MANK
Added 2020-12-05 04:52:03 +0000 UTCYa'll, I know a lot about the history of Citizen Kane. More than is considered normal for sure. So I'm kind of the perfect target audience, I'd think. To have a film be about Herman Mankiewicz, dealing with the authorship of Citizen Kane, shot in black and white, and directed by David Fincher be this boring...just isn't right. Honestly, listening to Orson Welles tell stories about the inception of Kane on Dick Cavett is infinitely more interesting.
Comments
Definitely no Ed Wood. It made me want to watch Ed Wood real bad. That's a film with true heart.
Deepfocuslens
2020-12-09 04:32:43 +0000 UTCmaybe its tied with Panic Room for 2nd last
Ryan
2020-12-05 22:08:35 +0000 UTCI second Benjamin Button being his worst film. I would say Mank is probably my second least favorite of Fincher's films. Panic Room and Alien 3 were fairly generic as well but at least they were a little more exciting.
Ryan
2020-12-05 22:07:25 +0000 UTCMank is not a bad movie. However, it was quite boring. I felt there were too many flashbacks and jumping around time. Also, it just kind of ends - there is no grand finale or epic conclusion.
Ryan
2020-12-05 22:06:06 +0000 UTCMank is not that bad. Just disappointing and boring. I'd say maybe worse film since Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. But I haven't seen that since it premiered. Benjamin Button for me is perhaps Fincher's worst film, off the top of my head.
Deepfocuslens
2020-12-05 20:02:28 +0000 UTCThe battle for art and power that you describe is there in increments, and might work from a scene by scene basis. But in context of the film as a whole, it doesnt work for me. This is a really unfocused film, the core of it is muddled. often the things you mention are struggling for the morality grip in a film that is ambitious in terms of the political angles, the meta aspects, internal artist struggle, etc.. This is a film that is smug and cheeky without ever rising above that idea with its perspective on artists. More hiding behind the mockery of it. And in doing so remains flat and disconnected from what could have been a really personal and powerful story. I do not give negative reviews to films just because I expected something else (and my expectations were rather broad here). I give negative reviews if it doesnt click for me emotionally. And this one did not. There was always a disconnect because it lacks stakes, tension, and the rosebud angle that is so crucial in films structurally, whether mirroring another classic work or not.
Deepfocuslens
2020-12-05 20:01:09 +0000 UTCIs this Fincher’s worst film since Alien 3?
Tony Moro
2020-12-05 19:59:32 +0000 UTCI can definitely agree with it lacks risk and reward compared to his previous stuff (though I didn't feel myself yearning for it while watching( and a bit on the focused part because I did feel myself a bit lost in terms of what it was doing at a few points. But I wasn't bored in the slightest, found the political very riveting and it felt very lively to me with super sharp, snappy dialogue and the larger than life characters.
Tyler Shobe
2020-12-05 19:57:37 +0000 UTCMy problem has nothing to do with that it isn't about Citizen Kane. My problem is, it is boring, unfocused, never comes alive, lacks risk and reward in ways that were cohesive in previous Fincher films.
Deepfocuslens
2020-12-05 19:52:05 +0000 UTCExpectations can make or break a film. I think it's one that's going to resonate and age well, but a lot of people might not like it upon their initial viewing because they're expecting a film about the battle for credit, but the only scene that actually deals with that is the confrontation between Mank and Wells at the end. That felt more like falling action to me. I felt the climax happened one scene prior, when Mank drunkly bursts into Hearst's party and lays out the basic plot of what was to become Kane as way to say 'fuck you' to both Meyer and Hearst. I really loved the way he riffed on Hollywood conventions and how they twist the truth and how if he gave them and their, backdoor political and personal, dealings the Hollywood treatment -- it would show them just how shallow and morally bankrupt and selfish they are. I loved how Hearst didn't even get that pissed at him. And why would he? He's one of the richest men in America -- He has all the real power in that room and he knows it. So what does he do? He uses his own parable to tell Mank he's a joke as he escorts him out of his mansion. An artist uses his words brilliantly to highlight an ugly truth about those in power who are never going to share it and don't care who they crush, or if they cheat or lie, to keep it, and the man with the most power and wealth just shuts him down like it's nothing. That feels painfully truthful to me. At first I thought that was the point of the film, it's the climax of the film after all, and what comprises most of Mank's journey, and that the writing of Kane was just a back drop for all that. But thinking about it now, I realize Mank writing his draft of Kane is more than just the back drop, it's the payoff. What makes it work for me is that we, the audience, go in knowing how iconic Citizen Kane is -- it's why most people are watching Mank in the first place, to see how it was written, only it's not about how, it's about why -- but what we spend a lot of time seeing is Mank's struggle to speak truth to power and stop the abuse of power. And we see him fail, repeatedly; which, brings me back to the film's climax. That drunken tirade is the last thing he can do, but as brilliant and witty as he may be, that he's doing it is also sad and pathetic. Mank loses, and he loses badly. So what does he do? He writes about it. What's most important is that we understand why he writes about it. Because what he wrote about in that draft became the basis for the film Wells eventually made: one of the greatest works of narrative art ever created. That's the point. Hearst and company may have won in Mank's lifetime, but Citizen Kane is winning in our's because its impact and legacy has outlived all of them. The film's a parable about how power always wins the day, but the resonance of great art isn't limited to or by time, it transcends it. Something Hearst’s power failed to do, but Mank's artistic contribution succeeded in achieving. It's a remarkable reversal of fortune. Mank is not about Kane, it's about the battle between art and power. That's my take at least.
Jarret Hendrickson
2020-12-05 11:40:49 +0000 UTCSo, it’s no Ed Wood or Disaster Artist?
Tony Moro
2020-12-05 10:31:26 +0000 UTCI felt the same way for the first probably 15 minutes. But then it sort of clicked that this isn't a movie about Citizen Kane almost at all. It's far more about Upton Sinclair, the "radical left" and Mank as a wordsmith and how that gets him into trouble. Once I adjusted my expectation of what the movie was shooting for, I really loved it.
Tyler Shobe
2020-12-05 09:04:38 +0000 UTCNailed it. For me it's way more of a political story than a filmmaking one. It uses Citizen Kane and it's creation as a framing device but that's about it. I think it's way more important to understand the history of the era of the film than the film itself.
Tyler Shobe
2020-12-05 08:48:31 +0000 UTCI enjoyed it quite a bit. I didn't think it was about the authorship of Kane as much as it was a fictional account of Mank's life while he was writing his draft of the script as a way to process how certain people and events in his life impacted him. As a writer that rang true to me. I thought the filmmaking was gorgeous in every aesthetic aspect and I loved the performances; as well as, how vividly it brought that era to life.
Jarret Hendrickson
2020-12-05 06:22:07 +0000 UTCI’m literally watching it rn 😳
Dan Tedesco
2020-12-05 04:53:35 +0000 UTC
