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directing<\/h1><\/div><\/div>

From the origins of the script to choosing key collaborators and cast, Welles\u2019s brilliance and limitations, the trouble with auteur theory, and why directing means never being happy...<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/header>

SO LET\u2019S GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING...<\/div>

DAVID FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cI don\u2019t know if I remember the beginning. I know that I had read Pauline Kael\u2019s essay [\u201cRaising Kane\u201d]. I think I read it as microfiche in high school. And obviously Citizen Kane was one of those seminal works to study, because it was widely accepted, at least in the \u201970s, as the greatest American motion picture that had ever been made. I first heard about it from my father. This was at a time in my life when I was asking things like, \u2018What\u2019s the greatest stage play you ever saw?\u2019 or, \u2018Who was the greatest crooner of his generation?\u2019 My dad had these concrete perspectives. There were things that were just known, right? There were things that just needed to be acknowledged. And, of course, when you\u2019re a twerpy kid, you take on that perspective. You don\u2019t really question it.\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div>

WHEN DID YOU SEE CITIZEN KANE?<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cI remember it was hard to see. This is obviously before Betamax. I didn\u2019t have the opportunity to see it until middle school. It was sixteen-millimeter, and I think it was film appreciation class\u2014and I\u2019d heard so much about it from my dad. His orientation was very much that the most important movies were always about journalists (or written by a journalist), or about writers or newspapermen. I inherited from him this notion that Citizen Kane was the greatest American film ever made. And I remember telling my dad, \u2018Hey, we\u2019re gonna watch Citizen Kane in film class today.\u2019 He was giddy\u2014\u2018You\u2019re in for a treat.\u2019 He was a big Welles aficionado. At the time, he thought the makeup was great and the performance was transformative. But the thing he kept coming back to was how cinematic it was. I think I knew, at the time, it had been written by an ex-newspaperman and was probably being graded on a curve, but there was no talk of Mankiewicz. It was really Welles. And my dad was a big Joseph Cotten fan. So it was really about those two guys. We didn\u2019t talk about cinematography. I think we talked about Agnes Moorehead. He had told me that Endora from Bewitched was in the movie, and that I should keep my eyes peeled for her. And I remember thinking, \u2018This is so strange.\u2019 It seemed to me at the time, the mid \u201970s, like we were talking about a cave painting. We were talking about a movie from so long ago that I remember dreading seeing it, \u2019cause I didn\u2019t want to be let down. And I was amazed by it. I remember being completely swept away by the speed at which it got its points across, and the confidence of the directing... even though I didn\u2019t run home from school shouting, \u2018Wow, the confidence of that directing!\u2019 I just was aware that I was seeing something that had a force. And it was a thing we got to share.\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div>

WHEN DID THE IDEA OF MANK COME ABOUT?<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201c\u201cI know he had read \u201cRaising Kane,\u201d and he had a copy of the book in his personal library. In the late \u201980s, I was visiting my parents, and found it and read it\u2014and we talked about it then. And then when he retired, in the early \u201990s, he came to me and said, \u2018I\u2019ve got this time now, and I wanna write a screenplay. What should I write about?\u2019 And I said, \u2018Why don\u2019t you write a screenplay about Herman Mankiewicz and Orson Welles?\u2019 I tossed this out glibly, saying, \u2018This could be something you might be interested in\u2014and I would certainly be interested in reading a screenplay about it.\u2019 But it was never with the idea of, \u2018Let\u2019s right an age-old wrong.\u2019 It was more the idea of, if you were smart about how films were made, you had to realize that there needed to be an enforced collaboration. And that the writer\u2019s position needed to be sacred with the director, as the person who was going to take his blueprint and all responsibility for it\u2014this was a relationship that needed to be non-acrimonious, and not a power struggle.<\/p>

Jack had some very specific ideas about writers and their sometimes-diminished value, but that wasn\u2019t really of interest to me. I just kind of like, hoped to put a bug in his ear. And he went and he wrote a script. It was very much a saber-rattling\u2014\u2018Directors are pompous fuckwits who take advantage of...\u2019 And I remember thinking that this didn\u2019t ring true to my experience.\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div>

