The Big Picture - ‘Mank’ Is Here. Does David Fincher’s Movie Live Up to the Hype?

Episode Date: December 4, 2020

After great anticipation, ‘Mank’ has arrived. Sean and Amanda look at David Fincher’s 11th feature film from every angle. What’s it really about? How does it play? Will it live up to the billing as Netflix’s great Oscar hope? All that and a lot more in this deep dive. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show at long last about Mank. It's finally here. David Fincher's 11th feature film Mank hits Netflix this weekend. This has been my most anticipated movie of many years, frankly. And it is rolling. Sorry.

No, keep the voice. Keep the voice crack in. We're rolling out the red carpet for Mank. It's all coming up on the big picture. Hello, everyone. Make yourself at home, Mr. Mankiewicz. Or shall I call you Herman? Please call me Mank. Mank. Mank. Mank. Mank. Mank. This is. Mankiewicz, or shall I call you Herman? Please call me Mank.

Mank. Mank. Mank. Mank. This is Herman Mankiewicz, but we're to call him Mank. Mankiewicz. Okay, Amanda, I'm so excited about today's episode, not just because of Mank, but because honestly, I'm feeling so good about the big picture.

The last couple of days, we've gotten this incredible feedback from the listeners of this show, thanks to Spotify Wrapped, this campaign where you can share with people what you're listening to. And a lot of people are listening to the big picture and they're sharing that. And I must say, I'm so moved. I'm touched that so many people have been spending so much of their year with us. I am too. It's really lovely. Sometimes the number totals are honestly a little little frightening but also I'm so like I it's it's very kind of everyone and I you know I would just say that it we do feel like their presence and the support even if you know the it's we haven't spent 30,000 minutes or whatever listening to every single one of the listeners but we have we've all spent it together and we're very grateful and thank you to everyone

who's written such lovely notes um and a lot of people have said nice things about what it's meant in this weird year. And I would just say that this podcast has meant the same to me and everyone listening has meant the same to me. So thank you very much. Yes, absolutely. The nicest thing I think anyone has said to me about what we've been doing is that this show reignited their love for movies, which is really why I wanted to do this show. That is exactly what I want to be doing. So when someone identifies that, it really makes my heart grow three sizes. The other thing that makes my heart grow three sizes is fucking Manc, which is the movie that we're talking about today. You did it, buddy. We're here.

We did it. We're here. We're talking about it. I was just talking to our producer, Bobby, before this started, and I'm a little worried that we're overselling and that people are going to fire up Netflix on Friday night and they're going to say, gosh, I've been listening to this podcast. These two people have been yelling at me about this movie for a long time and I'm going to watch it and then I'm going to be like, okay, that was like a black and white drama that was fine and I don't ever have to think about it again. So I don't want anybody to get their hopes too high, but I think what we're going to do in this conversation, hopefully, is provide as much context and insight into why we think this movie is a big deal, what we liked about it, maybe what doesn't work as well, and hopefully deepen the appreciation

for the movie. How does that sound? It sounds great, except I liked it better when you were just pure voice cracking enthusiasm. This is your day, and I'm excited to be here with you. And of course, people are going to have different reactions to this film. Number one, because that's what watching movies is about, is having your own reaction. Also, too, because, you know, we haven't had that much to get excited about in this year, like in the world, but especially in movies. This is a very important film to you. It turns out to be a very important film to me. We're going to build it up. So of course, like your expectations may vary. Everyone knows that everyone can be responsible adults who want to learn and engage with movies, which is really the theme of this whole conversation, by the way. That's right. So, okay, where to begin? I think it's probably best

to provide a little bit of the backstory on what this movie is and how it came to be. And then we'll talk about the story. And then maybe we'll talk about the themes, the performances, and even the Oscar chances. I think that's probably the best place to wrap this. So if you haven't heard us talk about this before, this, of course, is a movie directed by David Fincher. It's written by his late father, Jack Fincher, who was a journalist. And this was a project that was suggested to him by his son when he was still a wunderkind filmmaker. And he said, Dad, maybe you should consider looking at what Pauline Kael wrote about Citizen Kane and the creative process of that film and maybe what Herman Mankiewicz meant to it as well as Orson Welles. So his dad wrote a script about this process. Now, David Fincher

wanted to make this movie in the late 90s. It sounds like he wanted to make it shortly after the game and he intended to make it with Kevin Spacey and Jodie Foster as the leads, which is fascinating.

And once we're done talking about the movie, I'd love to get your opinion on whether you think that would have been a good movie. But instead, he tabled it

because it sounds like he couldn't raise the money effectively. He felt he needed to shoot it in black and white. The commercial prospects of this movie, I would say, are complicated, generally speaking. And so it goes on the shelf and it sits there for a while. Years go by, Fincher becomes one of the most

acclaimed filmmakers of his time. He starts to make television shows for Netflix. And because of that, it seems he's built up the equity, the creative capital inside of Netflix to make his dream project, this very personal project for him. What do you make of this being a personal project for David Fincher? I'm curious just off the bat. I'm very intrigued because you don't really think of David Fincher with his heart on his sleeve in his movies. There is, I love them and I actually do think that there's a lot of emotion and passion in them, but they can be cold.

There is a clinical nature to certainly the way that he makes films that also is visible in the results. And in some of the topics, even he chooses. And when he gets a bit more emotional, dare we say, his core audience maybe doesn't get as excited about it. I'm thinking, of course, of Benjamin Button, a film that I like very much. And I would say just in terms of, you know, that's a movie about grief. And Jack Fincher, I believe, died in the early 2000s, and Benjamin Button was made not long after that. And so I can't help but group them a little bit, which is already doing more psychosis than I think David Fincher would ever

be comfortable with. But we're going to do a fair amount of psychology. And I think you have to. I think even to some extent on his own terms, he's been engaging with that. On our last episode, you mentioned the long interview that he did with Mark Harris for New York Magazine. And I really recommend reading that, number one, because David Fincher rules. Great quotes. But he gives an account. He's really funny and thoughtful and knows so much and is like a perfectionist and like a little bit of his persnickety. How about that? In a way that speaks to me so, so deeply. But even the way that he talks about the process of giving Raising Cain to his father and the first draft of the script and their kind of negotiations over the script and his response to it and how his relationship to the script changed over time is fascinating. And it says a lot about fathers and sons and directors and writers and creating and aging.

And all of that is in this film. And I think you really do have to at least connect it a bit to Fincher himself. Adam Naiman mentioned this a little bit at the end of our conversation earlier this week about where Fincher was in his career in the mid to late 90s, you know, after the struggles of Alien 3

and then the big success of 7 and how he felt as a creator and, you know and what could be described as a chip on his shoulder about the creative process. And that might've been something that informed his desire to maybe tell this story or at least to look more closely at it with his father. And then if you cut to 25 years later, there's something fascinating about all that he's accomplished and the way that he's been celebrated and become iconic and iconoclastic at the same time operating in and outside of big systems,

that this is the movie that he would pursue. And I agree there certainly seems to be a sense of familial sentimentality to pursuing this project. But I think that there's also a lot of personal philosophy and that psychology that you're talking about, about saying that creative people who have profound ideas, who want to question power should be empowered to tell those stories. That really feels like the core dynamic of this movie. And we can describe kind of the plot and how the story is told in a little bit, but I'm fascinated by his desire to use these big corporate streaming services as a bully pulpit for, I think, these really counter-cultural ideas,

really these really progressive and, and, and defiant notions of who should be in charge. I just get a huge kick out of that. Sure. It's also, it is in the spirit of the source itself, that source being citizen Kane and,

and it's at debate throughout Mank of just kind of what you can get best people and the creator versus the system and what is valued and what is art and what should be pursued as a, you know, it is as much about someone taking stock at the end of their career and what have they done and what's a value and what should they pursue. And as much as it is like, then I have to battle everybody else in my life to do it. But it's both of those things, which the writing and the layers are, it's a rich text. It is. And I think the question of who's really in charge, I think is powering a lot of this too, because the movie captures the Hollywood star system of the 1930s and 40s. It captures the media and governmental power system that looks closely at a gubernatorial race. It looks at a newspaper magnet, of course. And it also looks at the power of a writer, of somebody who

has ideas and can express themselves. And obviously his father was a writer, and it's obvious that he has a great deal of respect for writers, though Fincher doesn't define himself as a writer. And that's not inherently cinematic. A portrait of a writer, and frankly, the portrait of this movie, when we meet Herman Mankiewicz, he arrives in Victorville, which is the place where he's essentially convalescing to prepare to write this script for Orson Welles. And he's a guy who's sitting in a bed and just needs to dictate his script to a woman who is there to help him. And you wouldn't think that this would be really like the shape of a movie. I will confess when the movie started the first time I watched it, I was like, hmm, I don't know. Maybe my guy overplayed his hand here. Maybe this is not actually a movie.

