RKO 281 (2000)

This is more of a shot docudrama with big name actors in it, rather than a movie that tells a real story. To me this movie was lacking a bit of a point and it didn't achieved much with its story or characters. It's a quite distant movie in which everything remains on the surface. Questions such as who was Orson Welles, why was he such a genius and how "Citizen Kane" influenced basically all later cinema are hardly being answered or handled at all. As a matter of fact this movie isn't even really about Orson Welles or the shooting of "Citizen Kane" at all. It's more about the battle of getting the movie made and eventually released.The movie does have some interesting things in it, that explain how "Citizen Kane" got first thought off, what the influences were and how it caused lots of troubles for the persons and studios involved but it does this in such an observe documentary kind of way that you just never feel involved with the story or any of its characters. The movie just doesn't always flow well and it doesn't always know to keep its main focus on the right things.Of course the movie is not horrible, for a made for TV-production it's simply still a quite good one, with some good production values and a great cast involved.Unfortunately it's not a really well cast movie. Sure it has big names n it but big names aren't everything. Was Liev Schreiber really the best pick to play Orson Welles? I just don't think so. I like Liev as an actor but more as a supporting actor. Some actors just aren't suitable to play important main leads. He of course also looks very little like Orson Welles. The movie also has further more James Cromwell, John Malkovich, Fiona Shaw and Melanie Griffith but it's perhaps only Roy Scheider who knows to make an great and lasting impression with his role.Worth a go if you're already a bit familiar with Orson Welles and the movie "Citizen Kane", otherwise this movie will hardly keep your interest throughout with its superficial, more documentary-like, telling of the story6/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

I was impressed, after having seen this film, as I could not imagine any actor that could carry out the role of Orson Welles. Liev Schreiber does a masterful job of the undeniable legendary filmmaker. Indeed I was well pleased with almost all of the performances except the actor who played Joseph Cotton, who seemed too shallow to me. None the less this film laid bare the dirty underside of the era of the great Studio Bosses and the implacable viciousness of William Randolph Hearst a Jew hating, bigoted Nazi sympathizing Meglomaniac who once said, "give me a picture and I'll give you a war" as his yellow journalism empire more or less caused the Spanish-American war of 1898. While the studio bosses were no better, those two vindictive harpies Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons ruined many people's lives at the behest of Hearst. It was little wonder that with his fall from power theirs followed. It took the idealism of young Orson Welles, who almost became a Hearst himself, before reining in his lust for power to make what is the greatest picture of all time. Until now the complete back story of what it cost to accomplish the making of that film has never really been known. And here, for the first time we learn the true answer to the famous question of Citizen Kane, what was rosebud?

