Beyond Citizen Kane

Beyond Citizen Kane (1993) is a British documentary film directed by Simon Hartog, produced by John Ellis, and first broadcast on Channel 4.

It details the dominant position of the Rede Globo media group, the largest in Brazil, and discusses the group's influence, power, and political connections. Globo's president and founder Roberto Marinho was criticised and compared to the fictional newspaper tycoon Charles Foster Kane, created by Orson Welles for the 1941 film Citizen Kane. According to the documentary, Marinho's media group engages in manipulation of news to influence public opinion.

Rede Globo objected to the film's position and tried to buy Brazilian rights, but Hartog had already made agreements to give non-TV rights to political and cultural groups in Brazil. Rede Globo went to court to prevent a scheduled March 1994 screening at the Rio de Janeiro Modern Art Museum, and gained a court order by which Military Police confiscated movie posters and the copy of the film. It has never been broadcast on TV in Brazil or released in commercial theatres, but was shown illegally during the 1990s in universities and among political groups. In 1995, a court rejected Rede Globo's bid to confiscate a university copy. The film was officially restricted to university screenings.

Citizen Kane

Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film by Orson Welles, its producer, co-author, director and star. The picture was Welles's first feature film. Nominated for Academy Awards in nine categories, it won an Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay) by Herman J. Mankiewicz and Welles. Considered by many critics, filmmakers, and fans to be the greatest film ever made, Citizen Kane was voted the greatest film of all time in five consecutive Sight & Sound polls of critics, until it was displaced by Vertigo in the 2012 poll. It topped the American Film Institute's 100 Years ... 100 Movies list in 1998, as well as AFI's 2007 update. Citizen Kane is particularly praised for its cinematography, music, and narrative structure, which were innovative for its time.

The quasi-biographical film examines the life and legacy of Charles Foster Kane, played by Welles, a character based in part upon the American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, Chicago tycoons Samuel Insull and Harold McCormick, and aspects of Welles's own life. Upon its release, Hearst prohibited mention of the film in any of his newspapers. Kane's career in the publishing world is born of idealistic social service, but gradually evolves into a ruthless pursuit of power. Narrated principally through flashbacks, the story is told through the research of a newsreel reporter seeking to solve the mystery of the newspaper magnate's dying word: "Rosebud".