Everything You Need to Know About Mank

like many of you on december 4th 2020 i raced to netflix to watch david fincher's newest film mank a reevaluation of 1930s hollywood through the eyes of scathing social critic and alcoholic screenwriter herman j mankowitz as he races to finish the screenplay of citizen kane and like many of you i immediately had thoughts about it primarily concerning its fidelity to history fincher's characteristic attention to detail and why i felt somewhat underwhelmed so here i am making a video about it i've divided this video into three themes politics marion davies and authorship in each section i'll compare the film with events as they actually happened and add further context that might clarify some of the screenplay's nitty-gritty moments that rely a little too heavily on a viewer's prior knowledge at the end i'll give some of my personal thoughts on the film and listed off some stray observations i had please don't read this as me griping against historical inaccuracy fudging facts here and there for the sake of a narrative is perfectly okay in most cases but if you watch my channel you also know that i care a lot about context and access to correct information so think of this video as a companion not to discredit mank but to add to it or world build it's reality if you want it this story has been mined by historians critics and journalists a thousand times over and i really combed through this movie like i looked up the address on this telegram it's a grastedes now so it would be impossible for me to include all of the details i could or would want to put in here i tried my best to distill everything down to major points which has still yielded a terrifying run time but i consulted several great sources for this script which i show throughout the video so if at the end of this you're left in dire need of more information on this topic those are great places to start before we get started i want to thank the sponsor of today's video nordvpn i recently did a series called 25 days of actress that celebrated performances i love from around the world making that video highlighted for me how access informs what we can consume as viewers as an american i'm out of luck if i want to explore hideko takamine's work and all i have is netflix nordvpn helped me get around that all i had to do was connect to one of their thousands of servers around the world and then i see the internet as if i'm physically located there once i connect to japan i can access some of her films and see tons of recommendations for what to watch next it's a brand new actress rabbit hole to fall down they have thousands of super fast servers in nearly 60 countries unlimited bandwidth and have partnered with cyber security firms to keep your data safe it takes no time at all to set up and boom i can access a truly global internet and view information i might not see otherwise all securely done from your phone or computer you can connect up to six devices simultaneously on just one nordvpn account they also have a special holiday offer going on right now so for a limited time only you can get 68 off on a two-year plan plus four additional months free go to nordvpn.com be kind rewind or use the code be kind rewind at checkout it's risk free with nord's 30-day money-back guarantee and a great gift for the holidays use the link in the description below to get in on this deal before it ends [Music] many initial reviews of mank were surprised by the proportion of the film dedicated to politics it is a surprising though not uninteresting addition to the narrative one which heightens mank's contemporary resonance and significantly differentiates it from any other citizen kane lore primarily because it's the most blatantly fabricated aspect of this film at least in relation to her and mankowitz greg mitchell's book campaign of the century thoroughly details the 1934 election including hollywood's involvement in swaying californians against upton sinclair he's the one who actually discovered the thalburg newsreels in an off-site mgm archive in 1990 which fincher dutifully recreates mitchell's recent article in the new york times sets the record straight on many of mink's narrative choices mgm did produce manipulative and tyson claire newsreels the studio did dock employees pay to support marion's campaign and mayor did celebrate miriam's win at the trocadero from there the narrative's connection to reality begins to fray both hermann and hearst's involvement are exaggerated or rather in hermann's case entirely invented the construction of these events implies certain things about authorship which as i mentioned we'll get into later but beyond that they place hermann within an influential web of corrupt actors it's herman who inadvertently inspires irving thalberg to create phony newsreels which are funded by hearst and turn the tide of the election it's herman's close friend who takes his life partially in regret for having participated in this scheme however as far as anyone can tell he wasn't involved in these events at all mitchell bluntly writes there is no evidence that herrmann took any stand for sinclair let alone a nearly heroic one or even voted for him joe mankowitz however was he admitted to writing anti-sinclair spots for the radio including one which warned rich people that sinclair would take their swimming pools shelley is also a fictional character the man who shot the phony newsreels felix feist was a conservative and apparently never very much bothered by his work on these mitchell also notes that there