Citizen Kane: Film Screening and Panel Discussion with Legendary Director Peter Bogdanovich at Purchase College

Did you ever wonder what the word "Rosebud" symbolized in Citizen Kane, the venerable film directed by and starring Orson Welles? Well, here's your opportunity to find out! Not only is the School of Film and Media Studies at Purchase College, SUNY hosting a screening of the film on Sept. 27, they also have assembled an all-star panel to discuss it afterward.  The panel includes: Peter Bogdanovich, renowned director, actor, writer and film historian; James Naremore, film scholar and acclaimed author of The Magic of Orson Welles; and Chuck Workman, Oscar-winning filmmaker and Purchase College Distinguished Artist in Film. The screening will take place in the PepsiCo Theatre of the Performing Arts Center at Purchase College and starts at 7:30 pm. The entire program is free and open to the public.

Released in 1941, Citizen Kane is considered one of the greatest movies of all time. The story is a film à clef that 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. At the time it was released, Citizen Kane was hailed as a masterpiece, both in its presentation and in the innovative techniques used by Welles in filming, photography, editing, and sound. 

Film critic Roger Ebert says, “Citizen Kane is more than a great movie; it is a gathering of all the lessons of the emerging era of sound, just as Birth of a Nation assembled everything learned at the summit of the silent era.”

This screening and panel discussion is the first in the "2012-13 Great Films, Great Directors" series hosted by the School of Film and Media Studies, and has received special support provided by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

According to Michelle Stewart, chair of Purchase College's School of Film and Media Studies, "The Academy institutional grant enables us to bring highly successful film professionals to Purchase College throughout the year to speak to students, faculty, and the public about their films and to offer insightful information and anecdotes about their experiences in the industry."

Known for directing such megafilms as The Last Picture Show (1971), What’s Up Doc? (1972), Paper Moon (1973), and Mask (1985), Peter Bogdanovich struck up a lifelong friendship with Welles while interviewing him on the set of Mike Nichols' 1970 film adaptation of Catch-22. Subsequently, Bogdanovich wrote about the acclaimed actor/director and his career in the book, "This is Orson Welles" (1992). In addition, he has written a number of invaluable books about the cinema, especially "Who the Devil Made It: Conversations with Legendary Film Directors." 

James Naremore is Chancellors’ Professor Emeritus of Communication and Culture, English, and Comparative Literature at Indiana University, and a Guggenheim Fellow in Humanities. His research, which centers on classic Hollywood cinema and modernist literature, is concerned with questions of style, cultural politics, and ideology. A prolific author and in-demand speaker, Navemore is currently the editor of the Contemporary Film Directors series and a writer-at-large for Film Quarterly.

Chuck Workman has been involved in filmmaking and theater for over 30 years as an award-winning director, writer, editor, and producer. Workman's theatrical short, Precious Images (1986), made for the Directors Guild of America, won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short and has become the most widely shown short in film history. It is one of five of his films circulating in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The School of Film & Media Studies comprises four film and media-focused majors and one minor: the Film BFA program, Cinema Studies, New Media, Media, Society & the Arts, and the new Screenwriting minor. The School has over 400 majors in the five fields of study, which emphasize filmmaking, screenwriting, new media production, and the aesthetic and sociological study of the film and media industries. The curriculum fuses intellectual and practical training in Film and Media Studies, educating students to be critical producers and consumers of film and media.

Purchase College, part of the State University of New York (SUNY) network of 64 universities and colleges, was founded in 1967 by Governor Nelson Rockefeller. His aspirations for Purchase were to combine on one campus conservatory training in the visual and performing arts with programs in the liberal arts and sciences. Today, Purchase College, SUNY is a community of students, faculty, and friends where open-minded engagement with the creative process leads to a lifetime of intellectual growth and professional opportunity. For more information about the College, visit www.purchase.edu.