Hearst the man dies a half hour into Leslie Iwerks’s Citizen Hearst the film, a biographic doc true to the letter of its title, if not the spirit: The citizen here is the company, whose past and present are toasted in an energetic, star-aided bustle. Oprah, Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan and Heidi Klum are the ringers, with William H. Macy narrating and Leonard Maltin trying to sprinkle some pop-historical gravitas into the hagiographic mix. The half hour on William Randolph Hearst himself is a brisk, informative pleasure, chockablock with well-chosen archival footage, and the man’s peccadilloes are not treated shyly. A dishy celebration of Helen Gurley Brown is unfortunately curtailed, but excitable interviews with the current muckety-mucks running Town & Country, Esquire and Harper’s Bazaar should prove inspirational for anyone hoping for the survival of glossy magazines.
Thu., March 14, 8 p.m., 2013
This article appears in Jun 14-20, 2012.