is not a shred of proof that hearst actually financed these phony newsreels hearst like other conservative publishers used his papers to denigrate sinclair but mayer actually collaborated more closely with harry chandler of the la times to plan a thorough takedown of sinclair and chandler's efforts there proved much more damaging than hearst's each day the paper placed quotes from sinclair's novels on the front page as if they were policy positions in order to mislead the public the la times gets a fleeting shout out in the film but is virtually dropped to focus on hearst whether or not these inventions are strong enough to convince an audience that they inspire herman to write citizen kane i don't know but i do think that the political debates between the characters are the film's strongest moments specifically this scene jack fincher's screenplay works to dispel a common myth about hollywood which is that it has historically been a liberal place this debate unveils key figures conservative views on foreign policy mayor says hitler schmidler you don't turn your back on a market as big as germany most of the studio heads in the 1930s were self-made jewish immigrants and though privately concerned about hitler's rhetoric chose not to criticize him publicly as mayor says they had a responsibility to the business and the german film market was too lucrative to pass up they also opted for silence because speaking up would mean acknowledging their jewishness and for all the power they had they too were susceptible to routine anti-semitic attacks sidney lanezone stern author of the brothers mankowitz writes they were maligned as greedy capitalists whose sensational products corrupted wholesome christian americans they knew that if they depicted nazi abuses they risked being branded as warmongers trying to pull the united states into a european problem to help their co-religionists in this same scene hearst says don't be around mary and he won't be around for long germans are a thoughtful considerate people this line suggests hurst didn't really like hitler and was perhaps naive about europe's political future which he absolutely was but sort of from the other side of the spectrum hearst actually admired hitler's leadership style and was enthusiastic about his promise to destroy communism in germany to the point that he met with hitler in 1934 marion claims in her memoir that she wanted to meet him too although more out of curiosity than political affiliation hearst also sought out a meeting with mussolini but was offended when the leader refused hermann plays the token sinclair supporter in the room and thus our token liberal which side note charlie chaplin was the actual sinclair devotee in the room and credited sinclair for his education in leftist politics both of hermann's parents were german jewish immigrants and having served in world war one and lived briefly in berlin hermann intimately understood the german political situation and vehemently opposed hitler as free dimensions later in the film hermann wrote the screenplay the mad dog of europe in 1933 as a way of ringing the alarm about hitler the screenplay followed the rise of a house painter adolf mittler in transylvania and his oppression of the jewish people coincidentally one scene recreates the nazi book burnings and specifies several authors works being tossed into the fire including sigmund freud karl marx and upton sinclair herrmann and several producers tried every trick in the book to get that film made at one point even the state department was involved but no one would touch it partly for the reasons i mentioned earlier herman's politics though were kind of hard to grasp though he was intensely anti-hitler he was also somewhat isolationist he claimed because of having seen the destructions of world war one [Music] even in the worst reviews of bank you're likely to find compliments about amanda seyfried's performance as marion davies to me her work here felt so refreshing in part because so many other portrayals of marion have fallen short in rko 281 melanie griffith plays a moody and passive marion in the cat's meow kirsten dunst gives her more life but the film perpetuates baseless falsehoods about the death of producer thomas ince and then there's virginia madsen in the hearst davies affair which once again made her seem gloomy and while that's just generally a film that doesn't do much for anyone but all of these films combined have not done a fraction of the harm to mary and davey's legacy that citizen kane has although dorothy coming or was not literally playing her the parallels between the character susan alexander and the real-life human being marion davies were obvious to anyone with a passing knowledge of her's personal life down to her notorious love of puzzles susan is characterized as a whiny talentless lonely prisoner whose undeserved success was bought for her and because she occupied a similar space in kane's life as marion occupied in hearsts people unfairly conflated susan's talent and personality with marians it was a convenient enough excuse to dismiss her as a figure unworthy of analysis or attention even orson welles acknowledged that the film inadvertently cast a shadow on marion's legacy saying i thought we were very unfair to marian davies because we had somebody very different in the place of marion davies and it seemed to me to be something of a dirty trick and does still strike me as being something of a dirty trick what we did there so who was the real marion davies and how does mank depict her in mank we