Mank

The Tale of the Organ-Grinder's Monkey

or

"I built him a water-tight narrative and a suggested destination. Where he takes it, that's his job."

The film Citizen Kane has held such a reputation over the years of being an iron-clad masterpiece and possibly "the greatest film ever made" that, of course, people are going to fight over it. One can't dispute its brio and artistry, especially in comparing it to what had come before. So, the alternative is to fight about something else. Tone problems, maybe? (in a film that centers on child abandonment, it's remarkably free of sentiment and thus—it is argued—"cold").

But, no. The big argument is usually "credit." Who did what (and to whom?). And the history of Citizen Kane has been continually squabbled over in a snow-storm of exhumed scripts, continuity pages, notes, and interviews (usually accompanied by a background whine of axes grinding). It's all such flotsam in a snow-globe, shaken up with little purpose or permanence. Time would have been better spent watching the movie because, like the poster tag-line said, "It's terrific!" 

People are just trying to determine "why" that is.

Fincher not using depth-of-field; the looming shadow is that of Orson Welles

Now comes Mank, directed by David Fincher from a script by his late father (and tinkered-with by Eric Roth, who gets a producer credit in lieu of a writing one, ironically enough) and it's a deliciously inventive stirring of the pot, going maybe a bit too "inside" of Hollywood and the games people play to get work and the compromises they make to keep getting it. It is less about the making of Citizen Kane than the writing of it* and it takes the structure of Kane to tell it, weaving back and forth between screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman), bed-ridden from an auto accident, holed up in working convalescence in Victorville, California, and his memories—some fueled by alcohol—of his years in Hollywood, when he wrote with the best of them and circled among the powerful, like William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance) and his mistress, Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried).

Reaction in the various corners has been predictable. The Welles loyalists  think it's a smear job and "Paulettes" (writers mentored by—or apologists for—Pauline Kael), and the Mankiewicz relations are reserved in their praise. Nobody in the Mank scenario gets out unscathed...or alive (or they couldn't have made the picture). So, if anybody "wins" it would be merely on points, no knock-out. The character assassinations are done in a circular firing squad, but no one's legacy is left un-besmirched. Credit where credit is due.

But, credit is like Truth in Hollywood. If you got it in writing, the odds are in your favor, but Hollywood is filled with myth-makers; how are you going to know if it's true...or just makes a good story. Mank takes the position that Mankiewicz, having proved his worth in Hollywood, started to take his position for granted—he was an alcoholic and a gambler, so someone for whom consequences come later. His work and his attitudes toward his bosses and his worth changed and he saw himself tolerated rather than cherished and so began to pay less fealty to his overlords. He didn't play politics with California power; politics was too important to waste on film studio's.

Burke as Orson Welles

All of this he recounts to himself, both in his proudest moments and in his weakest, as he dictates the promised screenplay "American" for the New Kid on the Block, the Wunderkind with the Iron-Clad Contract, Orson Welles (Tom Burke). Mankiewicz is writing "American" as work-for-hire, so he's getting paid but that's it. He's being overseen by Welles major domo John Houseman (Sam Troughton)—who drops by, fusses and leaves—but the work is done by Mank dictating, which gets typed up by assistant Rita (Lily Collins), whose husband is lost in the opening fires of WWII, while a nurse Freda (Monika Gossmann) handles medical attention.

Oldman's Mankiewicz with Sam Troughton as John Houseman

We talked about truth, earlier. Among other things, Mank is a movie about conspiracy. Everything about it is under the table and understood between friends. No one knows that Mankiewicz is working on a screenplay, Welles—absent while working at RKO on a planned "Heart of Darkness" movie—is kept vague about work accomplished, Houseman doesn't know that Mankiewicz has smuggled in liquor ("exercise equipment" Mankiewicz calls it), although both Freda and Rita know it and aren't disclosing—the work flows with the liquor and progress is being made.

Writers' meeting

Mankiewicz is not shown to be above this sort of "nudge-nuge, wink-wink" flummery in the past as, in flashback, he and an all-star group of studio scribes—like Ben Hecht, S. J. Perlman, George S. Kaufman, Charles McArthur and Ben Hecht go into a script meeting with David O. Selznick and "Joe" Von Sternberg and hash out the progress of an entirely fictional script that they're ad-libbing on the spot; they have been playing cards and other non-writerly things on the studio's dime. It's an intellectual game played on the "rubes" running the studio, a little arrogant "up you" from the smart guys to the dumb, unsuspecting bosses. This mutual loathing/self-loathing society will be Mankiewicz's play-book negotiating around Hollywood.

