The arguments over whether Citizen Kane is the greatest film ever made will rage on forever. But the greatest film about Citizen Kane – and just about any other movie – has definitely arrived. David Fincher’s eleventh film is a lavish love letter to old Hollywood in all its glory, cynicism and wild extravagance. It’s crafted with the kind of monochromatic elegance that begs to be soaked up on the big screen – though your telly will definitely do for the time being.
Mank is Herman J Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman), the puckish playwright who Orson Welles (Tom Burke) taps up to help write the script for Citizen Kane. He is one of Hollywood’s finest writers, a gifted playwright seduced across the country from Broadway by the promise of big bucks and the chance to play the fool in the court of its ego-driven moguls. That screenplay is the posthumous achievement of Fincher’s dad Jack, whose story has been waiting for a backer since 1997. Or perhaps it was just waiting for Netflix to come along, because when Welles boasts to Mankiewicz here of getting ‘final cut, final everything’ for Citizen Kane, it counts double for Mank. This black-and-white, period-style opus about a relatively unheralded screenwriter isn’t what you’d call a mainstream proposition, and Fincher has carte blanche to use all the toys and techniques at his disposal. But do you need to be a cineaste to enjoy it? Not remotely.
Mank commits fully to its Wellesian style, with theatrical fades at the end of scenes, echoey sound mixing, a Bernard Hermann-channelling score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross and deep-focus photography. Cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt emulates his Kane counterpart Gregg Toland, capturing every conspiratorial exchange and disdainful look in the background of sumptuously staged party scenes. It roots itself in period authenticity that never tips into pastiche.
Things are rarely coincidental where Fincher is concerned, and the number of Brits in the cast almost certainly isn’t. He’s pitching for a period style of acting here and finds it in Collins, all Vivien Leigh looks and cut-glass Deborah Kerr tones. Her tender scenes with Oldman are a highlight and may just earn her Oscar recognition. The restraint is there, too, in Charles Dance’s newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst, the man who famously inspired the character of Charles Foster Kane. Citizen Hearst is an altogether different beast from the onscreen mogul: a taciturn, vampiric presence at the parties he throws at his Xanadu-like castle. It’s at one of them that Mank finally – and fatally – overplays his hand.
But it’s Oldman’s show. He’s magnetic and the last time Oldman played someone from the 1940s, he won an Oscar for it. Don’t be surprised if he does it again.
Director: David Fincher
Starring: Gary Oldman, Lily Collins, Tom Burke
Released: Streaming on Netflix now
