“Success has a thousand fathers. Defeat is an orphan.”
A movie by nature is a collaborative art form. More than one Oscar winner has taken the stage and decried the act of giving out individual Oscars when an individual’s work in the context of a movie depends so much on so many other people doing their jobs correctly. I mean just look at the amount of people in the credits. People are people however and sometimes no matter how much praise can be heaped upon a movie, egos can be large enough where there is not enough to go around. Such apparently is the case with “Citizen Kane”, which is arguably the best movie ever made. It had two writers: Herman Mankiewicz and Orson Welles and neither would acknowledge the other’s contributions. The truth is that they were both instrumental. Herman Mankiewicz wrote the first draft of the movie. Orson Welles took the draft and seems to have not paid much attention to it if all you pay attention to is what dialogue from the first draft actually shows up in the movie. But a screenplay is more than just dialogue. One of several great innovative elements of “Citizen Kane” is its multilayered narrative structure, which employs flash-forwards and flash-backwards from several points of view in a manner that is somehow not confusing. This is what Mankiewicz brought to the party in the first draft and is no mean feat. Nevertheless, “Mank” throws another log on this ever-burning fire by arguing that the writing of Citizen Kane was complete as soon as Mankiewicz wrote the first draft.
It is a strangely fitting way to tell this story. I mean when one takes a bird-eye view of Citizen Kane and considers its origins, production, and after affects, it is all one big axe-grinding affair. Two axe-grinders attempt to take down a great axe grinder and just when the history becomes the legend, they turn on themselves and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. After all, to engage in an argument about the truth of the writing and production of “Citizen Kane” is to engage in an argument about the veracity of the movie’s story, which turns out, is also not true.
The axe-grinders are Mankiewicz and Orson Wells. With “Citizen Kane”, they took an axe to William Randolph Hearst, the greatest axe grinder of them all, a one-man media conglomerate who sensationalized the news and started at least one war. (For Mank it appears personal. Orson probably was too young and stupid to know any better). They are about to succeed when their movie is acclaimed as the best of all time. Watching it, and knowing that it is about Hearst, but not knowing much about Hearst, one may be led to believe that Hearts died isolated and unloved with a hollowness no amount of physical assets could fill.
But, as any story about the making of Citizen Kane will reveal (and which "Mank" shows), Hearst did not die isolated and unloved. He regularly hosted elaborate dinner parties in his mansion wherein very interesting people would be invited and would attend. And he had a late love in life, Marion Davies (here played by Amanda Seyfried) that was not a no-talent shrew who despised him, but whom had true talent and held him in true affection. Actually, it was Orson Welles who would end up an obese, alcoholic recluse. Mankiewicz, already a fat alcoholic when he wrote Kane, would go on to do no further notable work before dying in 1953. If only Mankiewicz and Welles had not turned on each other, you would not know of all their future failings and how Hearst had enjoyed a better fate than either of them. This whole thing is like a couple of magicians revealing their secrets in order to garner credit for their originality. Its short-sighted, the only winner being the rich guy in his mansion with all his beautiful and successful friends. The best scene in Mank is when our hero confronts a Hollywood producer about a shady power move thing that the studio is involved in. The producer explains that he is not a particularly smart guy, he just gets up every morning, he goes to work, he doesn’t make snide sarcastic remarks, he doesn’t get drunk, and he just generally gives a shit. That is why, he explains to Mank, he will win this particular battle.
I’m not really saying much about the movie. It is professionally and competently made by the Director David Fincher from a screenplay written by Jack Fincher (father of David Fincher). Gary Oldman does a particularly good job of being a sarcastic, overweight, alcoholic writer. Amanda Seyfried as Marion Davies, I think it must be noted how exquisite she has been lit in the black and white cinematography. A guy shows up as Orson Welles that does not really look like him, but the voice is there.
But really, this movie is pretty dependent on you having
already seen Citizen Kane and liked it enough to delve into the history of it.
But also maybe you shouldn’t. Perhaps Citizen Kane is better appreciated by not
having knowledge of the artistic sniping and the erroneous history involved in
it? Perhaps it would be more enjoyable if you came to it like one would a piece
of pure fiction, uninformed of all the backstage axe grinding? I think it might
be. So, I suggest watching Citizen Kane, and if possible, doing so before you
see Mank or read this review.
