Sunday Corner With Lee Liberman: MANK writes Citizen Kane

 This post is written by our monthly correspondent, Lee Liberman

To report on director David Fincher’s MANK, a star turn for actor Gary Oldman and streaming now on Netflix, one needs throw bouquets at Mank’s opus, Citizen Kane, directed and starring Orson Welles, for which the witty, erudite Herman Mankiewicz, Mank, is hired to produce a script. Mank is the anecdotal tale of its writing, set against the machinations of the moguls that harnessed Hollywood in the 1930’s and rode it like outlaws. Although who wrote what is still disputed, it is thought that Mank laid out structure and detail while Welles infused the magic that has led to Citizen Kane’s reputation as one of the best films ever made. Both men (below) got Oscars for best original screenplay, its only win. Citizen Kane’s repute has grown since. 

We find our anti-hero laid up at a secluded desert ranch with a broken leg, waited on by a nurse and a secretary, the latter played by Lily Collins (below, l). Mank was in the middle of the movie food chain —a Hollywood transplant, jaded New York critic and playwright who wrote to his NY writer cohorts: “Come at once. There are millions to be made and your only competition are idiots”. 

What Mank lacks in a story arc is filled to the brim with an insider’s view of Hollywood’s studio renowned and other notables, particularly William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance) and Hearst’s Betty Boop (Amanda Seyfried) — who is getting awards buzz for her Marion Davies, played with warm intelligence. (Below, from l, Seyfried, Oldman, and Dance).

Citizen Kane is a 1941 vision in black and white that excoriates news mogul Hearst and the American Dream as Hearst exploited it — Rupert Murdoch’s tabloidy mantle now. (Citizen Kane streams on HBO Max thru 12/31, but is available for rent/sale on Prime, elsewhere.) The two films are intertwined — ‘Kane’ is worth a watch/re-watch, there’s not much about it in Mank, yet the texture of it infuses the entirety. Mank is a 2020 vision in black and white of Citizen Kane (below). 

Mank’s essence is the rich vs poor story of the flamboyant, depression era heyday of MGM’s Louis B Mayer and notables like Irving Thalberg, David O Selznick, S.J. Perelman and Joe Mankiewicz, all of whom and more appear here. Mank is the outsider, the joker who stumbles around drunk with writing skills and bon mots that have kept him in demand in the writers' room and in social company. 

Mank himself, a garrulous, overweight idealist, produces the original draft of the rise and fall of news magnate Charles Foster Kane for director Welles; it disparages the living Hearst and his castle of excess San Simeon — “Our little hillside home”. Mank “shimmers with knowing artificiality”, says A.O.Scott in The New York Times, as “the low motives and compromised ideals are articles of faith...in the annals of Hollywood self-obsession”. 

Mank himself is between a rock and a hard place: his own liberalism vs the oligarchic industry that employs him. Sympathetic to the exploitation of the have nots, he manages both to pal around with Hearst and use his words to throw Hearst under the bus. Citizen Kane becomes Mank’s mea culpa for having been a Hearst hanger on and court jester, damning both Hearst and tinseltown as oligarch. Says younger brother, Joe Mankiewicz (Tom Pelphrey): “I hear you’re hunting dangerous game; word...is...golden boy [Welles] wants to go toe-to-toe with Willie Hearst, and you’re helping in the kitchen” (below, brother Joe). 

David Fincher’s detailed script for Mank was written by his own father Jack, who uses flashbacks in the manner of Citizen Kane but here replaces the abuses of Charles Foster Kane with the abuses of the filmmaking industry and local politics. (Below, Fincher directs Oldman). 

Mank, however, suffers from the absence of the foreboding narrative that distinguished Citizen Kane. In one vignette, Mank is disgusted with Mayer (‘If I ever go to the electric chair, I'd like him to be sitting in my lap’) who drips sincerity pandering to his employees while cutting their pay in half. Actor Arliss Howard chews Mayer’s part with relish but no drama (below, c). 

Even the annihilating despair of a colleague who produced ads for a city mayoral race smearing the Democrat as a ‘lousy Bolshevik’ is affect-starved. That political campaign of self-interested lying to the public fueled Mank’s anger, propelling his revenge. (Here, the casting of Bill Nye, The Science Guy, as Upton Sinclair, the Democrat who gets beaten, is a clever poke at 2020 repression of science.) However the vignettes don’t build momentum. They are snapshots unmoored to a strong story arc. The power of Mank is in its imagery resembling Citizen Kane and as a singular character study that rakes over a man’s soul. It is lovely for all that, with Oscar buzz aplenty. 

