Orson Welles’ masterpiece Citizen Kane heads to Blu-ray on September 13th, and fans of the movie (it’s listed as AFI’s greatest film of all time) will be treated to its highest visual quality to date.

“The work to recreate the original look of the film and to clean up the effects was a painstaking, frame-by-frame process,” said Warner Bros. Motion Picture Imaging colorist Janet Wilson in a statement.  “The source for most of the picture was a 4K scan from a 1941 composite fine grain positive master.”

Citizen Kane 70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition contains over three hours of bonus features including a 48 page collector’s book, a 20-page reproduction of the original souvenir program, and lobby cards.  Extras in the collection include: commentary from director Peter Bogdanovich (a close friend of the late director) and critic Roger Ebert, interviews with Ruth Warrick and Robert Wise, deleted scenes, the theatrical trailer, The Battle over Citizen Kane documentary, and the HBO movie RKO 281 (which featured Liev Schreiber as Orson Welles).

In This Is Orson Welles, a collection of interviews Bogdanovich conducted with Welles, the late filmmaker talked about making Citizen Kane, which was shot by cinematographer Gregg Toland.  Although Welles said he was indebted to Toland for their Kane collaboration, the filmmaker also commented on his strong visual sense:  “It’s just something you have or you don’t have.  I think you can be a very great director and have only a very vague notion of what the camera does at all.  That may be megalomania, but I’m absolutely certain of that area.  And everything else is doubtful to me.  I never consult the operator or anything.  There it is.”

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posted by Greg Srisavasdi