You wrote that in the outline and I didn't write any of my responses to it because I wanted just to interrogate that with you on this podcast. So did you feel like it just wasn't substantial enough or you felt like it was too confusing? No, I think that Fincher is extraordinary at the first five minutes of his movies. The first five minutes of Zodiac is riveting. The first five minutes of The Social Network is operatic. He is incredible at reeling you in. And this movie is...

I don't think it's going to reel people in right away. And I think I want to kind of... Before we get deeper into what the story is, I kind of want to preach patience to the viewer. I want to say, because for me, it didn't fully unlock until my second viewing. And certainly that's true of most Fincher movies.

I think most Fincher movies are more rewarding the more times you watch them. And you can see, you mentioned kind of the level of work that he's putting into these movies. And you can feel it more and more as you go through it but it felt a little bit self-conscious at the beginning you get this sort of um you know this text on screen that that approximates what a screenplay looks like where it describes like exterior victorville this home and i was worried it was gonna be too cute i

was worried that it was gonna be self-conscious and i think i needed to kind of reset my expectations and then there are a couple of moments in the movie where it kind of clicks into place and i was like oh this is why he did it this way and this is why this is going but i perhaps i've over intellectualized my expectations around a movie like this we've suggested that so far about how excited i was for this movie but i was kind of surprised that it was actually what was on the label it was like this is the portrait of the man who wrote citizen k. Now, it's not about him writing Citizen Kane only. It's about a lot of other things. But they have to start with Herman Mankiewicz at this stage of his life writing a screenplay. Were you surprised by that?

No. I mean, I don't think that I was expecting Gone Girl or Zodiac. You know, it's not, it's definitely set in the 30s and 40s in Hollywood. It's in black and white. It is not like a modern, slick David Fincher pop movie. I actually do think it is a lot poppier than maybe meets the eye when I say black and white movie set in the 30s and 40s about a writer writing like, you know, the ultimate movie homework movie of all time. And I say that with love for Citizen Kane, but there are going to be a lot of people who are like, do I need to rewatch this? Our producer Bobby asked before we started recording,

do I need to rewatch Citizen Kane? I would recommend it. I think you'll get a lot more. I actually didn't rewatch it before I saw Mank the first time. So I enjoyed Mank on kind of its surface level pleasures, which of which there are many and was kind of in the back of my head being like, oh, so I think that might be that. And oh, I see where this is coming. And then I rewatched Citizen Kane and did all of our homework for that and then rewatched Mank again. And I was like, oh, wow, this is smart. And you've said to me before, I think,

when we were talking about little women, that maybe it's not always a good sign if you don't realize how powerful the movie is until the second time you watch it, because you do need people to kind of lock in, especially right now in the streaming world. However, Little Women was also a masterpiece and no one has anywhere else to go right now. So I believe in everybody. You can sit down, you can enjoy it. And I don't know, as long as you're not expecting seven, I think that there is something to be enjoyed pretty quickly in it. This is not seven. So I hope people are not no serial killers in bank. I promise you, um, you know, you're right. And on the, and I, I worry

about derailing this conversation into it like the power of the movie theater but this would be different because you we saw little women in a movie theater and so we were able to engage with it um in a much more intense way than i think many people will be able to engage with mank i would have loved to have seen mank i was thinking back at you know a year ago you and i were at the premiere of the irish at the Chinese. And that was such an exciting experience on that massive screen. And all the filmmakers were there. And there was so much pomp and circumstance. And you know that Netflix would have loved to have given this movie the exact same treatment.

You can almost picture the way that they would have remade Grauman's to look like a 1930s or 40s premiere. You can imagine the way that they would have. And I'm sure that they're pissed off that they couldn't do all of that stuff to create to eventize this movie. Nevertheless, I think the movie has so much to recommend

just watching it at your home and after I got through the first five minutes of the movie, you see that it reveals itself. It's not just about a guy sitting in a bed writing. It echoes very clearly Citizen Kane as this kind of memory piece that is fractured

and non-linear and shows us this world of Los Angeles basically from 1929, 1930 all the way through the early 40s. And it does so in a way that seems almost I don't I think the reason to rewatch Citizen Kane is

because of that. There are plenty of things that you'll get about who the people are and who participated in the making of Kane and all of that. But I think more specifically, if you look at how Kane is made and you look at the stylistic and structural choices that Mank makes, you'll have a much higher appreciation for both movies. You'll see that they're meant to speak to each other, which I really like. And I think movie lovers will really like that and appreciate that the movie is trying to do that. And maybe it will open their hearts to the movie a little bit more too. I think that you should rewatch it. And I think the trade-off of not being able to see it at a theater or the trade-off of like Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins not being able to go to the really awesome Netflix party,

which like it would have been really awesome. And we're such movie nerds that we like, you know, you know me, I still get excited every time we go to one of the lots. Remember the time we got lost on the Warner Brothers lot and you were just like following the map. And I was like, oh my God, look where we are. So I don't mean to diminish that, but also that's a loss for two people. And the trade-off is that everyone else can rewatch this. And this is like a really, I don't want to say it's dense because I don't want to put people off, but there is a lot to mine. And there is a, you can start it again immediately. You can go read about Citizen Kane. You can rewatch part of it. You've talked about how there are scenes

you can rewatch 10 times on Netflix if you want to. And I think that that will lend itself really well to this movie. I also just want to say, just to correct, not to correct, but this structure is not that complicated. It's not. It's a fairly basic,

it's like present day narration with flashbacks and they write the place and time on the damn screen with the screenwriters. Okay. So the screenwriting thing, so you can follow it. It's, it's, it's okay. Everyone can do it. We can do this. We can all watch bank and understand it. Yeah. I don't want to oversell that either. I think it's more just that there are a lot of people who are not going to be used to a storytelling structure that is like this. They're just not going to, and I think because of the various characters and the way that a scene might take place in 1930, and then a scene might take place in 1934, and then you might go back to 1932. And that, the way that that kind of, I don't know, boomerangs, it kind

of ping pongs throughout the movie where you're getting a glimpse at a person at a different time in their life. And you might be confused and think that we're moving forward. I just want to make people aware of that because the other thing is this movie has an incredible script to me. It has, and more specifically, some of the best dialogue writing that I've seen in years. And I think some people, if you say that, people immediately say like, oh, it's overwritten or it's too jokey or whatever. But Herman Mankiewicz was a famously witty man and a member of the Algonquin Roundtable and a theater critic for The New Yorker. This is really one of the clever, chattering head scribes of his time. And the movie really reflects that in the way that his character and other characters

talk to each other in the movie. I loved that part. And that part of it is why the movie is worth returning to because there are so many gems to pick up on if you pay close attention. And I watched it with the closed captioning on the second and third times I watched it because I was like, I just want to see every line. Yeah. I mean, I loved this. This is why I barely, I remembered what happened in Citizen Kane, but the first time I watched it, the first hour is like a screwball comedy. And they're so smart and so funny in the way that I find people very funny.

And I just wanted to be in the world. I thought it was delightful. They're talking so, so fast. Really great puns. Latin puns too. Just, you love to see it. It's really nice. Or I love to see it.

It's really nice. One thing that we should note is that while Jack Fincher is the sole credited screenwriter, there's this understanding that David Fincher and the screenwriter Eric Roth, I don't know, tuned up this script, maybe modernized it a little bit, maybe changed some things here and there. over the years and somebody who I think also really gets old Hollywood and getting old Hollywood is a big part of telling this story. But before we get into what actually takes place in the story and what these big thematic components are, we have to talk about the filmmaking style because that's the one other thing that I think when people fire this movie up, they're either going to be not necessarily confused or put off, but they'll be surprised. And because the choices that Fincher makes are very noticeable. They're purposeful. They're also very self-conscious. He has made his version,

it seems, of a late 30s, early 40s vintage MGM Hollywood production, which is to say black and white, which is to say the old-timey affectations, the cigarette burns in the corner of the screen, the creamy photography, the way that the darkened fades close out scenes, you know, the, the, the style of music that Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross composed,

which is a big surprise. If you've listened to their other scores, what did you think? And what do you think the purpose is of making a movie that is meant to feel more like a movie from that time? The purpose is interesting. And I don't know how far you want to go down psychology and homage versus recreation and commentary and all of that stuff until we start talking about the larger themes. I think David Fincher knows he's doing it for a reason. And he is commenting on a lot of those movies and our relationship to them and our relationship to the idea of old Hollywood, even as he is like perfectly recreating it and showing off like, hey, look what I can do. I enjoyed it because I like those movies.

It's in black and white and it feels a little bit, I don't want to say kitschy, but it's transporting, which is nice actually when you're at home because it does add a little bit of, okay, I'm not at a theater, but I'm not just watching Emily in Paris, which no shots to Emily in Paris watched every episode. This is just a different experience. It is. So I watched the movie with my wife last night, Mank, and she also watched every episode of Emily in Paris, greatly enjoyed it. And she said, oh, so Lily Collins has range because Lily Collins is, of course, one of the actors in this movie and in Emily in Paris. And she does. She does have range as an actress. I think the Rita Alexander character, I think, is somewhat more sophisticated than the Emily in Paris character.

