Next day, a Friday, Orson was in New York City, preparing for the world premiere of Citizen Kane at the RKO Palace. On Saturday afternoon, by prearrangement, Dolores del Río followed him to New York, accompanied on the flight by his trusty lawyer, Arnold Weissberger, and her close friend, Fay Wray. That evening Orson, dined with his usual gusto at a downtown Italian restaurant with Dolores, Fay and Clifford Odets. Afterwards, alone with Fay, he summed up Orson as an “ebullient boy". Her unspoken response was that a better fitting two-word profile would have been “towering genius". Next evening, Sunday, May 1st, Orson, accompanied by these three friends, attended Kane's glitzy premiere. When his film ended they were silent a moment until Odets, realizing he'd just witnessed a truly “powerful work", reached across to take Orson's hand and tell him that.172 The local reviews echoed Odet's judgment.
Seven days later, May 8th, Orson was back on the West Coast for Kane's Hollywood première at the El Capitan Theatre. Orson arrived late, noisy and spirited, with old friend John Barrymore. As his movie screened, its two earliest fans sat nearby. They were English director Herbert Wilcox and his actress wife Anna Neagle. They'd been at RKO for over a year making three frothy movies and, during the course of viewing the 6:45 AM daily "rushes" of their movie Sunny (1941), accidentally saw some from Citizen Kane. Although none of the RKO people had showed any interest in Kane, the Wilcoxes "enthused" and Herbert let the RKO executives know their opinion. Finding Orson at the studio commissary, he rushed over to express his belief that "You have a wonderful film there and will have an enormous success I am sure." Orson, obviously delighted, stood up and said, "Mr. Wilcox, that's the first kind word I've had in Hollywood!"173 Wilcox noted that this premiére and while exiting through the lobby, was surprised when: 174
Orson [with his friend John Barrymore], spotting Anna and me, called out: "I'll say it first
– you told me so." and burst out laughing as only Orson can laugh, then kissed us both. 171 David Charvet, Jack Gwynne: The Man, His Mind, and His Royal Family of Magic (Brush Prairie, WA: Charvet Studios, 1986), 83-84; Genii, Vol.5, No.9 (May 1941), 306.
172Wray (1989), 206-207.
173Wilcox interview in Noble (1956), 181.
174Wilcox (1967), 133-134. Confirmed (with only minor discrepancies) by Wilcox interview in Noble (1956), 181; and in Anna Neagle, There's Always Tomorrow: An Autobiography (London: Allen, 1974), 175-176.
Later that night, Orson saw Wilcox at a dinner celebration and promised, "I'll do anything for you, if ever you want me to – for nothing!" A decade later Wilcox would note with amusement that "The first part of that sentence was true – but not the second."175
{SIDEBAR} Was Orson a true innovator or was he, as revisionist critics insist, a mere copycat? The answer turns on differing definitions of “invention". Most magicians tightly limit the term to either the development of a new method (a gimmick, sleight, or procedure) or a new effect using an old method.
By even these rigorous standards Orson was quite modest. He could have claimed as his inventions the Black Art Cylinder, the B.A. Stage Well, perhaps the man-sized Square Circle, and a few other magical methods. That he never pressed these independently documented claims confirms that, for him, the invention of technique was merely a means to an end – the “effect" that he always sought above all else. He claimed credit only for having been the creator of the final effect, whether that was Faustus, War of the Worlds, or Kane. That he'd personally had to invent some of the means to these ends seldom interested him afterwards.
Innovation was also evident throughout his long career as a director of stage, film, TV, and magic shows. While it's true, for example, that all but a couple of the many technical tricks and dramatic devices in Citizen Kane can be found in earlier works, including some by himself , Orson earns the credit for using these diverse elements effectively and bringing them all together in a single movie. It is one thing for critics to dislike or disapprove of Orson; but only unprofessional blindness explains revisionist efforts to deny him credit for innovative techniques, "gimmicks".176 If Orson is not the auteur of Kane, it was his vision that others put on film. To a considerable extent Kane was a collaboration, as Professor Carringer argues and Orson admitted to him as he had earlier to Bogdanovich; but Orson clearly was first among equals. Cowie justly concludes, “For practically every technical device in Citizen Kane there is a precedent; but there is no precedent for Citizen Kane, the film."177
Precursors and Innovations in Citizen Kane and their Later Influences REHEARSAL (without formal camera takes): Orson brought his stage (and even radio) tradition of actors' pre-dress rehearsals to Hollywood, where this was decidedly rare. Almost all movie directors preferred to rehearse with the cameras rolling rather than risk losing a lucky take. Agnes Moorhead described Orson's attitude on this during Kane:178
Orson believed in good acting, and he realized that rehearsals were needed to get the most from his actors. That was something new in Hollywood: nobody seemed interested in bringing in a group to rehearse before scenes were shot. But Orson knew it was necessary, and we rehearsed every sequence before it was shot.
