Orson Welles in Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons ...

Description

Orson Welles in Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons (RKO, 1941/1942), 8" x 10" Key Set Photographs (75+) by Alexander Kahle. Vintage gelatin silver glossy 8" x 10" key set photographs of Orson Welles, Joseph Cotton, Dorothy Commingore, Agnes Moorehead, and Ruth Warrick in Citizen Kane (dir. Orson Welles) (45+) by Alexander Kahle, and Cotton, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter, Tim Holt, and Agnes Moorehead in The Magnificent Ambersons (dir. Welles) (30+), with RKO Pictures wet stamp and paper caption on the verso. Fine/Very Fine, with edge wear, corner stress, and toning. Comes with a COA from Heritage Auctions.

More Information: Widely considered a landmark in film history, Citizen Kane is acclaimed for its groundbreaking non-linear narrative, pioneering use of deep-focus cinematography, and Orson Welles's bold directorial debut. Its companion film, The Magnificent Ambersons, although infamously recut by editor Robert Wise on the studio's instructions, is equally revered for its emotional depth and visual lyricism. These photographs are more than mere publicity material; they are visual artifacts from a pivotal moment in American filmmaking. They capture the expressive lighting, psychological staging, and art-directional control that defined Welles's collaborations with cinematographer Gregg Toland and Stanley Cortez, and production designer Perry Ferguson. In Ambersons, the chiaroscuro and psychological close-ups continue that visual language, even as the studio's edits reshaped its narrative. Together, this lot forms a rare and visually coherent archive from two of the most artistically ambitious productions ever mounted by a major Hollywood studio. Whether documenting Welles's Kane in stark profile or Moorehead's haunting performance in Ambersons, these stills remain among the most evocative surviving images of American film modernism.

Welles called Toland "the greatest gift any director—young or old—could ever, ever have. "And he never tried to impress on us that he was performing miracles. He just went ahead and performed them. I was calling on him to do things only a beginner could be ignorant enough to think anybody could ever do, and there he was, doing them." When asked why he and Toland used depth of focus, Welles explained: "Well, in life you see everything in focus at the same time, so why not in the movies?"


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