But perhaps not on me to cast aspersions in that way. I mean, they're both career women just trying to figure it out. Wow. Okay. Well put. I thought it was a fascinating decision because on the one hand, I think he certainly does transport us, as you said. He certainly does take us back to this time.

And at some point, you just start to accept that we are in the 1930s because me and you, our relationship, frankly, to the 1930s has as much to do with bringing a baby as it does with reading a history book or looking at an old newspaper clipping. That does feel like that time to us. And that's when you see- It has way more to do with bringing a baby than reading a history book, but continue. Well, it depends on the week, I guess. But anyhow, if we want to go back to that time, it's best to see it in that way.

On the other hand, I think there is something about watching a movie at home, watching a movie on a streaming service, watching a movie on a television that maybe isn't perfectly attuned to how a film is supposed to look. And I'm sure this drives people like David Fincher nuts that that creaminess, that depth of focus,

that the way that something looks, it still looks like digital photography on my Samsung streamed through Netflix. And so there's still a barrier there. It's still noticeable. This is not actually a Leo McCary movie. This is a David Fincher movie. He almost can't help but be himself, especially since he made that transition to digital. And so while I like the dark and fade outs in particular, I love that. I love when a scene would move out and the shadows would fall and you could still only see the character's faces and then the shadow would fall off the character's face and then you'd be off to the next scene.

I love that in the theater. I love that in movies. I thought that touch in particular made way more sense to me even than the cigarette burn touches but i think that this is an ongoing issue with all streaming services and i don't really know what to do uh like i i don't know enough technically speaking to say here's how you fix it and it seems like a silly thing to complain about but it is the only thing that makes it hard for me to connect with some of these movies and i watch them at home i think you make a good point that in this particular instance it it sticks out a little just because the movie you begin to wonder whether it's intentional and of course it's not but you begin to wonder whether it's part of the comment and part of the themes

of it it is like it but it's not and the is, is that like we have shitty TVs. Um, even though I just, I like, I it's been, it's, it's been a month of trying to buy a new TV in this home. And I have asked my husband to text you about it like five times. Cause I don't want to have the conversation. I haven't heard from him about this. I know he just keeps asking me and I don't know the answer and it's fine. And like Buckingham palace on the crown is always going to look fake and I'm just going to have to live with that. And for the most part, it's okay. But for something like this, it is a little bit where you can feel the loss or maybe you start to overthink it. I think I start to overthink it and ascribe meaning to something that is really just technical difficulties on my part. But it's the world we live in. We have to accept it.

Yeah. It's all about your training too, right? You studied the classics in school. So you're forced to look into the, is there a thematic correlation to the text? And I think in this case, most of the time there is really a thematic correlation, but, and there are some instances, I think then there's one scene in particular, this walk through San Simeon, which is William Randolph Hearst's palatial estate between Mank and Marion Davies, who is Hearst's lover and a famed silent era actress. And that walk and that sequence, which I think is like probably an Oscar winning sequence for Amanda Seyfried, is beautiful, is as beautiful as anything that Fincher has done. And it doesn't matter that it's in this fake black and white cigarette burn affectation.

It's just, it's an amazing artist doing the thing that he does best. And it did remind me quite a bit. I think of that, that Plaza sequence, the Piazza sequence, I guess in, in Benjamin button too,

um, where this guy who you think of is like very, you know, cold and cynical and, um and despairing of the world has a depth of heart too. You know, he really, if he tries, he can really crush those scenes. Just a transcendent seven or eight minutes.

It just, one of those things where you just kind of float on your seat a little bit. And especially this year where it that did feel like really corny cliche like movie magic from a certain era like you got there even if maybe the the depths of the the shadows or whatever are not what david fincher would want it it's delightful i really loved it. So when I mentioned Davies, and I think we should talk about old Hollywood and what this movie means to and for old Hollywood, because if you are a surface level fan and you just tune into TCM and you,

you watch the oldies that you like, you might think that this was a magical time in history and that this was a business that was run fairly and by decent people. And this is a movie that is quite sure that that is not true. And that's one of the things that I absolutely love about it. Yeah. Is anyone still like, wow, the glory days of this studio system? I mean, I think you and I are about the product. We love watching those movies. But is anyone like, what I really want is to be like a bit you know, bit player at Warner Brothers in like 1932? No, I think we all understand now how these people operated.

And this is a tremendous illustration and expansion in a lot of ways. I think of at least what my understanding of the studio system was, at least how it related to politics. And we'll get there but yeah i i i want to give everybody credit i don't think anyone's just like wow louis b mayor best person on earth yeah well if you weren't sure before and you wanted some confirmation this movie lays it all out now this is not necessarily drawn from the truth this is a you know this is a dramatic restaging of largely one person's point of view on how things played out. We should say Herman Mankiewicz, like I said, native New Yorker,

a person who was certainly cynical about power and who was most interested in his own creativity, but also was an alcoholic. Well, at 60, I'm doing the best I can. I've put up with your suicidal drinking, your compulsive gambling, your silly platonic affairs. You owe me, Herman. And had gambling problems and had money problems and was a man not without

trouble. And so you kind of have to see the movie through that lens too, right? So that the suspicion, the frustration, the anger, the regret that he expresses throughout this movie towards these people is a bit with jaundiced um it's there there's there's nothing like direct here but louis b mayor who is played by arliss howard in the movie and irving thalberg who is played by ferdinand kingsley who is ben kingsley's son which i learned after the fact which is delightful um

they they take the brunt of this movie, I think, in addition to William Randolph Hearst. And this is the part of the movie that I did not expect. I did not expect this sort of backroom story of how Mayer, who was a co-founder and chairman of MGM, and Thalberg, who is the boy wonder head of production, who is considered one of the smartest and most creative and accomplished executives in Hollywood history were pretty brutal and were pretty relentless in terms of seeking and acquiring power and using that power to manipulate all the people that worked for them, including Mankiewicz and his cohort from the Algonquin Roundtable, all the journalists, all those people who moved out to Hollywood to get checks, to write movies like The Front Page, to write movies like His Girl Friday,

to write Marx Brothers movies. And those people all did very well by that. But then they also got exposure to this pretty nasty bit of business. I really, really like a lot of the writing that happens as you see these sequences unfold. I think both Thalberg and Mayer get some of the best lines in the movie. And there's a walk and talk in this movie. The walk and talk is incredible. And then listen, these characters are villains in this film for sure. But this walk and talk has some real entourage vibes to it. Like this is his Ari Gold

moment for sure. And it's, I mean, you read the quote, that's the kind of pinnacle of the thing. So in this sequence in the movie, this is when Joe Mankiewicz, Herman Mankiewicz's younger brother, who would go on to become one of the most legendary filmmakers of his time. He wrote and directed All About Eve, for example, and among many other great movies. He gets introduced to Mayer on the MGM lot. And Mayer takes the meeting and, you know know rather than sit down in his office they walk through the lot at this high time and it's that classic cliched thing where there are elephants on the lot and there are people dressed like Roman soldiers and there are people dressed like clowns and Hollywood is happening on the lot and mayor is storming through his lot which he runs and he

delivers essentially his philosophy of Hollywood his philosophy of his runs and he delivers essentially his philosophy of hollywood his philosophy of his studio and he essentially concludes this point of view with this is a business where the buyer gets nothing for his money but a memory what he bought still belongs to the man who sold it that's the real magic of the movies thunder like blood fire religion help someone save me all in one film that's director proof that's the magic of the movies is a line that comes back in the film near the end and i think it kind of tells you everything you need to know about what david fincher thinks about hollywood about maybe what some of the people who made this movie think of hollywood and that there is this is a an industry

that is premised upon a pretty dark core um later in the movie, Thalberg, in a conversation with Mank, Thalberg is super interesting in this movie. He delivers a similar kind of speech that I think is a little bit more pragmatic. And Thalberg is kind of a tragic figure. He died very young. I think he was 37 years old when he died. And he is seen more sympathetically than Mayer is, who is really

one of the great mockers of that time but he's he at one point he says i know what i am mank when i come to work i don't consider it slumming i don't use humor to keep myself above the fray and i always go to the mat for what i believe in i haven't the time to do otherwise but you sir how formidable people like you might be if they actually gave at the office. And this line, I think, is essentially like the crux of the movie because it speaks to this enlightenment that Mank has. And he has this kind of like moment of awakening that kind of tips the movie sideways a little bit. And I think ultimately leads to him deciding to write Citizen Kane.

