Citizen Kane 4K review
"Charles Foster Kane was a man who got everything he wanted, and then lost it. Maybe Rosebud was something he couldn't get or lost. No, I don't think it explains anything. I don't think any word explains a man's life. No guess Rosebud is just a piece in a jigsaw puzzle - a missing piece."
You probably know by now that Rosebud was the name for his Universal Remote Control.
Citizen Kane is the first 4K movie released by the Criterion Collection. Criterion, since my Laser Discs days had released great restored editions of great and interesting movies. Often with wonderful features. Urged to release movies in 4K they finally started and 1941’s Citizen Kane is one of their first.
This is just a great movie, one of the greatest ever made, with, of course, great direction, great photography and a great script.
Briefly, a reporter tries to discover the key to the life of Charles Foster Kane, a newspaper publisher. The movie is not told in chronological order, but is very easy to follow. The photography, even by today standards is exceptional and helps teel the story. The score, very present on this edition but not so much on the old TV versions of this two hour film, is also impressive.
There are massive bonus features and commentaries. But sadly, no original negative. So the movie was restored using many different masters and prints of the movie. First, it looks really nice, better than the blu-ray, but not that much better. The blacks are blacker and there are no noticeable scratches. But here are scenes with a great deal of grain. Deliberately, the newsreel at the beginning of the picture is made to look like a newsreel, with scratches and stuff. But Citizen Kane has neve, in my lifetime, looked better than this, it looks great. And it sounds great too, but no better than the last Criterion Blu Ray.
- In the 4K UHD edition: One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and three Blu-rays with the film and special features
- Three audio commentaries: from 2021 featuring Orson Welles scholars James Naremore and Jonathan Rosenbaum; from 2002 featuring filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich; and from 2002 featuring film critic Roger Ebert
- The Complete “Citizen Kane,” (1991), a rarely seen feature-length BBC documentary
- New interviews with critic Farran Smith Nehme and film scholar Racquel J. Gates
- New video essay by Orson Welles scholar Robert Carringer
- New program on the film’s special effects by film scholars and effects experts Craig Barron and Ben Burtt
- Interviews from 1990 with editor Robert Wise; actor Ruth Warrick; optical-effects designer Linwood Dunn; Bogdanovich; filmmakers Martin Scorsese, Henry Jaglom, Martin Ritt, and Frank Marshall; and cinematographers Allen Daviau, Gary Graver, and Vilmos Zsigmond
- New documentary featuring archival interviews with Welles
- Interviews with actor Joseph Cotten from 1966 and 1975
- The Hearts of Age, a brief silent film made by Welles as a student in 1934
- Television programs from 1979 and 1988 featuring appearances by Welles and Mercury Theatre producer John Houseman
- Program featuring a 1996 interview with actor William Alland on his collaborations with Welles
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