Early in Netflix’s Mank, the screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (played by Gary Oldman) ambles onto an outdoor movie set, where he bumps into an array of glamorous characters. In a scene full of repartee with real-life figures such as the actor Marion Davies, the film honcho Louis B. Mayer, and the mogul William Randolph Hearst, the visual details of the environment might seem unimportant. But to Mank’s director, David Fincher, they mattered. “The grass was not to David’s liking, and the sky was not to his liking, so all that’s been replaced,” Peter Mavromates, his co-producer, told me. When making a movie, Fincher literally controls heaven and earth.
That example sums up the capricious-sounding, godlike power of a director, especially in the age of digital filmmaking, which allows for total command of every frame. But as with all of his movies, Fincher’s vision for Mank was realized by a group of dedicated collaborators, most of whom have worked with the director for many years across projects. This film, which Fincher mulled for nearly three decades, is unlike anything he has made before. An unusual-looking-and-sounding film set in the Golden Age of Hollywood, Mank reflects the aesthetic of the 1930s with its black-and-white cinematography; an echoey, old-fashioned sound mix; and a brassy, orchestral score. But Fincher also wanted it to be a distinctly modern film, which posed many unique and fascinating technical challenges to the creators charged with bringing his lofty ideas to life.
Jack Fincher retired from journalism right around the time his son, David, was moving from directing music videos for the likes of Madonna and George Michael to making his first feature film, “Alien 3.” Jack, a lifelong movie fan, told David he’d like to try writing a screenplay. David encouraged him to delve into the story of Herman Mankiewicz, the co-writer (or, perhaps, sole writer) of Orson Welles’ 1941 landmark “Citizen Kane.” Jack wrote eight drafts of the screenplay, homing in on the journey of the self-sabotaging Mankiewicz as he stops betraying his talents and paints his one masterpiece (relatively) late in life.
Father and son could never quite crack the script, and Jack died in 2003 of pancreatic cancer. Those eight drafts of “Mank” sat on a shelf in David’s office for years until Netflix executives Ted Sarandos and Cindy Holland asked Fincher about his dream unmade project. That was two years ago, and “Mank” has consumed most of Fincher’s waking hours since.
The black-and-white movie, starring Gary Oldman in the title role, premiered in a handful of theaters last month and arrives on Netflix today. It figures to be a force in this year’s awards season, such as it is. It’s certainly the warmest movie Fincher has made in a career founded on the notion that “people are perverts.”
Fincher called the other morning. He was disarmingly polite, by turns generous and evasive, and full of the sardonic humor that courses through his films. “I’m a little groggy,” he said, noting that he didn’t get much sleep the previous night, “but hopefully I know the answers to these questions.”
There was never any doubt that David Fincher was going to shoot “Mank” in black-and-white. His biopic about alcoholic and acerbic screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) struggling to churn out a first draft of “Citizen Kane” cried out for monochromatic treatment. And yet Fincher and cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt (“Mindhunter”) were not about to indulge in a “Kane”-like re-enactment, or be confined to shooting on film, or composing in the period accurate aspect ratio of 1.37:1. Not with Fincher’s digital prowess and penchant for the 2.39: 1 widescreen format.
So Fincher and Messerschmidt struck a balance between retro and modern, taking advantage of the director’s efficient digital workflow to approximate the look of a movie made around the time of “Kane” in 1940 yet “Photographed in Hi-Dynamic Range” (as the title card proclaims).
“Filmmaking has always been a medium where we selectively employ the techniques that are available on the day,” Messerschmidt said. But shooting in black-and-white was a lot to unpack for the cinematographer, who had only done a few music videos and commercials outside of still photography and film school projects.
Technically, “Mank” is the story of how the script for what’s often considered the greatest movie ever made, “Citizen Kane,” may have been written. But there’s a lot more to David Fincher’s deep-focused, black-and-white, flashback-filled Netflix movie, which starts streaming on the service Friday, Dec. 4.
Built on a screenplay written by the director’s father, the late Bay Area journalist Jack Fincher, “Mank” is a speculative swirl of 1930s Hollywood and California history. The new film has already rekindled the controversy over whether veteran screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz (played by Gary Oldman) or 25-year-old, first-time director/star Orson Welles (Tom Burke) was the primary author of “Citizen Kane.”
The main show, however, revolves around alcoholic Mankiewicz’s memories. Some of those involve his friendship with the actress Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried) and, at more of a remove, her powerful lover, newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance). The model for Welles’ fictional Charles Foster Kane, Hearst — whose company owned the San Francisco Examiner at the time and now runs The Chronicle — famously exerted his considerable clout to have “Citizen Kane” squelched before it was released in 1941.
