‘MANK’ AND THE DEATH OF THE MOVIEGOING EXPERIENCE
If last Thursday marked a movie milestone, it’s interesting that “Mank” began streaming on Netflix the very next day. A beautifully shot homage to old Hollywood, it stars Gary Oldman as the alcoholic screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, engaged in the creation of the 1941 masterpiece “Citizen Kane.” Or at least its first draft.
While many have marveled at the audacity of the young Orson Welles (Tom Burke) to take on press baron William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance), it was Mankiewicz who was really biting the hand that fed him.
He’s seen in flashbacks as a frequent dinner guest at Hearst’s San Simeon mansion and a friend and confidant to Hearst’s lover, Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried).
Mank: Sole author or just another citizen in Welles army?
No matter how lofty one’s stature as an artist or how impeccable one’s list of accomplishments, there will always be someone out there sporting a pair of steel-toed loafers for the soul (and sole) purpose of booting a deity from the Pantheon. ‘Tippi’ Hedren built a career off of bad-mouthing Alfred Hitchcock. Reviews of Jerry Lewis’ movies read like critical contract killings. But not even the
National Enquirer could have concocted a slam as spurious and mean-spirited as the one Pauline Kael leveled against Orson Welles. And David Fincher’s