Well, it does lead to his awakening, but it's also an awakening for the Thalberg character, who I agree, this scene in particular is meant to kind of articulate the other side and it's slightly more sympathetic, but also then Thalberg is the person who puts in play the truly pernicious fake news political plot

that we've been alluding to and will discuss, but it is a part of the, it's, it's, it's about how Louis B. Mayer and, uh, William Randolph Hearst and, and with the help of Irving Thalberg, uh, created a bunch of fake news reels to intervene in the 1934 California gubernatorial election in order to defeat Upton Sinclair and to elect their chosen Republican candidate. And that is both, that is what Thalberg takes away from that meeting. And I do think that makes awakening comes half from the meeting and half from realizing that his tossed off cynical, I'm not thinking about this suggestion and all of his words and actions do have consequences.

Some of them quite terrible and on a statewide, if not national or international level. Yeah. And I think sometimes you can be too smart for your own good, right? Mankiewicz is, even his jokes could trigger political terror.

And there is something fascinating about that and it seems like he basically the same way that he struggled as a gambler he kind of needed to lose his shirt to figure out how to sew his shirt there's something so reactionary about this movie in full that is really interesting but I just loved this

picture of Mayer who you know just for context this was one of the wealthiest people in the country. Louis B. Mayer was the first person in American history to earn a million-dollar salary. For nine years, from 1937, he earned $1.3 million, which is like making $23 million a year right now. So he was a big-time CEO at this inflection point in Hollywood history. And he was responsible for a lot of great movies. I mean, MGM made a lot of wonderful films and minted a lot of stars. And we get a look at one of these stars, and I couldn't tell if this was Charlie

Chaplin or Clark Gable, who he essentially kicks out of his office. I thought it was Clark Gable. Okay. And then there's another, you get a brief look at the constellation of stars when he shortly thereafter marches in and announces to the quote MGM family that they will be receiving half their salary for an undetermined period of time. And so it's definitely John Barrymore is one of the people who is identified as like,

great, Mr. Mayor. And also Shirley Temple shows up at some point. That's Shirley Temple, right? Being like, yes, sir. Mayor. And also Shirley Temple shows up at some point. That's Shirley Temple, right? Being like, yes, sir. Yes, she stands with Mayor. But they don't identify her. And that is maybe the frustration for some, but the fun part of this movie

where if you kind of know what the caricatures of all of these movie stars would look like, then you can kind of pick out who is who. But it doesn't serve at all to you on a platter. Yeah, it's a guessing game. It's another reason to return to the film too, because in addition to these figures, we also meet that coterie of writers, the S.J. Perlman and Ben Hecht and that whole group of people that Mancoats would write scripts with in this great scene where we see them kind of gambling together and then they get called into David O. Selznick's office, where they're meant to pitch a film. And basically, in real time, they freestyle improv a monster movie for Joe von Sternberg to possibly direct.

And then the kicker is, it's director-proof. That's right. Yes, which should tell you everything you need to know about what this movie thinks about directors, too. So it's a really fun old Hollywood picture. And I think I was expecting a lot of William Randolph Hearst before the movie. And he is an important part of this story. But it's much more about Hollywood than it is about publishing and even the media. Because it's Hollywood that becomes like what the media was in the yellow journalism days

through the eyes of this movie. Yeah, it brings it all together in ways that are definitely resonant to this moment and also make you re-examine basically every movie that you and I talked about on the Hollywood political films, but also changes my understanding of Citizen Kane a little bit. And frankly, my understanding of the 1934 California gubernatorial race, which I did not know that much about. There's a joke in this movie about how people can't tell the difference between Upton Sinclair and Sinclair Lewis. And I was like, what is the difference between Upton Sinclair and Sinclair Lewis?

I know now, but you know, there's a shared name. I feel similarly. That is not a race that I knew much about. And this movie gives it a lot of time and it really uses it as as an access point for the story of Herman Mankiewicz so Hollywood historically really loves a movie about itself and we've talked about that and through the many Oscars episodes that we've done over the years and this is theoretically a movie that is celebrating the inspirations, the creative energies that went into Citizen Kane. But do you think Hollywood is going to actually regard this movie with some angst? Not because of his portrayal of Hollywood, I don't think. Because everyone wants to imagine themselves as the Manc instead of the LB or the Thalberg. And it is ultimately, well, we can talk about the ending and how you want to

interpret it, but you know, he does write Citizen Kane and Citizen Kane does get made. So there is that like art and creativity triumphing over, you know, whatever that any person who thinks they're going to make it in Hollywood, even people who have like made it in Hollywood and are keeping other people from making in Hollywood, you know, everyone thinks made it in Hollywood and are keeping other people for making in Hollywood. You know, everyone thinks they're the star. I do wonder whether all of Hollywood will get to the point where they recognize that they're the mink in this in the story. But that's just because, you know, I have a very high opinion of our listeners and a less high opinion of, you know, the average Hollywood person firing up their Netflix.

So we'll see. Yeah, it'll be interesting. I mean, we'll talk about the Oscars in a bit and how this movie is received. But I'm personally quite curious to see if anyone assumes that this is somehow a love letter to Citizen Kane or a love letter to Irving Thalberg

because it is not that, not even a little bit. Perhaps even less so to William Randolph Hearst, who I think looms large in the story of Cain and looms very large in this movie not just because of Charles Dance's physical disposition though he is towers over everyone in this movie in a lot of ways I thought just the use of him and the specter of him was interesting because Charles dance is a wonderful actor. I'm sure most people know him as Tywin Lannister from game of Thrones. Um, but he, this is not his first David Fincher movie. And he is a person with one of the great voices in the history of, of cinema. Um, he's up there with Orson Welles in my opinion.

Um, and you know, the thing that you don't really think about even in reading Raising Cain the Pauline Kael piece is this the the way that this movie positions Herman Mankiewicz and William Randolph Hearst and the way that they meet and essentially become friends and the way that Herman Mankiewicz becomes a kind of court jester in the San Simeon Royal Palace is really fascinating and so And so for pretty much all of the movie, there is no showdown between Hearst and Mankiewicz. Most of their interactions are friendly, even when Mankiewicz is essentially proselytizing socialist philosophy at a dinner party with a bunch of rich people. Hearst is still getting a kick out of it.

And it's not until the end of the movie where you get this pretty extraordinary scene where Mankiewicz becomes very drunk, goes to a party, makes a fool of himself, tells the story of the Don Quixote movie that he always thought should be made and subsequently vomits and embarrasses himself. Everybody leaves the party. And then Hearst essentially kicks him out of San Simeon and then you can see this as one more triggering event

that leads to Citizen Kane. And before he does that, he tells the parable of the organ grinder's monkey, which is kind of the rosebud, I would say, of this movie. Yes, because the main character references it like 30 minutes before and then sets in motion the flashbacks that lead us to this story. What did you think about just how

they used Hearst in the movie in general? Well, Charles Stantz isn't in it that much, but Hearst or references to Hearst are throughout. And he is kind of, I mean, not really the other Rosebud, but it's like haunting every scene and every interaction. And everyone's like, well, it's not really about him. Is it Mank? Like, are you going to do this? He said this, he said that there is kind of like,

before you get to that climactic scene, there are visits with everyone else in Mank's life who one by one come and try to warn him off taking this person on. So I think it's extremely effective in terms of kind of building up the myth of Hearst without having to have Charles Dance, you know, flex and yell for the whole time. And in a way that's nice because you see a lot of actual Hearst or what Mank imagines Hearst to be in Citizen Kane. So you don't need to remake what's already excellent on film. But that sequence of the organ grinder, which is intercut with Mank's recollections

is masterful. And it is that moment where the structure clicks into place and you're like oh this is why you did it this way and that's always such an exciting moment when you're like aha it all makes sense and i understand the themes but i also understand the intention and and and we did it it's like it's it's like the good version of when the title of the movie is said in the movie you know which by the way this like might set the record for the title of the movie is set in the movie, you know? Which, by the way, this might set the record for the title of the movie being set in the movie.

