The First "Mank" Trailer Reshapes the Narrative Around "Citizen Kane"

Scene from Mank (2020)

If you ask anyone to rattle off a list of the best movies ever made, there is a good chance that Orson Welles' 1941 film Citizen Kane will be on that list. For reasons that I don't need to get into, it has been praised and reassessed for almost 80 years, finding new audiences appreciating the craft that goes into telling a compelling story about a tycoon. Even if there's plenty of great stories behind its making, one has to ask if there's anything worth making an entire movie out of. 

Apparently on that list is David Fincher, making his cinematic return for the first time since Gone Girl. With one of the few major Fall releases still on the docket, Mank looks to be a period piece that captures the dark drama in full detail, making you understand the pain and sacrifice that goes into making cinema. It's a story of the screenwriter, Herman L. Mankiewicz, and his battle to get recognition for his script. While this sounds like Oscar-bait on its surface, Fincher's increasingly proficient, technologically-groundbreaking works don't take these stories lightly. One has to wonder what drew him to this story. If nothing else, the first official trailer looks to promise one of the most visually astounding works of 2020, if not the Citizen Kane (some pun intended) of recent Hollywood biopics. 

Like most people, there are two things that I really love in cinema: Citizen Kane and Fincher. With many arguing that The Social Network was its equivalent of the 2010s, it makes sense why he would be the one to want to tackle this story. It's another story about deceit in an effort to make something invigorating, full of life. Years of studying film have taken me through the corners of Welles' filmography, knowing very well why the film failed to win Best Picture at the Oscars, or how despite its success it almost blackballed the filmmaker from Hollywood entirely. It's one of those films that lives and breathes in discussions (if you haven't seen The Battle for Citizen Kane, it's very enlightening). It's difficult to believe that anything can be brought to the discussion.

Then again, there are few masterful directors who would take this material and turn it into something triumphant and comparable art. Given that recent biopics like Trumbo have taken some liberties with turning compelling stories into essential cinema, it's okay to be hesitant at the idea that Fincher can bring out something substantial here. Still, it may be his closest shot to an Oscar in his career since, well, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Even if he's become more of a recognized prestigious filmmaker, he hasn't had a hit that's been as accessible in almost a decade, finding ways to appeal to audiences who don't love his dark and cold dramas that have nefarious and avant-garde undertones. I don't know what Mank will be like, but I assume it will be one of his safer films.

It's also appealing to think of it being his shot at Best Picture thanks to one trend that is, unfortunately, a tired trope of The Oscars: a love of Hollywood. While Citizen Kane is as much a story of Oscar blackballing, it would be easy to think of the film as a front-runner for a variety of reasons. The most noteworthy is that it's a movie about movies. If you go back to the early 2010s, there were a string of Best Picture winners that were essentially about how movies would save the world. If Mank won, it would join The Artist, Argo, Birdman, and The Shape of Water as films with some subtext about our relationship to celluloid. This would be one of the more direct examples to win and, especially in a year where most of us aren't going to theaters, it would be a firm reminder of the power of the conjoined cinematic experience. Also, in a bigger reality, it's one of very few Oscar-worthy movies coming out in the next two months.

Check out the trailer below:

Looks rather promising. Here's the plot description according to IMDb:

Follows screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz's tumultuous development of Orson Welles' iconic masterpiece Citizen Kane (1941).

This sounds like a knockout for the Oscar season. While my concern still holds that this is going to be among Fincher's less interesting, more dramatically familiar stories in his entire career, I can imagine that he's going to flesh out these characters and bring something significant out of this narrative. Given that it's not only a story of two opposing writers but about an artist and conglomerations, there's room to see this as Fincher's version of The Aviator, giving him a triumphant epic for our time. It looks nice and even has some fun nods to the original. Still, I'm waiting to be won over by more than great-looking cinematography and a rather good cast. Sure, I believe that Gary Oldman is a shoo-in for Best Actor, but it's really hard to see anyone not named Netflix winning an Oscar this year. This may be it, actually.

In all honesty, this trailer is fine. It gets me intrigued to see what more there is to say about this story. I wish that I loved it as much as everyone else, but then again I'm skeptical of biopics by nature. Some make it work, but often they're more a reminder that you should be watching a diverse pallet of cinema. I worry that this is all that will be, even if it's from one of the recent greats of modern cinema. Whatever the case may be, Netflix has had a phenomenal run in the past few months with I'm Thinking of Ending Things and Dick Johnson is Dead, and I can only imagine this will help it dominate even more. In fact, I know if it. More than any other nomination this year, I think this is one of the most obvious (and in a great way).