The Rosebud Connection: William Friedkin Discusses Today's Pick - Citizen Kane!

In perfect concert with today's Pick, I get to finally present the following article.

I was lucky enough to recently attend a screening of Orson Welles' CITIZEN KANE as part of a comprehensive tribute to the filmmaker this past January. I was luckier still to have a real-live honest-to-goodness auteur in attendance to discuss the one-time greatest film ever made (yer wrong about VERTIGO, Sight & Sound!). Discuss being the key word here, as master filmmaker and New Hollywood legend William Friedkin, who made a graceful afford of his time and experience and insight, remained quite insistent that a Q&A was impossible, as the only legit A in that equation would be Orson himself. So he proffered the notion of a back and forth between himself and the audience, as fans of the film engaging in conversation over a beloved classic, as equals. Here is a partial transcript of that evening;

William Friedkin: Bernard Hermann, who I'm sure many of you know wrote a lot of scores for Hitchcock, I went to meet with Bernard after Hitchcock had rejected a number of his scores. He'd left the US and moved to London. He wasn't doing a lot of work or taking a lot of assignments. I came to him and ran for him the rough cut of THE EXORCIST. He came out of the screening room, he was a salty old guy from, I think, the Bronx, and he said, "I think I might be able to save this piece of shit movie you made." He said, "Just leave it with me and I'll see what I can do with it." He said, "First, get rid of that crazy scene in the beginning, in the desert, with the guys in the turbans, what is that scene? What is it? You probably won't get rid of it because it cost you a bundle to film, but it means nothing and it kills your picture." I asked, "Could you just tell me what you have in mind?" He said, " Yes. There's a small church in London, St. Giles in Cambden, it's got the most beautiful organ sound I've ever heard. And I'll do the whole score, in that church, with that organ!" And I replied, "You wanna score THE EXORCIST with a church organ?"

I said, "You really don't want any input from me, at all, about what I think the score for the picture should be?" He said, "Kid, how many pictures have you made?" I think, at that point, I'd made four, five maybe. He said, "I scored CITIZEN KANE, kid! You're gonna tell me what you want for your score? For this piece of junk?"

I stood up and put out my hand and said, "Thank you for letting me meet you. You're an interesting person."

I tell that story somewhat humorously, but it's probably one of the saddest moments I've ever experienced in my career, because I really respected him. I love his work, and I think there's no one better, and this score (to CITIZEN KANE) really seals his reputation for me.

Would anyone like to, y'know, just start off and talk about this? Not as a Q&A, I dunno what the hell, y'know? I know everything I've ever read about this movie, a lot of it conflicting, but I'd love to hear from you guys!

Q: I was just curious, I know Hitchcock started in the German silent cnema and carried that influence with him for the rest of his career. Do you think Welles was similarly influenced, in the areas of lighting and production design? There seems a certain surreal grandiosity about KANE.

WF: When Welles went to Hollywood he had a wish list of films he wanted to see. Films by John Ford, in particular STAGECOACH, which he claimed to have watched 40 times. He did admire the Expressionists, above all Fritz Lang. There was a woman at RKO who'd prepared for him strips of film which were annotated, that indicated what a long shot was, what a medium shot was, what a close-up looked like, and he had these strips of film and a notebook, and he very often changed them out.

Welles also spent a day in every workshop at RKO, learning about the capacity of the lighting, what the mounts could do, what the lenses could do. For a year he gave himself a tutorial in moviemaking. He was certainly not the first filmmaker to use ceilings in a film, nor the first to utilize the kind of flashback structure seen in KANE. There were very few things that were done for the first time by Welles. To borrow a phrase from Mae West, it ain't what he did, it was the way that he did it. That's what makes this film so unique and original. He took existing techniques and put them together in a way that was unique.

Q: You know this business better than anybody, why do you think Orson Welles never again achieved such greatness, or fulfilled his true promise, in the wake of KANE?