Director of photography, Erik Messerschmidt, made a mesmerizing contribution here, creating the atmosphere of ‘Kane,’ perhaps to such an extent it leaves the viewer even more in want of old cars and old film — rich in moody blacks and whites, continuous long shots, immaculate lighting. Below, Marion glows. 

In short, cinephiles, watch and luxuriate. For those who feel no passion for the old film industry, the look, feel, and Mank’s bon mots will please, but no meal of a story is offered. Fincher has given us, writes David Rooney in The Hollywood Reporter, a “high-style piece of cinematic nostalgia that's a constant pleasure to look at but only intermittently finds a heartbeat.” Mank himself died of alcoholism at 55. 

On Blu-ray -- two small, polished gems from Douglas Sirk: A SCANDAL IN PARIS and LURED

TrustMovies didn't pay much attention to directors when he was in high school, but Written on the Wind, along with Vertigo, were two of his favorite films during those late adolescent years. Only after did he connect the name of the former's director, Douglas Sirk (1897-1987), with some other films he treasured (Imitation of Life and Sleep, My Love, for instance). Nowadays the name of Sirk (thanks in large part to the homage work of another fine filmmaker, Todd Haynes), is greatly prized -- though the prizing arrived mostly post-mortem for this talented German-born director, shown below.

All of which brings us to the first-time-on-Blu-ray release this week, via Cohen Film Collection of two of Mr. Sirk's early Hollywood movies -- A SCANDAL IN PARIS and LURED -- both of which should burnish the man's reputation to an even brighter sheen. Though Sirk worked in various genres -- from westerns to mysteries to rom-coms to mostly melodramas (I'm not sure he ever made a film that would qualify as actual drama) -- I would call him most gifted in melodrama. Have there been many better examples of this genre than Written on the Wind, Imitation of Life and All That Heaven Allows?

What Sirk brought to so many of his films, in addition to those heightened emotions, was elegance, atmosphere and just plain graceful movie-making. He also had a way of slyly bringing to our attention, within that melodrama, how somehow "off-track" were so many of our standard ideas of morality and economic class. It's always a pleasure to sink back in your seat, and take in what this director offers. A Scandal in Paris brings all of this and more to the fore. Based on the memoirs of real-life Parisian thief-turned-Chief-of-Police, the film stars that perfectly-cast, super-debonair and rakish George Sanders (above, left, with a delightful Akim Tamiroff, and below), who brings his considerable "all" to the role.

In one marvelous little scene early on, Sanders is used by an artist to model for Saint George (above), the irony being of course that few actors ever looked (or acted) less saintly than Sanders. Saint George proves a pivotal plot point in the movie (along with several others), as our anti-hero moves from rakish thief to something much more in line with that Saint (and with Hollywood morals of the day).

In the superlative cast of fine character actors and some very oddball faces, are the likes of Gene Lockhart (below) and a rarely-used-to her-fullest-ability Carole Landis (at left), a performer who becomes one of Sanders' early-then-problematic conquests. (Her song here is a silly, "fiery" charmer.) The screenplay is elegant and witty, making use of everything from stolen jewels to a pet monkey, while providing a number of smart, succulent lines (of which Sanders makes hay).

As the girl who proves to be our "hero's" true love, Signe Hasso (below, right) delivers both the necessary beauty along with subtlety and class.

Surprisingly, for a movie that's now 70 years old, there are almost no longueurs to be seen or felt, so incident-prone is the film that it scoots right along its 99-minute route.

Though this was but Sirk's third Hollywood film, his gift for melodrama, as well as for turning bourgeois morality on its ear, can already be seen surfacing in the Lockhart's final scene -- which against all odds begins to move you rather mightily so that you want to shout "unfair." All in all this little gem is such a surprising delight that Sirk fans should not miss it, while newcomers, after watching, may find themselves in the fold. (Cohen's Blu-ray transfer of both these films is top-notch, too.)

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Lured is one of several good mysteries Mr. Sirk offered up over his 45-year directorial career. Again, as in Scandal, there is plenty of elegance, atmosphere and charm here, as well as another wittier and more-interesting-than-we'd-expect screenplay that tells the tale of a serial killer targeting young woman via personal ads in the newspaper.

London-set but Hollywood-made, the movie stars a more-young-and-luscious than we may remember Lucille Ball (above and below) playing an American actress stranded in London when her show abruptly closes who must now do nightly taxi-dancing to pay the bills. When her friend becomes the murderer's next victim, she goes to the police and... we're off to the races.