But it's good. It's exciting when it happens. Maybe at the beginning of every episode of this pod, I can say, I'm Sean Fennessy. You can say, I'm Amanda Dobbins. And then we can have Gary Oldman say, call me Mank. And then we say, and this is the big picture. Because Mank's, the word Manc is uttered

many many times throughout this movie but I agree with you that intercut where we essentially were Wells who looms large as a specter over the

phone during most of the movie kind of giving Manco its instructions about when he should deliver the script he eventually arrives in Victorville

to confront or essentially to answer the request of Manco it's then they have this confrontation intercut with this final confrontation it seems like between Mankiewicz and Hearst

is just high level movie making and it's like if you have given the movie enough of a chance to invest in what it's trying to do and it's themes to that point you'll feel the payoff I think if you care enough you'll see that there's something pretty special happening in that moment

so there's a couple of more things to talk about um i let's wait on mank as an actor showcase i think we should talk about the the kind of the the false controversy of this movie which we discussed a little bit with adam naman at the end of the last episode and we provided as much detail as we could about raising cain and about what this movie is purportedly doing versus what it's actually doing. But I think we should explore it a little bit more because while Raising Cane is clearly an inspiration for this movie,

it doesn't really seem to have a ton to do with it. In fact, the movie points out a few times that what Mankiewicz is writing is this almost novel-esque 200-plus page script that we know is not the ultimate shooting script. And the movie does take some liberties with the facts. For example, there's no confirmation that Marion Davies took the script and visited Mank and had this conversation in this moment that you were referring to earlier where all

these people are kind of confronting Mank after he's written the script. Some of that stuff could be fudged. We don't really know. A lot of the details in the social network are also fudged in an effort to create a great dramaturgical moment. But I don't think that this movie is that controversial and I don't really think it's that unkind to Orson Welles. So do you agree with that? What do you think about kind of like the historicity? Everyone needs to grow up. Number one, everyone grow up. Number two, learn the difference between fact and fiction.

We're doing this on The Crown right now too. Everyone's just like, it needs to come with like fiction labels. And I was like, I thought that's what a TV show is. Whatever. You know, number three, this movie is just the movie version of the, is it Robert Kerrigan? Is that the name of the? Yes. Yes. The passage that you read at the near the end of our last episode. It's like, that is someone read that and then wrote this movie. And the movie even has Mank deliver a line that summarizes this. I shall read it for you.

I built him a watertight narrative and a suggested destination where he takes it. That's his job. You know, then they do fight a bit about credit at the end, but that also, we know that that happened in real life. And you can, if you're mad that someone ascribed like fictional anger to Orson Welles for like 10 seconds at the end of a movie that he's not really in, I need you to find a different hobby than this one. I agree.

I'm a little bit mystified by this. Now, maybe I'm just a little bit too on film Twitter and I'm a little bit too observant of the people that are true Welles acolytes. I, in many ways, am a Welles acolyte, but I just don't see this movie at all as an attack on him in any meaningful way. I see it as using the parable of Herman Mankiewicz to tell a story about how creativity can be compromised. And Orson, who knows better about creativity being compromised than Orson Welles? He's the signal person who was crunched by the system. It just so happens that this movie is not about that. It's about Herman. And I think also Adam Neiman jokingly pointed out that, uh, the Orson Welles character does somewhat resemble David Fincher,

uh, in this film. And that is funny. And I believe that David Fincher has a sense of humor and therefore that that is intentional as well. But if you want to take, I don't know whether how much we need to invest in that, but if you want to take that idea a bit further and that this is a movie about David Fincher as a director

engaging with the idea of creativity, but also directors and writers and credits and engaging with his dad. If he is then the Orson Welles stand in, then I think you have to trust that David Fincher both believes in Orson Welles and directors and is just exploring the other side of it. have to trust that David Fincher both believes in Orson Welles and directors and is just exploring the other side of it. And I trust in David Fincher. I do as well. I think that's well put. And I just don't think there's that much to say about it. I don't, this is such a phony controversy. The movie I think stands on its own and is not, is not attempting to be a work of documentary, even if it is attempting to be a work of truth. And that's

really the distinction. You know, there's a person's name that we have not uttered on this whole podcast. His name is Gary Oldman. He plays Mank. So I think that the more times I watch this, the more I'm starting to believe that Gary Oldman is Mank. And I don't mean that in the like, Gary Oldman disappears into the part and we don't see the that Gary Oldman is Mank. And I don't mean that in the like, Gary Oldman disappears into the part and we don't see the essential Gary Oldman anymore. It's more just that I think this movie very effectively uses his talents to let him embody a character like this. He's kind of built for characters like this. Gary Oldman, famously, incredibly verbal, a very intelligent actor, an actor who's very expressive and can simultaneously convey disdain and care and that's really what the mankowitz character has to do especially when

he's laid up in victorville but it's interesting i mean he won an oscar a couple of years ago for his work in darkest hour he was one of those people who was like this is one of the greatest living guys who never won an oscar and i think he's fine in darkest hour i think that's like a solid biopic um that's that is like one of the most peak examples of oscar bait in recent years it is he just played winston churchill in one yes like all respect to winston churchill and wore all the makeup and you know there was a lot of narrativizing around all of those things and to me like this is really more like an oscar winning role where you are completely inhabiting a person. You're playing them over the course of 15, 20 years. This is a person who's an

alcoholic, who has a lot of regret, but who's also very funny, who has this fascinating relationship with his wife, fascinating relationship with this woman that he has a platonic relationship with that is quite complicated, clearly. This person who rejects power, this person who has an interesting relationship to his brother. And I know Gary Oldman's not going to win Best Actor this year.

It's interesting that we will just be like, oh, cool, he was great. We won't really examine it. There's kind of not so much to say about it. Let's just keep it moving. Am I overthinking that?

Because it kind of feels like that's the direction we're heading in. I think you're right, but I think it's as much because there is another performance that is kind of like this is the oscar performance and without spoiling another podcast i i feel okay about that particular narrative so it this is just also a part of the oscars and no one ever wins for the award that they should win for. Like it's, it's always some made up thing. Sometimes they get it right early. Sometimes they do the makeup award

too late. I, I, you know, what can you do? Yeah. So he's very good in this movie. Amanda Seyfried should have won for mean girls, but she's probably going to win for her wonderful performance in Mank. Um, yeah, I do want to say, I think it was, um, Dan D'Addario, who's the TV critic at Variety who tweeted that Amanda Seyfried being the first Mean Girls Oscar win is surprising. And I do think it's surprising, though deserved in this case. She is delightful and really brings an energy, especially to the first hour. And it's so accomplished and also easygoing. I thought that Fincher had something really insightful to say about, I mean, he had a lot of insightful things to say, but he talked about

acting with Mark Harris and the style of acting in this movie and basically trying to be unemotional and do the old style of showing up and hitting your marks and not like trying to Brando and method it out. And I think that it works and everyone looks like they're just having a lovely time and it is really smooth to watch. But I think that maybe it's easier than it looks. And I love it when it, no, it's harder than it looks. They make it look easy. And that's number one, my favorite type of doing anything. But I think that she, that's what's so interesting about her performance is that it's someone who's so fizzy and likable and has such a nice relationship in chemistry with old men as Mank at that. The second time I watched it, I had to be like, wait a second, what's going on here?

And what does this movie actually say about this person and the star system and her relationship? And I think that's a real testament to Amanda Seyfried. So I'm thrilled if she wins an Oscar, which she will. Yeah, it certainly seems like she will. She is terrific. She is being asked to portray, like I said, a silent screen star who's making the transition to talkies, who's from Flatbush, Brooklyn.

I would not say when I have seen Amanda Seyfried in the past, I've thought Flatbush. So, you know, I don't know what else to say. It's a role that in the wrong hands and not done well could be a real caricature and could be really overplayed. And, you know, one, she obviously resembles Marion Davies greatly.

You know, they have the same eyes. And so when you see them side by side, you can see why Fincher wanted to cast her. But together, they really made a very special performance. And I think that this is an underrated Fincher thing. I think he's kind of incredible at getting great performances out of people, in some cases, star-making performances out of people. And Amanda Seyfried maybe goes from a person who you're happy to see in a movie, but you don't think I have to see the movie because of her, to a person that you maybe take a little, or maybe I take a little bit more seriously as a performer.

Absolutely. And again, it's not that I didn't take this performance seriously the first time around, but there are real layers to it. It's like a sympathetic and also pretty vicious send up of this person. And that's really hard. It's really, it's, it's not easy. I think, um, Arliss Howard as Louis B. Mayer, I would say has things a little bit easier because he just has so many great lines to growl at people. And he's really growling his way through this movie. You know, last time we talked about him on this show, we were talking about his wonderful

performance at the end of Moneyball as John Henry, trying to convince, uh, Billy Bean to come aboard the Boston ship. In this movie, he is another powerful person. Arliss Howard is one of those guys who just crops up every five years in a movie. And I'm like, this guy rules. And I could really see a strong campaign for him to win Best Supporting Actor here, too. It's kind of interesting. It seems hard to vote for this character for Supporting Actor.

