Citizen Hearst is a documentary that traces the one hundred twenty-five-year old Hearst media empire from its humble beginnings when unripened William Randolph Hearst was a Harvard student and editor of the University's Harvard Lampoon, to the global media empire it has grown in to today.
Directed by Leslie Iwerks, the 84-minute withdraw packs a lot of cultivation fairly quickly and concisely, given there ar 125 years to go over. Hearst's own life and death reach in the premier(prenominal) 30 minutes, making it perhaps the breeziest bio on any media mogul ever. The rest of the film covers the company's assets and how important and pioneering they were in the history of the media landscape.
The film is at once packed with enthralling information, barg moreover at the same time, comes off like aboutthing you'd dribble to canvas playing on a loop on the lobby TV screen at Hearst's headquarters. Everyone from Oprah Winfrey to Heidi Klum to Donna Karan to Dan Rather to Leonard Maltin argon trotted out to sing the company's praises. Meanwhile one can't help but notice Hearst Corporation CEO Frank A. Bennack, Jr.'s 125 day of remembrance pin on his lapel all time he speaks.
That's not to say that the film isn't worthy of viewing. On the contrary, it probably should be required viewing for anyone who wants to know their media history. No matter how lots one may think they know of Hearst and his empire, there's surely facts in this documentary that will be new and fascinating.
Among the company milestones that are worthy of touting include Hearst pioneering the comic strip syndication and Good housekeep magazine's unique product evaluation research institute that tests every ad to make sure its claims are real. (Which is why you'll ne'er see cigarette ads in the pages of Good Housekeeping.)
The doc likewise devotes time to Helen Gurley Brown's impact on Cosmopolitan magazine and how Harper's carnival and its editor Diana Vreeland made history by putting the first non-Caucasian model -- China Machado -- in its pages.
It's also interesting to see just how 24-hour sports network ESPN went from being a "laughing short letter" network that covered tractor pulls (early footage of field reporters getting in to fights with fans resist on location are priceless) to a respected ship in a seminal moment that occurred when the a abundant earthquake happened during 1989 World Series in San Francisco.
The official publicize network ABC lost power but ESPN was the only news outlet with a working generator and provided up to the minute coverage on all the confusion.
Hearst's philandering ways with actress Marion Davies is never spoken of in a negative light, and the mogul's displeasure with Orson Wells' 1941 film Citizen Kane doesn't delve in to the juicy story it probably was at the time. But that's what you get when the documentary's executive producers and associate producer are Hearst employees: those types of facts are given a quick mention and because swept under the rug.
Citizen Hearst is one of those documentaries that will likely be shown in future media studies classes and is perfectly suited on some(prenominal) of Hearst's own networks like the History Channel or the life-time Channel. It's not gossipy or salacious like some of Hearst's own newspaper headlines, but it's a good, solid and informative piece on a giant media empire.
Materials taken from The Huffington Post
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