At San Simeon with Mayer (Howard) and Thalberg (Kingsley)

At parties he's invited to (thank you very much, old sport), he'll always drink too much and talk too loud and be too indiscreet around the likes of the Louis B. Mayer's (Arliss Howard) and Irving Thalberg's (Ferdinand Kingsley) because everyone knows he's clever and he's amusing and a bit of a cheeky sort good for a laugh to fill up uncomfortable party-pauses. It's what brings him to the grounds of San Simeon and the world of William Randolph Hearst, a king-maker as well, but with far more reach than over just stars and starlets. The studio heads are all about fantasy; Hearst makes it real.

Which is fine as long as the liquor is flowing and everybody laughs at—or at least tolerates—your jokes. But, when Hearst and Mayer and Thalberg collude on their own little machinations to influence the vote on the up-coming governor's race (using the M-G-M dream machine to concoct footage to promote fear of a wave of socialism taking people's jobs) that's when Mankiewicz sobers up and loses his sense of humor—and nobody likes that at a Hollywood party. Republican or Democrat.

It spells Mankiewicz's down-fall as a "trustee" and "good ol' boy" and the jobs dry up—without filmed trainloads of migrants having to take them. That and a few other ramifications of the Governor's race gives Mankiewicz the need for the Welles job, the justification for taking it, and the opportunity—and ammunition—to pay back some debts by doing what a writer does best—writing what he knows. Despite having the semblance of a happy ending (wherein Mankiewicz raises another clever middle digit), Mank is a movie that doesn't make him look good. In fact, with the exception of the character of his wife and nurses (and sympathy for the character of Marion Davies), nobody "looks good" in the film. 

But, then, nobody did in Citizen Kane, either.

Mankiewicz's triangulation by Houseman and Welles

The movie certainly looks good, though, even resplendent. Shot in high-res black-and-white that fairly vibrates on the screen, Mank is, in all ways, a labor of love for Fincher. Beyond the parental connection, he revels in the deep-focus compositions and the chiaroscuro lighting pallets in monochrome duly recorded by DP Erik Messerschmidt. Fincher has always been a stickler for composition, but combining the "old movie" format with wide-screen—and the inspiration inherent in the subject, he's like Welles' proverbial "kid in a candy store" even going so far as to include "cigarette burns"—those corner spots indicating reel changes?** (Well, maybe if you're young enough, you don't)—totally unnecessary in a streaming presentation—but here, popping up every 14 minutes or so.*** The projectionist in me was always waiting for the second one and was not disappointed. (No "jump" on the next scene, though).

Although I wasn't exactly the choir Mank was preaching to, I did watch it with a perpetual, appreciative smile on my face. It's great to see this sort of artfulness being festooned over something that merely recreates the past, rather than create a whole new reality. More risk to this, especially for those who'll twitch if they see a flaw in period or manner. 

"...she was carrying a white parasol."

The only caveat I had was one lasting thought on my brain's back-burner almost the entire picture: If Mankiewicz is so much the driving force of the finished work, why then does Fincher follow the visual language and the look of Kane...which was the work of the director?  

Because Kane wouldn't be Kane without it?

"A far too-long screenplay for the ages...John Houseman"

* There are two other films if you want to see vague watered-down versions of that, 1996's "The Battle Over Citizen Kane," an episode of PBS's documentary series "The American Experience"(which seemed to come to the conclusion that Welles and Hearst had a lot in common, which is bosh—other than ego) and RKO 281, a fictionalized account based on that documentary produced by ScottFree Productions and directed by Benjamin Ross for HBO, which is even worse. 

The best place to start is reading Pauline Kael's "Raising Kane"--which appeared in The New Yorker and accompanied Mankiewicz's (and Welles') published shooting script in "The Citizen Kane Book" (Bantam Books, October 1971). Using another scholar's work, Kael built her article on the thesis that whatever is great about Citizen Kane is presaged in the screenplay rather than Welles' interpretation of it. 

Kael was a hell of a writer but a lousy researcher—once she had what she wanted to say on her mind nothing could refute it—nor would she seek out information refuting it. On top of that, she had a running feud with fellow-critic Andrew Sarris who took up the mantle of the French "auteur theory"—that the director is the true author of a film—of which Orson Welles was considered a prime example. The article raised all sorts of holy hell, dented her reputation a tad, but she remained unapologetic. Like most of her writing, it came from her heart, not necessarily any research.

** Fincher used the joke earlier in his career with Fight Club:

*** Reels were traditionally 10 minutes in length.

"Forgive us our trespasses"