This remained Orson's normal pattern although it usually meant working secretly behind the backs of the studio or the unions. Even a decade later rehearsals remained relatively rare, as with Kazan's A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and, as Charlton Heston noted, with Orson's own Touch of Evil (1958). It has become much more common, as with for example Sidney Lumet.
DEEP FOCUS (keeping foreground & background in simultaneous focus within the camera): D.W. Griffith (director) and magician-cameraman Billy Bitzer in The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912); Charles Chaplin (director) in The Gold Rush (1925); Arthur Edeson & Gregg Toland (cameras) in The Bat (1926); Toland (camera) in Menzies' Bulldog Drummond (1929), John Ford (director) since 1929; Ray June (camera) in The Bat Whispers (1930); James Wong Howe (camera) in Transatlantic (1931); Jean Renoir (director) beginning with La Chienne/The Bitch (1931) and continuing through La Règle du Jeu/The Rules of the Game (1939); Gregg Toland (camera) from Wyler’s Dead End (1937) to Ford’s The Long Voyage Home (1940). After Kane we have the examples of Cortez (camera) in Orson's Magnificent Ambersons (1942), Toland (with camera) in director Howard Hawks’s Ball of Fire (1942), Toland (camera) in director Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), Lloyd Griggs (camera) in director De Mille’s The Ten Commandments (1956), Robert Wise (director) in The Haunting (1963), etc.
175 Wilcox (1967), 181.
176David Bordwell, "Citizen Kane", Film Comment (Summer 1971).
177Cowie (1973), 19.
178Moorhead 1969 interview in Action (May-Jun 1969), 29-30.
[The extremely sharp, deep-focus photography and shadowed faces of Kane had their roots in certain German expressionist films of the 1920s, such as Der Golem (1920, photographed by Karl Freund, ASC), and were further developed in occasional unusual American pictures such as Transatlantic (1931, James Wong Howe, ASC), Frankenstein (1931, Arthur Edeson, ASC) and two other Toland films, Wuthering Heights (1938) and The Grapes of Wrath (1940). In Kane, Toland was able to carry "pan focus" beyond what he and his predecessors had previously achieved by utilizing the recently introduced Eastman Super XX film, which was four times faster than Super X; new coated lenses which increased light transmission; and some gadgets of his own design. His use of Waterhouse stops with cine lenses made it practical to photograph directly into the light without creating lens ghosts.]
SIMULATED DEEP FOCUS (achieved by optically illusionary in-depth sets using progressively smaller background miniature models and/or midget extras): Rochus Gliese (art director) in Murnau’s Sunrise (1927); Howe and art director Gordon Wiles in Transatlantic (1931); and Welles' own in-depth perspective stage layout for his play of Caesar (1937).
An interesting later example appears in Casablanca(1942) during the final airport scene (shot on a shallow sound stage) where the plane waiting in the seemingly distant background is a reduced-scale model being serviced by midgets. A
nd in So Well Remembered (1946) director Edward Dmytryk used a receding set with ever smaller actors to give the illusion of a very long structure.
WIDE-ANGLE SHOTS: Howe in Transatlantic (1931); Renoir in Boudu Sauvé des Eaux/Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932) and La Règle du Jeu (1939); Ford in Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) and Stagecoach (1939 with cinematographer Bert Glennon); Toland with Ford in The Long Voyage Home (1940). CRANE SHOTS: Allan Dwan as technical advisor to Griffith in Intolerance (1915) by putting an elevator on a railway cart to enable the camera to move back and up to get an expanding view of the gigantic Babylon set. Then Dwan again, as director in Robin Hood (1922), by attaching a cradle to a standard construction crane. Dwan, an engineer by training, used it to track up a castle wall to a balcony. Although thoroughly conventional by the time of Kane, Welles and Toland used crane shots in fresh ways. HIGH-ANGLE SHOTS (SHOOTING DOWN AT SHARP ANGLE): Dwan in Big Brother (1923, shooting from a balcony down onto a dance floor); Murnau in The Last Laugh (1924); Mamoulian in Applause (1929); Reifenstahl in Triumph of the Will (1935, shooting from a specially rigged elevator on a 150-foot flagpole).
LOW-ANGLE SHOTS (SHOOTING UP AT SHARP ANGLE): Griffith in Intolerance (1916); Ford in The Iron Horse (1924), Eisenstein in The Battleship Potemkin (1925); Mamoulian in Applause (1929); Howe in Viva Villa! (1933); Reifenstahl in Triumph of the Will (1935); Feyder in Pension Mimosas (1935); and Ford with cinematographer Bert Glennon in Stagecoach (1939). And then by John Huston (director) & Arthur Edison (cinematographer) in The Maltese Falcon (1941). Also in later Welles’ films, including The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), The Trial (1963), and Chimes at Midnight (1966).
