What the hell, Netflix! Mank comes out and it doesn’t come up as a featured new release? Mank is directed by David Fincher, one of the best directors going around. It also stars the third most recent Best Actor Oscar winner, Gary Oldman; one of the best actors going around. And contains a plot involving the making of Citizen Kane, one of the most revered movies ever! I’ve been patiently awaiting this movie, and started to think something was wrong, when December 4th came and went, and I had no notifications. But finally, it’s here!
Restricted to bed, following a car accident, Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) has promised to write Orson Welles (Tom Burke) his next script for an upcoming movie. Mank, a smarmy writer with a compulsion to go against the current, an alcohol dependence and a proudly sharp tongue, has a sixty-day deadline, and his heart set on writing a ground-breaking script lampooning multi-media tycoon William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance). The movie goes back and forth, from the present to the past, detailing Mank’s time writing for movie studios, his experiences with co-founder of MGM, Louis B. Mayer (Arliss Howard), and his encounters with Hearst, made possible through a likeminded friend and actress Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried). David Fincher has chosen to recall a classic era in technicality; Mank comes to us in black and white, with echoey mono sound, and staggered scene fades to black. Despite these modifications, Mank still feels like a David Fincher film, through and through.
I could say Mank may be inaccessible to some in parts, or I could say Mank is inaccessible in parts. Like Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, a founding knowledge of the history of the times, and Citizen Kane, is essential to get the most out of this movie. There’s a scene where Mankiewicz and Marion are jibber-jabbering about their acquaintances, and the immoral things they do, where I felt out of the loop and wondering if I’d ever get in. Because this is a movie about past writers, it’s also difficult to tell where the movie should be complimented for excellent dialogue, or if all the best lines are real quotes. But then, the movie gets good; the stakes become clear – Mank has to write for Orson’s deadline, and risks getting destroyed by Hearst, who really doesn’t care. The movie also includes an extremely interesting political bent, suggesting one of the first examples of deliberate corruption and distortion in public political debate occurred here – I loved The Front Runner with Hugh Jackman a few years back, for its lesson on the historical blurring of policy and private life for elected officials, that’s taken as given in media today, so I also must commend this; a look into how the movie studios hired actors to pretend to be real citizens voicing their concerns about the opposition leaders and passed it off as news. Propaganda! Mank becomes a movie about writers; their talents, their influence, their misuse and their disposability.
Without knowing what Hearst was like at all, I feel I get the characteristics Fincher desires to get across just because he’s got Charles Dance playing him. Would Dance be a nice fella in real life? I can’t see how, when he so effortlessly plays ruthless assholes time and time again (Tywin Lannister was my favourite character in Game of Thrones by the way). On actors, Amanda Siegfried is really very good; she’s always had a knack for playing flawed damsels, and it’s more of the same in Mank, except this time she’s more expressive than I’ve ever seen her before. I think it’s a delight when she’s on screen in this movie, and this could be the most complex acting performance she’s ever had to give. And I have this weird thing with Gary Oldman – I was oversaturated with positivity ahead of seeing his performance in Darkest Hour, where he was lorded for his role as Winston Churchill, so I didn’t get to form an unencumbered reaction for myself; and here again, I just think when you’re too consistently at an A+ level then it’s hardly noteworthy anymore. Oldman has done it; he’s clocked acting. As Mankiewicz, he must stay dry and soft spoken, with the most outwards acting coming in scenes where he is slurring his words drunk. He’s brilliant, as if I need to say it.
It seems like every great director gets sentimental about their industry eventually; they go from wanting to break into the film industry with original flare, to wanting to contribute a love letter to the past. Tarantino did it his way last year with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and the Coen Brothers with Hail, Caesar! Actually, Mank is more similar to The Man Who Wasn’t There from the Coens, with its spotlight on institutional corruption, and not just for also being in black and white. Fincher has been on a heater for his entire career if you ask me; through lockdown, I made my way through his catalogue and found a shocking number of perfect movies. I can’t believe it’s been six years since his last movie in 2014, which was Gone Girl. I guess because it’s been so long, I’d forgotten how calculatingly Fincher movies will unashamedly slap you in the face and kick you in the guts. It’s easy to forget that the story of Amy Dunne in Gone Girl was a huge shock to the system when it first came out; the system of marriage and love that is. Now it’s just an excellent movie, now that’s been digested. But this is Fincher over and over again – the philosophy of Tyler Durden (Fight Club), the box (Se7en), even all the way back to the fates of Newt, Hicks and Ripley (Alien³). The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; that’s the odd one out, providing false security with an uplifting ending. There’s got to be a word for the sad queasiness induced by Fincher movies.
Mank is alarming; in the modern day, whenever I’ve heard Citizen Kane talked about, it has always been about how technically revolutionary it was, and I’ve never been led to contemplate how controversial or politicised it might have been as well, until now. Who wants to think that the film industry could have been built on so much corruption and hostility? Watching Mank is like putting your hands on the underbelly of a shiny toaster oven, and coming away with greasy fingertips. The monkey grinder parable resonated with me too truthfully, and sometimes it’s easy to forget when hearing so much about David & Goliath battles that Goliath is fucking huge! And everywhere. When the movie finished, I just wanted to live in a cabin in the woods so bad. Of course, I’m being a baby, because that is the world we live in, from a certain point of view at least.
The quality of a Fincher production that you’ve come to expect shines through albeit not always engaging subject material. I am fortunate, because listening to an old episode of the Joe Rogan Experience last week, he just so happened to mention that Citizen Kane was based off the life of William Randolph Hearst, and that Hearst could be an extremely shrewd businessman. Fincher continually chooses to take on challenging material; it’s impressive. Mank is dense, where the old aesthetic filmmaking informs the movie but doesn’t define it, as the story is still king. Since I found the beginning so inaccessible, I’m hovering between a 4.0 and a 4.5, but I know I’ll find a new appreciation for Mank on subsequent viewings.
4.0
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