I think that people are going to be like, he's a lot of fun and they're willing to extend their belief in like the magic of Hollywood and maybe vote for the movie. But I don't think that they can. Well, I guess the Academy always surprises me. Yeah, we'll see. I mentioned Ferdinand Kingsley as well as Irving Thalberg, who is a person I'd not seen before, who I think is really good. We mentioned Charles Dance and Lily Collins. And the other person who really jumped out to me was Tuppence Middleton, which that may be the most English name I've ever heard in my life. Who I know has been in quite a few things. I think she was in Sense8, the Netflix series. And I saw her earlier this year in

possessor which is that deeply disturbing movie i've encouraged you not to watch uh made by david cronenberg's son brandon um and she's playing quite a different person in that movie tuppence middleton is british and she's playing a jewish woman from new york who's married to herman mangowitz and like kind of amazingly so like perhaps perhaps more amazingly so than Amanda Seyfried pulling off Marion Davies. And I don't think this is going to be a common take, but I was quite taken with her character and her level of interplay with Oldman as well. They have great chemistry, which is essential

because even though the film makes a joke of the fact that it's not a great role or she's like the, you a grieved wife and i you know i think that the poor sarah as she is referred to um throughout the film as a joke is actually also a joke that herman make with like made in real life so not where i personally would want to be in my life no i won't judge you know but and so poor am. Yeah, exactly. It's not what you want. So she, she makes a lot of a little, and you can actually, it's, it's also very hard because in 2020, you're watching this and you're just like, why are you with this loser? Like, why are you putting up with this?

And she even gets asked that, but you do actually have to be able to sell the emotion or the investment that is keeping someone in a circumstance that is not ideal because as you mentioned, alcoholic gambling addiction and just sort of an embarrassing on top of everything else. But they do have that connection that that makes it make sense. So I agree. I think she's very good.

I, my vote is still with Amanda Seyfried for the Oscar, but no, of course I agree with agree. I think she's very good. My vote is still with Amanda Seyfried for the Oscar, but no, of course I agree with that. Um, I think Tom Pelfrey, who all the Ozark heads are very excited to see him appearing as, as Joseph Mankiewicz in this movie.

Let's talk about Tom Burke as Orson Welles. So I have to imagine the last time we spoke about Tom Burke was on a souvenir episode because he is the, um, complex love interest in one of your favorite films of the last few years, the souvenir. Yes, yes.

This is a quite a different role. Um, what did you, what did you think of his, his wells? Uh, no, I mean,

he's good. He does look like him and he does look like David Fincher. I, I don't think that he's supposed to be like a charming uh lethario with some dark secrets as he is in uh the souvenir and also by the way he has an episode on this season of the crown just to bring it all together also by the way charles is on the crown so all of my interests thank you who does tom bur Burke play on The Crown? He plays a friend of Princess Margaret's for one episode. And not that kind of...

A fuck buddy? No, not actually. But she thinks that it might be that and then some other much terrible things ensue. No, I think he's good. This is a pretty thankless task, I would say. And I think it's a doubly thankless task because you have you're trying to do the voice and he is british and doing so he's trying to do an american like oh i can't do the orson welles voice but as you noted it's one of like the distinctive

voices in cinema history so that to, the voice is what stood out. And like, what are you supposed to do if you don't have Orson Welles' voice? You don't have Orson Welles' voice. He has that thing, that human body thing that Orson Welles had

where he is not in shape, not fat, but not skinny, but just kind of like soft. And Orson Welles looked like this for like 20 years. And then he gained a lot of weight and, and you know, it was almost parodic the way that they would,

people would talk about his weight, but Tom Burke does have any, I think he has this in the souvenir too, where even when he's very debonair, he still got like a pouchy belly and he has kind of this like this strength this physical kind of barrens that is it's like intimidating or impressive or i don't know what the word is but he's not arnold schwarzenegger you know he's just a doughy guy and in that way i i kind of liked the casting it's not quite doughy i would say it's a little like burly

soft burly soft burly okay okay is that the official delineation i don't i i mean i just made it up but i i there is like a little bit of strength or at least stature and i as we were sitting here talking you know orson welles was like very tall which is uncommon for movie stars. And I was like, I don't know whether Tom Burke is tall, but he feels tall in this movie. He is shot from below throughout this entire film. Exactly. He's like a monster. Probably not that tall, but that sense of taking up space.

That's what it is. Yes. Even if you're not literally taking up that much space. Yeah, he fills the frame. When we see him over the phone, the camera is perched on his shoulder and he's in these darkened rooms. And then when he finally shows up in Victorville, you're right. He's he's shot like Frankenstein in a lot of ways, you know, where he's kind of looming over Mank and he is this threatening figure, which is really fascinating. It's a great collection of performances. It's it's a very it's a very actorly movie, not in the like my left foot kind of way, but just in there's, everybody has these great chewy strands of dialogue that they get to spit out.

And it must've seemed like even if every actor had to do a hundred takes, it must've been fun to do. The quote that Fincher gave on this round of press tours about the a hundred takes is there's a difference between mediocrity and there's a difference between mediocrity and there's a difference between mediocre and acceptable. And I've had multiple people send that to me, just like I've had

multiple friends just send that to me and be like, do you feel seen? And the answer is I do feel seen. And so that's why he did it because we got the difference between mediocre and acceptable. How do you feel about this movie being used as a, I don't know, a cowbell for the 2020 political experience? What do you mean by cowbell? Well, you know, Adam indicated this earlier this week. And I think that there are a lot of people who will obviously point to the concept of fake news and that newsreel aspect of the story. And that obviously isn't new to 2020, but more specifically the idea of Upton Sinclair, who is just, you know, is an author and a journalist and was a socialist and running against Frank Miriam, who is, you know, an establishment Republican figure who sought power and wealth and was not interested in common people. And using these two figures pinned against each other

and then watching as people behind the scenes essentially treat them like marionettes for their causes, you could very clearly make a case that there's a lot of Donald Trump barons. And frankly, people have added me on Twitter about how we just did not talk about Donald Trump in the face of Citizen

Kane doing a whole episode about Kane and how obviously there are tons of parallels to make there. I mean, you can make that about a lot of movies at this point. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I've moved on. But frankly, even if he hasn't yet, I get it. I think like us not talking about Trump is a little bit how I feel about the sifting for all of the specific 2020 references in this film. I mean, it is, it speaks to this moment. It absolutely does. And I think Fincher says that part of the reason that he took it back to Netflix, in addition to it being a passion project, was that it felt like urgent. Like, oh, I, you know, things here and especially the California gubernatorial fake news plotline do speak to our moment. I just also, none of this is new, um, is kind of my response to it.

We do just repeat history and not learn from any of our mistakes. So even though great artists make works about it that teach us and also you know we do have history books even if you and I don't read them so I I think it's definitely there and if people want to do a socio-political reading of it and if that adds a layer of depth to that to that experience then you know the more the merrier to, I was just like, huh, this great timing by them. This definitely seems relevant. And also, what a hellscape that we've been living in for, what, almost 100 years now. Yeah, you're right that none of this is expiring. I think the first sequence in the film that lit my mind on fire was the louis b mayor birthday celebration

at san simeon when there is this you know collection of executives and movie stars and herman mankiewicz and his wife sarah uh all celebrating mayor but essentially convened around hearst who was the host of this party and the conversation evolves devolves i don't know what you want to call it into like just an open debate about the coming fascist threat in germany about socialism about wealth inequality and power and it i mean it it kind of feels like a much more elegant version of Chapo Trap House talking to Ben Shapiro. You know what I mean? It's like literally these two oppositional sides, you know, one witty and one brutal, uh, communicating about the problems of the country. And, and, you know, Mankiewicz is a little bit of a canary in a coal mine. And this is obviously

an imagined sequence in many ways. But it's fascinating to just make the movie polemical for five minutes and use it as an engine to get at all of those things that you're talking about,

how it does speak to the moment. Well, it pops up elsewhere. I mean, that precipitates a lot of the California gubernatorial race because they do start, you know, they're arguing about Upton Sinclair versus Hitler. I mean, I think that's the, and there are a lot of different, there's a WGA plot line, which ultimately results in kind of the arbitration clause and that final moment and how Mink gets credit. So it's the most cogent articulation of these themes that are throughout the movie. But yeah, it's absolutely a movie about,

again, it's about power and who has it and who doesn't and how best to express it. And that's true. It's applied to politics and that's applied to art. And I think that's applied to relationships. Um, it is once again, a movie about power, which is maybe how it is a David Fincher movie after all. It's a good point. So I, and, and to that point, I see this movie and the social network as, as twins. I see them as really in the same way that this is speaking to such a thing. And I feel like it's speaking to the

social network and the way that it plays kind of a little fast and loose with some of the facts but also the way that it has like nothing but contempt for these people who don't understand the power of their power um so you know we talked about the kind of awards potential and the performances from some of the actors i'm i'm struck by the fact that this is the Roma or the Irishman of this year for Netflix, which on the one hand, I think makes sense, right? Passion project from a legendary filmmaker with the restrictor played off, doing all the things that he's been wanting to do with it. On the other hand, this is a really idiosyncratic movie.

And it's the themes that we're talking about here. Not that we're rocket scientists, but this is complicated stuff. This is not Triple Frontier. You know. No one saw Triple Frontier but us. I know. I know. We love it though.

We love it. You guys didn't even talk about it on Garbage Crime. It's not Garbage Crime. That's international. Triple Frontier. Oh, so Garbage. Okay. Triple Frontier is international.

