Mank reviews

nightwingnova
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Re: Mank reviews

Post by nightwingnova »

I generally hate "based on true events" movies. Hard enough to keep fake news at bay.

This film dragged, especially knowing that some of the incidents never happened. In the end, there's not enough compelling stuff for us to feel strong enough to care about Mank's impetus in writing Citizen Kane.

Loved Gary Oldman's nuanced work. A great supporting cast of actors who are all good and captures the feel of the time and place.
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Re: Mank reviews

Post by Mister Tee »

A problem I had with Mank that probably isn't shared by many is massive over-familiarity with the material. I read Raising Kane decades ago, and an awful lot of this script is covered there -- not just the overall concept of Mankiewicz's involvements with both Hearst/Davies and Welles, but even specific lines, like "Oh: you mean poor Sarah" or the post-vomit "Don't worry: the white wine came up with the fish". I also, through a PBS documentary from the early 80s, knew the ins and outs of the Upton Sinclair campaign and the Hollywood studios' role in squelching it. So, there wasn't much new on display for me.

My second issue was, for the longest time, not really knowing what story Fincher-and-Fincher were trying to tell. Initially, it seemed like it was the Raising Kane authorship war (certainly the Welles-above-all claque in today's critical community thought so, and went after the film like it was a biohazard). But, as the film advanced, I came to think it was more about Mankiewicz, Mr. talks-cynical-because-he's-an-idealist, being disillusioned by what he sees as Hearst's political perfidy, and avenging that in the only, most public way he knows: portraying Hearst in the screenplay as a monster (and in the process, unforgivably, turning his paramour -- a woman Mank clearly adores -- into a blithering ninny). This is a not uninteresting subject, and I'm willing to watch the film a second time with all that in mind, to see how it plays. But there's only one shot at making a first impression, and that first impression was of a film that didn't hold me in any firm grasp.

This despite my finding many of the individual scenes engrossing enough -- and, when it came to scenes between Mank and Marion, something more than that. The atmospherics of late-30s Hollywood were effectively conveyed, and I found the dialogue mostly sprightly enough. I only flat-out hated one thing in the movie -- that bratty tantrum to Hearst's dinner-guests which went on to infinity, and was no more believable than the dozen other versions of such drunken rants I've seen over the years. It not only lacked verisimilitude, it came without adequate preparation: we could see that Mank enjoyed Hearst's company, but there'd been no indication they were politically simpatico prior to this, for him to experience the Sinclair thing as betrayal. And without that, the rant (and the resulting revenge on Hearst in Citizen Kane) doesn't make the sense the film seems to think it does.

Except for that scene, though, I quite enjoyed Oldman's performance -- after the bluster of Darkest Hour, it was a relief to see him in lower-key mode, tossing off snarky lines in the offhand manner of the sideline critic. And his scenes with Amanda Seyfried are the highlights of the film -- possibly because it's one element with which I was not so familiar going in. I so enjoyed their conversations that, late in the film, when a car pulled up outside Mank's compound and brother Joe emerged, I was visibly disappointed it wasn't Marion, instead. And when she later did appear, I was thrilled not just to see her, but to have that scene -- where Marion doesn't do the "you betrayed me" thing, but instead shows she understands the game as well as Mank -- turn out so counter to expectation. A Seyfried supporting nomination would be, for me, the film's most deserving -- though there'd be nothing wrong with production design or score, either.

As I said elsewhere, this is another film I'd have MUCH rather seen in a theatre, where it would have got my undivided attention. I doubt I'd love it in any case, but I'd like to have given it that level of respect.
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Re: Mank reviews

Post by Sabin »

Big Magilla wrote
3. The casting of Gary Oldman and Amanda Seyfried, both of whom may be good in and of themselves, but fail to convey a feeling of contemporary comradeship. Mank and Marion Davies were the same age. They were born in 1897 - they were 40 at the time of the drunken dinner at San Simeon and 43 at the time of the filming of Citizen Kane. Gary Oldman is 64, and could pass for someone in his late 50s, but doesn't look at all like 43, which is OK for most of the film, but opposite Seyfried, who is 35, and photographs even younger, they look more like father and daughter than platonic friends of the same age which gives an inaccurate vibe to their relationship.
Nobody will care about this because it's at least something vibrant and human in this dull mess.
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Re: Mank reviews

Post by Big Magilla »

I've been skeptical of this one's chances of winning the big one for some time, but now I'm not certain how many major awards nominations it's even going to get.

