Mank

I chanced upon a movie named RKO 281 in one of the video stores around twenty years back. It piqued my interest, and I watched this movie. At that time, I may have heard of Citizen Kane but never wanted to watch the film. After watching RKO 281, I was interested in Orson Welles and then Citizen Kane. The movie highlights the genius of Orson Welles, played by a young Liev Schreiber. Liev left such an effect on me that later performances dwarfed in comparison. The movie also featured John Malkovich as Herman Mankiewicz. The movie briefly narrates the tussle between Herman and Orson on the credits for the screenplay. Now, Netflix has added a film named Mank in its repository, which details the genesis of Citizen Kane from Herman’s point of view.

Mank is directed by David Fincher based on a script by his late father, Jack Fincher, with Gary Oldman playing the role of Herman Mankiewicz. In homage to Citizen Kane, the movie has a non-linear timeline where the scenes move back and forth between the present and the past. When you watch the film, it is difficult to isolate the contemporary times from those. As the quote goes, hindsight is always 20/20. It also makes sense to showcase that some of today’s techniques were not different from what was employed in the past. It is questioning our learning from the past. Another interesting thing to…