CEILINGED SETS: Griffith in Intolerance (1916); Korda in Night Watch (1928); Howe in Transatlantic (1931); Ford and Glennon in Stagecoach (1939); Toland and Ford in The Long Voyage Home (1940). Note that the presence of ceilings in sets permitted the use of low-angle shots in interior scenes. RAPID CUTTING (WHILE PRESERVING CONTINUITY): Allan Dwan (director) in Manhattan Madness (1916, by cutting in camera); Ford's Stagecoach (1939) averaged 9½ seconds per shot (612 cuts in 97 minutes). Later, Orson used this type of cutting in The Lady from Shanghai (1947) in the courtroom, Chinese theater, and hall-of-mirrors scenes and in The Trial (1963). And finally and most famously in Chimes at Midnight (1966) in the battle scene with its 1½ seconds per shot (over 200 cuts in under 6 minutes).
Effectively introduced to TV in the first season of Mission Impossible (1966-67). Note that Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers (1994) has an astonishing average of only some 2½ seconds per shot (about 3,000 cuts in 120 minutes).
ABRUPT CUTS (THAT BREAK CONTINUITY): The 1920s-30s montages of Eisenstein (since 1925), Vorkapich, etc. Repeated in all of Orson's later films.
CUTTING (EDITING) IN CAMERA: Discussed later.
DOLLY SHOT (TRACKING THE CAMERA BESIDE, IN FRONT, OR TO THE SIDE OF A MOVING OBJECT — CHARACTER, ANIMAL, OR VEHICLE): Allan Dwan (director) in David Harum (1915). Dwan applied his previous engineering education (at Notre Dame) and career to solve many technical problems in filmmaking. Also Ford in The Iron Horse (1924).
UNUSUALLY LONG TAKES DONE AS TRACKING SHOTS (AS A SPECIAL TYPE OF CUTTING IN CAMERA): Dreyer in The Passion of Jeanne of Arc (1928); Dwan in Frozen Justice (1929); Fred Astaire in Roberta (1935) when for the first time he got his way in having one of his dance routines (“Hard to Handle” with Ginger Rogers) edited in one uninterrupted head-to-toe take (2:51 minutes); Renoir in Grand Illusion (1937)and La Règle du Jeu (1939); Ford in Stagecoach (1939). Orson would repeat these in Heart of Darkness (as planned in 1939), The Magnificent Ambersons (the 3/4-mile carriage ride), The Lady from Shanghai (another carriage drive, but inter-cut in the released versions), Othello (the stroll along the parapet), Touch of Evil (the 3-minute and 20- second opening scene), and The Trial.
After Kane (but probably independently) John Ford (director) & Arthur Edeson (camera) with their 7-minute take in The Maltese Falcon (1941) where Bogart and Greenstreet walk in 22 uninterrupted moves through a building. In 1941 Jean Renoir in Hollywood shot one scene this way for Fox’s Swamp Water but producer Zanuck ordered it reshot with the conventional series of takes. Then came Hitchcock in Rope (1948) with several 10-minutes takes and De Palma’s opening tracking scene with staggering-drunken Bruce Willis in The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990). Robert Altman's 8-minute opening tracking shot in The Player (1992) is an explicit bow to Orson's in Touch of Evil. Brian de Palma’a Snake Eyes (1998) holds the record time for this kind of choreography for its 20-minute opening where a single Steadicam tracks Nicolas Cage while he wanders through the casino.
SEQUENCE SHOTS (AS THE OTHER SPECIAL TYPE OF CUTTING IN CAMERA, THE ONE WHERE THE CAMERA IS FIXED OR, AT MOST, PANS OR TILTS OR ZOOMS, WHILE THE ACTORS MOVE WITHIN THE FRAME): Renoir in La Règle du jeu/The Rules of the Game (1939). GERMAN EXPRESSIONIST LIGHTING: ERICH POMMER (PRODUCER) with his artist-designers (H. Warm, W. Reiman, and W. Röhrig) in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919); F.W. Murnau (director) in Nosferatu (1921); Jack [John] Ford (director) in Hoodman Blind (1923); E. A. Dupont (director) in Variete (1925), Lang (director) in Metropolis (1926), Murnau in Sunrise (1927), Ford in Arrowsmith (1931), Allan Dwan (director) in While Paris Sleeps (1932); Ford with Joseph August (camera) in The Informer (1935), Karl Freund (director) with Toland (camera) in Mad Love (1935); Toland and Ford in The Long Voyage Home (1940).
