MANK: Herman Mankiewicz and the war over CITIZEN KANE

I wanted to like MANK, I really did. I love a lot of David Fincher's past films, and I love the subject matter: they go into great detail about all the inspiration for veteran Hollywood writer Herman J. Mankiewicz's
screenplay for CITIZEN KANE, including his friendship with magnate William Randolph Hurst and his consort, the charming and funny Marion Davies. the film is immaculately photographed, the art direction is sumptuous, the effects are often believable, and, man, it's about the closest thing I've seen digital looking like 35mm nitrate prints, complete with optical soundtracks and dirty changeover cues. But man, is it ponderous. I would've preferred a lot more about KANE and a lot less about politics and the politburo. Film buffs (particularly fans of 1940s films) will be dazzled, but I think most people will just feel a lot of WTF. As for the big question of who really wrote the film, I think Mank provided all the raw materials, but it was Welles who used that as the blueprint to build the house. Neither could have succeeded without the other. Both brilliant, cantankerous, self-destructive men who succeeded in making a controversial classic that still gets debated by scholars 80 years later. If you watch on Netflix, take a strong hit of caffeine to get through some of the slow points.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/03/movies/mank-review.htmlz

 

Aren't there like TWO other movies about the making of KANE?

 

You might enjoy ' RKO 121 ' with Liev Schreiber as Welles and John Malkovich as ' Mank ' a similar movie.

 

"Taking it too far" would be a badge of pride for Fincher and his team (esp. Ren Klyce the master)! They went to ridiculous lengths to get that so-called patina of vintage ADR sound. The musicians in the big band score, believe it or not, were mostly recorded separately in lockdown... boggles the mind how much effort went into getting that sound...

 

I saw this today on the big screen - thought it was pretty enjoyable for fans of classic cinema but there were some unconvincing scenes and some of the dialogue was too on the nose and I agree it dragged rather.

I'm not sure how many viewers today will know (or care) who many of the principals were. I can't see this being much of a success for Netflix.

 

I'm gonna check it out. Here's a review by Pauline Kael about Citizen Kane.

Raising Kane

From Wiki "Questions over the authorship of the Citizen Kane screenplay were revived in 1971 by influential film critic Pauline Kael, whose controversial 50,000-word essay "Raising Kane" was commissioned as an introduction to the shooting script in The Citizen Kane Book, published in October 1971. The book-length essay first appeared in February 1971, in two consecutive issues of The New Yorker magazine. In the ensuing controversy Welles was defended by colleagues, critics, biographers and scholars, but his reputation was damaged by its charges. The essay was later discredited and Kael's own scholarship was called into question."

 

Many of these films seem made for the filmmaker rather than the audience. I wonder how many people other than film buffs even know who Mankiewicz was, let alone Welles.

 

It’s reeeally inside baseball — it’s beautifully made but it’s a movie for however many people there are left who can say “oh that English guy must be John Houseman.”

 

I love Kael's film writing, but, yes, her scholarship in that essay was questionable (as her biographer, Brian Kellow, acknowledged). Though the essay has some merit. She tries to liberate Kane from the ponderous "greatest movie of all time" label by discussing how funny the movie is (the first half, anyway), and she's right.

There's a theory that Kael (who admired Welles greatly and praised most of his films) wrote the essay as a way to fight back against the "auteur theory" that her rival Andrew Sarris had popularized in the 1960s. This is the idea that the director of a movie is its "author" (sole creative force). Problem was, Sarris was misinterpreting the writing of French critics Andre Bazin and Francois Truffaut, who knew full well how movies were made, and were not suggesting a director was a film's only creative source. They were arguing that certain directors, like Hitchcock, Hawks, Ford, Welles, etc., had certain themes and ideas that reoccurred in many of their films, which is undeniably true.

 

The story -- what there is of it -- is just a string of about 35 not-terribly-obscure Old Hollywood anecdotes and one-liners, connected with tinsel.

And lots of characters staring skeptically at other characters as they speak.

 

Yeah they provide the over arching 'vision' that brings all the strands together. I've always thought the point of who wrote Kane was rather moot. I don't think Welles ever slavishly adhered to a script in his life, rather using it as a jumping off point for in the moment inspiration. Hell, he even rewrote Shakespeare! If someone else had directed it, I am sure it would have been quite serviceable, but it wouldn't be the Kane we know without Welles, or without Greg Tolland or the Mercury Players for that matter. Film is most definitely a collaborative effort - that's what makes it my favorite art form - but I do think you need that uniquely strong voice and vision to preside over it, whether it's The Searchers or Faster Pussycat Kill Kill and that's what Welles provided, and for me, what the Auteur theory is all about.

 

Well, it seems to me that the movie is all about what you give up in service of collaboration... what your "voice" as a creator actually amounts to in a collaborative medium

 

I loved it! Was that reverb on the voices some kind of homage to Welles?? I thought the music (co-supervised by Trent Reznor!) was a bit too nondescript, given the dramatic soundtrack music of the 30s and 40s... but overall impressively well done. Great performances by everybody.

 

The 5th winner in 2020 from Netflix (see also Farmageddon, The Old Guard, The Devil All the Time and The Social Dilemma).

 

I thought this was a really good film . The defeat of Upton Sinclair was an interesting part. I was glad to see the movie reflect the current times of the real world of 1934.

 

I loved it, too.

 

My Dad and I tried to watch it and gave up within a 1/2 hr. Muddled is a good word.

 

This. I've fallen in love with classic Hollywood cinema a few years ago and still try to get my hands on as much movies from that specific time and place as possible (as anyone who follows the "Last movie you watched" thread will likely have seen one time or another). So I was right in there and most of the namedropping made perfect sense to me. I also thought the "vintage" sound and picture design only added to the experience.

BUT I understand many people won't really understand everything that's going on in the film, so I guess the limited streaming numbers for this aren't really surprising.

 

I had a similar reaction to the rest of you, it would seem.

There were points where it seemed a bit of a mess but it worked itself out about halfway through (either that or I got used to it).

That said, the comments here seem to echo the feedback Mank got early on for the Kane script (muddled, jumps around, etc) but towards the end everyone acknowledged it for what it was.

Regardless, I thought the nuts and bolts of the film were exceptional- the cinematography, the look and feel of the film, and the performances were great. At times it really did feel like it could have been made during the golden age.

Two things that I had a question about -

Spoiler: Spoiler

1. At the first party we see (where Marion spoke out of turn and abruptly leaves) we see “Charlie” at the piano - was this intended to be Chaplin? If so, I didn’t think his ability was such. Maybe a nit picky point...
2. At the services for Irving Thalberg, Meyer drops his handkerchief out the window of his limo as he drives away...what was the significance of that?

 

Regarding your spoilers: I didn't notice the first one. I wondered about the second one, too. Was it something that ultimately made it into Citizen Kane?

 

I haven't seen this film, but every time I see it mentioned I think that Mank is an absolutely terrible title. It probably sounds worse to British ears because it sounds like "wank," and also "manky" (meaning worn, soiled, grubby, not nice to handle) but that apart it conveys nothing to 99% plus of the audience.

 

Oh - good thought. Did Kane drop something after he said “rosebud” and died? Or did his hand fall...it’s been a while since I’ve seen it. I have a book on the making of the film which I planned to read and then watch it.

 

I had no trouble with the structure - it's like a "cinnamon bun," to put it as Mank does about the script of Citizen Kane.

Spoiler

The handkerchief is a reference to Desdemona and Othello, and connects with allusions to it elsewhere. Also Mank drops his napkin in the long scene when he's alone with Willie.