-0-8050-9725-2}}.
* Bogdanovich, Peter and Welles, Orson. ''[[This is Orson Welles]]''. HarperPerennial 1992. {{ISBN|0-06-092439-X}}
* Bogdanovich, Peter and Welles, Orson (uncredited). "The Kane Mutiny", in ''Esquire'', October 1972.{{efn|Reprinted in Gottesman, Ronald (ed.). ''Focus on Citizen Kane''. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1976. {{ISBN|0-13-949214-3}}}}{{efn|Excerpted in "My Orson", Bogdanovich's new introduction to the second edition of ''This is Orson Welles''<ref name="Welles TIOW2">{{cite book |last1=Welles |first1=Orson |author-link1=Orson Welles |last2=Bogdanovich |first2=Peter |author-link2=Peter Bogdanovich |last3=Rosenbaum |first3=Jonathan |author-link3=Jonathan Rosenbaum |title=This is Orson Welles |edition=2nd |publisher=[[Da Capo Press]] |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |date=1998 |pages=vii–xxxix |chapter=My Orson [new introduction by Peter Bogdanovich] |isbn=978-0-306-80834-0|title-link=This is Orson Welles}}</ref>{{Rp|xxiv–xxvii}}}}
* Brady, Frank. ''Citizen Welles: A Biography of Orson Welles''. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1989. {{ISBN|0-385-26759-2}}.
* Callow, Simon. ''Orson Welles: The Road to Xanadu''. London: Jonathan Cape, 1995. {{ISBN|0-224-03852-4}}
* Carringer, Robert L. ''The Making of Citizen Kane''. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985. {{ISBN|0-520-05367-2}} hardcover; 1996 revised and updated edition {{ISBN|0-520-20567-7}} paperback
* Carringer, Robert L. "The Scripts of ''Citizen Kane''", in ''[[Critical Inquiry]]'' No. 5, 1978.{{efn|Reprinted in Gottesman, Ronald (ed.). ''Perspectives on Citizen Kane''. New York: G. K. Hall & Co., 1996. {{ISBN|978-0-8161-1616-4}}}}{{efn|Reprinted in Naremore, James (ed.). ''Orson Welles's Citizen Kane: A Casebook in Criticism''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. {{ISBN|978-0-19-515892-2}}}}
* Cook, David A. ''A History of Narrative Film''. W.W. Norton Company, 2004. {{ISBN|0-393-97868-0}}
* Gottesman, Ronald (ed.). ''Focus on Citizen Kane''. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1976. {{ISBN|0-13-949214-3}}
* Gottesman, Ronald (ed.). ''Perspectives on Citizen Kane''. New York: G. K. Hall & Co., 1996. {{ISBN|978-0-8161-1616-4}}
* Heylin, Clinton. ''Despite the System: Orson Welles Versus the Hollywood Studios'', Chicago Review Press, 2005. {{ISBN|1-55652-547-8}}
* Howard, James. ''The Complete Films of Orson Welles''. New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1991. {{ISBN|0-8065-1241-5}}.
* Kael, Pauline, Welles, Orson and Mankiewicz, Herman J. ''The Citizen Kane Book''. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1971.{{efn|Contains Kael's controversial essay "[[Raising Kane]]", originally printed in ''The New Yorker'' (February 20 and 27, 1971), as well as the full script by Mankiewicz and Welles.}}
* Leaming, Barbara. ''Orson Welles, A Biography''. New York: Viking Press, 1985. {{ISBN|978-0-618-15446-3}}.
* Meryman, Richard. ''Mank: The Wit, World and Life of Herman Mankiewicz''. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1978. {{ISBN|978-0-688-03356-9}}.
* Mulvey, Laura. ''Citizen Kane''. London: British Film Institute, 1992. {{ISBN|0-85170-339-9}}
* Naremore, James (ed.). ''Orson Welles's Citizen Kane: A Casebook in Criticism''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. {{ISBN|978-0-19-515892-2}}
* Nasaw, David. ''The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst''. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. {{ISBN|978-0-618-15446-3}}
* Rippy, Marguerite H. ''Orson Welles and the Unfinished RKO Projects: A Postmodern Perspective''. Southern Illinois University Press, Illinois, 2009. {{ISBN|978-0-8093-2912-0}}
* Rosenbaum, Jonathan. "I Missed It at the Movies: Objections to 'Raising Kane'", in ''[[Film Comment]]'', Spring 1972.{{efn|Reprinted in Rosenbaum, Jonathan (ed.). ''Discovering Orson Welles''. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007, {{ISBN|978-0-520-25123-6}}}}
* Stern, Sydney Ladensohn. ''The Brothers Mankiewicz: Hope, Heartbreak, and Hollywood Classics''. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2019. {{ISBN|978-1617032677}}
{{div col end}}