As I see it, the three biggest problems with it are:

1. The screenplay - as Sabin says, it's unprofessional. Fincher's adherence to his late father's only screenplay may be admirable as a tribute to his father but at best it should have been rewritten by someone who knew what he was doing keeping his father's name on it as one of the writers, but no more than that.

2. The cinematography - which is good once it leaves Mank's hotel room in the desert, and may be the best part of the film. The problem is that Fincher's decision to make it in black-and-white to make it look like Citizen Kane fails on two levels. It's digital, not film, which makes it look too glossy. It's in widescreen. Neither Citizen Kane not any movie of its era (post The Big Trail until How to Marry a Millionaire and The Robe) was filmed in a widescreen process.

3. The casting of Gary Oldman and Amanda Seyfried, both of whom may be good in and of themselves, but fail to convey a feeling of contemporary comradeship. Mank and Marion Davies were the same age. They were born in 1897 - they were 40 at the time of the drunken dinner at San Simeon and 43 at the time of the filming of Citizen Kane. Gary Oldman is 64, and could pass for someone in his late 50s, but doesn't look at all like 43, which is OK for most of the film, but opposite Seyfried, who is 35, and photographs even younger, they look more like father and daughter than platonic friends of the same age which gives an inaccurate vibe to their relationship.
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Re: Mank reviews

Post by Sabin »

One more thing...

Were this not such a barren year, I'm not sure Mank would get any nominations. I suppose its budget of $20-30 mil held back some of its scope but I was astonished. I expect more from David Fincher at this point. When I heard about this movie, I assumed that Mank would be a sure thing for a host of down-ballot nominations. But now that I've seen the film, I don't know. Amanda Seyfried is the best bet for a nomination, with Gary Oldman next (I could see him missing out though). Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay depend on how well the movie goes over...

Yes, the cinematography is black and white, but it's hardly exceptional black and white. There's little depth to the image.

Yes, the film is well-edited by previous winner Kirk Baxter (for Social Network and Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) but the script is so boringly paced, there's only so much he can do. Remember Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was snubbed as well.

Yes, it's a film about the backlots of Hollywood. Can you remember one memorable set for a Production Design nomination? Or one memorable piece of costuming?

Yes, the music keeps the film moving. But if you didn't know it was an original composition, would you assume so? I wouldn't.

Mank will likely benefit from a lack of competition but it's easily David Fincher's least visually impressive production. Mank getting double-digit nominations is the best argument against holding the ceremony this year.
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Re: Mank reviews

Post by Sabin »

I thought of what I wanted to write in the first place. "If Mank exists to tell the untold story about the person who actually wrote Citizen Kane, I understand why the story was untold in the first place."

I am so sorry for how long this post is...
I don't know if I hate this movie but I am obsessed with everything that I don't like about this movie. Obsessed. I cannot stop thinking about how little there is of interest in this odd universe of a movie.

I barely went into this in my review but there is almost no reason to talk about David Fincher in this David Fincher movie. Truly, the person to discuss is his father, Jack Fincher, and how he wrote an unprofessional screenplay that a lot of writers find themselves writing for their first or second screenplay. Fincher can only elevate it so much. It serves to tackle a lofty subject (in spirit) -- "The Untold Story of The Writer of Citizen Kane". The writer has largely two tasks in this challenge: 1) to dramatize his story while 2) also not making it appear as a Wiki Film. To say that Jack Fincher fails at both is a huge under statement. The character of Mank cannot stop spouting factoids and insights into his life and the lives of everyone around him. And the character of Mank does so little that it truly does feel as if the writer saw his chief responsibility as to report on him, which makes sense because Jack Fincher was a journalist.

To make thing worse, this feels like an old man's movie.

Why does it feel like an old man's movie, Part 1:
Let's say one is fortunate enough to spend time with the drunken, brilliant, secret writer of Citizen Kane. Make a list of what you would want to see him do? What would be on that list? Would "Lords about" be on that list? Truly, would anything in this movie be on your list? Does he save a movie in production with his stunning wit? Does he have sex with anyone? Does he meet anyone he respects? Hearst is a bum. Mayer is a bum. Welles is a bum. Yes, we know he observes Upton Sinclair from afar. No. He lords about.

Why does it feel like an old man's movie, Part 2:
It is obsessed with old person things, like credit, like political awakening, like encounters along the way. None of these are done with interest, originality, urgency, or spark. Because it wants to be about all of these things (much like Citizen Kane, but without anything remotely damning or unifying about its subject), it ends up feeling about none of these things. A climactic drunken speech about socialism is pretty fitting because, truly at this point, why not a climactic drunken speech about socialism? The movie never finds a Rosebud for Mank. The closest we get is Hearst telling him off, but why would anyone take that to heart?