WF: Well, many film historians feel he made better films. I think he made a number of interesting films, but not this good. Where do you go if you start there? (Mild audience chuckle of agreement) If you begin with CITIZEN KANE, what the hell you gonna do? Well, his second film might've been equally as great if the studio didn't take it from him. They say there was something like 40 minutes taken out after a preview in Pasadena, where the audience laughed.

You know the famous quote, when he first came to Hollywood. Welles said, "This is the biggest and best electric train set a boy could ever have!" And then they took the trains away from him. I don't know, maybe that's an answer to your question. There's some other movies that I really like, of course TOUCH OF EVIL. There's a lot of good or great, even brilliant films. You can go out now and there are a handful of very good to great movies playing right now.

There's only one CITIZEN KANE. For me, that's it. It doesn't get any better than that.

Q: It's not only amazing that he wrote and directed this film, but that he was the star. Is it harder or easier to direct yourself?

WF: Only a handful of people have ever done it with any success at all! Chaplin, of course. You'd have to say Mel Gibson. But the names come hard, where a guy gives a performance like that, where he ages 50 years and is convincing at all ages. But he knew what was best for him. I imagine there were few who who ever really successfully directed him as best as himself. He began, unfortunately, to slide right after this film, but thankfully the movie gods have left us with this masterpiece! Of all the talent working in the industry this day, I don't know anybody who could direct this kind of performance out of themselves, let alone supervise every other aspect of production as well.

Q: You've watched this film so many times. Do you identify a singular moment where he loses his soul or is it gradual?

WF: I think it's gradual. I think it starts in the very first scene where he leaves his mother. I think the sled (spoliers ahead) represents the last time he was really loved by someone just for himself. A very wonderful concept.

I don't know how many of you are aware of the rumor that has made the rounds over the decades regarding the real meaning of the name Rosebud, as pertains to William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies. I have no way of knowing whether this is true or not, or how ayone other than Hearst and Davies would have known this, but apparently (screenwriter Herman J.) Mankiewicz put out the gossip that that was Hearst's nickname for Davies' genitalia. For the longest time Welles declared that this was not a depiction of Hearst, that to call this Hearst was an insult to both Hearst and CITIZEN KANE. But, y'know, it was Hearst! And the newspaper mogul finally saw it in the presence of Welles' first wife, Virginia Nicholson, who Orson divorced after 4 years of marriage, and who had later married the producer Charles Lederer. Marion Davies' nephew. Lederer and the former Mrs. Welles had travelled to San Simeon for a getaway, and lo and behold they screened a print of CITIZEN KANE. Hearst, who'd done everything in his power to ban the picture, destroy Welles, destroy RKO, stood after the screening, smiled and left without a word.

It was a pleasure to share this with you, and to hear, from the last row, not a sound. Not just no talking or texting, not a sound! You were such a wonderful and attentive audience, if I could sense anything about the great master, the great Orson Welles, it's that he would've appreciated this screening a whole helluva lot! Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. F.

Orson Welles' CITIZEN KANE screens its last today as part of its weeklong booking at MoMA. Rosebud's just a sled, Yeah right.

For more info on these and all NYC's classic film screenings in April '15 click on the interactive calendar on the upper right hand side of the page. For reviews of contemporary cinema and my streaming habits (keep it clean!) check out my Letterboxd page. And be sure to follow me on both Facebook, where I provide further info and esoterica on the rep film circuit and star birthdays, and Twitter, where I provide a daily feed for the day's screenings and other blathery. Back soon with new Picks 'n perks, til then safe, sound, make sure the next knucklehead is too!

JoeW@NitrateStock.net

P. S. We're mercifully feeling the loosening of winter's embrace, but believe it or not some of our fellow NY'ers have still yet to be made whole in the wake of the 2012 storm. Should you be feeling charitable please visit the folks at OccupySandy.net, follow their hammer-in-hand efforts to restore people's lives, and donate/volunteer if you have the inclination and availability. Be a collective mensch, Stockahz!