'Citizen Hearst' - Hearst documentary to look at founder

[RayKelly]

This could be interesting.... one-sided, but interesting

c.2012 Hearst Newspapers

NEW YORK -- Hearst Corporation and Leslie Iwerks Productions announced Wednesday that a new documentary film about the 125-year-old company and founder William Randolph Hearst will have its world premier next month at the 2012 Hamptons International Film Festival.

The documentary, “Citizen Hearst,“ is crafted from interviews and historical footage and features the personal stories and trials and tribulations that have made today’s Hearst Corporation. Among those interviewed are Frank A. Bennack, Jr., CEO of Hearst, who has led the company longer than any Hearst executive other than W.R. Hearst himself; Oprah Winfrey; Mark Burnett; Ralph Lauren; Donna Karan; Dan Rather; Bob Iger; Leonard Maltin; Dr. Oz; Heidi Klum; Nina Garcia; Timothy Greenfield-Sanders; and several descendants of W.R. Hearst.

The film, narrated by Academy Award-nominated actor William H. Macy, makes its private debut Sept. 18 at a screening at Hearst Tower, the company’s headquarters in New York, and its world premier Oct. 4 to 8 at the film festival in East Hampton, N.Y.

The documentary was produced by Academy Award- and Emmy-nominated director Leslie Iwerks.

The Hearst announcement noted that the story of W.R. Hearst was famously dramatized in the 1941 film “Citizen Kane,“ starring Orson Welles. “Citizen Hearst,“ produced by Iwerks and Jane Kelly Kosek, is the first in-depth look at how the company has navigated the changing times over the span of two centuries, according to the announcement.

The film chronicles the rise of American journalism and the newspaper rivalry with Joseph Pulitzer; traces the beginnings of newsreels and films, and later magazine brands and cable; glimpses inside the personal lives of W.R. Hearst and Marion Davies (including reactions to “Citizen Kane“); explores the influences of media on politics through the decades; and investigates Hearst’s pursuit of creative expansion, according to the announcement.

[Colmena]

The irony that this pro-Hearst (I assume) doc, should be titled "Citizen Hearst"! That Hearst should be under the imprint of his nemesis!

Similarly, I just watched "The True Story of Marion Davies" where, despite the case that she is identified by none other than Kenneth Brownlow as the greatest comedienne of the silent era (!), the doc is set up as an attempt to make a proper case for her in the face of CK's version of Susan Alexander.

Of course, her genius as a comedienne was also undermined by Hearst. If he hadn't pushed her into sober historical dramas instead, as she went into the talkies, then perhaps her true talent would have survived...? As it stands, the only movie that Netfix offers of her is attached to this DVD-- and not listed as such!

[tonyw]

I've just opened THE LORDS OF CREATION (1935) by Frederick Lewis Allen and found a photo facing p. 284 of the capitalist Samuel Insull whose appearance strongly resembles the later Kane. So is not Welles's Kane really a composite figure of which Hearst is only one part? I believe Ebert in his DVD commentary mentions this and cites a magnate who built an Opera House for his mistress who really could not sing. Insull is referred to in one of the short stories in the James Jones collection THE ICE-CREAM HEADACHE AND OTHER STORIES. a patriarch passes on to his sonw what will alter become worthless Insull stock following 1929.

[Colmena]

> So is not Welles's Kane really a composite figure of which Hearst is only one part?

#23 in Kael's "Raising Kane" has much to say about the relevance of both Insull and Harold McCormick to Kane.