Episode 28 – Pauline Kael's 'Raising Kane' - a podcast by Phi Phenonenon

Revolving guest-host Lani Gonzalez joins again this week for Shane’s pick, the controversial and often “discredited” 1971 essay from the polarizing New Yorker film critic about the former greatest film of all time and how Orson Welles tried to steal its screenwriting credit from the forgotten Herman J. Mankiewicz. On today’s episode we discuss how, unfortunately, the essay deserves much of its negative reputation due to a pre-determined thesis and sloppy research — but how it also manages to be a brilliant history about a generation of forgotten Algonquin writers giving us the wittiest and most literary period for American film, the 1930s. Also: The essay as the basis for David Fincher’s upcoming Netflix film Mank, the nature of film credit, and whether or not Kael deserves her reputation as America’s greatest film critic.

“Raising Kane” can be found either as the introduction to The Citizen Kane Book or in its two-part publication in the New Yorker here and here.

Citizen Kane is available to rent on video platforms, and is currently streaming on HBO Max.

Gonzalez writes about film for both Book and Film Globe and, alongside her husband AJ, their blog Cinema Then and Now.

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