Hats off again to HBO for making another great docu-drama about the making of Citizen Kane. I suppose its difficult to dramatize the mundane qualities of making movies but everything from the how the scripting, cinematography, music scoring, and Welles perfection at directing sequences are dramatized with great effect here. Even legendary music composer Bernard Herrmann is portrayed in this as a professional who kicks Welles out of the scoring studio. I found the best perfomance to come from James Cromwell as William Randolph Hearst, a declining power-hungry publisher who uses all his remaining resources to destroy Welles and the picture. I found Liev Schreiber's performance less convincing though because Welles is a much more difficult character to portray and in real-life is still misunderstood. The most interesting sequence that was probably dramatized was when the heads of all the studios conferred to buy the prints of Kane. The expressions on the faces of the studio bosses said it all because they were all in the film business and must have hated caving into pressure from Hearst to quash someone else's film. Biggest fictional scene - Welles and Hearst in the elevator when Hearst foretold the rest of Welles life - that Welles made a film ahead of time and would never again be given the autonomy to make a film like Kane for the rest of his life because he didnt play by the rules.
Review of RKO 281
