Mank

"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.

Mank (2020)

The movie that everyone wants to like. But why?

Oh, Gary Oldman as Mankewitz is rather terrific. And the subject matter should hold water, concerning William Randolf Hearst and that 1930s world of excess, not to mention Orson Welles and that obvious Citizen Kane connection.

But there are so many scenes where the writer is straining to make sure the audience is keeping up with things, for example giving us first names (and variations on first names) to clue us in on who is who. The strain of having to inform the audience chokes the intended authenticity. The scene early on where some screenwriters (including Ben Hecht) are chatting about screenplays and ideas is so forced it's embarrassing-especially since it's about screenwriting.

The movie has its beauty, for sure, filmed in greyish black and white that is a softened, more detailed version of classic Hollywood. Films from the time it is set, mid-1930s to 1940, are noticably "harder" in tonality, meaning deeper blacks and more overall contrast. Citizen Kane is a prime example. It's worth noting that the photography for "Mank" is generally very poised and luminous, lots of backlighting and delineated grey scales, not much like the photography in Kane.

Now you might expect the film to grow into its own vocabulary, to have a style of its own whatever the borrowings of its substance. But no, the script is stubbornly derivative and simplistic (almost as if the writers were in their 20s and just discovering Hollywood, and literature). And the reason for this is as old as the hills-the son David Fincher is adapting the screenplay of his beloved departed father, Jack Fincher. A natural mistake, but not one to put $50,000,000 on.

The plot, what little there actually is, blunders along, dull as pancakes in July. The cliches abound, the supporting cast spouts obvious quips, and the name-dropping is endless and revealing. I do love Citizen Kane, and admire Welles, and I also greatly admire many of Fincher's films on another level, so it all is a disappointment.

The saving grace is certainly Oldman, who acts his heart out, and sustains many scenes, even ones that don't offer much worth saving. True, he's a 62 year old playing the part of a man between 37 and 42, roughly, and that doesn't help. But he's committed and complex. A good job.

And the movie isn't a total wreck...but with all the hype, it really deflates and confounds. How and why, with all this talent, did it end up so underachieving? Or then again, who really cares?

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.

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.

"Mank" from David Fincher is a Netflix production. This provider of streaming services has produced a couple of good films the last few years, such as "Roma" (2018, Alfonso Cuaron) and "The Irishman" (2019, Martin Scorsese). For Fincher it was his first feature film since "Gone girl" (2014), and a very different film then the ones I have seen from him thusfar. Apart from "Gone girl" I have seen "Seven" (1995), The game " (1997) and "Zodiac" , all films with touches of crime in it. The script of "Mank" is based on work of the father of David Fincher, Jack Fincher.

For me "Mank" is above all an ode to the Hollywood studio system at its peak in the late '30s and early 40's, just like "Blancanieves" (2012, Pablo Berger) is an ode to the silent movies and "The artist" (2011, Michel Hazanavicius) to the early talkies. Not that Hollywood is depicted as a sort of heaven on earth, see the malicious manipulations with respect to the election of the governor of California in 1934, but in the other mentioned films the sun does not always shine either.

The main character of the film is Herman Mankiewicz. A perfect role of the versatile Gary Oldman. Herman is the older brother of director Joseph Mankiewicz (1950, "All about Eve") and has been somewhat forgotten. He has (co)written the scenario for films such as "Dinner at eight" (1933, George Cukor), "The Wizard of Oz" (1939, Victor Fleming) and above all "Citizen Kane" (1941, Orson Welles).

In the 70's film critic Pauline Keal wrote an article in which she claims that the scenario for "Citizen Kane" was not a co production between Welles and Mankiewicz but actually written solely by Mankiewicz. This theory has since become obsolete. As a matter of fact I think that the article of Keal has to be interpreted in the context of a discussion she was involved in with the directors of the "Nouvelle vague". These directors saw the director of a movie as the author of the movie. Keal saw a movie as team performance. I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. The relation of a director to his movie is different from the relation of the writer to his book or the painter to his painting. Nevertheless the director still is the central point where all the creative decisions converge.

Does "Mank" try to revive a theory which has already been found incorrect? I don't think so. The films ends with the first draft of the script, which is the point in time where the role of Mankiewicz ends and the role of Welles begins.

The subject of the film is the making of "Citizen Kane" (1941, Orson Welles). "Mank" tries to do that in the style of this film. Therefore "Mank" is (of course) in black and white. The film uses also many flashbacks. The present is Mankiewics working on his script in a remote country house, the numerous flashbacks tell the story of his Hollywood past. In one respect "Mank" falls short of his subject film. In "Citizen Kane" we get numerous opinions (and thus a multi facetted image) of Charles Foster Kane. In "Mank" we see all the action through the eyes of Herman Mankiewicz himself.