Why does it feel like an old man's movie, Part 3:
It's truly fitting that Mank's great nephew (?) hosts TCM because truly, Mank feels like a TCM introduction come to life. Yes, there are scenes that certainly evoke Citizen Kane and demonstrate how he came up with this film, but they are so loose, orbiting, and half-formed that it is very difficult to care about any of them, or glean pleasure from the creative process. I say this truly though: it is this quality that I understand people enjoying. It is so barely constructed a mystery about the inspirations behind Citizen Kane that I can understand movie buffs just wanting to be inside it. Like drama behind election night. None of it connects, but I can imagine someone who finds Shakespeare in Love overly obvious and glib could connect with Mank as a mystery box. Perhaps I could as well, except I was put off by how it equates being a great writer to being witty and possessing a genius which when pushed shits out greatness. Much like Trumbo.

And yet, I do not hate Mank because it's such a heartfelt work of boring hagiography. Both because the main character is not bad company. And because it is clearly *ABOUT* things, but all conveyed in a terribly unaccessible manner, like self-contained universes floating about in an addled mind. And yet, every writer I know at some point has either written or wanted to write a movie just like it. I'm just glad that it can be shown in screenwriting classes as an example of what not to do. But as a guilty pleasure, I do get the appeal.
Last edited by Sabin on Mon Dec 07, 2020 2:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Mank reviews

Post by Sabin »

What a dull piece of hagiography! How many times must we be subjected to in-jokes about this man's name?

David Fincher has made eleven movies now. It seems pretty clearly the success of his projects is directly proportional to how obsessed his main characters are. I thought it was impossible for him to find a less active protagonist than Benjamin Button but get a load of Mank. Mank is a Hack/Genius Writer who is never writing. He shambles through a decade in Hollywood history, picking up the soup and nuts needed to pen Citizen Kane. There's powerfully little to say about this film. Gary Oldman is fine company in the film (he'd be finer if they gave him more to do than say his name), but there's very little urgency scene to scene, both connecting them together or within them. Every scene feels like its own little planet orbiting a strange solar system, which was precisely the same complaint I had about The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I've read some complaints about the Upton Sinclair running for governor passage feeling disconnected. I like it in spirit because it points to something that Mank isn't flippant about even if it doesn't really work. I don't demand that everything in this film ties neatly together but I do demand that it feel more sophisticated than a rambling collection of footnotes like a Peter Morgan movie attempting a Kane structure motif -- and rather amateurishly so. Instead of utilizing a flashback structure to work as homage to Citizen Kane, it reveals itself as a movie that needs flashbacks to approximate anything resembling a story. This film seems to exist for sole purpose of hero worship on the part of the writer, not education for the viewer.

David Fincher's greatest accomplishment is in creating a pastiche that keeps it all from being utterly ridiculous in every moment. I am not a fan of this movie but it does have interest just sheerly as a curiosity so I can't totally dismiss it. There is some fun to it as a portal to an era and as an expertly directed shambling story of an inactive protagonist. That said, its fixation on writing as an attitude of coolness, credit, and recognition reveals it as not much more serious than Trumbo.
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Re: Mank reviews

Post by FilmFan720 »

DWS, I agree with everything you said, especially the cinematography -- I don't know if it was Netflix or the digital cinematography, but I thought the film looked inauthentic.
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Re: Mank reviews

Post by dws1982 »

Watched it this morning.

For a movie that was such a passion project for Fincher, it feels very impersonal. The production design, costume design, sound, and cinematography are all as precise as you would expect from Fincher (although my hot take is that it should look better, and that shooting digitally really reveals limitations of digital vs film on black and white films). But there's not much to grab on to, the story, such that it is, feels less like a cohesive story than a series of vignettes. Because of this, most of the characters never really feel like part of a larger world or larger story, so they don't really register, despite some nice performances from actors you'd like to see more of like Tom Pelphrey, Tuppence Middleton, and Ferdinand Kingsley. Oldman and Seyfried are both very good; was surprised at how little Charles Dance had to do.
Last edited by dws1982 on Sun Dec 06, 2020 10:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Mank reviews

Post by Reza »

Big Magilla wrote:Saw it.

Oscar nomination worthy cinematography, production design, film editing, and original score, but direction, screenplay and acting are problematic.

