Who wrote “Citizen Kane”? It’s not a mystery

“She picks the guy who is the epitome of author in America and demolishes his great achievement that everyone can agree on,” said Joseph McBride, who has written three books on Welles and acted for him in ” The Other Side of the Wind ”, A film that finished late in 2018.“ But there is also a misunderstanding about the author’s theory. ”The French critics who conceived it“ mainly took into account the directors who did not write no script, like Raoul Walsh, and how they could put their mark on films they had not written ”.

This point is made in “Mank,” when Welles (Tom Burke) angrily responds to Mankiewicz’s credit request by saying, “Ask yourself, who produces this image, directs it, plays it?” Critic Andrew Sarris, in an April 1971 reply to Kael’s essay, noted that while Mankiewicz had written every word, Welles was no less the author of “Citizen Kane” than he was. from his 1942 adaptation of “The Magnificent Ambersons,” including “The best lines and scenes were written by Booth Tarkington.”

While Urbanski said Kael’s argument has been discredited by historians, he added, “You can also say that our movie is 100% accurate if, and here is it, you agree to watch it at through the alcoholic perspective of Herman Mankiewicz, because it changes everything. Mankiewicz, he said, was the “engine” of a film that works on multiple layers.

McBride, who has championed the right of filmmakers to dramatic leeway, nonetheless sees “Mank” as a crass twist and a missed opportunity to capture what was already an interesting relationship between Mankiewicz and Welles.

“They both worked on it, they both brought their talents and they worked better together than they were on their own,” he said. “You could show it. It would not detract from the genius of Mankiewicz and the genius of Welles.

For Fincher, the point of “Mank” is not who wrote what. He said through a representative, “It was not my interest to make a film about posthumous credit arbitrage. I was interested in making a film about a man who agreed not to take credit. And who then changed his mind. It was interesting for me.