The
classic film, Citizen Kane, is the
source for Mank, a fascinating back
story of its screenwriter, Herman J. Mankiewicz, and how, despite personal
struggles, a legendary, Oscar winning script was born.
In
1940, RKO Studios gives theater wunderkind, 24 year old Orson Welles, complete
artistic freedom to do his first motion picture, and he enlists gifted scribe Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) to write a
screenplay. Through a series of
flashbacks, Mankiewicz’s experiences
with powerful, publishing mogul William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance) inform
his screenplay which includes Hearst’s mistress, actress Marion Davies (Amanda
Seyfried), as his protégé who befriends ‘Mank’ as his friends call him. Struggling
with alcoholism and witnessing an abuse of power by Hearst and MGM heads Louis
B. Meyer and Irving Thalberg, Mank feels compelled to speak out despite calls
to shelve his controversial, incriminating script even if it risks relationships
and his career.
With
its snappy, often satirical dialogue, the film, written by the late Jack
Fincher (director David Fincher’s father), is filled with real life figures and
events like the Depression, and with its parallels to the current political climate,
it’s the sort of Hollywood revisionist treatise that the great Billy Wilder would
have applauded. For Fincher (The Social Network), this must have been
a labor of love, and it shows in the strong acting and tight narrative abetted
by gorgeous black and white photography.
In retrospect, it certainly gives deeper meaning and appreciation to
Welles’ masterpiece.
This
loving tribute to a complex, talented writer is a feast particularly for true
cinephiles and those curious about the purported origins of the iconic
film. Oldman is outstanding; his performance and the film are the sort of
work that the Oscars love.
****
of **** stars (for movie purists)
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