THEY'RE ALL BUSY RAISING `KANE'; TRIO OF FILMS CHRONICLES WELLES' RISE, FALL AND WORKS IN PROGRESS.

Byline: David Kronke Staff Writer

Orson Welles would probably chuckle appreciatively - and certainly, resonantly - at the measures of hubris and trepidation that go into evoking his memory.

Welles, of course, was a boy genius who loved kicking up dust, who enjoyed calling attention to himself almost as much as he must have enjoyed the talent forced people to pay him heed. He panicked the government in 1937 into shutting down his tax-funded production of a pro-union musical, ``The Cradle Will Rock,'' before it opened, then a year later panicked the rest of the country with a doomsday scenario presented in a radio program, ``The War of the Worlds.'' He hacked off the most powerful media mogul of his time, William Randolph Hearst, with a thinly disguised biopic that mocked Hearst's lust for power, then hacked off just about everyone else in power in Hollywood, causing his career to take a spectacular belly flop.

He spent decades scraping for funding for his still-distinctive works, leaving behind a drawerful of intriguing but unrealized projects. Dying a seemingly diminished talent, Welles near the end had been relegated to performing magic tricks on daytime TV talk shows, hawking cheap wine and working for scale in Henry Jaglom flicks.

Quickly, however, cineastes congregated to refurbish his pedestal and polish the icon atop it, and Welles remains in the hearts of movie lovers today the embodiment of the maverick filmmaking spirit. ``Citizen Kane,'' that cheeky biopic, is routinely proclaimed the greatest film ever made.

``He had done more with his life by age 24 than most of us could accomplish within seven consecutive lifetimes,'' marvels Liev Schreiber, who plays Welles in HBO's ``RKO 281,'' about the making of ``Citizen Kane.''

``Without a doubt, he was the Shakespeare of cinema,'' adds George Hickenlooper, director and co-adapter of ``The Big Brass Ring,'' based on an unproduced Welles script.

Considering how many people worship the guy, you trod upon his memory at your peril.

And yet, that's precisely what three separate film projects dared to do this year. Writer-director Tim Robbins' ``The Cradle Will Rock,'' opening Friday, explores the eternal friction between art and commerce, particularly in a subplot based on Welles' efforts to stage Marc Blitzstein's left-leaning musical. (After the incident, Welles himself wrote a screenplay for ``The Cradle Will Rock,'' including himself as a character.)

``RKO 281,'' continuing its run on HBO, examines the controversy swirling in the background of the making of ``Citizen Kane,'' including a few stylistic flourishes paying homage to Welles' first masterpiece. And ``The Big Brass Ring,'' which debuted on Showtime and comes to video in January, adapts and updates one of Welles' final, unproduced scripts about political ambition and scandal - it was to serve as a bookend to ``Kane'' in Welles career. It also includes references to Welles' work.

So when evoking the master, how much does the shadow of his legend loom over the project?

``I knew from the very beginning that I was doomed,'' says Hickenlooper. ``I knew it was a losing battle. I wasn't trying to step into Orson Welles' shoes. I was trying to make this film my own. If anything, I was trying to bring attention to Orson Welles, the writer. People say I was trying to cash in on the Welles name'' - he laughs - ``but that's just suicide.''

On the other hand, he says, ``I didn't think of Welles so much while directing it. I didn't think what the consequences would be. I was so much in love with the characters. We didn't discuss Welles, not in rehearsals. Nigel Hawthorne (who plays the role Welles had intended for himself), told me, `I'm not going to try to guess how Welles would have played it.' The actors never read the original screenplay.'' Welles' original script hinged on a homosexual sex scandal that seems tame in light of today's political chicanery; Hickenlooper incorporated into the scandal a biographical element from Welles' own life - a missing brother (Welles' brother Richard spent much of his life in an asylum).

Of playing Welles, Schreiber says, ``His were big shoes to fill. Initially, I was nervous - I really felt they had the wrong guy. I had a classical background, I was tall, I had a deep voice - those were the only reasons I could imagine them wanting me. I was reluctant to do it because I had always admired Orson Welles. I felt I had no business impersonating him. But friends of mine who were also big fans of his each said to me, `At least it's you (playing him). The fact that you care matters; you'll do your best.' Do the job; hope for the best. I'll win if I can, and if not, I gain nothing but my shame and the odd hiss.

``I never really understood the exercise that is the bio-picture,'' Schreiber continues. ``I never liked the style. It begs too much comparison - how much does Ray Liotta look like Sinatra (in `The Rat Pack')? Not a lot, but does he capture something essential about the guy? That was my angle into the role. I ultimately decided, I didn't feel like impersonating him anyway; mimicry is not my bag.''

Angus McFadden, who portrays Welles in ``The Cradle Will Rock,'' likewise eschews impersonation. But of tackling Welles, he says, ``Certainly, I didn't make it too much of a concern of mine - you can't please everybody. I just focused in on what I was trying to do. I've played historical people before. I wasn't interested in doing an impression, but to find the spiritual essence of the character, which was captured on the page by Tim Robbins' script.

``The key was the youthful exuberance with which he seemed to consume the world,'' McFadden explains. ``That script contrasted reason and order vs. the world of theater, dominated by the character of Orson Welles and his bacchanalian spirit of chaos. That was very much there in the script. He had an enormously large, generous spirit; he made enemies because he didn't suffer fools gladly.''

``He was trying to be creative in a formulaic medium, to break down patterns,'' Schreiber adds. ``He was a guy who wouldn't take no for an answer, which is what artists should do - their risks are by which we profit. He took a lot of risks, which is remarkable for a young guy.

