By RAY KELLY
On the heels of the Criterion Collection release of Citizen Kane on 4K UHD in the U.S., Warner Home Video will release its own 80th anniversary set in Europe in time for the holiday season.
The UK release has fewer special features than the Criterion set, but the lavish package not only includes the film on 4K UHD and Blu-ray, but a 48-page book, 20-page souvenir program, reprints of press releases, double-sided poster, five collectible art cards, and three stills as well. It features separate commentaries by Roger Ebert and Peter Bogdanovich, and interviews with Ruth Warrick and Robert Wise. Those goodies and extras will be familiar to those who bought Warner’s “Ultimate Collector’s Edition” of Kane a decade ago.
The Warner UK release arrives on December 13 with a £34.99 (US $48.15) price tag. It can be ordered at shop.warnerbros.co.uk
By comparison, Criterion is offering a 4K UHD with three Blu-ray set at a suggested retail price of $59.95. (The Criterion three-Blu-ray set is $49.95.)
The Criterion set will be released on November 23 and features:
• New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• In the 4K UHD edition: One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and three Blu-rays with the film and supplements
• Three audio commentaries: from 2021 featuring Orson Welles scholars James Naremore and Jonathan Rosenbaum; from 2002 featuring filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich; and from 2002 featuring film critic Roger Ebert
• The Complete Citizen Kane, a rarely seen 1991 BBC documentary
• Revisiting “Kane,” a new interview with film scholar Racquel J. Gates
• New video essay by Orson Welles scholar Robert Carringer
• New program on the film’s special effects by film scholars and effects experts Craig Barron and Ben Burtt
• Interviews from 1990 with Bogdanovich, editor Robert Wise, actor Ruth Warrick, and optical-effects designer Linwood Dunn; filmmakers Martin Scorsese, Henry Jaglom, Martin Ritt, and Frank Marshall; and cinematographers Allen Daviau, Gary Graver, and Vilmos Zsigmond
• New documentary featuring archival interviews with Welles
• Interviews with actor Joseph Cotten from 1966 and 1975
• The Hearts of Age, a brief silent film made by Welles as a student in 1934
• Episode of The South Bank Show from 1988 featuring Mercury Theatre producer John Houseman
• Episode of The Merv Griffin Show from 1979 featuring Welles and Houseman
• Trailer
• An essay by film critic Bilge Ebiri
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