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Who wrote “Citizen Kane”?
The debut of the young director Orson Welles was not just any. He was a genius of direction, well suited for criticism, controversy and discussion. He was the one who started out in Hollywood, then raged and sidelined. One of the controversies about Wells concerns the writing of “Citizen Kane.” Since the film’s release, it has been debated whether the script was written by Hermann Jacob Mankiewicz, and whether Welles’ contribution can be considered as appearing in the film’s sequels as co-writing. The controversy took place in the early 1970s. Critic Pauline Kyle wrote in The New Yorker magazine a lengthy article entitled Raising Kane, in which she tried to show that the real genius behind the film was not Wells, but the screenwriter. Hermann Jacob Mankiewicz, who overflowed the crushing imprint of the director on his character.
According to her, Wells “did not write a single line.” Rather, he relied on a script that was not his writing, on cinematographer Greg Toland for the stunning image and on Bernard Hermann for the music, which made him a “vampire” of other talents. Wells and Mankiewicz had a public dispute over script credit, until they shared the only Academy Award for “Best Original Screenplay,” which the film received out of its nine nominations. After some time on Kyle’s article, Wells’s critic, editor, and personal friend Peter Boagdanovic responded to Kyle brutally. He gave another version of the novel and gave Wells full credit with a small contribution to Mankiewicz. This disagreement, which began with the film’s release, reached Kyle and Boagdanovic, and today, almost eighty years after the premiere and 50 years after Kyle’s article, the discussion has come to us through the movie “Mank”.
Hermann Jacob Mankiewicz and William Randolph Hearst
Mankioys was a miracle, brilliant and ironic. He graduated from Columbia University before he was nineteen. And take over Hollywood. When he arrived in 1926, he quickly made his way with the big producers. He became the head of the script department and, in the age of sound, went on to become one of the most important writers in Hollywood. Mankiewicz’s arrogance and addiction to alcohol and gambling drove him away from Hollywood studios several times. But he was back, happy to insult executives and challenge anyone because he knew so well that he was the smartest man in Hollywood, rewriting and editing hundreds of movies. And he was loved by his peers, who found him funny and charismatic. He led a troublesome life, attacking everyone. He was an acrobatic who liked to take risks and cause trouble, especially word problems. His spark is always about to burn in his face first, but he just doesn’t care. His relationships with Hollywood moguls led him to William Randolph Hearst, emperor of the press at the time. In the 1930s, Mank sneaked into Hearst’s little circle thanks to his colleague Charles Lederer, the nephew of Hearst’s lover, actress Marion Davis. He became friends with the actress, exchanged gossip with her and liters of alcohol, a substance to which he was addicted, and closed his lips forever at the age of fifty-five. Mankiewicz was always present at the parties of the exclusive social circle of the press mogul. He knew it all, knew of man’s dangerous public and private transgressions in the press and in Hollywood, until Hearst expelled him. Mankiewicz dropped his sharp tongue and pen in revenge, spewing everything up to reveal Hearst’s embarrassment in “Citizen Kane.”
Classics ‘mank’ 2020
In the spring of 1940, after a car accident, Hermann Jacob Mankiewicz “Mank” (Gary Oldman) broke his leg, then was transported to a farm in the Mojave Desert to write the script for “Citizen Kane” in sixty days. . Under the care of a German nurse and with the help of a British secretary named Rita Alexander (Lily Collins), Mank writes and recalls milestones in his life: his relationship with Joseph Mankoys’ sister (Tom Belfry), his relationship with Louis B. Mayer (Arles Howard) is the founder of the production company “Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer” and the producer Evring Thalberg (Verdant Kingsley). Partying at St. Simeon’s Castle, William Randolph Hearst’s (Charles Dance) castle and friendship with actress Marion Davis (Amanda Seyfried).
In fuzzy black and white, with monophonic sound and full flashback narration, as did Wells himself, and based on a script written by journalist and screenwriter Jack Fincher (father of director David Fincher) thirty years ago, Mank takes us to the American director David Fincher, on a journey built on a structure A narrative that goes back and forth between the present and the past. The film is so precious, but at the same time misleading, that the Citizen Kane script is nothing more than a spectator scam or a simple distraction that Fincher used to address the true subject of the film: a crude image that destroys the idealistic image Hollywood in the thirties. Through him, the film becomes “Noir”, offering its best weapon: the cynical and clear look in which Mankiewicz sees Hollywood. Mank was a leftist, very sarcastic, he did not believe in revolutions. He prefers to drink, wander around parties and palaces, and verbally poke fun at Hollywood possessors.
Just as “Citizen Kane” caused cinema to enter adulthood and disintegrate from classical language, Venture here reformatted cinema and moved it away from its modernity. Exploiting the narrative codes of classic cinema and returning the shadows. Reweave the same story from an opposite or darker point of view. If Kane’s story is the story of the most powerful men and their arrogance in the face of dominant media power that he himself made, then Mank’s story is the story of the youngest human fighting this force that dooms him to disappear. Fincher does not deprive himself of anything. In this contemplative maze, the same harsh criticism Wells leveled in 1941 of the media in particular and of capitalism in general directs Fincher to what is happening now. With the cinema’s ability to alter reality itself, Fincher offers more than just social commentary. A movie like a puzzle, rebuilds the broken pieces of that strange mirror that Hollywood has been behind for so long.
If Wells’s film is a fierce criticism of Hearst and the world of privilege and media control that he exercises, then Fincher’s Mankiewicz film is criticized the loudest. Fincher spent almost half of the film criticizing the dark and capitalist side of Hollywood, especially when he explained how the Hearst media caused the socialist writer Eptown Sinclair to lose the California gubernatorial election in 1934 through morally questionable mechanisms that could be compared with what today we call fake news.
“Mank” is a movie about the guts, behind the scenes.
Fincher blows the narrative codes of classic cinema and brings back the shadows
It is an audiovisual tribute to the way of making films that have disappeared forever. It is a reflection of cinema that requires the cooperation of many parties, but must also deal with the ego of all those involved. Although it is narrated in a fairly accessible way, a viewer with a prior knowledge of not only Hollywood history, but also the modes of film acting at the time, will enjoy more. In the first half hour alone, the film contains posters, phrases, and short dialogue sentences that refer to no less than ten films from the beginning of the talking films. David Fincher is primarily aimed at movie fans, creating a masterpiece for moviegoers. “Mank” is a Hollywood moral painting from the 1930s and early 1940s, the passionate touch and nostalgia that fit perfectly with Fincher and Gary Oldman. The latter showed the character of Mank in an authentic way, embodying a mysterious person who does not appear much to the public, even the Oscar was not received at the ceremony because he did not attend. Oldman presented Mank with his sadness, anger and sarcasm, with his humanitarian motives. A sharp performance like the conversations that take place between cigarette smoke and glasses of whiskey. Oldman is usually drunk and always exceptionally well, but he left something mysterious and hidden to the character that we were left longing to know more about him.
Cinematic acumen that embraces the spicy splendor and discordance of dialogue. Film scriptwriters appreciate those artists to whom the film industry has fallen. Article on the revival of Pauline Kyle. A historical document that does not in any way undermine the importance of Orson Welles in the history of cinema. A gift from David Fincher this holiday season and, most importantly, a deservedly rewarding seasonal gift. In the end, the movie’s secret is exposed, and the awards love one thing more than anything else: movies about the movie industry.
* Mank on Netflix
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