Oscar-winning film ‘Mank’ bathes in old Hollywood glamor

When director David Fincher enlisted his frequent collaborator, costume designer Trish Summerville, for his new movie “Mank” – a biopic about the screenwriter behind the iconic 1941 film “Citizen Kane” – she knew it would be her most difficult assignment. . for him to this day.

Summerville, who previously worked with Fincher on the 2011 crime thrillers “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” and 2014 “Gone Girl,” has been tasked with recreating the glamor of 1930s Hollywood, from her backlot reunions to her sumptuous evenings, without using a drop of color.

Fincher and cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt sought the authenticity of the era by closely replicating the look and feel of talking images of old Hollywood – up to turning “Mank” entirely in black and white, or ” Fincher-vision, “as Summerville described it. the phone.

“It’ll never be just black and white. It’s her take on what black and white is like,” she said of the film, which takes lavish black tones and unfolds in shots striking continuous.

“Mank,” which opened for limited release in theaters in November and released on Netflix today, is a project just as lively as Summerville and Fincher’s previous collaborations. “Citizen Kane” is considered one of the greatest films of all time, and the film delves into the events and people that screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (played by Gary Oldman) might have inspired while writing the screenplay. “Mank” features some of the biggest stars of the era, including “Kane” director Orson Welles (Tom Burke) and Hollywood starlet Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried).

Colorless Vibrance

As Hollywood enters awards season, “Mank” is considered one of next year’s Oscar top favorites. Some of the praise is due to Summerville’s costumes.

She not only had to make sure that all the costumes faithfully reflected the spectacular dresses worn by Davies and actress Bette Davis, but that they even dazzled in black and white. Ironically, Summerville must have thought about color more than ever.

“Even though it’s black and white, you can’t just use black and just white because it really goes flat (on screen) and everything looks the same,” she explained. “It was about figuring out what colors and different tones really read on screen.”

Summerville tried to stay “authentic to what the color scheme was like back then,” she said, opting for both muted tones and jewel tones, which she said allowed for a read differently. “

On set there was a vibrant range of hues, especially when it came to party scenes at Hearst Castle in San Simeon, Calif., Where Davies and his newspaper mogul lover William Randolph Hearst (played by Charles Dance) hosted famous parties for Hollywood’s biggest stars. .

“A lot of the dresses and gowns are really intense colors like chartreuse, salmon, and tangy greens and mangoes,” Summerville said.

The use of bright colors presented an enigma in itself. Summerville had to be aware that the colors used did not distract the actors on set and also calmed Fincher’s sensibilities. “Dave is not a huge fan of color,” Summerville said. “There are some colors he doesn’t like because they might catch your eye (away from the stage).” The director doesn’t like red, for example, she says, but red can create rich black on camera, while pinks can substitute for gray.

Another challenge, she said, was avoiding loud prints and patterns that can look like confetti on screen. “We didn’t want everything to be solid because there were a lot of prints in women’s clothing and men’s ties at the time, so we tried to find what was free in black and white.”

Details of old Hollywood

Worthy of a movie star of fame and wealth Davies, Seyfried wears some of “Mank’s” most elaborate costumes. “She’s one of the few women who repeats herself throughout (the movie) and is in these big party scenes that take place in political conversations,” Summerville said. “I wanted your eye to be drawn to her because this is such a masculine movie.”

In one scene, Seyfried wears a stunning gold metallic lamé dress – a popular material for women’s dresses and evening parties at the time – and later, she is seen in a circus-inspired costume with palazzo-style pants at the time. of an annual party held in Hearst. Castle. Summerville replicated the outfit Davies actually wore at the A-list party she and Hearst launched in 1937, based on photos of the actress on a carousel horse.

“We just made small improvements, like adding rhinestones and Swarovski crystals to the front,” Summerville said. “I really wanted her to wear the pants … There are other photos where Marion wore pants quite often, which was rare for a woman her age and at that time, and because she was around. by William Hearst, which was very traditional and old-fashioned. ”

Differentiating between the different men in the film was more difficult. Mank and his cohorts wore very traditional clothing for the time, so Summerville infused a bit of each character into their style. In the movie, Oldman, for example, looks quite disheveled and shows signs of a paunchy stomach from heavy drinking.

“His shirts weren’t perfectly ironed – they probably started in the morning, but as his day wore on he got more disheveled,” Summerville explained. “He wears his loose tie a lot, which wasn’t very common back then, and we had his pants under his stomach to show his weight gain.”

Summerville’s foray into 1930s fashion gave the costume designer an idea of ​​tailoring and tailoring craftsmanship at the time. “I absolutely loved looking at old, authentic period clothing – the sleeves of a lot of women’s clothing were really intricate,” she says. “And the way that the pockets and the belts were sewn into the men’s pants used different techniques that are not used at all anymore. The clothes were then made with great pride and quality.

The costume designer also robbed “Mank” of a deeper appreciation for the hard work her costume department peers would have done in 1930s Hollywood.

“The (re) complexity of the fabrics and the stoning that went into things,” she said. “And it was made from head to toe, from milliners to shoemakers.”