It adds nothing new to the Herman Mankiewicz vs. Orson Welles feud over who really wrote Citizen Kane. As played out in the film, it more or less suggests that Mankiewicz wrote it and Welles condensed it but Welles isn't in the film long enough to determine what it was he did or didn't do with the script. For Mankiewicz's part, we're shown a huge pile of paper, most of what was supposedly written in the last day of his alcohol fueled bed rest after an auto injury. The meat of the screenplay is not discussed.

The film introduces a lot of famous people, mostly in flashback to the 1930s, but doesn't give most of them anything to do. It makes a big deal out of writer Charles Lederer having been Marion Davies' nephew but doesn't mention the equally fascinating connection that at the time of the filming of Citizen Kane, Lederer was married to Orson Welles' first wife, Virginia Nicholson.

Gary Oldman is good as usual, but his best lines are quoting Mankiewicz's bon mots. His speeches are often more confusing than they are telling. Amanda Seyfried as Marion Davies, Charles Dance as William Randolph Hearst, Tom Pelfrey as Joe Mankiewicz, Arliss Howard as Louis B. Mayer, Ferdinand Kingsley as Irving Thalberg, and Joseph Cross as Charles Lederer are all impressive but aside from Seyfired do not have much screen time. Lily Collins as Rita Alexander has lots of screen time but doesn't make much of an impression. Sam Troughton as John Houseman is totally irritating.

It will probably grab an Oscar nod for Best Picture in a ten-slot race but would otherwise have a tough time making it in. David Fincher could still get a Best Director nod based on his being overdue, but his late father's screenplay may have a tougher time being acknowledged.

An acting nomination for Oldman is likely, and one for Seyfried is possible, but I'm not seeing any others.
I think it will easily get nods for Film, Fincher, Oldman, Seyfried, Screenplay, Editing, Production Design, Sound, Costumes, Music, Makeup & Hairstyling and Cinematography. It will probably win only for cinematography.
Last edited by Reza on Sat Dec 05, 2020 9:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Mank reviews

Post by Big Magilla »

Saw it.

Oscar nomination worthy cinematography, production design, film editing, and original score, but direction, screenplay and acting are problematic.

It adds nothing new to the Herman Mankiewicz vs. Orson Welles feud over who really wrote Citizen Kane. As played out in the film, it more or less suggests that Mankiewicz wrote it and Welles condensed it but Welles isn't in the film long enough to determine what it was he did or didn't do with the script. For Mankiewicz's part, we're shown a huge pile of paper, most of what was supposedly written in the last day of his alcohol fueled bed rest after an auto injury. The meat of the screenplay is not discussed.

The film introduces a lot of famous people, mostly in flashback to the 1930s, but doesn't give most of them anything to do. It makes a big deal out of writer Charles Lederer having been Marion Davies' nephew but doesn't mention the equally fascinating connection that at the time of the filming of Citizen Kane, Lederer was married to Orson Welles' first wife, Virginia Nicholson.

Gary Oldman is good as usual, but his best lines are quoting Mankiewicz's bon mots. His speeches are often more confusing than they are telling. Amanda Seyfried as Marion Davies, Charles Dance as William Randolph Hearst, Tom Pelfrey as Joe Mankiewicz, Arliss Howard as Louis B. Mayer, Ferdinand Kingsley as Irving Thalberg, and Joseph Cross as Charles Lederer are all impressive but aside from Seyfired do not have much screen time. Lily Collins as Rita Alexander has lots of screen time but doesn't make much of an impression. Sam Troughton as John Houseman is totally irritating.

It will probably grab an Oscar nod for Best Picture in a ten-slot race but would otherwise have a tough time making it in. David Fincher could still get a Best Director nod based on his being overdue, but his late father's screenplay may have a tougher time being acknowledged.

An acting nomination for Oldman is likely, and one for Seyfried is possible, but I'm not seeing any others.
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Re: Mank reviews

Post by Big Magilla »

Probably so, although I thought there was something I was able to see at 12 a.m. EST the day of its release, but I just checked Netflix now (a little after 2 a.m. EST) and it's not available. Probably best, I'd probably fall asleep watching it at this point.
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Re: Mank reviews

Post by FilmFan720 »

flipp525 wrote:Is Mank available at midnight tonight?
I think it is usually midnight PST.
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Re: Mank reviews

Post by Big Magilla »

It should be.
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Re: Mank reviews

Post by flipp525 »

Is Mank available at midnight tonight?
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