Mank

The story of how writer Herman Mankiewicz penned Citizen Kane.

I had huge hopes for this film, and as it began, my heart sank with excitement, those black and white, soft visual sequences looked sublime, and the opening moments had me captivated, sadly it never really gets going, and ultimately disappoints.

Visually, it is rather breathtaking, 1930's Hollywood is reinvented, the soft lighting, camera work, costumes, cars, even the language are all on paint, pain staking efforts were clearly put into making this film a visual marvel.

Sadly the visuals alone weren't enough to save it, the story itself is interesting, but it's delivered in a way that'll have you yawning and fidgeting, it's too slow, too self indulgent.

The flashback sequences are distracting, and fail to enhance the film, just slowing down any momentum, if used sparingly, they can work, just too many here.

I must give huge credit to Gary Oldman, as always his performance is heart felt, sincere and terrific, and along with the visuals, simply not enough to save the film.

I can appreciate the production and visuals, I can certainly admire the acting, not just Oldman, the whole cast are excellent, but what I cannot forgive is the agonising pacing, and ultimately the boredom I experienced throughout most of it.

It is watchable, but I was glad to see the credits roll, 6/10.

I'm a huge fan of both "Citizen Kane" as well as David Fincher's films, so I was extremely excited to see this. Because of how much I enjoy Fincher's films as well as how good the trailers looked, I wanted to (safely) see it on a big screen rather than wait until Netflix. Needless to say, this is a good movie, but not a great one--and it does not quite live up to the quality one would expect from a Fincher film.

The story focuses on Herman Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman,) the screenwriter who worked--often tempestuously--with Orson Welles to write "Citizen Kane." However, the amount of time the film spends on material related to "Citizen Kane" is relatively little. Instead, the film tends to focus more on Mank's political activity, personal life, ascent into the movie business, and alcoholism throughout the 1930s. Oldman does a good job playing Mank, and is completely believable in the role. As one can expect from a Fincher film, the editing and cinematography are top-notch. The stylish, black-and-white aesthetic that feels both slightly understated (in the best way possible) and posh is beautifully complemented by a relatively steady camera and editing techniques common to films of the 1930s and 40s. The screenplay is generally well-written as well, although it doesn't feel as taut as you would expect in a Fincher picture, and the leisurely pacing is very well done.

Despite these strong qualities, "Mank" unfortunately is not quite great. The film develops Mank as a character, but he is portrayed in too static of a manner to really make for an engaging protagonist, or even one that can simply have clear ripple effects on the rest of the film's narrative and the characters around him. His characterization is not especially interesting. Fincher probably uses flashbacks a bit too much in the story, as many of the flashbacks to the early 1930s don't do too much to provide additional context to Mank as a character or the time period as a whole. Also, the supporting characters (such as the roles played by Amanda Seyfried and Lilly Collins) are not especially well-developed. As a result, the film doesn't completely work as a character study. However, it is still a generally well-acted and well-shot depiction of early film history that is worth seeing for viewers interested in the subject matter. 7/10

"Mank" is a film that seems as if it was never intended to be seen by most of the public. And, while most film critics and the Oscars loved the movie, the average person would have doubtless left the theater (or Netflix) completely confused. After all, to really appreciate the film and follow it, you need to know who folks like Irving Thalberg, William Randolph Hearts and many of Herman Mankiewiecz's contemporaries. I do, mostly because I am a retired history teacher and old film nut...but I am also not the average person. For them, I really feel sorry, as the film bounces back and forth in time and involves all sorts of people long dead....and soon to be forgotten.*

The story is a semi-fictionalized biography of Herman Mankiewiecz and it centers on how he wrote "Citizen Kane". The problem is that the movie goes on the assumption that he pretty much completely wrote the script and based it upon his contact with Hearst and his mistress, Marion Davies. While this is true...it's partially true according to most sources. The contributions of John Houseman and, especially, Orson Welles, are almost completely ignored by the film. So, my advice is don't take the film as the gospel truth...though I do appreciate how the film also manages, at least a bit, to show that Marion Davies was NOT the talentless idiot she was shown to be in "Citizen Kane"...something that just seemed cruel from that screenplay.

Overall, I found the film fascinating and with some excellent performances. But it's also not a film that I loved...mostly because it seemed to have an agenda...one that was more important that giving the entire truth.

*This film is full of inside jokes and cleverness that completely passes over the heads of most viewers and that annoyed me a bit. For example, when talking about the author Upton Sinclair, one comment made was that someone was so dumb that they thought he wrote "Elmer Gantry"...a book, incidentally, that was written by Sinclair Lewis (though they never explained this confusion nor why it is easy to make for most people). This just seemed awfully elitist.

1940. Film studio RKO hires 24-year-old wunderkind Orson Welles under a contract that gives him full creative control of his movies. For his first film he calls in washed up alcoholic Herman J Mankiewicz to write the screenplay. That film is Citizen Kane and this is the story of how it was written.

I was quite excited at the release of this movie. Citizen Kane is one of the greatest films of all time and the making of it deserves a movie. And here we have it, directed by the great David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club, Zodiac, The Social Network, Gone Girl, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) no less and with a good cast - Gary Oldman, Amanda Seyfried, Charles Dance, Lily Collins. Surely a recipe for a masterpiece?

Unfortunately, no. On the plus side, the story is reasonably interesting and the cast put in solid performances. Fincher's direction is spot-on, with the black-and-white cinematography an homage to Citizen Kane.

However, the plot is never very engaging. The story never really finds a centre and pretty much drifts along. It's not dull but has a listlessness to it nonetheless. The flashbacks, while adding information, don't help the momentum either, resulting in a start-stop feel to the main plot and a bit of confusion at times.

The conclusion is also a damp squib and is disparaging to one of the greatest creative forces in the history of cinema. It smacks of trying to make a controversy out of nothing.

Overall it's okay, but nothing more.

Mank shows that David Fincher can make something that's nothing like the rest of his filmography, not bound to his own rules and conventions. It may not be entirely accurate in its depiction of how Citizen Kane was written but it's fascinating to see Fincher of all people go against auteur theory.

Gary Oldman is amazing. He's witty, self obsessed and unable to back down regardless of the consequences. His relationship with Amanda Seyfried is great, especially a walk around the gardens in which she shows she's so much more insightful than her peers give her credit for.

David Fincher's direction is a lot stronger in its visual and audio composition than its narrative construction. Going back to old Hollywood he crafts a film that truly belongs there, the black and white cinematography and the overall audio really feel of the time. However, the flashback heavy structure of the film robs it of what little momentum it has.

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross also change things up from their usual output, displaying a completely new set of skills. Their score is fantastic, feeling era appropriate in the same way everything else does and it's definitely some of their least subtle work.