That's my problem. It's international. Garbage Crime is kind of grounded. That's my problem. It's international. Garbage crime is kind of grounded. It's in cities most of the time. You know, that's a more of a heist movie.

It's got more to do with Predator than it does to do with, I don't know. Okay. All right. Whatever. The Informer.

Okay. So do you think this movie is frankly just too weird to be considered like a best picture frontrunner? Is the question I'm asking you.

Yes. I've worried about this. I mean, I don't know. be considered like a best picture front runner is my is the question i'm asking you yes i've worried about this i mean i don't know 2020 is like a very very strange year and we haven't even started our oscar season that's what's really strange i mean the oscars are the end of april it's december like we you and i will start it maybe i mean we're starting it now here we are it's great to see you love the Oscars level of Hollywood. I don't think people care about them right now. I just, I don't want to do too many episodes because I don't think people give a shit. Yeah.

And, but beyond the Oscars, 2020 has been a weird year and we're going to do our best of 2020 episode next week. Seems real soon, but I'm ready. But you know, you and I were talking a little bit about what

should be on that list and what should qualify. And if something is a week in theaters, but people can't see it till February. And there's just a lot of that stuff. It's really hard to see movies this year. I have a friend who texted me, who listens to the podcast. It was just like, how do I see the climb? How can I, a human person who wants to see the climb, see it? I've heard about it for nine months. If you live in California or New York, you pretty much cannot see that film. Yeah.

Which is a shame because it's wonderful. It's a delightful movie. I also had to beg to get a screener of it to be able to make jokes on this podcast. Anyway, it's a weird time and really hard to see movies and figure out kind of what the container of, like what the short list is

of movies that we should be talking about. And I don't know how the Academy is going to respond to that. I don't know whether they're going to double down on what's available and worthy. And I think Mank would be a part of that or whether they're just going to be like, I don't know how how to watch movies so I'm definitely not going to watch this really weird one yeah I think a lot of the films that are expected to compete for best picture are opening

like you said in these short runs and then with bigger runs planned for mid to late February before the qualification window closes but nothing's going to be better in mid to late February, before the qualification window closes. But nothing's going to be better in mid to late February. There's not going to be a massive turnout at movie theaters for Nomadland on February 12th. As much as I think everyone should go see Nomadland or Minari or any of these other movies that most people have not had a chance to see yet, that we're probably going to spend a lot of time talking about over the next four months, this is one of the few movies that everybody can see as soon as they want, starting Friday.

And there won't be any complications around it. And it is idiosyncratic. And it is made by a person who has a taste for Venom. But you can watch it. Just like you'll be able to watch Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.

You know, just like you'll be able to watch The Five Bloods. And so that leads me to believe it's just going to be much easier for a movie, even one as, as unusual as this one to succeed in the race. Now we'll see, maybe I'm wrong. I, the fact that the reviews for this movie, the first wave of reviews, I would say have been somewhat mixed. I think actually portends well for the Oscars. Um, I think historically films that win Best Picture are not slam dunk masterpieces. Now Parasite obviously exceptions

prove rules but it's kind of like is this what I wanted it to be feeling from critics which it seems like it is not even though a lot of them admire the film greatly I think might actually play in its favor.

I don't know. What do you think? I do think that this is a movie that needs some sort of critical push. And I confess I was a little baffled by some of the first reactions to this movie because I don't know what people want. But there are a lot of critics and especially people on film Twitter. It's like, I really don't know what you want. But, and I, there are a lot of critics and especially people on film Twitter. It's like, I really don't know what you want. I guess you just like, you know, want a spotlight on Orson Wells as for three hours, just being like, I'm the best. I don't know. I don't know.

So I think that there is still room, as you said, given the fact that there are five months for a different conversation and kind of more critical push and enthusiasm to get people over that hurdle of the personalized nature of this film. The Roma and the Irishman being really personal, beautiful projects that demand a bit of commitment, which they don't really. I mean, like, I hate even acknowledging this narrative because just like watch the Irishman or watch Roma. They're beautiful movies. You don't have to. It's not work, even though it's work for you and me. It's not. It's a gift. But, you know, again, they're not Emily in Paris, a TV show that I liked. So did I tell you that I bought the Irishman on Blu-ray on the Criterion Collection?

No, congratulations. I feel fucking great about it. It's so beautiful. Let me share an anecdote with everyone. The other night, it was a Friday night, Friday night after Thanksgiving, Sean texted me and Chris and was like, yo, the Roger Ebert commentary of Citizen Kane is a beautiful thing. And I was like, okay. You know what I did, Sean, is I engaged with it. And I was like, how can I watch this? Like I Googled, I would love to see it or listen to it.

And you just wrote back, it's on the DVD, period. And that was it. There was like no attempt to help me experience this thing. You were just like, I own a DVD. And now I'm not texting you anymore. That was insane. First of all, you can tell me about your DVDs. You get no credit, no credit for replying to my text 18 hours later. I just want to put that out there. Okay.

That's the least you can do. And if you're indicating that you were Friday night during a pandemic, what were you doing? You were not at the fucking disco. I have to set boundaries. Okay. I can't be looking at the phone all the time, answering your texts about DVDs you own.

Well, maybe you should because they might enrich your life under normal circumstances. I would have just come into the office the next day and handed you my copy of Citizen Kane and said, watch this with the Eber commentary because it is beautiful and it is very informative. I learned a lot watching it, which is what I think we were trying to do with the episode earlier this week,

which was to help people understand the context. Nevertheless, I bought the Irishman on Blu-ray. It's just a beautiful piece of work. Wonderful film. Great job by Criterion Collection. The packaging is wonderful. The essays, as usual, elegant. Just feel great about these purchases. So to your point, yes, watch The Irishman.

Yeah. So Sean owns The Irishman. And you and I agreed that The Irishman, congratulations. Thank you. The Irishman is just a masterpiece. And we did have a really magical experience watching it. But I just was so moved by it. And it did have a really magical experience watching it, but I just was so moved by it.

And it won how many Oscars? I think zero. I believe it was over 10. And that's Martin Scorsese making a deeply personal, I'm at the, not at the end of the road,

but a late stage career, what does it all mean movie about gangsters, by the way. So at least like people are like, oh, cool, a movie about gangsters. And it won. So at least people are like, oh, cool, a movie about gangsters. And it won no Academy Awards. So if the Academy voters aren't willing to give credit to Martin

Scorsese and that type of movie, I have some concerns about the amount of credit and patience they're willing to give to David Fincher. I think they're wrong, but I'm curious. Well, okay. That's interesting because Scorsese's films have one best picture and he has one best director. And that is not the case for David Fincher. David Fincher's films have not one best picture and he has not one best director. So let's just take a look at some of the odds over on Gold Derby here for, for, for best director. I'm kind of fascinated. I do also think as you read these odds, we just have to say that this is a completely, that the odds are made up.

This year is so strange that even me bringing up, us bringing up the Irishman in Rome and talking about, look, they didn't respect Martin Scorsese. So they won't respect Fincher is wrong because we're just up in upside down land with the pandemic and things being online and the date being moved and how people are feeling and how people respond to movies. So I think that's gonna be really fun for everyone for the next five months to hear us be like, who knows? It's a weird year, but it is in fact, extremely weird year. It is an extremely

weird year. Let's just, I'll read you the top 11, but I'll move through them quickly because I think 11 and 10 are notable. 11 is Shaka King for Judas and the Black Messiah, and 10 is Lee Daniels for the United States vs. Billie Holiday. Neither of these movies is coming out for at least another two and a half to three months, and they're both at 100 to 1, and I don't know anyone who has seen these. I think I know two

people who have seen Judas and the Black Messiah, and they liked it, but that may be overstating things in terms of the Oscar race. Number 9 is George C. Wolfe from Ma Rainey's Black Bottom I think he does a very a a good job with a play um and that's a movie we'll talk about a lot more later this month um there's a lot to recommend it I don't think that George C. Wolfe's work is what is going to emerge in the Oscar narrative personally no he does a very good job with the play he does and it's hard to shoot plays in in an odd way where to make them kind of visually meaningful and useful to the story i think is challenging and he does well nevertheless um he's at 28 to

1 at 20 to 1 is lee isaac chung who directed minari which we talked about around sundance and we will talk about a lot more when the movie finally makes its way to the world beautiful film number seven is Spike Lee, Four to Five Bloods, 18 to one. Spike has never won Best Director. He did win a screenplay Oscar for Black Klansman, still never won Best Director. There's a narrative there.

Number six is Florian Zeller, who directed The Father. I don't, you haven't seen this yet, right? I still haven't. I didn't see it at Sundance. Yeah, so I saw it at Sundance. I think it's okay. I don't want to dismerge this movie before the world has had a chance't see it at Sundance. Yeah. So I saw it at Sundance. I think it's okay. I don't want to

besmirch this movie before the world has had a chance to see it and there's a ton of noise around Anthony Hopkins as a best actor contender this year. And he's quite good

in the movie as a man struggling with Alzheimer's or dementia or I guess it's ill-defined in the film. But this is like a best director.

