Beyond Citizen Kane
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| Beyond Citizen Kane | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Simon Hartog |
| Produced by | Simon Hartog John Ellis |
| Written by | Simon Hartog |
| Distributed by | Channel 4 |
| Release date(s) | September 1993 |
| Running time | 105 minutes |
| Country |  United Kingdom,  Brazil |
| Language | English Portuguese |
Beyond Citizen Kane is a 1993 documentary film directed by Simon Hartog for Channel 4. It details the dominance of the Rede Globo media group in Brazilian society, discussing the group's influence, power, and political connections. Globo's president and founder Roberto Marinho came in for particular criticism, being compared with fictional newspaper tycoon Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane. Globo, the documentary argues, engaged in the same wholesale manipulation of news to influence public opinion as did Kane.
Contents |
[edit] Summary plot
The documentary tracks Globo's involvement with and support of the military dictatorship, its illegal partnership with the American group Time Warner (at the time Time-Life), Marinho's political maneuverings (which included airing on prime time news highlights of a 1989 presidential debate edited in a way as to favor Fernando Collor de Mello) and a controversial deal involving shares of NEC Corporation and government contracts.
The documentary features interviews with noted Brazilian personalities, such as the singer-songwriter Chico Buarque de Hollanda, the politicians Leonel Brizola and Antonio Carlos Magalhães and the future president Luis Inácio Lula da Silva.
[edit] Dispute with Globo over British rights
It was first shown in September 1993, on the United Kingdom's Channel 4. The programme was delayed for a year as Rede Globo disputed the programme makers' right under British law to use short extracts from Globo programmes without permission for the purposes of "critical comment and review". During this period, Simon Hartog, the director, died after a long illness. The process of editing was taken over by his co-producer, John Ellis. When eventually broadcast, copies were made available at cost by the production company, and many were sent to Brazil by the Brazilian community in Britain.
[edit] Banishment
The movie was announced in alternative cinema MASP, São Paulo in March 1994. A day before premiere militar policy received a order to capture the movie copy, posters, fined the MASP administration and also intimidated the culture secretary who had being fired 3 days after. During the 90s the movie was shown illegally in universities, polictical parties without public announcement. Globo tried to pursuit copies in 1995 in USP university filling judicial process but failed. The movie had restricted access for those people and only became widely viewed in 2000s Internet.
[edit] Distribution and internet phenomenon
Rede Globo sought to buy the Brazilian rights to the programme, presumably seeking to suppress it. However, Hartog had agreed with various organizations in Brazil that the non-TV rights should be given to them so that the programme could be shown widely by both cultural and political organizations. TV Globo lost interest in buying the programme when they learned this, and it remains unbroadcast in Brazil. However, many VHS and DVD copies have circulated, and the documentary is available on the internet, via peer-to-peer networks and video sharing websites such as YouTube and Google Video (where it was watched almost 600,000 times). Contrary to popular belief, the movie is available in Brazil, though mostly in libraries and private collections.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- (Portuguese) Download the video (only a few parts are subtitled)
- Mirror | Torrent
- (Portuguese) Video stream (only a few parts are subtitled)
- PUC Minas Library Record
- (Portuguese) Brazil Beyond Citizen Kane - download and streaming