meet marion davies in 1930. herman wakes up at san simeon hearst californian castle estate and encounters marion on a stake in the middle of a shoot as a side note to my knowledge marion never appeared on a stake in a film and also never filmed at san simeon although lady gaga did anyway herman asks her what she's up to and she explains this is all pop's idea he wants me ready to take on the talkies this is actually a critical moment in mary and davie's career the transition to sound was intimidating to a lot of actors performing with your voice requires a totally different skill set than solely acting with your body and not everybody could do both singing in the rain for example gives a humorous take on how that problem could play out talking represented a threat to marion not because of her ability to act but because she had a significant stutter if she could not physically deliver her lines fluently her career would be over i really thought i was finished she says in her memoir no one thought i could talk and i didn't think i could either fortunately maybe miraculously memorizing her dialogue helped her words flow more organically and as a result she successfully avoided her stutter on screen rattling off paragraphs at a time with seemingly no trouble whatsoever of course it really doesn't matter unless we're playing for money are we playing for money well we can decide that after the game but i always like to know what my partner's rules are so many people have different ideas of playing bridge for instance some people want you to give them a bid on a week no trump of course it's customary to give your partner your long suit on a week no trump but it's very difficult to know anything unless you have a very good hand so the world finally got to hear mary and davey's voice which by the way did not have a brooklyn accent like she does in mank i guess it's a choice you know kind of like meryl's teeth and big little lies or something like amanda didn't really need it and to me it occasionally verged on harley quinn take on the talkie but you know maybe it's a way for her to get into the character bank doesn't venture too much into marion's career which is kind of a shame because she was a tremendously skilled and successful actress by the time we meet her in mank she was already a well-established star a featured player in the zekfeld follies she made her first film runaway romani in 1917 she also wrote its screenplay the next year she signed an exclusive contract with hearst's independent production company cosmopolitan pictures and major stardom was soon to follow films like when knighthood was in flower and little old new york became major hits leading her to become the top female box office star of 1922 and 23. certainly extensive coverage in hearst's papers helped her gain exposure and his elaborate sets gave her films an exceptional sense of authenticity but to attribute marion's popularity or achievements to his money would be incorrect as orson welles wrote in the introduction of her memoir marion davies was one of the most delightfully accomplished comedians in the whole history of the screen she would have been a star if herst had never happened indeed i don't think you can really understand screwball comedy without analyzing the work of marion davies in the right roles marion had a dizzying energy that anticipated performances by actresses like carol lombard and irene dunn an exuberant well-rounded comedian you could easily imagine her thriving on snl and like in a good year thrillingly expressive she leapt flipped and danced employing every muscle in her body for physical comedy marion was also a skilled mimic and deftly impersonated other actresses contorting her face to look like lillian gish and pitching her voice in a low swedish accent to imitate greta garbo i am tired so tired the advent of sound not only leveled up her impressions but also revealed her clever vocal work and infectious laugh marion's delivery is responsive and fluid she mumbles and giggles between lines and raises her inflection for comedic effect or shoves everyday phrases under her breath look how she layers dialogue in a way that feels decades ahead of its time oh how are you doing hmm as well say that's a nice portrait of it yeah i will be writing yeah i've got one like and then great yeah listen come on over learning's here like i'm going oh don't be silly although her comedic skill was readily apparent questions regarding how to cast marion constantly plagued her career hearst like frankly most of hollywood considered serious period dramas more important than comedies so obviously he insisted that's where marion belonged and crafted lavish over-produced vehicles for her that under-utilized her innate gifts she had an intuitive sense of her strengths as an actress so even when she understood that she was miscast she did her best to find funny moments within those dramas and make things work but mgm which distributed and housed cosmopolitan pictures on its lot had much less patience hearst mishandling her potential not only proved costly but also created tension within the studio because as it turns out the kinds of roles hearst wanted for davies were exactly the kinds of roles irving thalberg wanted for his wife norma shearer throughout mank we frequently hear references to the film marie antoinette specifically whether or not marion could or should play her marie antoinette was the straw that broke the camel's back davey said in her memoir hearst was unable to convince thalberg to cast marion as marie in 1933 and then