Thinking about cinema with cinema? Nothing new. On the other hand, however, an extraordinary moment like the one we live in today, in which an industry already in crisis with the arrival of streaming and VR is brought to its knees by an epidemic that forces us to keep the theaters closed, requires more than ever a self-reflective reasoning. It almost seems like a loss that adds to the insult to see a film of this genre produced and presented exclusively by a sworn enemy of the cinema and cinema tradition as Netflix. Damage that is added to the topic (more a narrative pretext than a real topic, but we will get there) of the new film by David Fincher, Deficiency, or the genesis of the most famous film in the history of modern cinema, Fourth Estate di Orson Welles.
Myth within the myth
Fincher collaborates once again with Netflix (after the success of Mindhunter) for a mythological story of cinema that has in itself, in fact, mythical connotations: the gestation of the film dates back to the distant 90s when the father of the director, the screenwriter and journalist Jack Fincher (1930-2003), proposes to his son a script on Herman J. Mankiewicz, the mythical theater critic and screenwriter of Citizen Kane. Fincher's son was supposed to direct the film shortly after The Game (1997), but given the director's insistence to shoot the film in black and white, the project soon fell into oblivion. Dusted off almost twenty years after his father's death, David Fincher's Mank arrives "finally" on small screens from 4 December 2020.
Hollywood Babylon
I mentioned earlier how the seemingly central topic of the film is nothing more than a pretext, and I immediately explain why. Herman J. Mankiewicz (played by an always suitable Gary Oldman) is actually working on the script for Welles (then just 1953 years old) on an isolated ranch in South Carolina. Forced to bed due to a car accident, convalescence / work is a great opportunity to keep him away from alcohol, his great weakness that will lead to his death in 55 at the age of XNUMX.
The film soon abandons the making-of film formula and proceeds in a decidedly non-linear way: flashbacks, sudden cuts, voice overs, POV present our "hero" in the Hollywood hurt by the Great Depression in a magnificent black and white signed by Fincher Erik Messerschmidt's trusted DoP.
A Babylon in which producers and artists live like Kings but want even more, in which the poor clog the streets and no one in Hollywood seems to be truly satisfied with what they are or what they do. A kaleidoscope of movie myth characters follows, including protagonist's charming brother Joseph (Tom Pelphrey), pimp and self-righteous MGM chief Louis B. Mayer (Arliss Howard) and his wily deputy Irving Thalberg (Ferdinand Kingsley) . A micro universe over which presides the disturbing figure of William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance), the powerful and eccentric tycoon who will indirectly inspire the protagonist of Fourth Power with his young partner, the disillusioned but intelligent actress Marion Davies, superbly played in the film by Amanda Seyfried.
A game of contents and an underlying mystery
Mank is a game of Chinese boxes in the greater tradition of self-reflexive cinema: the film proceeds by references and winks to the cinema of today and yesterday, demystifies a mythology and its protagonists and creates a bridge between fears of the past and symptoms of the present. The historical screenplay that Mankiewicz is writing betrays the internal structure of the film: it is not a linear story, but a circular one, a "cinnamon roll" (a cylindrical American dessert with a spiral fantasy) as Mank himself says, enriched with top-notch dialogues of the category that seem the result of the best Aaron Sorkin.
Fincher elevates the skills of all his (trusted) collaborators to the maximum: from the aforementioned photography by Messerschmidt, to the superb scenographies of Donald Graham Burt and the perfect soundtrack by Reznor and Ross make Mank a feast for the senses.
However, a question remains not to be laughed at: what exactly is the film about? It is not a biopic, since the protagonist seems to have hit rock bottom for a long (too) long time. It is not a love letter to the cinema, since it seems to denounce the hypocrisy and the underlying amorality of its production machine. It is not the story of the genesis of Fourth Estate, since the behind the scenes of the film seems only a poorly detailed pretext.
I can't say exactly what Mank is talking about, but I can say for sure one thing: Mank is a film of rare creative and artistic magnitude, dramatic and cinematic, in which all the elements work and in the best possible way and which will remain among the most discussed works of one of the most fascinating directors of the American cinema scene.