==See also==
*[[List of cult films]]

==Notes==
{{notelist|1}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{Sister project links|d=Q24815|commons=category:Citizen Kane|n=no|b=no|v=no|voy=no|mw=no|s=no|m=no|species=no|wikt=no}}

===Database===
* {{Official website|http://www2.warnerbros.com/citizenkane/}}
* {{AFI film|27624|Citizen Kane}}
* {{IMDb title|33467|Citizen Kane}}
* {{Metacritic film|title=Citizen Kane}}
* {{Rotten Tomatoes|citizen_kane|Citizen Kane}}
* {{TCMDb title|89|Citizen Kane}}
* [https://data.cinemabelgica.be/film/36023 Citizen Kane] at [https://www.cinemabelgica.be/s/cinemabelgica/page/database Cinema Belgica]

===Other===
* [https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/7613-citizen-kane-the-once-and-future-kane "''Citizen Kane'': The Once and Future Kane"], essay by [[Bilge Ebiri]] on [[The Criterion Collection]]
* [https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/kane.pdf ''Citizen Kane'' essay] by [[Godfrey Cheshire]] on the National Film Registry website
* ''Citizen Kane'' essay by Daniel Eagan in [https://books.google.com/books?id=deq3xI8OmCkC ''America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry''], A&C Black, 2010 {{ISBN|0826429777}}, pp.&nbsp;735–737
* [https://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/wellesbib.html#kane ''Citizen Kane'' bibliography] via the UC Berkeley Media Resources Center
* [http://www.afi.com/100years/movies10.aspx The American Film Institute's "100 Greatest Movies" list]
* [http://www.americanmusicpreservation.com/CitizenKanefilmscore.htm ''Citizen Kane'' and Bernard Herrmann's film score]
* [https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/kane2/ PBS: ''Citizen Kane''] (Archived)
* [http://arquivo.pt/wayback/20090713051923/http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/45/kane.htm ''Bright Lights Film Journal'' Essay]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120711082553/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F19980524%2FREVIEWS08%2F401010334%2F1023 Roger Ebert: ''Citizen Kane'']
* [http://hem.bredband.net/b139242 ''The Unofficial Citizen Kane Page'']
* [https://entertainment.time.com/2005/02/12/all-time-100-movies/slide/citizen-kane-1941-2/ ''Time'' Magazine Top 100]
* [https://www.filmsite.org/citi.html Greatest films]
* [http://www.dvdjournal.com/reviews/c/citizenkane.shtml DVD review]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120422005046/http://www.moviemoviesite.com/Films/1941/citizen_kane/secret_life/contents.htm "Scene-by-scene analysis"] at Movie Movie

{{Citizen Kane}}
{{Orson Welles}}
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| title = Awards for ''Citizen Kane''
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{{National Board of Review Award for Best Film}}
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[[Category:Citizen Kane| ]]
[[Category:1941 films]]
[[Category:1940s American films]]
[[Category:1940s business films]]
[[Category:1940s English-language films]]
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[[Category:1941 drama films]]
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[[Category:American business films]]
[[Category:American drama films]]
[[Category:American nonlinear narrative films]]
[[Category:Censorship in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Films about Adolf Hitler]]
[[Category:Cultural depictions of Neville Chamberlain]]
[[Category:Drama films based on actual events]]
[[Category:Expressionist films]]
[[Category:Films à clef]]
[[Category:Films about mass media owners]]
[[Category:Films about media manipulation]]
[[Category:Films about newspaper publishing]]
[[Category:Films about opera]]
[[Category:Films about tabloid journalism]]
[[Category:Films about mass media in the United States]]
[[Category:Films directed by Orson Welles]]
[[Category:Films scored by Bernard Herrmann]]
[[Category:Films set in New York City]]
[[Category:Films set in Florida]]
[[Category:Everglades in fiction]]
[[Category:Films set in 1871]]
[[Category:Films set in 1898]]
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[[Category:Films set in the 1910s]]
[[Category:Films set in the 1920s]]
[[Category:Films set in the 1930s]]
[[Category:Films set in 1941]]
[[Category:Films set in country houses]]<!--Xanadu-->
[[Category:Films set in libraries]]
[[Category:Films shot in San Diego]]
[[Category:Films whose writer won the Best Original Screenplay Academy Award]]
[[Category:Films with screenplays by Herman J. Mankiewicz]]
[[Category:Films with screenplays by Orson Welles]]
[[Category:RKO Pictures films]]
[[Category:Spanish–American War films]]
[[Category:United States National Film Registry films]]
[[Category:Works about William Randolph Hearst]]
[[Category:English-language drama films]]