in 1934 while marion was filming operator 13 in which she plays a spy during the civil war who disguises herself in blackface oops hearst learned that norma was cast as elizabeth barrett browning yet another role he wanted for marion furious he ended his partnership with mgm and moved marion and cosmopolitan to warner brothers that's what you're seeing in this scene in mank you may be wondering what that building is rolling along with her while most stars at mgm had a dressing room marion had a bungalow a 14-room mansion built for her on the lot in davies square no less it moved with her from studio to studio and eventually was sold as a private home mgm was less upset about losing marion than they were about losing the free press coverage in hearst's papers moving to warner brothers didn't do that much for marion's career either in 1937 she retired from acting partly because she was tired of stardom partly to spend more time with hearst as his physical and financial health worsened they still had sam simeon and she could still play the vibrant hostess that hollywood's most elite figures had come to love as tennessee williams once said marion davies makes up for the rest of hollywood she was by all accounts a charming considerate person who could lure any introvert out of their shell anonymously paid for friends medical bills and of course masterfully organized parties we see two in mank including one of their famous costume parties each had a different theme and the studios would send wardrobes from their costume departments for guests to rifle through and wear in fincher's meticulous fashion this scene faithfully recreates costumes worn to her circus theme party in 1938 there was the baby party the german party oh and the one norma shearer showed up to in her marie antoinette costume because of course she did i would have liked to see marion in a group context in which she isn't embarrassed but fincher seems invested in rehabilitating and exploring marion's humanity and warmth perhaps more so than any of the other characters in the film her alcoholism is hinted at but not exploited for tragedy she's not saddled with constant expository dialogue and instead spends her screen time graciously welcoming herman to her home expressing her ambitions and concerns and sincerely defending a man she came to love because while she and hearst had an odd relationship by many standards including the fact that they met when she was still a teenager and he was in his 50s their affection for each other grew to be entirely genuine marion had her dalliances but was devoted to hearst and remained by his side for over 30 years until his death in 1951. according to hearst castle historian virginia castner after he died marion sold her inheritance for one dollar back to the hearst corporation basically what marian was saying was i didn't do this for money this wasn't a gold digger situation after all she was a very savvy businesswoman herself and earned a significant income from her own investments for the rest of her life she was also a generous philanthropist and donated nearly 2 million dollars to establish a children's clinic at ucla if you want to know more about marion davies her memoir isn't a bad place to start it's not a traditional memoir in the sense that it's transcribed from recordings of her telling stories about her life it's not linear for example but it's a quick read and you get a good sense of who she was especially her sense of humor i've also linked two of her films the patsy and blondie of the follies in the description below if you want to see her in action the authorship of citizen kane has been dissected often so often in fact that it's almost a tiring subject to revisit but menk brings it up again so it's worth reviewing where historians have generally come down on who actually wrote the film as we've discussed in the political section mank posits that citizen kane was born out of hermann's personal experiences with larger-than-life figures who abused their power for personal gain as housman says tell the story you know in reality sources differ as to whether wells or mank thought of the idea for a film about hearst as a controversial public figure plenty of people were either already poking fun at or writing critical exposes about hearst including aldous huxley and upton sinclair as the film mentions because to be clear that man really sucked so either of them could have conceivably dreamed it up wells a theatrical prodigy had already established his interest in exploring personalities of mythic proportions and had written plans for a similar film about a fictionalized howard hughes hermann both knew and liked hurst and marion davies and although by the time he worked on citizen kane he was no longer associated with either of them he later said personally hearst was and is one of the most charming man i've ever known it was impossible not to be completely captivated by him though you differed violently with what at the moment he stood for politically which on the other hand might be the exact opposite the next morning in the brothers mankowitz lynn zone stern writes that wells and hermann tossed around ideas searching for a character complicated enough to generate a range of interpretations including politician william jennings bryan and writer alexandra dumas once they settled on hearst they refined the idea before hermann retreated to victorville to focus on the first draft which brings up the question of who physically sat down and penned citizen kane fincher has said that his father's first