``What's that like, to have that obsessive ambition - where does that come from as a person?'' Schreiber continues. ``What kind of person would create that body of work? He was a deeper man than we gave him credit for, more sensitive than we gave him credit. I don't see `Kane' as a scathing portrayal of Hearst - it's a sympathetic portrayal of a man who gets lost in life and ends up quite alone. And he implicated himself in that, as well - it's astonishing for a 24-year-old man to be that mature, to understand the existential nausea that he was writing about.''

``He was 6-foot-4 and looked 30 when he was 20 - from all reports, he was quite a frightening man,'' McFadden notes. ``He had that voice, as well, and I imagine a sense of knowing how to manipulate that. All that's tied in with his genius - in film after film, he looks into the heart of darkness, greed, ambition, the monster in us all. He says, `Look at that - I am that man. Kane is me. Look inside me here, I am a monster, I'm not afraid to be what I can be.' He puts himself on show, in a way, as the monster.''

John Logan, screenwriter of ``RKO 281,'' says Welles' ominous specter hung over him ``quite a lot, honestly. If you're a writer, an artist, or a filmmaker - which I barely am - Orson Welles is one of those people standing at the top of a tower with a klieg light shining on him. He's an inspiring, intimidating character.''

Logan pored through every Welles book and watched ``Kane'' endlessly in the year it took him to write the script. ``We're not aping `Citizen Kane'; we're not trying to best it or shine a new light on it,'' he insists. ``We're just trying to tell our story.''

Benjamin Ross, ``RKO 281's'' director, says his strategy was to ``step to the side of the competition. I wanted a boldness about making the picture.

``The first script I read was very much a `Kane'-led piece; it was to be shot like a Welles film, in black and white, which would have been disastrous. We had to stake out new territory. I wanted to capture its essence without being a look-alike.

``(The late director Francois) Truffaut said people who make films should be proud, because it's a bold thing to do. So there was no sense in going into this with false modesty - we had to take on the challenge directly,'' Ross said.

In re-creating Welles' story, Schreiber noted that life was beginning to imitate art, in that life began to battle art.

``So much of the bad buzz that exists today about Orson is because he tried to do an incredibly difficult thing, which is support the idea of a singular artistic vision,'' he explains.

``That's important in art. When movies go through the development process, they become formula. We don't identify with that in the same way in which we relate to something that is unique. When something is the product of a singular vision, it's one person's idea of the world that, ironically, we relate to because it comes from one person and not a committee.''

George Schaefer (head of RKO and Welles' presumptive boss when Welles was making ``Kane' '') was simply interested in putting bread on people's tables, Schreiber notes.

``That is a wonderful conflict. One guy is working toward the future, one is occupied with the present. Both goals are valid. Because of the amount of money involved, it's difficult to do a film on one's own terms. You need the collaboration and involvement of others, which inevitably detracts from the power of singular vision.

``So, when working on this film, Ben had his idea of the film, John had his idea, Ridley (Scott, executive producer) had his idea, and I had my idea of what the film was going to be. That led to interesting frictions. But the important thing was that it be a singular vision - if it was a hodgepodge, my interest as a viewer would go in and out.''

Ross elaborates: ``(Schreiber) was dealing with Welles the actor, while I was dealing with Welles the director. That's a scary nemesis to take to work each day. It felt like we were working our way out of the depths of hell each day. That's an amazing way to work - it's great to work with terror, it makes you hustle. That's what was both frightening and fun about it.''

The facts

The show: ``RKO 281.''

What: Docudrama about the making of ``Citizen Kane.''

Who: Liev Schreiber, James Cromwell, John Malkovich.

Where: HBO, HBO Signature and HBO Plus. It also will be released on video in the spring.

When: On HBO - 1 p.m. Thursday, midnight Dec. 13. On HBO Signature - 11 p.m. Saturday, 6:30 p.m. Dec. 24. On HBO Plus - 3:40 a.m. tonight, 4:30 p.m. Dec 15., noon Dec. 18, 9 a.m. Dec. 20, 9 p.m. Dec. 23, 3 p.m. Dec. 31.

The film: ``The Cradle Will Rock.''

What: Film about the struggle between art and commerce, focusing in part on Orson Welles' conflicts within the Federal Theater Project.

Who: Angus McFadden, Cherry Jones, Bill Murray, Joan Cusack, John Cusack, Susan Sarandon, Ruben Blades, Hank Azaria, Emily Watson.

When: Opens Friday.

The video: ``The Big Brass Ring.''

What: Adaptation of the Orson Welles script about political ambition and scandal that originally aired on Showtime.

Who: William Hurt, Nigel Hawthorne.

When: On video Jan. 12.

CAPTION(S):

7 Photos

Photo: (1 -- cover -- color) Citizen Welles

Three new films revive the maverick spirit of Orson Welles

(2 -- cover -- color) Angus MacFadyen in ``Cradle Will Rock''

(3 -- cover -- color) Liev Schreiber in ``RKO 281''

(4 -- 5) At left,Orson Welles, left, and Joseph Cotten in a scene from the 1941 film ``Citizen Kane,'' the making of which inspired HBO's docudrama, ``RKO 281.'' Below, Welles, center, on the set of ``F for Fake'' in 1973.

(6) Welles' working draft for ``Citizen Kane,'' including his notes for changes, was sold by Sotheby's in 1993.

(7) Between scraping together money to direct films and appearing in other people's movies, Orson Welles occasionally performed magic on TV shows.