The most remarkable thing about RKO 281 (subtitled "The Battle Over Citizen Kane") is that not only is it sympathetic to William Randolph Hearst and his paramour Marian Davies, but it also paints a less then flattering picture of film icon Orson Welles.Every film buff worth his popcorn knows, or at least should know, the legend of CITIZEN KANE: Welles, the brilliant, but naive Boy Wonder, takes Hollywood by storm with his amazing and groundbreaking first picture, but falls victim to the tyranny of the cruel, thin-skinned billionaire Hearst, who tries to destroy the brilliant work of art. It is the David and Goliath saga of Tinseltown, with an art triumphs over commerce subtext. But the makers of this made-for-cable drama have opted to pull a switcheroo. Just as Welles bravely (or foolishly) challenged the legendary tycoon Hearst, RKO 281 rather courageously takes on the Welles legacy of the misunderstood genius. The results are gratifying, though the facts end up blurred all the more. If there is, indeed, a villain in the whole CITIZEN KANE affair it would be screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (played here by John Malkovich), who acted as Judas to W.R. and Marian, while serving as Iago to Welles's Othello. It was, according to historians, Mankiewicz who took a catalogue of firsthand observations and casual gossip gathered as a favored houseguest of the Hearst household and fashioned it into an unauthorized biography/screenplay. And it was Mankiewicz who goaded Welles to flirt with professional suicide by pursuing the project in the first place and by changing a film about a generic millionaire into a tale rife with details specific to Hearst. But RKO 281 ventures a different theory, suggesting that Welles devised KANE as an elaborate weapon of revenge against Hearst for having been insulted at a dinner party. One suspects that Welles' crime was more one of clueless indifference than vengeance, but the latter does make the film more dramatically provocative. Whatever the case, Welles clearly bit off a much bigger bite than he anticipated when he deemed Hearst's personal life fair game. Ironically, Welles' folly may not have been his audacity to attack Hearst, who surely faced greater critics, so much as the director's unintended assault on innocent bystander Davies. What RKO 281 highlights is that much of Hearst's ire against KANE was based to his desire to protect Davies from an unflattering portrayal and public scandal; not an unfounded fear, it would appear. In KANE, Hearst is presented in a mostly sympathetic light, and it is Davies who comes off the worst. Indeed, her alter ego, Susan Alexander is the film's least likable and empathetic character, an exceedingly dumb blonde who evolves into a shrieking, untalented alcoholic has-been diva. No other character in the film is as cruelly one-dimensional. Ironically, it may have been Mankiewicz's gallant, albeit foolish, attempt to protect his friend Davies, that caused all the problems. By making Susan so extremely different from the much beloved Davies, Mankiewicz may have thought people would see Alexander as a pure fiction. But such is the power and fame of KANE that then and future generations were destined to accept the legend over the reality and assume that Susan and Marian are one in the same. (Further irony: RKO 281 finds Marian played by a very Susan Alexander-like Melanie Griffith.)Though the film notes the irony of the muckraker publisher suddenly finding himself the victim of the type of tabloid journalism that made him famous, RKO 281 is mostly sympathetic to Marian and W.R., who are seen as the ones under attack. As played by Liev Schreiber, Welles is the film's villain, who, filled with arrogance and ambition, sweeps into town with an itch to make a reputation for himself and a willingness to exploit others to do so. His petty, pseudo-socialist rantings about the evils of the very rich seem hollow in light of his ambitious desire to exploit others fame and reputation to make a name for himself. It is a different, unflattering side of Welles, who is usually seen as the perpetually embattled artist.Yet, the plot takes another twist. Welles discovers that Hearst in particular and Hollywood in general weren't willing to just kowtow to his genius and like George Amberson Minafer in his THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, The Boy Wonder gets his comeuppance. Welles becomes just as much the victim of his arrogance as RKO, Hearst, Davies and Mankiewicz.RKO 281 is a slick and entertaining effort, but it does miss a golden opportunity. The film would have been so much better had it invented its own "Rosebud" to search for and imitated CITIZEN KANE's ambitious visual style and confessional mock-documentary narrative drive. RKO 281 is a very conventional movie about a very unconventional film.

Very interesting movie about the battle to get Citizen Kane made has carved out a tricky niche for itself; the movie is going to be most interesting to fans of Welles and Kane, and those people are going to have such specific expectations about what the movie should be that they can't be satisfied. I see a number of reviews here complaining that this movie doesn't show why Kane was a great movie, but that's not the movie that was being made. It is a short movie about a specific struggle, with brief glimpses into the filming, and unless it had been titled, "RKO 281: The Making of Citizen Kane," you can't fault it for not spending an hour on Welles innovations. The film is entertaining, Schreiber is a good Welles and Malkovitch is also quite good. I note people also complain that the movie isn't all that accurate. I do wish the film had done a better job with Marian Davies, as one hears her described as fantastically charming and loved by Hollywood (it has been said that Welles' flaying of Davies did more to bring out the knives of the Hollywood press than his portrayal of Hearst). But come on, how can one complain about liberties taking with reality in a movie made about Welles, who loved taking liberties with reality?