Image via Rotten Tomatoes
On Friday, December 4, Netflix will begin screening David Fincher’s new film Mank, a biographical picture about screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz (played by Gary Oldman) as he struggles to finish the screenplay of one of the last century’s greatest films, Citizen Kane. Greatest is a loaded word. Call something “the greatest” and you’ll attract contrarians for sure but one response in this case is to say: Watch the movies made in Hollywood before Citizen Kane and you’ll notice that there was nothing like it. Citizen Kane influenced the shape of filmmaking to come.
A feature film about the making of the greatest feature film is a thing for cineastes to savor—and British director Benjamin Ross beat Fincher to the subject by a decade with RKO 281. Keeping true to the known facts (or best suppositions), RKO 281 brilliantly dramatizes its subject while devising the sort of pivotal scenes that simplify reality but stick in memory.
The always slightly sullen Liev Schrieber, who emerged out of the ‘90s indie scene, gave an assured performance as Citizen Kane’s cocky young director, Orson Welles. Welles became a superstar for his “War of the Worlds” radio drama, whose manipulation of the newscasting conventions fooled some listeners into thinking that the Martians had landed. The publicity swirling around the maverick brought him to Hollywood and convinced RKO Studio to give Welles’ full control over the motion picture of his choice. He had never directed a feature film. Across the industry, eyebrows were raised and jaws clenched.
Welles couldn’t be dissuaded from thinking big by his cowriter, Herman Mankiewicz, played with wonderfully arched cynicism by John Malkovich. “No one wants to see Heart of Darkness,” Mankiewicz insisted, shooting down Welles’ idea of adapting Joseph Conrad’s novella (Francis Ford Coppola adapted it as Apocalypse Now). “People are sick to death of [real] life—they want fantasy.” Instead, Welles chose as his subject a thinly-disguised critique of the moral failure of America’s most powerful media baron, William Randolph Hearst. It was risky business. Hollywood deferred to Hearst and feared the power of his nationwide network of movie reviewers and gossip columnists. And after all, Heart had gotten away with murder—literally, many whispered.
As played by James Cromwell, Hearst is sternly moralistic—at least when it came to other people. Melanie Griffith gave the performance of her life as his mistress, actress Marion Davis, endowing the character with frivolity, vulnerability and, ultimately, sympathy. All the major players in the making of Citizen Kane are represented in RKO 281, including cinematographer Gregg Toland (Liam Cunningham) and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Fionna Shaw). David Suchet is admirably restrained as MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer, who worries about the anti-Semitic vilification Hearst threatens to unleash against the Jewish-owned studios if Hollywood doesn’t “do something” to stop the release of Citizen Kane.
Ultimately, RKO 281 is the story of titanic egos clashing—Hearst and Welles had more in common than either cared to admit. Welles behaved badly, with uncontrolled arrogance, and became a near-pariah in Hollywood. His long and scattered career came to serve as inspiration (and warning) to indie filmmakers. Welles’ refusal to compromise became his misfortune in a milieu of narrow minds and stunted imagination. RKO 281 is worth seeking out.