In the male lead is Mr. Sanders again, in yet another of his signature roles -- the roué who's not so caddish, after all -- and he's perfectly fine, as usual. In the excellent supporting cast are the likes of Charles Coburn as Scotland Yard's top man, Cedric Hardwick as Sanders' friend and business partner, and Alan Mowbray as a naughty butler. All three are standouts. Socio- and psychologically, the film also shows us a character of veiled homosexuality whose lack of opportunity to engage or find an outlet for his caring and love leads to feelings and events that are very unhealthy indeed.

If you'll be able to spot the murderer fairly early on, the film offers plenty more reasons to see it, especially to witness what Ms Ball -- sassy and smart as anything -- could do before she became that much-loved Lucy. Oh, yes -- and there's one more famous actor who's a treat to watch here, too: a certain Boris Karloff (below, right) playing a sad and maddened artist who is one of the suspects in the case. His scene, I suppose, could be cut out without doing the film much damage, but what a pleasure it is to see him in all his glory once again.

Lured runs a slightly lengthy 103 minutes (it doesn't quite bounce along like Scandal) but it is definitely worth a watch for Sirk, Ball and mystery aficionados alike.

Both films, together in a single package, each on a separate disc with audio commentary included, hit the street this coming Tuesday, September 27 from Cohen Film Collection -- for purchase and (one hopes) rental.

Liz Garbus' LOVE, MARILYN tries to create an iconic star of interest to the younger set

Let's see: How do we go about doing something different with perhaps the most iconic star Hollywood has yet given us? Marilyn Monroe (shown above and further below, for you youngsters who many not immediately recognize her) has been done to death so many times now that one wonders what more could possibly be said about her life, her movies, her men, her anything and everything?  Liz Garbus, shown just below, the director of the latest in a long line of attempts to explore this icon, has turned to Marilyn's "journals, papers, and poems recently discovered among the personal effects left by Lee Strasberg, legendary Director of the Actor’s Studio and the actress’s mentor and confidant," as the press release explains it.

Surprise: these musings are quite interesting, showing a Marilyn of some complexity and thoughtfulness, while providing a different kind of entryway into her life. Unfortunatley, Garbus (or someone) has had the truly terrible idea to spread these musings amongst a rather too-large group of actresses/actors who take turns reading all this and consistently highjack our attention away from the words themselves.  Oh, look -- there's Elizabeth Banks (below, who makes a pretty good stand-in for the younger Marilyn)!

Now it's Uma Thurman (below, who does a lovely job with her readings)! Oh, my -- here's Glenn Close: Is that meant to show us what MM might have become had she lived longer? About the time you see and hear Viola Davis, you'll have realized that maybe Ms Garbus is pushing for Monroe to represent "everywoman" (or at least "everyactress"). Except that she also offers us Ben Foster (two photos below), who handles the verbiage with aplomb, and does, at one point, the best vocal impression of Monroe of anyone on view.

And so it goes, with our attention repeatedly pulled up short, leaving us wondering, "Wow-- who's next?" One narrator, maybe two -- a man and a woman -- would have sufficed. But then the movie wouldn't not have been so "starry," I suppose. Much of the film is attention-holding, because Monroe's words are genuine and smart, and the organization of the documentary is relatively firm and coherent.

If the men in Monroe's life do not come across as overly sympathetic (Joe DiMaggio is too old-fashioned, jealous of her time and her fans; Arthur Miller is depicted -- even described at one point -- as pretty much of a creep; and Kennedy (the Kennedys?) are barely there.

There is some wonderful archival footage here (above and below), and some interviews worth seeing and hearing. The difficulties of working with Monroe are skirted over, however, for the purpose here is clearly to continue the late star's run as "forever icon." By the time we get to George Cukor's complaints about her non-work on that final film (quite valid, it would seem), we're already mourning her death, having watched yet another attempt at something like sainthood.

Overall, the movie -- worth seeing for those who can't get enough Monroe, or newcomers who simply want to find out stuff -- seems an odd mixture of some genuinely good material used to produce yet another glossy Hollywood con job.

Love, Marilyn, a co-production of HBO Documentaries, Canal+ and others groups, opens theatrically today -- Friday, November 30 -- at Film Forum in New York City for a two-week run, will eventually be shown, I am sure on HBO. Filmmaker Garbus will appear in person tonight, 11/30/12, at 7:50pm.