A terrific biopic about the making of Citizen Kane and Hollywood in the studio era

 The David Fincher (dir.) & Jack Fincher (screenplay) biopic, Mank, about the Herbert Mankiewicz, troubled, alcoholic, charming roundtable drinking buddy and Hollywood wash-up until he got tabbed by the 24-year-old Orson Welles to write a screenplay that would become Citizen Kane and which popular lore had attributed almost entirely to Welles until later scholars and critics (notably Pauline Kael I think) set the record straight at gave the late Mank his due. The film is a little hard to follow at first, as many characters are quickly introduced and the plot line, particularly as it involves a 1934 California gubernatorial election, is not widely known and seemed to me a little obscure and confusing. But the main outline of the story is quite well known, as least to those likely to watch this film: the creation of a film masterpiece about a titan of the publishing/newspaper industry who was brought down by his own folly, in particular by his using the newspaper resources to push the performing career of his much young paramour - and the two characters were to closely modeled on WR Hearst and Marion Davies that the Mank's career if not his life was on the line. Throughout, J Fincher's writing is sharp and witty - a real challenge for a screenwriter, to outdo the legendary screenwriter/wit who is us subject, and the film has a terrific look start to finish. Daringly, D Fincher made the film to look like a 1940s movie, in b/w, with scene intercuts using the hideous Courier typeface that amazingly is still in use for screenplays if nothing else and filming some of the outdoor sequences at the desert retreat - perhaps using infrared techniques? - so that the background looked like the painted backdrops used in a lot of low-budget films of the era. The team even used the sprocket marks in the upper right corners once used to alert projectionists about an impending reel change! There are some terrific scenes throughout: a great nightclub sequences on election night, a banquet in Hearst's San Simeon at which Man (Gary Oldman) embarks on a weird, drunken monologue, Welles throws a tantrum, and others. It helps to know Cit Kane if you're going to watch this film, but even w/out that as a backdrop this is smart and I think accurate re-creation of life in Hollywood in the days of the studio bosses and actors/writers/directors working under contract, swimming in dough, churning out ideas, and often drinking themselves to death.