draft read like a takedown of wells and that he wanted to shift the screenplay's perspective to highlight how filmmaking requires enforced collaboration clearly fincher wanted to avoid an outright dismissal of wells and i don't see this film as an attack on him as some have suggested but he doesn't necessarily depict any collaboration taking place at least not during the writing process consider that hermann characterized as the truth-teller throughout the whole story ends the film with this claim to full credit pauline kale famously made orson welles a scapegoat for her disagreements with auteur theory and claimed in a 1971 essay that actually wells hadn't co-written citizen kane i won't get too deep into this story because as i said it's been done so many times and it's easily accessible elsewhere i'll link a good essay below but essentially she claimed that the film owed its brilliance to the studio system and to hermann mankowitz who she wrote was an unsung hero of hollywood history and here she was to sing about him well kayle's reporting was sloppy and has come to be seen as a needless smear against wells even sarah thought her claims were hyperbolic robert carringer's the making of citizen kane most thoroughly corrects and recalibrates some of kale's most controversial assertions by closely documenting changes to each draft of the screenplay including those written by wells he essentially concludes that citizen kane was indeed co-written and that both writers brought different strengths to the table he summarizes mankowitz wrote the first two drafts his principal contributions were the story frame a cast of characters various individual scenes and a good share of the dialogue certain parts were already in close to final form in the victorville script wells added narrative brilliance the visual and verbal wit the stylistic fluidity and such stunningly original strokes as the newspaper montages and the breakfast table sequence he also transformed kane from a cardboard fictionalization of hearst into a figure of mystery and epic magnificence citizen kane is the only major wells film on which the writing credit is shared not coincidentally it is also the wells film that has the strongest story the most fully realized characters and the most carefully sculpted dialogue mankowitz made the difference while his efforts may seem plodding next to well's flashy touches of genius they are of fundamental importance nonetheless manx timeline extends hermann's stay in victorville to encompass conflicts that happened much later in citizen kane's production history hermann left victorville to work on comrade x at mgm after giving wells the first draft questions of credit emerged after production had already started when wells told luella parsons he had written the film rightly upset herman eagerly sought to attach his name to the project despite having signed a contract that virtually ceded his right to credit lawyers and the writers guild got involved and it gets very complicated but mank elegantly distills the ordeal into a few lines regardless of hermann's troubles he was a creature of hollywood and had the industry's sympathies wells was a newcomer who had the ego to try to pull that trick but ultimately the wisdom not to follow through he read the room and understanding that the dispute could destroy his reputation before he'd even released a film agreed to give herrmann co-credit for the screenplay oddly enough the writer's guild had a rule that prohibited producers from sharing screenplay credits so herman was almost credited as the sole writer for a while but he also agreed that the credit should be shared and petitioned for an exception mank declines to address the release and reception of citizen kane which frankly illustrates hearst and mayor's power at work just as compellingly as the 1934 election could although maybe less easily wielded as a comment on 2020's politics releasing citizen kane was a risky endeavor although criticisms of hers were fairly commonplace as carringer points out none had been portrayed in film a medium to which hearst had intimate ties the characterization was laughingly obvious the newspapers the castle a relationship with a far younger woman who by the way loved puzzles the zoo which he really had for some reason the failed run for office to the point that predictably when hearst found out about it he was upset and corralled his considerable resources to prevent the film's release hearst's papers banned any mention of citizen kane and began to apply pressure to other studios to convince them it would be in their interest to stop rko from releasing the film mayor together with executives from other studios offered to reimburse rko its total picture cost if it would destroy the film rko's president george shaffer showed commendable resolve never once bowing to the pressure despite the fact that hearst's papers continued to hammer him personally from coast to coast fearing her's retaliation exhibitors hesitated to screen the film so although it earned favorable reviews it performed poorly at the box office and in its first run lost rko over a hundred fifty thousand dollars hbo's 1999 film rko281 which is what i've been showing on the screen focuses much more heavily on this portion of the story and though it also has its own fictionalized elements does a good job of relating the major events of this time it's also free on youtube before we close here is a series of stray observations the film shows this group of screenwriters absolute legends some of the best in the business notably