When Orson Welles’ masterpiece Citizen Kane first hit cinemas in 1941, the newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst was distinctly unimpressed: The similarities between himself and Welles’ creation Charles Foster Kane were too strong to be ignored. The press baron went out of his way to derail the movie.
Now, more than 70 years later, it seems his family has finally forgiven Welles — who wrote, directed and starred in the film aged 26 — and has agreed to a screening of Citizen Kane at Hearst Castle visitor center in California.
The screening, on March 9, will be part of the San Luis Obispo international film festival. Hearst’s former home, Hearst Castle, (fictionalized as Xanadu in the film) was donated to the state in 1957, six years after his death, and now attracts a million tourists a year. The festival director, Wendy Eidson, told the Los Angeles Times it was likely to be the first time the Welles classic had been seen on Hearst’s sprawling estate, which its owner referred to as La Cuesta Encantada (The Enchanted Hill).
“I tossed out the idea of screening Citizen Kane there as a joke, and they didn’t laugh,” Eidson said. “I was sort of floored.”
However the media mogul’s great grandson Steve Hearst said the viewing was “a great opportunity to draw a clear distinction between WR and Orson Welles, between the medieval, gloomy-looking castle shown in Citizen Kane and the light, beautiful, architecturally superior reality.”
Hearst’s efforts to destroy Citizen Kane are legendary. He is said to have lobbied against it with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which decides the Oscars, resulting in How Green Was My Valley winning best film in 1942 in its place. Hearst also kept advertisements for the movie out of his many newspapers, and one of his allies in Hollywood is even said to have tried to buy the footage in order to burn it before the movie’s release. Another story is that the FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover launched a decade-long investigation into Welles as a result of Hearst’s anger.
Hearst is said to have been particularly incensed at the depiction in Welles’ film of Kane’s companion, Susan Alexander, an alcoholic singer. Hearst was romantically involved with a successful actor, Marion Davies. Welles once said that she was not the basis for Alexander.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
CONFIDENCE BOOSTER: ’After parkour ... you dare to do a lot of things that you think only young people can do,’ a 67-year-old parkour enthusiast said In a corner of suburban Singapore, Betty Boon vaults a guardrail, crawls underneath a slide, executes forward shoulder rolls and scales a steep slope, finishing the course to applause. “Good job,” the 69-year-old’s coach cheers. This is “geriatric parkour,” where about 20 retirees learned to tackle a series of relatively demanding exercises, building their agility and enjoying a sense of camaraderie. Boon, an upbeat grandmother, said learning parkour has aided her confidence and independence as she ages. “When you’re weak, you will be dependent on someone,” she said after sweating it out with her parkour classmates in suburban Toa Payoh,
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
Chinese dissident artist Gao Zhen (高兟), famous for making provocative satirical sculptures of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東), was tried on Monday over accusations of “defaming national heroes and martyrs,” his wife and a rights group said. Gao, 69, who was detained in 2024 during a visit from the US, faces a maximum three-year prison sentence, said his wife, Zhao Yaliang (趙雅良), and Shane Yi, a researcher at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders group which operates outside the nation. The closed-door, one-day trial took place at Sanhe City People’s Court in Hebei Province neighboring the capital, Beijing, and ended without a
RSS