David Fincher
Mank

We need to talk about Mank.

I'll start with a premise: I am an admirer of Fincher, but I often do not share certain excesses of enthusiasm towards the films of the American director.

Fincher is, indeed, even within the mainstream, one of the most beloved names, often practically untouchable, due to his undeniable merits and the many great cult films he has created.

When, almost seven years ago, Gone Girl was released, I found myself among the very few expressing doubts about that film, against hordes of super excited commentators; often, I have heard that film called Fincher's best. Naturally, for me, it’s far from being that. And even now, I struggle to consider it among the director’s most successful works, like Zodiac or Seven.

I think that, in part, I will not share the ultra-enthusiastic reviews that have been surfacing for several days for Mank either. But let's proceed in order.

Mank is, for me, an excellent film, a film with many positive aspects and to be analyzed. But I don't feel like joining the many who are celebrating it as the film of this year (which, I specify, for me is and remains Kaufman's, always on Netflix).

It must be said, it is a multifaceted and ambitious film, undoubtedly Fincher's most ambitious; greatly impressive from a technical viewpoint and certainly with several thematic and psychological layers of reading. Moreover, it unfolds on multiple temporal planes.

First of all, this is most evident from the end credits: it is a homage and act of love towards cinema. But, over time, this act of love reveals itself as, at the same time, extremely critical and disenchanted. The world of that Hollywood, and of that American society, is certainly not painted with strokes of praise and nostalgia, quite the contrary. What stands out are the darker sides of that Hollywood, of that dream machine that becomes a propaganda machine, a scenario where meanness and small/great moral - but above all political and systemic - miseries are ordinary. In this regard, even though it is, indeed, extremely functional and even central, the political nature of the film heavily weighs on the tone of the piece, in my opinion, making several parts difficult.

The film, having been made in the Trump era, clearly bears this aspect and, therefore, this parallel with certain reactionary and "socialism-phobic" tendencies that cyclically return in American society is not trivial, but undoubtedly predictable.

Far more interesting and significant is, however, the parallel between that world and today's regarding, specifically, the current major economic and cinematic crisis. With the reflection on how to preserve the world of entertainment during the great depression, and today we are clearly experiencing an even deeper and darker crisis, already underway before the pandemic in the film world.

Fincher’s mastery is never in question. And it often emerges, culminating in an extraordinary and very significant alternate editing finale, revealing, to some extent. But after watching it, something stops me from considering it a great film. It may be that, essentially, it says nothing new about the Hollywood world, its production mechanisms, the cynicism of its deus ex machina, and America. And about writing.

It may be that, in many moments, it gives the impression of being a film that is formally too perfect and premeditated (with related authorial vanities, burns, aesthetic reminders of the cinema of the time) to truly move. It may be that the figure of Welles (the film, remember, talks about the figure of the screenwriter of Citizen Kane) is practically reduced to a caricature and is overly criticized and diminished (sensation accentuated and legitimized by the almost mocking tone with which, in the end, it is remarked that the only Oscar awarded to the masterpiece of masterpieces was for the screenplay, a screenplay that, it is emphasized, was written by Mankiewicz alone, hence not weighing the related modifications of the young prodigy). And while it is right to pay tribute to the work of such a frequently overshadowed, self-destructive, contradictory, complex, and fragile figure, there was no real need to make Welles appear so small and two-dimensional in comparison. Never restored to his great genius and complexity, but only to the prickly and egocentric aspects of the character of one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century. For whom Fincher has little sympathy, though.

The moments I absolutely preferred were those between Oldman and the Seyfried (gorgeous), the moments I found most poetic and moving.

Fincher remains a great director (not among the greatest authors, though) and a keen student of American society, both past and present (which are but one), of its controversial and sick aspects. Zodiac and The Social Network are there to prove it. But, of course, also Seven and Fight Club. And Mank is a further demonstration, a beautiful and important film, but in my opinion, it does not reach the levels of excellence of his best works.