Catherine L Benamou

this is an essay written for the PST-LA/LA "From Latin America to Hollywood: Latino Film Culture in Los Angeles, 1967-2017," an oral history and exhibition project curated by Lourdes Portillo for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In the essay, I try to "return the gaze," considering Latin American filmmakers' multifaceted engagement with Hollywood, and representations of Los Angeles by focusing on the pivotal decade of the 1980s.

Citizen Kane (directed, produced, and co-written by Orson Welles, Mercury Productions/RKO Radio Pictures, 1941) is undoubtedly the best-known and most critically celebrated narrative fiction film of the 20th century. It was a landmark achievement in the artistic career of Orson Welles, as he made the leap from broadcast radio and off-Broadway theatrical production into industrial cinema; it also transformed the careers of those who collaborated in its making, from seasoned studio professionals such as Gregg Toland, Bailey Fester, and Perry Ferguson, to transplanted Mercury Theatre talent, as expressed in their own essays and interviews. Unfortunately, during Welles’s lifetime the film became better known for the controversies it generated than for its intrinsic thematic or aesthetic qualities. A tempest brewed over its theatrical release, which was delayed and nearly canceled due to a press (and effectively theatrical) boycott by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. Recent histories and biographies have argued that Hearst’s ire could just as easily have been ignited by Welles’s off-screen activities in theater (Native Son, 1941) and in support of civil and labor rights, as by the perceived cinematic satire of Hearst and his paramour Marion Davies (allegedly portrayed in the characters Charles Foster Kane and Susan Alexander, respectively). Regardless, lackluster theatrical bookings, compounded by syncopated publicity efforts, yielded a modest box-office loss for RKO Radio Pictures. This, in turn, fueled mounting tensions between Welles and his Mercury Productions and the studio over production budgets and creative control, providing the grist for later reflection on industrial self-regulation and artistic freedom. Meanwhile, Welles’s and studio chief Schaefer’s steadfastness in the face of the Hearst barricade, coupled with Kane’s technical virtuosity and baroque style brought hearty accolades from critics around the world, paving the way in 1946 for the first Welles biography and decades of top rankings by Sight and Sound and the American Film Institute. As Kane reached formerly Nazi-occupied western European territories, a thoroughgoing reassessment spearheaded by André Bazin and Cahiers du Cinéma stressed the signature attributes that would inscribe Welles within the “politics of the author” and feed postwar fascination with screen realism. Another round of US-based controversy was sparked, this time between auteur-advocate Andrew Sarris and New Yorker critic Pauline Kael, who, championing Herman J. Mankiewicz’s contributions to the screenplay, called into question Welles’s entitlement to authorship. A healthy spate of posthumous Wellesian scholarship, informed by narratological, psychoanalytic, and formalist film studies, has effectively bracketed this dispute, exploring Kane’s lasting contributions to film noir, modernist narrative strategies, documentary discourse, broadcast television, sound design, and philosophical inquiry, as well as to our grasp of wartime politics and media reflexivity.

Spanish-language media have often been portrayed as catering to a “niche” market, because of presumed ethnic specificity and issues of linguistic proficiency and preference. Constructed as such, these media are seldom considered in the mainstream as having an impact on social incorporation, and media and opinions in the larger U.S. public sphere. Based on field research conducted in Detroit and Los Angeles, this article challenges such notions, showing how Spanish-language television, when utilized as a place-making tool as well as a source of local and national information, can contribute to viewers’ resilience, sense of self, and sociopolitical expression through media enfranchisement. In contrast to other studies that emphasize textual analysis or media enterprises in the aggregate, this article takes a meso-level approach, focusing on the differences made for Latinx communities by innovation in media access, reception strategies, and outreach by media professionals, along with t...

Author(s): Benamou, CL | Abstract: Variously described as a work of genius, a pretentious wreck, a crucially important film, and a victim of its director's ego, among other things, It's All True, shot in Mexico and Brazil between 1941 and 1942, is the legendary movie that Orson Welles never got to finish. In this book, the most comprehensive and authoritative assessment of It's All True available, Catherine Benamou synthesizes a wealth of new and little-known source material gathered on two continents, including interviews with key participants, to present a compelling original view of the film and its historical significance. Her book challenges much received wisdom about Orson Welles and illuminates the unique place he occupies in American culture, broadly defined. © 2007 by Catherine L. Benamou.

an introduction to a sampling of correspondence and documents from the Richard Wilson-Orson Welles Collections at the University of Michigan Special Collections Library, with an emphasis on The Magnificent Ambersons (1941) and Macbeth (1948)

This is a response to papers presented by Charlotte Gleghorn, Andrew Rajca, and Leslie L. March at a panel (J-23), "Disrupting the Visual and Discursive Foundations of Race in Latin American Cinema," at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference, March 19th, 2021. Following an attempt to place the papers in conversation with one another through comparison and contrast of methodology and topical focus, I pose seven questions for the panelists and audience to ponder.