Like him being at number six is baffling to me like how a person like him could have a higher odds than spike lee well isn't part of the thing here it's just what people have seen and they're also doing you know the sundance versus the something i i don't know whether these are the odds that i would place my money on. Yeah, I won't be placing any money at all this year on the Oscars, just for the record. I've also gotten Best Picture wrong three years in a row. So I need to stop pretending like I know what I'm talking about. Number five is Paul Greengrass, who made News of the World, which I just saw this week, which I'm looking forward to talking about.

Very classical, old style Hollywood movie that I think people are going to respond to. He's at 11 to 1. would not be stunned to see him. He's greatly admired in Hollywood. So I could definitely see that. Number four, Aaron Sorkin, the trial of Chicago seven. He's at 15 to two right now.

We'll see. Okay, whatever. We'll see. Another person who's greatly admired, but I'm greatly admired by me. Yes. Number three,

Regina King. One night in Miami. Another movie we'll spend a lot of time talking about. I'm sure she's going to make a big push here. Also a movie that is a play and it's well-directed, but these next two contenders, number one and number two,

I think are doing something bigger and deeper than the rest of the contenders here, maybe with the exception of what Spike does with Defy Bloods, which I think is really vast. Number two is David Fincher for Mank. He's at 19 to 5. And number one is Chloe Zhao, who is also a 19 to 5 for Nomadland. I think that those two are fascinating contrast side by side and what they brought to their respective movies, what their styles are, what they represent to Hollywood. This is a white man in his 60s versus a woman of color

who is in kind of like the early stages of what could be a major career. So it's, you know, I'm very curious to see what happens with Fincher. Because even if Mank doesn't become that best picture obvious, like we all have to throw our hat in on this, let's say Nomadland takes the lead on that

or One Night in Miami or something else that feels more reflective of the moment or less obtuse this is a big chance maybe the last chance for Fincher is that crazy to say I don't know it's not his last movie he hasn't fake announced his retirement no but he doesn't make Oscar bullshit you know like he's made two movies that would credibly compete in his career. This, which is even still kind of a stretch, I think in another, in a different kind of a year that has like West Side Story and all that going on. Who knows if Mank would have been as big a contender and Benjamin Button, which I think got a lot of nominations, but people dinged because they felt like he was reaching towards the bait category. Yeah, but he has been nominated been nominated well was he nominated for a social

network he was films that have been nominated that's true and i and i do think we did a whole episode about oscar bait which i think that like please listen to and and we talked about how it's changing but i think zodiac would be more in the conversation now than it was at the time and so and gone girl was at least got act at least got actor nominations i believe so he's not outside the conversation he's not and i don't want to mischaracterize that and a lot of these things are timing right zodiac may end up being his masterpiece and that was a movie that came out in the same year as there will be blood and no country for old men like sometimes that's just how the chips fall. But I'm very interested because I think that this movie

is going to get a Best Cinematography nomination. I think it's going to get a Best Editing nomination as almost all Fincher movies do. And that's Kirk Baxter who's celebrated by the Academy before.

I think Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross certainly, frankly, could win. I think they may be double nominated too because they also did the score for Soul, which is quite good.

I think all of that's a costume design without question. Trish Somerville I think is the costume designer of this movie. She will be nominated. There's a lot. It's got like 12 nominations energy. But I

worry a little bit that it is like the Irishman. maybe Amanda Seyfried wins and that's it. Like I could see that happening. Yeah, I could too. And, and I don't say that with enthusiasm and I don't think that's the right outcome. I just think I say that a little bit because I don't know how the Academy or anyone listening is going to respond to this movie.

And I also just don't know what this year is going to look like. So it's hard. What a great time to have chosen to be Oscar podcasters. Well, this feels like karmic retribution for last year, which was one of the best years I think the Academy has ever had in terms of the collection of films, what they represented for the Academy that, you know, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, being the old to old Hollywood, but also this transgressive QT thing, Parasite and the nature of the evolving Academy, old school stuff like Ford versus Ferrari, Greta Gerwig having a moment, the Todd Phillips Joker thing. Like that was a really rich narrative. And a lot of the movies that we were

talking about, a lot of people saw, and we knew that there was such enthusiasm for them. And as you point out, this year is just weird. No one has seen One Night in Miami. 180 people have seen Minari. There's no conversation right now with no disrespect to this movie, but there is no conversation about Defy Bloods. It feels like nothing is happening in the awards race. And I know if you work at a company that works on awards promotions, you must be like, what the fuck are we going to do here? How are we going to get people excited about these movies? Because it's really hard. Yeah, I do wonder whether some of it is purposeful.

And another thing that makes me slightly nervous about Mank is that it is available on December 4th and the Oscars aren't until April 25th. And Netflix movies do have a history of peaking a bit early because they are just so widely seen and everyone's like, okay, now we're all going to watch this. Now we're going to make our jokes. Now we're going to do our whole thing and cannibalize it like we would the Queen's Gambit or my beloved Emily in Paris. I don't know why, but I do know why because of Billy Collins. That's three references now. You know what? This chef, he's handsome and I wish him well. But I think especially this year,

just you need people's attention. You have to grab them by the collar. And I think it's impossible to sustain that for five months. So maybe the Netflix play is release it now and then start the campaign in March and April. And maybe that's what a lot of these movies are doing. I mean, how people are going to campaign in the pandemic world is a whole other conversation. But I do, I think that this might just be make part one.

In terms of the rollout here, the wave? The conversation, yeah, the yeah the wave yeah i think that that's right that seems that's smart um i forgot i think there is actually one other category where it's gonna do well where it has a chance to succeed and that's actually best original screenplay because yeah that's the jack fincher story that's a. That's an amazing story. Yeah. It's right there. And it is a really good script, right? It is really, it's got a lot of wit. The idea of Aaron Sorkin for The Trial of Chicago 7

competing with David Fincher's late father is also kind of perverse and speaks to that social network echo. Okay, Amanda, last question. I would say two of the most fun episodes that we did this year were the David Fincher rankings earlier this fall. And thank you for all your feedback on that. I insist that I am right about everything I said on that episode. Where does this movie rank? Where does it fall into the Fincher filmography for you? It's high for me.

I mean, it's not, Social Network is above it. Zodiac is above it. I think Gone Girl is above it. I haven't seen Benjamin Button in a while. And I think that this is most similar to Benjamin Button, to me at least, and operating emotionally and energy wise. So I think I would group it there. But Benjamin Button is usually like kind of in the middle for me. I should go back and watch it because this might be above Benjamin Button. Yeah, I think I'm with you. I

think it's in the probably five to six range at the moment in terms of where it lives. I'm obviously a bigger Fight Club fan than you are. I still think I would take the kind of anarchy and verve of Fight Club over the deep-sodded cynicism and beauty of this movie. But I've only seen this movie three times and I tend to watch David Fincher movies many, many, many times. So I'll need to let it sit.

But I agree with you. I think it feels like an appropriate I'm 60 years old movie, if that makes sense. You know, it would have been weird if he had, and I mentioned at the top of this conversation, Spacey and Jodie Foster as...

Absolutely not. Just it's a no for me. I guess Jodie Foster would have been Marion Davies. Is that, was that the idea? That is what I'm operating on when I say absolutely not. I feel like Jodie Foster

in Panic Room was basically playing like a late 30s, early 40s mom. So how is she going to play like 30-year-old Marion Davies? That would have been weird. Well, I do think that Marion Davies is supposed to age over the course of the film. At least biologically. I know that there was a lot that Hollywood could do as they, the joke they keep making about making everyone believe that Mary Pickford at 40 years old was a virgin.

But I, I guess they just would have played the older version of it. I'm glad we got the version that we got. And I'm glad that Fincher waited because I feel like we got probably a better film. Anything else you want to say about Mank? Watch it. Don't be a baby.

Don't engage in the Orson Welles discourse. Just it's rare to have cinematic events at 2020 and things where you actually can turn off your phone and sit down and be like, okay, I'm having a night and I'm watching a film. So take up that opportunity. It's worth it. This movie is two hours and eight minutes. This isn't like watching Reds. You can knock it out in a fairly reasonable amount of time. Amanda, thanks for indulging my heart with this movie. I'm so excited it's out in the world. I'm looking forward to hearing from everybody who watches it,

what they really think, unless they hate it. In which case that's at AK Dobbins on Twitter. You can share that information with her directly. We'll never see it. Thank you. Thanks of course, to Amanda and Bobby Wagner.

And as Amanda indicated next week, we return, we are reconvening the citizen cane panel, me, Amanda, Chris Ryan, Adam Naiman. We are sharing our top five best movies of 2020, if you can believe it.

Hope to see you then. you