EXTREMELY DARK LIGHTING: Toland in the sewer scenes in Les Misérables (1935). Later with Stanley Cortez (camera) in Dark Tuesday (1954) as first to use Eastman-Kodak’s new Tri-X film; and Stanley Kubrick (with cinematographer John Alcott) in Barry Lyndon (1975) shooting for the first time by candlelight.
CHIAROSCURO (THE PAINTERLY PLAY OF EXTREMES OF LIGHT AND DARK WITHIN A FRAME): While obviously related to the two above styles, it has its origins in Western painting and theater. For painting, notably with Rembrandt and Georges de la Tour. For theater, particularly in Orson's own stagings of Faustus (1937) and Caesar (1937). And in movies with Dwan (who'd studied Rembrandt), Ford, Welles, and most of the film noir directors and cinematographers.
SHOOTING DIRECTLY INTO LIGHTS (TOLAND'S IDEA IN KANE'S OPERA SCENE): Toland in The Long Voyage Home (1940) for which he invented the required specially coated lens filter. Director King Vidor credits Kane as having inspired his shooting directly into the sun to give the sense of intense heat during Jennifer Jones' climactic ride into the desert in Duel in the Sun (1946).
DISSOLVES (THE GRADUAL FADE-OUT ENDING ONE SCENE AND FADE-IN TO THE NEXT): Before Kane all dissolves were made optically, either by optical printing in the lab or by dissolve controls in the camera. The admittedly naive Orson got the same effect by substituting conventional stage lighting. And, even after Toland explained the standard optical dissolve, Orson continued to use electrical dissolves in Kane and later films.179
179OW in Welles & Bogdanovich (1992), 80, 255; Toland (1941a). FILMED SEQUENCES EDITED TO FIT THE MUSIC: Bernard Herrmann, Orson's music director believed it had been a movie first in Kane. "This was," he wrote, "particularly true in the numerous photographic 'montages,' which are used throughout the film to denote the passing of time." Herrmann wrote original pieces to fit each of these sequences after they'd been edited.180
MUSICAL BRIDGES: In Kane Bernard Herrmann emphasized the leitmotif, that is, a theme (sometimes as simple as a four-note figure in the brass) which by repetition becomes associated with a particular character, including "Rosebud" itself. Earlier films often used full-themes to symbolize characters; but Orson's extraordinary use of sudden quick visual transitions suggested to Herrmann the use of "radio scoring". These are those brief sound cues (as little as two or three chords sounded in five seconds) that let the "blind" radio listeners know that a scene has shifted.181 In a turnabout, Orson would get his own unshakable leitmotif in The Third Man (1949) with zither player-composer Anton Karas’ “Harry Lime Theme”.
HEIGHTENED NATURAL (SUPERREALISTIC) SOUND: Originally a radio technique that Orson introduced to the ci
nema in Kane. Repeated in most of his later films including Chimes at Midnight (1966). Later used (without any music) in Tony Richardson's Mademoiselle (1976). It has become an obtrusive high-decibel cliché in “action” movies since the 1990s.
OVERLAPPING DIALOGUE (WHERE TWO OR MORE ACTORS SPEAK AT THE SAME TIME): The earliest dated example I have found is Ben Hecht & Charles MacArthur's 3-act play, The Front Page (1928), in which I count 41 sets of lines with the specific stage directions of “Together” and two others marked specially. Then came Orson's play The Shoemaker's Holiday (1938); Orson's own Mercury & Campbell Playhouse radio dramas of the late-1930's through early 1940's, particularly I Lost My Girlish Laughter (1939); Orson's filmscript for Heart of Darkness (1939); Howard Hawks' His Girl Friday (1940, based on The Front Page). In Kane the overlapped lines were added by OW after the shooting script, so zero credit on this point to co-writer Mankiewicz, please. OW also often overlapped dialogue in his later films, notably in The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), The Lady from Shanghai (1947), and Chimes at Midnight (1966).
Of course, overlapping dialog must be executed with care. If used mindlessly as some merely fashionable gimmick to add “realism”, it can produce only incomprehensible cocktail-party-type babble. To avoid this, the director must control the volume of individual actor’s delivery or the balance of the separate microphones.182 As actor Bradford Dillman noticed:183
Welles' experience in radio taught him to "hear" a scene. When he directed he was as much conductor as filmmaker, asking his actors to overlap one another in such a way that only pertinent dialog emerged. Out of seeming confusion he created clarity.
Charlton Heston learned this realistic technique from Orson.184 Woody Allen and Robert Altman make a habit of this style, which also appears in the work of Antonioni, Bresson, Dreyer, Ozu, and Jaglom. (NOTES: Movie director Allan Dwan would say he tried to overlap dialog in his early talkies before going to England in 1931 but was resisted by the studio sound engineers.185
Orson Welles - The Man Who Was Magic: Part 1 Page 20