"Mank," David Fincher's interpretation of the back story of "Citizen Kane," the classic film based on the life of newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst, employs two of the same technical devices as its subject: flashbacks and moody black-and-white cinematography. The excellent Gary Oldman is cast against age and nationality as the title character, screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz who wrote the "Kane" script with Orson Welles and according to Fincher deserves at least as much credit for the final iconic product as co-writer and director Welles. Perhaps Fincher and Co. felt that if Oldman could pull off Winston Churchill in "Darkest Hour" he could do anything, though there must have been many other actors closer to Mankiewicz's's actual age at the time who could have done just as well. Oldman rises to the challenge and with the help of careful lighting and camera angles molds his sixty-something self into a dissipated thirty- and forty-something self, tastefully munching the scenery all the way.
The single worthy and sensible point the film gets across is that the character in "Kane" that is supposed to be based on Hearst's consort Marion Davies is actually and intentionally based on the public's inaccurate perception of Davies rather than on the actual Davies, whom Mankiewicz knew well in real life. Davies was not the talentless concubine featured in "Kane." Any perusal of her YouTube clips easily puts that myth to rest. But the "Mank" script, written by David Fincher's late father Jack, also portrays her as a sort of old-timey Brooklyn "goil," the type of character she may have been in her teens, but certainly left behind by the time she achieved major Hollywood stardom and became lady of the San Simeon manor. Additionally, the Fincher narrative asserts that by the mid-1930s her movies had been losing money for "ten years" which is nonsense. In any case, Amanda Seyfried does as well as one could hope with the material she's given.
Speaking of historical inaccuracy, the Finchers get so much wrong that one can only surmise that they don't care about facts. They clumsily use the hook of a famous classic work of cinematic art to score contemporary socio-political points or to indulge a personal admiration for the tragic Mankiewicz who died young from complications of alcoholism and who was one of the better screenwriters of his time. The filmmakers' prejudices are quite evident in their overwhelmingly negative portrayal of Irving Thalberg (Ferdinand Kingsley), particularly the way they portray his involvement in MGM's organized opposition to the 1934 gubernatorial campaign of leftist novelist Upton Sinclair, a subplot which seems to be dragged in to link Mankiewicz with left-wing politics. It's a distraction at best. Mankiewicz had little or nothing to do with the Sinclair episode. (A fascinating film could be made about the legendary showdown between Thalberg and Erich von Stroheim over the production of "Greed" in the 1920s.)
More examples of wrongheadedness: A 1930 meeting at Paramount Studios in which various screenwriters engage in shop-talk with David O. Selznick about Universal's "Frankenstein" and "The Wolf Man." The former was not released until the following year and the latter over a decade later. And throughout the early-30s scenes the action is accompanied, if not overwhelmed, by the Benny Goodman-esque big-band swing sound. Too many filmmakers reflexively use this World-War-Two-era music to evoke the whole interwar period. Think again, people. Watch a few films about contemporary life released in 1930 and compare the underscoring to what you hear in movies released in 1935 or 1940. Easy.
In general, the constant random leaps from 1940 to 1930 to 1934, etc., along with dialogue consisting largely of "quotable quotes" or historical exposition in the form of pseudo-casual conversation, tires out the viewer, limiting "Mank"'s to unusually tolerant film-buff fans of vintage Hollywood.
The single worthy and sensible point the film gets across is that the character in "Kane" that is supposed to be based on Hearst's consort Marion Davies is actually and intentionally based on the public's inaccurate perception of Davies rather than on the actual Davies, whom Mankiewicz knew well in real life. Davies was not the talentless concubine featured in "Kane." Any perusal of her YouTube clips easily puts that myth to rest. But the "Mank" script, written by David Fincher's late father Jack, also portrays her as a sort of old-timey Brooklyn "goil," the type of character she may have been in her teens, but certainly left behind by the time she achieved major Hollywood stardom and became lady of the San Simeon manor. Additionally, the Fincher narrative asserts that by the mid-1930s her movies had been losing money for "ten years" which is nonsense. In any case, Amanda Seyfried does as well as one could hope with the material she's given.
Speaking of historical inaccuracy, the Finchers get so much wrong that one can only surmise that they don't care about facts. They clumsily use the hook of a famous classic work of cinematic art to score contemporary socio-political points or to indulge a personal admiration for the tragic Mankiewicz who died young from complications of alcoholism and who was one of the better screenwriters of his time. The filmmakers' prejudices are quite evident in their overwhelmingly negative portrayal of Irving Thalberg (Ferdinand Kingsley), particularly the way they portray his involvement in MGM's organized opposition to the 1934 gubernatorial campaign of leftist novelist Upton Sinclair, a subplot which seems to be dragged in to link Mankiewicz with left-wing politics. It's a distraction at best. Mankiewicz had little or nothing to do with the Sinclair episode. (A fascinating film could be made about the legendary showdown between Thalberg and Erich von Stroheim over the production of "Greed" in the 1920s.)
More examples of wrongheadedness: A 1930 meeting at Paramount Studios in which various screenwriters engage in shop-talk with David O. Selznick about Universal's "Frankenstein" and "The Wolf Man." The former was not released until the following year and the latter over a decade later. And throughout the early-30s scenes the action is accompanied, if not overwhelmed, by the Benny Goodman-esque big-band swing sound. Too many filmmakers reflexively use this World-War-Two-era music to evoke the whole interwar period. Think again, people. Watch a few films about contemporary life released in 1930 and compare the underscoring to what you hear in movies released in 1935 or 1940. Easy.
In general, the constant random leaps from 1940 to 1930 to 1934, etc., along with dialogue consisting largely of "quotable quotes" or historical exposition in the form of pseudo-casual conversation, tires out the viewer, limiting "Mank"'s to unusually tolerant film-buff fans of vintage Hollywood.