American, an odyssey to 1947, (revitalizes Orson Welles' work by viewing it through a lens)

[Beringia]

I watched this recently and was blown away. It really captures a lot of what is going on today with trump and fascism, the way Orson Welles was hounded out of Hollywood for his leftist views and social conscience


American: An Odyssey to 1947’ Review: The Story of Three Lives, Though One Dominates

This documentary intertwines the stories of Orson Welles, Isaac Woodard (a WW II veteran blinded in a police attack) and Howard Kakita (a child survivor of Hiroshima). It's ambitious, but Welles overwhelms the projects.

Excerpt: But what the film does effectively is revitalize Welles’ work by viewing it through the lens of media consolidation, government repression of art and leftist thinkers, and social justice. The guy might have been America’s greatest theatrical impresario, but he was also an avowed anti-Fascist whose passion for equity and liberty imbued all of his work, including Kane.

https://observer.com/2023/09/american-an-odyssey-to-1947-review-the-story-of-three-lives-though-one-dominates/

On youtube movies, free with ads

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American:_An_Odyssey_to_1947

Trailer

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/mar/28/scale-of-hearst-plot-to-discredit-orson-welles-and-citizen-kane-revealed

Previously unpublished documents have revealed the scale of a plot by the media mogul William Randolph Hearst to discredit Orson Welles and destroy Citizen Kane, the 1941 film about the rise and fall of the fictional newspaper proprietor Charles Foster Kane.

Welles and RKO Pictures faced extortion, media manipulation and other underhand tactics in a plot that was much darker and began earlier than was previously known, according to research by Harlan Lebo for a forthcoming book.