David Fincher’s Mank (2020) is, in many ways, not a movie for the average film watcher. It’s not because it’s too gruesome or disturbing, at least not compared to some of his other work like Fight Club or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo with murder or incestuous rape. And it’s not even too boring to hold one’s attention—the problem is that there’s such an extensive amount of detail, dialogue and historical discourse packed into its two-hour runtime that if you don’t have some previous knowledge of the topics, it’s hard to imagine finding it all that enjoyable. Mank is a historical and biographical film tracing the development of Citizen Kane’s script authored by the rather colorful and oftentimes inebriated Herman J. Mankiewicz, played in an outstanding performance by Gary Oldman. Though Mank is the definitive lead, there’s an array of characters that, at some points, might become quite difficult to keep track of but that drive the film’s historical and political subplots. The less important are his wife Sara (Tuppence Middleton), his scriptwriter Rita Alexander (Lily Collins) and younger brother Joseph (Tom Pelphrey). Though the film doesn’t go into his brother’s legacy, it’s worth noting he went on to have a much higher-profile career, directing and winning Oscars for the films A Letter to Three Wives (1949) and All About Eve (1950).
Then there are the major players in Hollywood, including MGM co-founders Louis B. Mayer (Arliss Howard) and Irving G. Thalberg (Ferdinand Kingsley) and a Citizen Kane producer John Houseman (Sam Troughton), who stays on Mank to get the script delivered on time. Finally, there are the two that largely inspired Mank’s writing for Citizen Kane: William Randolph Hearst (the always enjoyable Charles Dance), the newspaper mogul and 20th-century icon with an insatiable thirst for political influence, and his long-time partner, comedian and actress Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried). After Oldman’s performance, Seyfried’s is the most memorable and electrifying, as she completely disappears into the wide-eyed and easy-going Davies; Seyfried earned her first awards season attention with the role, securing a much-deserved Oscar nomination. The politicians running in California’s 1934 gubernatorial election include republican Frank Merriam, who never appears on the screen but is often discussed, and democrat, muckraker and perceived socialist Upton Sinclair (played in a very short performance by Bill Nye). The election saw an unprecedented and shameful interjection of Hollywood elites into politics.
Fincher opted for Mank, like Citizen Kane, to be told out of chronological order and shot in lush black and white, paying tribute to the era when the original script was written. He developed the film for over two decades before it was finally produced, and the rather brilliant screenplay is credited to his father, Jack, who died in 2003. The film begins in 1940 when a very young Orson Welles (played by Tom Burke, though not seen in the capacity you’d expect given it’s about his magnum opus) is given complete creative control over his directorial debut and contracts Mank, currently in a half-body cast recovering from injuries sustained in a car crash, to pen the script. Despite drinking excessively and convincing everyone he wouldn’t finish, Mank delivers a script that people regard as brilliant before it is even put into production. Citizen Kane is a supposedly fictionalized account of the life of Hearst. Because of Hearst’s immense power and influence at the time, and control of media no less, it was almost dangerous to depict him as a reclusive man, hidden away in his mansion, no longer yielding the influence he once had. Though never explicitly said to be about Hearst, the similarities are too obvious. In the screenplay, Kane acquires a massive private fortune at a young age from a gold mine, while Hearst inherited his fortune in the same manner; Kane resides in his mansion called Xanadu, while Hearst’s mansion is so prominent and over-the-top that it’s still preserved as a California State Historic Park; and Susan Alexander Kane, his mistress, bares a striking resemblance to Marion Davies. As the film progresses, it cuts between the present and different years in the preceding decade as Mank establishes a repertoire with Hearst through a friendship with Davies and becomes a frequent, and sometimes provocative, attendee of his lavish parties filled with those in the upper echelons of Hollywood. He doesn’t fit in with many people there aside from Davies.
In one of the first (and best) scenes at Hearst Castle, Mank and Davies walk the grounds. For those who’ve toured the mansion perched atop the hill in San Simeon overlooking the ocean, it’s especially memorable. Though Hearst Castle is so wildly elaborate that touring it today still leaves an impression, seeing it lived-in, complete with animals like monkeys and giraffes on the grounds, is fascinating. The conversations between Mank and Marion as they stroll, and in their other scenes throughout the film, are the finest moments. All the while, Mank collects details he’ll later use for the screenplay, depicting Hearst in a rather unpleasant light. Throughout the film, there are moments where Mank’s character really comes through, and, though often drunk and somewhat unpredictable, his morals and heart are in the right place. Oldman’s performance is a combination of great acting, writing and Fincher’s direction. In one particularly moving scene, Rita confronts Mank’s medical assistant over allowing him to drink to the point of passing out despite needing to write. She reveals he paid for and helped coordinate her family and their village’s escape from Nazi Germany; Mank was the son of a German-Jewish father and a German-speaking Latvian mother.
Mank doesn’t take any explicit political stance regarding the California election but instead opts to show the flaws with the oversized influence one can have on democracy when they control the media and schmooze the biggest players in Hollywood. It’s not the same media today, but it’s still happening. And though Mank is messy and frustrating, his morality, wit and talent make him an excellently flawed protagonist. Hearst is totally unlikeable and like a previous incarnation of today’s billionaires and social media CEOs. Though largely centering the work around a political campaign, Fincher instead of interjecting opinion, exposes how Hollywood and rabid capitalists can deteriorate democracy. Fortunately, money and power don’t equate to talent, and with the odds stacked against him, Mank delivered a blistering, intimate depiction of a man for the masses to see. In the end, he won an Oscar for it; it’s too bad Fincher still hasn’t gotten his.
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