Review: MANK (2021)

Written by David Fincher’s late Father Jack Fincher, MANK is a movie about a movie, mired in controversy about who made the movie. Starring Gary Oldman as Mank, it follows the story of Herman Mankiewicz, an alcoholic as he races to finish of Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane.

However, very little of the film deals with Welles and Kane, and a majority of it gives us a look into Mankiewicz’s life and work, his relationships, and his time spent in writing Citizen Kane.’

American Critic Pauline Kale in 1941, in her very controversial piece ‘Raising Kane’ attempted to figure out who the original author of the screenplay was. Fincher’s film supports her view and gives us the story of Herman Mankiewicz.

The film, just like Citizen Kane is told to us in episodes and flashbacks. Shot entirely in black and white, it gives us a very rustic look of 1930s Hollywood cinema, and comments on the beginning and rise of the talkies. The film also provides us cultural and historical context as we learn about the misuse of films for propaganda. In one scene wherein Oldman is talking to Amanda Seyfried, who plays Marion Davis, the wife of William Randolph Herst, who inspired Kane, we get to know how the Nazis were against American films. In fact, Joseph Goebbels had banned all films in Germany written by Herman Mankiewicz, which goes on to say how insecure the Nazis were to use films as a means of communication, fearing a great uprising.

The cinematography of the film gives us the old rustic feeling. Scenes do not cut; they slowly fade to black. Shot descriptions often appear on screen, in the typewriter font, giving us a context and setting up the premise for the scene. The film also has glitches in it at several points, giving us a feel of an old film strip or reel that is playing.

The film also plays with perspective and trick shots, which Citizen Kane did a lot with. Welles often used a low angle shot to establish Kane on a higher power and played a lot with the perspective in the shot. There are two continuous long takes of Mayer walking which also helps define the perspective of the studios.

David Fincher makes the use of a lot of silhouettes, and low perspective and angle shots, a feature typical to ‘Citizen Kane.’

Despite Welles playing a somewhat subsidiary character in the film, one of my favourite scenes was the scene in which Herman Mankiewicz swats a fly on his bed and says he is writing an opera.

The falling of the alcohol bottle from Herman’s hand gave me a very similar feel to the falling of the globe in the iconic Rosebud scene in Citizen Kane.

Left: A still from ‘MANK’; and the similar scene with the snow globe in ‘Citizen Kane’ (Right).

The film, a true masterpiece in its terms of costume design, lighting, and cinematography got 10 nominations for the Academy Awards 2021.