Mank trailer

Da 5 Bloods will likely be a victim of releasing way early, and Ma Rainey feels more like an acting contender rather than a Best Picture frontrunner, Id look at Nomadland or Trial of the Chicago 7 as possible alternatives.

do you think i had to have seen Citizen Kane to enjoy Mank?

Not to be confused with the movie SALZMANK starring Larry Goldman as Nalkarj

A debate on who really wrote CITIZEN KANE has been going on for decades. Are you ready to watch a fictionalized retelling of the production of that 1941 classic, filled with powerful drama? Well, you're going to have to wait a little longer, because MANK isn't up to the task. The rivalrous collaboration (or collaborative rivalry?) between Herman J. Mankiewicz and Orson Welles is mostly pushed to the side and a lot of time is wasted on a bunch of other situations and characters. Of course that it's important to provide historical context (like how World War II had an effect on people's views when making motion pictures), but that doesn't mean the focus has to switch completely. There's even a subplot about a gubernatorial race that barely connected to the themes of the story. After I closed my Netflix tab, I found out that this particular event didn't even happen at that time! While it's not an intriguing and emotional ride, it's not a snooze-fest either. The performances are good (Lily Collins, Arliss Howard and Tom Burke are the standouts) and the production values are on point. Speaking of, I think there's a better use of black and white in THE FORTY-YEAR-OLD VERSION. Wait a minute. That was an independent directorial debut and this is a prestigious biopic which had a bigger budget. Why do I prefer the former's cinematography? Well, the contrast was more appealing, the lighting was more immersive and the shot composition was more memorable. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll go re-watch TRUMBO.

6/10
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You can read comments of other movies in my blog.

Yeah, I saw The Disaster Artist three times in the theater—"good/very good"—before I viewed The Room (shortly thereafter, also in the theater, in January 2018). 

I viewed Mank the other night on Netflix. I found it "good," but mainly because of the technical or cinematic aspects. The elegant black-and-white cinematography is commendable, and the editing is excellent—as a mix of montage and mise-en-scène, the film is something of a tour de force for director David Fincher, perhaps reminiscent of Martin's Scorsese's best technical work. If a movie's main objectives should be to provide something compelling to look at and maintain a consistent tone, then Mank certainly succeeds. But like Vits and hi224, I feel that the film lacks for thematic cogency, narrative momentum, and poignancy. As Vits indicates, the acting is finely wrought, but the characterizations are basically bereft of emotional clout. The relationship and rivalry between Herman Mankiewicz and Orson Welles receive only intermittent exploration, and thus the supposed dramatic impact during the climax and coda falls flat, almost as if the movie was aiming for parody or postmodernism rather than satire. Mank is a black comedy, but it lacks the bite needed for a truly outstanding entry in that genre. I found myself intrigued, but certainly not mesmerized or entirely engrossed.

In some of those senses, I would analogize it to The Lighthouse, which I viewed twice in the theater in November 2019. The Lighthouse offered potent, memorable black-and-white cinematography and ample rhetorical relish, but for me, the overt stylishness inhibited immersion in the story, as if I was studying some art exhibit rather than being one with the movie. While Mank is quite stylized, the stylization does not distract from its narrative, thus elevating the film somewhat. But it does seem as if the filmmakers proved so concerned with the movie’s stylization and technical artistry that they allowed the earthier elements of characterization, theme, and story to lag behind. I actually enjoyed the political subplot regarding the governor's race, and some of the philosophical quips about cinema's ultimately commercial nature prove both witty and brutally frank. But the film feels too much like a bunch of vignettes fluffed together, just the type of situation that someone warns Mankiewicz about early in the narrative, regarding the screenwriter's writing. One could conceivably commend Mank for displaying irony or postmodernism in this regard, but this busyness feels too much like a flaw or, at best, an incomplete success.

Here is an example that epitomizes the movie's conundrum. Early on, in a scene set in 1930, Mank features nondiegetic jazz on the soundtrack in the idiom of that era, something out of the late twenties or early thirties, stylistically. But a little later, in a scene or sequence set in 1934, the soundtrack features "modern jazz" that could have come from 1954 or 1964, but certainly not from 1934. A film's nondiegetic musical choices do not have to be of its diegetic historical period, but starting in that vein and then switching to another creates a discrepancy, as does the sheer decision to play modern jazz on the soundtrack of a movie set in the thirties. Perhaps only a viewer with a reasonable grasp of jazz history would care, but a highbrow film should be attentive to these sorts of details, because audiences for this sort of production tend to be more culturally sophisticated. And if a viewer, such as myself, is debating whether modern jazz should be part of the score for a sequence set in 1934, rather than focusing on the story and characters, then the movie is faltering a bit.

In short, sometimes artistry only reaches its potential if supported by common sense and the visceral aspects of storytelling. To Vits' point, Trumbo (2015), indeed, does a better job of that.