Gary Oldman as Herman J. Mankiewicz (courtesy of mank)
To emit: Gary Oldman, Amanda Seyfried, Lily Collins, Tom Burke, Charles Dance, Tom Pelphrey, Sam Troughton, Ferdinand Kingsley, Tuppence Middleton, Joseph Cross, Jamie McShane, Toby Leonard Moore
Director: David Fincher
Classification: 4 stars (out of 5)
A moving, almost flawless tribute to the craft of screenwriter David Fincher Mank, broadcast on Netflix, is an elegant piece of film. It is not entertaining in the conventional sense of the term because that is not what it seeks to offer. It focuses on the darkness surrounding the glory and glamor of 1930s Hollywood. It tells the story of one man, but weaves together multiple thematic threads.
Filmed in sumptuous black and white and played to perfection by a marvelous cast led by Gary Oldman in the title role, the period drama recreates Old Hollywood, where power and personality used to give way to commanding ambitions that went far beyond of the entertainment business. The craftsmanship is impeccable. Mank It vividly and accurately evokes an important era of American cinema, warts and all, through the lens of one of the best films he ever produced.
The tone, which presumably comes from the script that the director’s late father, Jack Fincher, wrote in the 1990s but did not live to see it translate into a movie, is often tinged with a sense of regret. That is perfectly understandable. Fincher had to wait all these years because he did not budge in his decision to tell the Mankiewicz story in black and white. And seen from the point of view of the writers battling for credit, how this story about the writer of Citizen Kane ends can’t help but be close to the bone.
Mank It is a biographical film of Herman J. Mankiewicz. Going behind the scenes, roughly in keeping with the changing structure of Citizen Kane, the 1940 film jumps back and forth in the 1930 to 1933-1934 time period to portray Herman’s relationship with the bosses of studio and other key Hollywood. officials of the time.
In 1940, that’s where the movie begins, Orson Welles, a 25-year-old wunderkind (Tom Burke) receives a carte blanche from RKO Pictures who fights to do what he wants and with whoever he wants. Hire Herman to write a script.
Two of the key figures in Herman’s career are MGM’s Louis B. Mayer (Arliss Howard) and studio production manager Irving G. Thalberg (Ferdinand Kingsley). Herman’s relationship with the two powerful men fluctuates, going from cordial to brooding and hostile. The feisty screenwriter, however, enjoys a special bond with actress Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried, better than ever), lover of media mogul Randolph William Hearst.
Marion Davies’ character is a clinical summary of exactly what early Hollywood tended to reduce to smart women: dumb cartel girls whose powers were determined by the men who controlled their lives and careers. Seyfried embodies the woman with style and empathy.
Herman’s brother, film director Joe Mankiewicz (Tom Pelphrey) and, to a lesser extent, his wife Sara (Tuppence Middleton) serve as sounding boards in the personal sphere. John Houseman (Sam Troughton), a friend and collaborator of Orson Welles, does more or less the same on the professional front. He plays as a go-between while Herman works on the Citizen Kane script in isolation on a private ranch for a couple of months in 1940.
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Houseman’s first reaction to the development of the script is bewilderment. “In general, it’s a bit confusing,” he says. “(It is) a collection of fragments that jump in time like Mexican jumping beans.” Herman responds, “Welcome to my mind, Old Sock! The narrative is a big circle like a cinnamon roll, not a straight line pointing to the nearest exit.”
As is obvious, Mank It shows the wit and genius of a man who, despite being an integral part of Hollywood, rarely seemed at ease with the people around him and the methods they used to get things done. He never tires of poking fun at the industry that, he says, wants the world to believe that “King Kong is ten stories tall and Mary Pickford is a virgin at 40.” The joke points to an important element in the Mank narrative: the emergence of fake newscasts funded by a study to reduce the chances of a socialist politician taking office as governor of California.
Mank It is also about the 1941 film that is still considered around the world as one of the best films ever made, especially for its revolutionary narrative structure.
For Fincher, the personal and the political merge in the story he brings to the screen. Mank it is a test of the Hollywood of the 30s and 40s, an era of glamor, glory and squalor. In his first film since 2014’s Gone Girl, he reflects on the onerous task of producing an original script.
The alcoholic Herman is literally in pain when he begins his task. He broke his leg in a car accident and was advised not to consume alcoholic beverages. You have a tight deadline. While convalescing, he dictates the script to a young assistant, Rita Alexander (Lily Collins), who initially has reason to assume that the man she works for is not particularly pleasant. And then there is a thaw in the relationship.
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Herman invites trouble by choosing to base his script on the life of Hearst, to whose mansion he has free access. Hearst’s house, San Simeon, is the site of one of the film’s most important scenes in which Herman utterly poured out for the first time speaks about a modern-day Quixote as a journalist leaning against windmills.
The 1934 California gubernatorial election is woven into the film to give an idea of how tangled democracy can become when power brokers at the dream factory use the media at their disposal to persecute a candidate they hate: in this case, the socialist writer-turned-politician Upton Sinclair.
Gary Oldman is 62 years old. In 1940, Herman J. Mankiewicz was 33 years old. It is fascinating to watch the veteran actor play the role of a man who is half his age. Oldman’s articulation of measured but stinging cynicism is exquisite. Here, the contribution of the script cannot be overstated. It ensures that one’s mind is never on the physical appearance and behavior of the man. It is the substance at his heart and the sustained quality of the performance that makes him Mank the movie that is.
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