Almost every review of the most classic films of all time places Citizen Kane in the top three, most of the time at the top, with praise for the film's director, producer, star and screenwriter Orson Welles, but hardly any Too many people mention co-writer Herman Mankiewicz. And Mankiewicz (referred to as Mank in the film) later insisted that the script for the film was written entirely by himself, eventually agreeing to share the title with Orson Welles for the money. While the matter has been controversial, Manki chose to believe him for the film, which tells the story of how Mankiewicz wrote Citizen Kane and what inspired the story.
I have to say that to watch this film, you really need to watch "Citizen Kane" first to understand the various background characters mentioned in it, and to understand how everything Manke experienced in Hollywood is displayed in "Citizen Kane".
David Fincher also showed Mank's Oscar-winning testimonial again at the end of "Mank": "I'm glad Orson Welles didn't accept the award with me because he wasn't there when I wrote the script." And try to prove that he is the only screenwriter. Although Citizen Kane was nominated for many Oscars that year, it finally won only the best screenplay award. This result also has a historical background, because Orson Welles was very opposed to the Hollywood filming system and was not popular in Hollywood, so the Oscars have always been unfavorable to him. But perhaps because of this background, later film critics and fans have always hoped to vindicate the film and kept pushing it to the altar.
The film shows how Mank succumbed to Monroe-blonde comedian Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried) at a party in Hollywood, and heard a lot of gossip about media mogul William Randolph Hearst from her. That's where the script for Citizen Kane came from. Kane in "Citizen Kane" is based on Hearst, and Kane's second wife, Susan, a young singer who has been praised for a long time and could not succeed, is also based on Marion Davies. The only difference is that in Mank, you see Marion as Hearst's mistress, not his wife.
The film also uses several memory passages like "Citizen Kane" to let people know about Mank himself through the different characters Mank has come into contact with. But Mank was actually an alcoholic, a screenwriter who couldn't wait to make money at the time, and it didn't have much appeal in itself. At that time, he didn't care about his title in order to make money. Many scripts agreed not to be named, and he would leave if he took the money. Only when this one won an Oscar did he later regret it and tell the truth.
Gary Oldman's performance is still very vivid, although we may not know what Mank originally looked like, but at least the Mank he created is not boring, a man who often speaks ironically and is very gossip. I don't think it's a big problem to nominate again. Amanda Seyfried is indeed impressive in the film. Her role is not a completely simple-minded blonde beauty, but an actress who speaks lightly and humorously, has a lively and kind personality, but is also very gossip and is in the film. There are a lot of lines every time they appear in the film, which is really impressive in terms of acting skills.
The fun of watching this film is not to understand the background of "Citizen Kane", nor to understand the man Mank, but to see all kinds of characters in Hollywood at that time through Mank's experience, to understand the man who lived before World War II, has Hollywood without the halo of its golden age, and how it compares with today.
For example, Louis B. Mayer, the boss of MGM at the time, only appeared in a few short paragraphs, but it left a deep impression. He said: "You know why we waste a million dollars a year developing movies and they don't get made? Because they don't make me cry, they don't move me! How can I make my heart flutter? It just blows my brain. , my heart or my dixk!" The film also mentioned some competition between Warner, Paramount, MGM and other big studios, and the hypocrisy of people in the upper class. This feeling that it is easy to forget the original intention in pursuit of fame and fortune is exactly what Manke wants to express in "Citizen Kane".
At many parties in the film, we will see a lot of Hollywood bigwigs, actors and screenwriters talking about their views on politics and war. For example, Hollywood was before World War II. Although people were also against Nazis, they seemed to be against Hitler. What was done is not clear, but they were very much against it - communism. At the same time, the film also shows Hollywood's attitude towards the general election at that time. Contrary to now, the big Hollywood figures at that time were all supporters of the Republican Party and resolutely opposed the democratic-party candidates who maintained the idea of "social-ism". , even at the expense of creating "fake news", which really has many similarities with the current era.
The film also often sees many white men smoking cigars in the office while researching and developing what kind of script to attract the audience. But that's a pattern that Hollywood has broken today. What kind of movies make money is no longer decided by a few old white men. A lot of these comparisons about the film industry make people see that Hollywood is really big these years.
At the same time, the United States in the late 1930s and early 1940s also experienced an economic crisis. People could not afford movie tickets and began to gradually stop going to the theater. The Hollywood studio bosses were also very anxious: how to bring the audience back cinema?
Ironically, when Manke wrote "Citizen Kane", the studio also gave hope that the film would make money, but it was also a failure at the box office. Although it is hailed as a classic, in fact, whether in the 1940s or at present, movies such as "Citizen Kane" are not necessarily box-office movies. Just as "Mank" itself is a Netflix movie, at least David Fincher didn't need to worry about how much it sold at the box office, he just made a movie he wanted to make, just to commemorate the Hollywood of that year. Throughout the movie, Netflix can be heard saying: Citizen Kane, if it were present, would be ours.
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