absent are any females other than our friend in the pasties over here i found this surprising because this film makes such an effort to name drop famous writers and to make references to hermann's filmography yet it chooses not to include women who had very obvious and easy connections to this time dorothy parker herman's friend from his algonquin table days who recruited him to come to hollywood is absent as is francis marion who wrote for marion davies and co-wrote dinner at eight with herman anita loose also would have been fun to include she also wrote for marion davies and wrote the book gentlemen prefer blondes which charles lederer later adapted for the film some other cameos joseph von sternberg who directed the last command and thunderbolt both of which hermann wrote intertitles for before 1930 although all of the dates in this scene are kind of fuzzy john gilbert who unlike marion did not transition successfully from silent films to sound also shows up the pervasive story about him is that his voice was high pitched and people didn't like it but it really had more to do with his personal life alcoholism and uh this relationship with mayor the beefiest lionel barrymore stands up to defend mayor's wage cuts which he did do in real life through some instagram sleuthing i also found out that these are supposed to be joan crawford and gary cooper and today we live fallberg's death appears rather sudden here although it wasn't really he had persistent health problems throughout the early 1930s the good earth the last film he produced opens with a tribute to him which was said to have helped that film perform well at the academy awards at one point herrmann played by gary oldman says i'm 43 but that's very understanding which is why this age gap looks like this because of course it does speaking of sarah we first see her chatting with herman about the wizard of oz according to stern hermann was one of the first writers assigned to work on the film and came up with the black and white to technicolor transition idea and speaking of the wizard of oz joe mankowitz here talks about how his future at mgm might be limited because of a joke he made about mervid leroy he left the studio in 1943 partly because of a joke only it had more to do with judy garland the two were having an affair so joe had witnessed firsthand her difficulties with mental health he privately encouraged her to seek therapy which enraged mare and told her that she had the potential to do much more with her talents than trivial things like girl crazy which again enraged mare mare and joe fought and joe said i don't think this studio is big enough for both of us one of us has to go well guess who had to go so what did i personally think of mank anything i didn't like about it honestly had nothing to do with the liberties it takes with history to me it lacked follow-through on its themes particularly in the last 10 minutes or so when it muddles herman's conflicts with hearsts and wells which appear in the same sequence and yet feel utterly divorced from each other in context given its genre i was also surprised by the film's disinterest in hermann as a protagonist he serves primarily as a witness we see what he needed to see to right citizen kane when our focus shifts away from him as a human being we lose the real hermann a flawed haunted man who constantly disappointed his friends and family strived to live up to his father's expectations aspired to professional greatness and had one last shot at making something of himself the oscar for example feels justified because he's been our admittedly drunk but clear-eyed hero all along and yet the moment is almost devoid of emotion it doesn't really cause happiness or relief even though after rigorous battles with wells and hearst after everyone including himself had counted him out he won the real hermann apparently danced around his living room out of joy that night which is a far cry from the deflated smile that leaks out of gary oldman in the final frame this isn't to say that every story should end on a note of triumph but i do think a clearer arc to demonstrate why we should care about herman at all in the scheme of all this madness would have been helpful fincher is incapable of delivering a messy product on a technical level and obviously he doesn't hear but i was surprised by how uncharacteristically flat it felt in the scheme of his filmography despite being a bull's-eye of a target audience member for this movie as a genuine fan of finchers who's embarrassed by the number of times she saw gone girl in theaters and as someone who's maybe too interested in hollywood history i consciously noticed i was uninvested which you know you kind of hate to see and it left me wondering whether or not people who don't say have the history of the writer's guild sitting in their brain would feel alienated by watching it i suppose i'd recommend this film if you've got patience for a real slow burn or if you're a film nerd who absolutely loves easter egg type content you might not get to know herman mankowitz but you do get a glimpse into a fascinating period of hollywood history thank you again to nordvpn for sponsoring this video don't forget that for a limited time every purchase of a two-year plan gets you 68 off plus four additional months free go to nordvpn.com be kind rewind or use the code be kind rewind at checkout [Music] you

Channel: Be Kind Rewind

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Length: 35min 27sec (2127 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 20 2020