Beyond Citizen Kane

Infobox Film
name = Beyond Citizen Kane


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director = Simon Hartog
producer = Simon Hartog
John Ellis
writer = Simon Hartog
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editing =
distributor = Channel 4
released = September 1993
runtime = 105 minutes
country = GBR, BRA
language = English
Portuguese
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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.

Plot summary

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.

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.

Banishment

The movie was announced in Rio de Janeiro alternative cinema Museu de Arte Moderna in March 1994. A day before premiere militar policy received a order to capture the movie copy, posters, fined the MAM-RJ administration and also intimidated the culture secretary who had being fired 3 days after. During the 90s the movie was shown illegally in universities, political 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.

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.

See also

*Concentration of media ownership
*Military dictatorship (Brazil)

External links

*Pt icon [http://pages.apis.com.br/zani/ Download the video] (only a few parts are subtitled)
* [http://www.midiaindependente.org/pt/blue/2003/08/260618.shtml Mirror] | [http://indytorrents.org/stats.html?info_hash=5d184a5691874deb32dc4edbe2bca01e54a2dbf5 Torrent]
* [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-570340003958234038 Video stream] (only a few parts are subtitled)
* [http://www.fca.pucminas.br/saogabriel/audiovisual/videoteca/videoteca003.htm PUC Minas Library Record]
* (Portuguese) [http://www.pampalivre.info/bck Brazil Beyond Citizen Kane - download and streaming]
* (English) [http://vp.video.google.com/videodownload?version=0&secureurl=QwAAALs0ExWHTKuPzS5gTZjUscUwm7sGLpuYasdY6lzHXRjPR0WhWLgD5WS2E81xcH_2O499bHhfxCTQIaY3731FWag6ZnNG64QdbA6LPkjVXH0P&sigh=Z80IGN6HLPYk93BcLTantmDc24g "Brasil: Beyond Citizen Kane" (download)] at Google Video
* (English) [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1439668035631806019 "Brasil: Beyond Citizen Kane" (streaming)] at Google Video
* [http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Muito+Al%C3%A9m+do+Cidad%C3%A3o+Kane&aq=-1 "Muito Além do Cidadão Kane"] at YouTube
* [http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Brasil%3A+Beyond+Citizen+Kane&aq=-1 “Brasil: Beyond Citizen Kane”] at YouTube