With the announcement of the nominations for the 93rd Academy Awards, the annual Oscar season has kicked off again. So, starting today, the Oscar review section is once again launched, focusing on the films nominated for the main Oscar awards. The first subject of review is, of course, Mank, which received the most nominations (10).
Fans will know that one of the most famous films in the history of world cinema is "Citizen Kane". It is a great film, a textbook classic in the history of cinema. Every ten years since 1952, the prestigious British magazine Sight & Sound has named Citizen Kane as one of the ten best films in the world.
Citizen Kane tells the story of the troubled life of newspaper kingpin Kane. For this, screenwriters Herman Mankiewicz and Orson Welles won the 14th Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. It was acknowledged in the press that the film's Kane was an allusion to the newspaper king, Hearst. In response, Hearst protested and attempted to buy the film for $800,000 to ban its release.
Following the release of Citizen Kane, a dispute arose over the rights to the film's screenplay. American film critic Pauline Kael wrote an article stating that the script for Citizen Kane was written by Mankiewicz and that Orson Welles had not written a word of it. Another view is that Mankiewicz's work was foundational, while Orson Welles's revisions were transformative.
The film Mankiewicz tells the story of this copyright dispute that occurred during the writing of the Citizen Kane script. Jack Finch, father of the famous director David Finch, wrote the script based on Pauline Kael's writings back in the 1990s, but it went unnoticed. jack Finch died in 2003. David Fincher, in memory of his father, went through several battles to secure investment from Netflix to complete this 130-minute black and white film.
Mankind is nominated for 10 Oscars this year, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Actress in a Supporting Role, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography and Best Sound, Best Costume Design and Best Makeup and Hairstyling, and Best Original Score.
Coincidentally, two years ago, Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron's black and white film Roma was also nominated for 10 Oscars, eventually winning three awards for Best Director, Best Foreign Language Film and Best Cinematography. What will happen this year with David Fincher's Mank? Will it outperform or underperform Roma? We'll see.
Let's start with what kind of film is Mank, a screenwriter, Herman Mankiewicz (nicknamed Mank), who broke his leg in a car accident in 1940, accepts an offer from fledgling director Orson Welles to write a script in 60 days, hiding in a remote town far from Hollywood. But, because of the need to recover from a leg injury, Manke must give up drinking. This was a major disaster for the alcoholic. A month passed and progress on the script was slow. With the help of the stenographer who printed the script for him, Manke finally managed to get his hands on some alcohol and write the script that would later be called Citizen Kane.
The script was inspired by his own life experiences; 10 years earlier, Manke had been a well-known screenwriter in Hollywood, but was a drinker, gambler and cynic. Admiring his talent, newspaper king William Randolph Hearst invited Manke to a party at his palatial palace. It was there that Manke met Hearst's girlfriend, Marion Davies.
At the party, Manke, as usual, was tongue-tied and outspoken about political matters, offending the wealthy guests at the party. Davies, too, lets people down by being fast-talking. The two unpopular people find common ground as they share the same illness on the terrace.
Davis is a former actor who met Hurst by chance. For Davies, Hearst not only had his newspapers tout Davies, but also built a luxurious palace, kept herds of exotic animals and invited the rich and powerful to parties from time to time. But Davis could never get used to the luxury and lack of freedom.
At the same time, Manke was witnessing a scandal in the California gubernatorial election. Upton Sinclair, the author of Slaughterhouse and Oil, ran for governor and was defeated by a false advertising film made by MGM studios that demonised Sinclair, after which the director of the film committed suicide out of guilt. So, after a drunken bender, Manke came to Hearst's lavish party and told a modern-day version of Don Quixote in public, mocking both Hearst and MGM owner Meyer.
Based on these life experiences, Manke completed the script. Anticipating the success of the script, he demanded his name on the film, despite a prior agreement to waive his attribution rights. Eventually, the studio that financed Citizen Kane took his advice and put Manke as first screenwriter. As late as February 1942, after winning the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, he continued to stress in interviews that the script was written without the involvement of Orson Welles.
It is this story of how Citizen Kane came to be that David Fincher has turned into a black and white film in a similar style to Citizen Kane. Before watching Citizen Kane, I would have been very positive about Mank. However, after a serious viewing of Citizen Kane, I have changed my mind. Citizen Kane is one of the great classics of cinema history, whereas Mank is a mere gossip piece that focuses on the life of Citizen Kane, and is reduced to a supposedly revealing historical truth. The difference between the two is clear.
Of course, the greatness of Citizen Kane cannot be achieved without the foundation of the script. Without the story based on Hearst, this classic film would not have been made. But cinema is an all-round art, and the greatness of Citizen Kane is not just in the screenplay, but also in Orson Welles, who directed, wrote and starred in the film. The characterisation of Citizen Kane, the parallel narrative structure of multiple perspectives, the contrasting dark and shadowy lighting, and the iconic deep focus photography are all groundbreaking in the history of cinema. And regardless of whether the evidence of copyright ownership is solid, it is also clear, just working backwards from the completed film, that Orson Welles made creative changes to the script.
Of course, Mank is not just a gossip film, but at least the characterisation of Mank is very creative. In my opinion, the most likely Oscar for Mank is not for Best Picture or Best Director, it should be for Best Actor.
British actor Gary Oldman, who won the Oscar for Best Actor for Darkest Hour three years ago, has been the film's biggest draw in bringing the diversity of Mank's character to life. Manke does have the genius of a screenwriter and a sharp mind, but equally has a great deal of bad taste. His penchant for drinking, drunken gambling, mouthing off and even relishing the privacy of his friends are all very distasteful. The film does not portray Manke as a toweringly positive figure just because it flips the script for him.
In this respect, Mank and Citizen Kane are similar. Both Manke and Kane are complex individuals created by the times, both repulsive, sympathetic and thought-provoking. This open-ended ending is the high point of both Mank and Citizen Kane.