Speaking to The Chronicle by phone from Los Angeles, the Marin County-raised Fincher responded nimbly when informed he was talking to a Hearst publication.
When costume designer Trish Summerville first started working on David Fincher’s new Netflix film Mank, “even people in my crew and friends were like, ‘This would probably make things so much easier.” That’s because the film is shot in black and white. In fact, though, the opposite was true. “It actually made it a bit more difficult,” says Summerville. “When you shoot in color, you have all these different shades and tones you can work with and you can do stuff that’s tone on tone.”
What she found out — while researching the period and visiting costume rental houses, where she took photos of garments in black and white — is that not only are many options are no-go but that other problems present themselves.
It’s so exciting to sit down with Erik Messerschmidt, ASC – an Emmy-nominated cinematographer whose credits include the popular Netflix series MINDHUNTER, HBO’s RAISED BY WOLVES and David Fincher‘s latest Netflix film MANK!
In today’s conversation, me and Erik discuss his beginnings in the film industry working as a gaffer (learning from the best cinematographers in the business); a deep dive into his cinematography for the two Emmy-nominated seasons of MINDHUNTER; Erik’s creative relationship with David Fincher, and the thought process behind the infamous “multiple takes” Fincher is so known for; how classic Hollywood noirs of the ‘30s and 40s influenced the visual style for MANK—all of this, and much more.
Check out Erik’s new film MANK (now on Netflix), which many speculate will land him his first Oscar nomination for Cinematography in just a few months.
C’est l’événement cinématographique de cet hiver. Avec « Mank », en ligne sur Netflix vendredi 4 décembre, David Fincher signe le portrait de Herman J. Mankiewicz, scénariste de « Citizen Kane ».
Quand, au début des années 1990, son père a posé un scénario sur la table, David Fincher s’est contenté de regarder le titre inscrit sur la couverture. Mank. Il n’avait pas besoin d’en savoir plus. En un instant, il avait compris le sujet du récit que son père, Jack Fincher, journaliste, avait écrit. Une référence au diminutif par lequel ses pairs, à la cantine de la MGM – le studio hollywoodien le plus prestigieux des années 1930 et 1940 (Autant en emporte le vent, LeMagicien d’Oz…) –, désignaient l’un des plus brillants scénaristes de sa génération, Herman J. Mankiewicz.
A 7 ans, David Fincher avait entendu son père parler du chef-d’œuvre d’Orson Welles. S’il n’avait pas compris grand-chose, l’enfant avait saisi l’admiration portée au film, quasiment une dévotion. Alors, en ce début des années 1990, à presque 30 ans, le réalisateur de clips vidéo et de films publicitaires le plus talentueux de la planète pouvait légitimement prétendre devenir le destinataire de ce scénario. Mais ses états de service n’apparaissaient pas assez convaincants aux yeux de son père.
Ce journaliste, qui venait de prendre sa retraite – il dirigeait le bureau à San Francisco de l’hebdomadaire Life –, avait écrit ce scénario et discuté du projet avec son fils mais sans jamais rien mettre en branle pour le voir adapté à l’écran. Il s’était contenté de rêver ce film, imaginant le voir réalisé par un cinéaste de sa génération, un aventurier comme John Huston, par exemple. Le réalisateur du Trésor de la Sierra Madre (1948) et d’African Queen (1951) avait été boxeur, chasseur d’éléphants et collectionnait l’art précolombien. « Moi, en comparaison, soupire Fincher, j’avais fait quoi ? Réalisé des vidéos avec Madonna et des publicités pour Pepsi et Nike ? Ce n’est pas l’image du réalisateur qu’il se faisait. »
Few figures from Hollywood’s Golden Age loom as large as Orson Welles.
The mercurial wunderkind first made a name for himself with his voice, in his Mercury Theater‘s Shakespeare productions and his iconic radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds. Then he took Hollywood by storm as a creative force, acting, directing, and producing his own work, including his most famous film, Citizen Kane, which is central to David Fincher‘s new movie Mank.
As Welles aged, he became larger than life, both in his increasing girth and his tempestuous approach to filmmaking, a realm in which he was often at odds with studio brass and even himself (see: thelong-unfinished The Other Side of the Wind).
How then do you find the right person to portray such a towering figure? It’s been done before several times, by the likes of Vincent D’Onofrio, Angus MacFadyen, and even Jack Black.
Actor Tom Burke reveals how he perfected the voice of Orson Welles for his new film, Mank, and Rob Savage explains how he made lockdown horror movie Host.
The Fincher Analyst 