Everybody Loves a Cad: Mank and Citizen Kane Analysis
By: Olivia Hrko
Tags: Movies, Classic Hollywood, Film, Analysis, Heroes

Photo by Caryn from Pexels

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The commonalities between the new-ish ( it went live on Netflix December 6) Mank, the David Fincher film all about the writing process of…the movie we spend all of Mank not naming (it starts with a C and ends with a itizen Kane) don’t end at the black and white cinematography. The largest of which lays between both of the film’s heroes.

We follow the literally half broken Herman ‘Mank’ Mankiewicz as he embarks on writing a script for Orson Welles about any subject Welles wants...in ninety days. Mank toils and struggles to get the story absolutely correct on such a tight deadline. To be completely transparent as a once weekly film and tv and theater blogger who has a penchant for procrastination, I can relate. His subject? The largest and richest newspaper mogul in the world, William Randolph Hearst; cleverly hidden behind another three named character.

Everyone in Mank’s life, except the merry band keeping him company and, of course the always looming like a shadow in the corner, but…not really doing anything but cracking the whip on our poor hero, Orson Welles, wants Mank to stop writing this script. Mank pushes forward anyway. Constantly drunk, perilously treading water, tired, but — somehow, almost annoyingly likable and annoyingly intolerable Mank continues to write Cit — sorry. It’s never called by that name the whole movie. Anyway, back to Mank.

Like I was saying, Mank is portrayed beautifully with such nuance by Gary Oldman and is written with such tender honesty by Jack Fincher, that you can’t help but root for him. Especially if the viewer knows what movie Mank is writing. The frustration comes when Mank screws up every other aspect of his life. Which, he does; often. He is always worrying his wife, his stenographer, his brother, and downright terrifying his bosses at Paramount Pictures all because of his big mouth. All the audience can do is watch him dig himself deeper and deeper into trouble. It’s like watching a close and greatly admired friend constantly undermine how admirable they are. Mank is everything one could ever hope to be as a writer. He’s smart and charismatic. He knows how to tell a story succinctly yet with terrific creativity. The problem is, you watch him also blow all those attributes to smithereens because dammit, he couldn’t stand by and watch people do something dishonestly.

The difference with the character Mank writes, the “hero” of the second film I watched this week, is that the viewer will wait the entire two hours of the film to root for the “hero”, and never will completely. Citizen Kane’s Charles Foster Kane makes that impossible to do, because, well, we never hear from his perspective. We never see him be entirely human…because (and this isn’t a spoiler) he dies before we get to know him. The audience has to hear from people who, while they were close to Kane, never really get to see him fully. He’s unlikeable. He’s just as intolerably unlikeable as Mank, the only difference is, we don’t feel like we know him at all. It robs the viewer of ever finding him annoyingly likable. Who do we have to blame for that? Our annoyingly likable hero from Mank for writing him that way.

Now, if you want to do what I did, and watch these two movies together, I first want to recommend that no matter what order you watch them, take a small break in between. Give yourself a chance to sit with one or the other. If you have never actually seen Citizen Kane before, watch Mank first. It’ll give you the actual context of why Citizen Kane was so scandalous at the time, and it’s a bit of an easier watch because you have someone to care about and admire while also wanting him to just keep his mouth shut. With Kane, all you get is a figure. You get characters surrounding him that you start to care about. The dialogue and acting in Citizen Kane are wonderful (as is the dialogue and acting in Mank), and there are some beautifully composed shots. So if you don’t know anything about Kane, it’s better to have some background.

If you have seen Citizen Kane before, it’s better the other way around. You already know the pitfalls of not ever exactly being able to pin down Charles as the hero of the story, and you know all about the final mystery so you won’t be surprised by anything. Watching Mank afterward is like getting a beautifully made glimpse into what lead up to the making of such a masterpiece. It’s like a story about the Titanic or Jesus, you know what’s going to happen, with the added bonus of getting a new perspective from a person most don’t hear about in the mythology of Kane.