limp (2020)

Directed by: David Fincher | 131 minutes | biography, drama | Actors: Lily Collins, Tuppence Middleton, Gary Oldman, Amanda Seyfried, Charles Dance, Leven Rambin, Tom Burke, Tom Pelphrey, Arliss Howard, Toby Leonard Moore, Joseph Cross, Jamie McShane, Elvy, Sam Troughton, Natalie Denise Sperl, Ferdinand Kingsley , Adam Shapiro

A black-and-white film about an alcoholic writer who is bedridden on a screenplay for a film and set in the 1940s. Can that be interesting? Well, if the director is called David Fincher, the lead role is played by Gary Oldman and the screenplay in question is about the classic ‘Citizen Kane’.

Oldman stars as Herman J. Mankiewicz, nicknamed ‘Mank’, who built a reputation as one of the funniest, gambling-hungry and genius screenwriters of the ‘Golden Age’ of Hollywood in the 1930s and early 1940s. all with a piece in his collar, although the devastating consequences of his alcohol abuse are becoming increasingly clear. Like a magnet, Oldman draws all the attention to himself as the sleazy, often swaying and sarcastic asides murmuring Mankiewicz.

When the movie starts, Mank is taken to a “dry” town outside of Los Angeles, his right leg in a cast after a car accident in which he was a passenger. Mank’s wife Sara (Tuppence Middleton) is on the East Coast with their children – although she is prominent in the flashbacks. Mank has to work on his assignment to write a screenplay in 60 days. He is supported in his work by the English typist Rita Alexander (Lily Collins) and housekeeper Frieda (Monika Gossman).

The young filmmaker Welles has been given a free hand by RKO Pictures to make a film and Welles has come up with ‘Citizen Kane’, about the fictional newspaper magnate and politician Charles Foster Kane. It is up to Mank to produce a good screenplay under great time pressure. Welles pops up in some pivotal scenes throughout the film and is portrayed eerily well by Tom Burke. It’s fun to watch Oldman and Burke at work together.

It was already an open secret at the time that Kane’s character was largely based on William Randolph Hearst (played here by British actor Charles Dance) and Hearst doesn’t take it lightly. Not only because of the unflattering portrayal, but also because he feels betrayed by Mank: for years the writer was a welcome guest in his luxurious “Hearst Castle” in San Simeon, California.

‘Mank’ looks beautiful, richly dressed and in razor-sharp black and white. Everything breathes the atmosphere of the heyday of the major film studios and the often opulent productions they produced. The smallest details have been thought of, you can sometimes see “Hollywoodland” in the distance on the hills, before the last four letters were removed. To make clear where the scenes take place and when, Fincher visualizes the lines from film scripts, which outline the situation: “ext.” and “int.” for a scene that takes place outdoors or indoors. Even the dots added for the operator to transition to the next ‘reel’ for an authentic image.

A ‘behind-the-scenes’ look at Hollywood’s golden age, ‘Mank’ makes one thing clear in each: the gold is gold leaf at the most. The studio bosses are all potentates who treat their subordinates like old dirt and the system in which the films are made crushes the idealists and the people of good will. Even though the productions sometimes produce films that are still regarded as classics, the price for this is high. In itself this is not news or a new subject in films about that period, but ‘Mank’ manages to bring it fresh. A parade of well-known names and now forgotten greats passes by; actors and actresses (Chaplin, Garbo, Gable); legendary studio bosses (Louis B. Mayer of MGM); top producers and screenwriters, which only adds to the fun.

The film deftly jumps back and forth in time, with lengthy flashbacks to several pivotal moments in Mank’s life, where he crosses paths with Hearst and forms a friendly relationship with his mistress Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried). Meanwhile, in the flashbacks, political intrigue continues to unfold, not only because of Adolf Hitler’s growing power in Germany, but also closer when socialist journalist and author Upton Sinclair runs for governor of California. Hearst, then a Democrat who supported President Franklin D. Roosevelt, is repulsed by this much socialist idealism. Mank feels challenged to make rather indiscreet statements that will cost him too much.

Director Fincher based the film on an old script that his father Jack once wrote before his death in 2003. It picks up on the ongoing controversy about who was actually responsible for the screenplay of ‘Citizen Kane’. Welles, who has already received all the praise for his performance as a debuting director and as the interpreter of the title role in the film, subsequently claimed to have written the film. That controversy – which is still going on among film journalists today – is explained in ‘Mank’. In the unconventional structure with all the flashbacks and the ideas exchanged during lavish dinners or in inebriated monologues by Mankiewicz, Fincher also deftly links the Hollywood dream factory before the Second World War with the “fake news” that is now a prominent feature. theme.

A gem of a movie.