WHEN YOU WENT BACK AND FORTH WITH JACK ON THE SCRIPT, HOW FRANK WERE YOU?<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cMy dad was the guy who, I remember coming home when I was seven and saying, \u2018A California Highway Patrol car is following our school bus.\u2019 And he said, \u2018Oh, right. Yeah, well there\u2019s this guy named Zodiac, and he\u2019s a serial killer. And he has vowed to shoot out...\u2019 It never occurred to him to sugarcoat anything. It was a source of peculiar pride, his honesty. He just cut to the chase. There were definitely times as he was writing this draft when I was pretty honest, saying, \u2018I think this scene is shit. I don\u2019t see why it exists in this story.\u2019 And he would get loud, \u2018Because it does this and it does that, and it does all this heavy lifting.\u2019 And then I would cut the scene, and eventually he would come around.<\/p>

But I think everything in the final draft is in service of his impetus. I think the thing that was not in his first draft, was a key component of Mankiewicz\u2019s self-loathing: He thought he was slumming in Hollywood, working on things a notch above nickelodeons, you know? He was in his era\u2019s version of the music-video business. I could relate to people telling him, \u2018Oh my God, I love your work.\u2019 It\u2019s like, \u2018Yeah, but it\u2019s just a Michael Jackson video. Contain yourself!\u2019 There must have been an aspect of Mankiewicz that thought, \u2018Ugh, this is all just treading water. I love my family living in Beverly Hills.\u2019 But I think he really ultimately felt he was slumming. And only when the handcuffs were off, and he didn\u2019t have to answer to the Louis B. Mayers or the Irving Thalbergs\u2014and he was working with somebody who was interested in the sharp stick in the eye\u2014that he was challenged. And that he found a degree of self-respect.\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div>

SO IT\u2019S LESS ABOUT CREDIT THAN IT IS ABOUT...<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of evidence that Mankiewicz mounted a fairly multi-pronged attack to rectify the fact that he had signed a contract that\u2014he was certainly adult enough to know\u2014meant he would not get a screen credit on Citizen Kane. And I can see in some weird way Welles... It was Coppola and American Zoetrope. He wanted to bring the Mercury Theater to the West Coast, and take over cinema in the same way that they had taken over Broadway, Off Broadway and radio. He was looking to do this thing under the auspices of a sweetheart deal that he had, that he had been granted because of his provocative storytelling techniques\u2014and his genius. Let\u2019s be honest, Welles was a genius. But so was Mankiewicz, and so was Gregg Toland.<\/p>

I don\u2019t honestly believe that Citizen Kane is the greatest American movie. I would rather watch The Godfather Part II. I would rather watch All the President\u2019s Men. There\u2019re a handful of movies I would rather sit through at this point in my life. But you can\u2019t not take away from this movie, that it\u2019s really the first time that you saw complex literary ideas about how to look at a life, human behavior, human need, human suffering, human hubris, told in a very literate and sophisticated way. The characters are all gifted really wonderful insights and ways of articulating these wonderful insights. You take that, and it\u2019s processed through Gregg Toland\u2019s innate understanding of cinema\u2014of foreground and background, and shadow and light. You take something that\u2019s truly literary, and something that\u2019s truly cinematic, and the guy holding it together in the middle is a world-class showman. You cannot take that away from Welles. He had an amazing understanding of: make your point, get the fuck out of town. He had incredible confidence. He had a confidence in the broad brushstroke, and could do the minute filigree. And he held these two things together in a way that I don\u2019t think anybody had really seen before. I mean, I look at Fritz Lang and think, \u2018That\u2019s really great cinema.\u2019 But the literature behind it\u2014look at M, what the people are saying is not particularly memorable. Occasionally creepy, I mean, but\u2014I look at Cukor\u2019s stuff, and he was widely considered to be one of the most scintillating wits, and as somebody who brought that kind of effervescent intellect to cinema. But he didn\u2019t have the kind of brusque and muscular showmanship of this fucking twerp from radio.\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div>

BUT THERE\u2019S AN INCLINATION TO GIVE HIM ALL THE CREDIT FOR KANE, BUT NONE OF THE BLAME FOR THE FILMS THAT WENT WRONG...<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cWell, yeah, but... Look, when you\u2019re twenty-four, and you\u2019re on God\u2019s highway and all the lights are green, it must be difficult to see where you end. I mean, he was playing Shakespearean kings as a teenager. His voice was probably the best-known thing on radio for a good five years. He had ambulances taking him to all of his radio responsibilities on any given day in downtown Manhattan. His genius was fairly hermetically sealed from any detractors for quite a long time. And rightfully so. Did Orson Welles have a comprehensive understanding of film directing? No. He had insane instincts. And I think they were tempered by Gregg Toland\u2019s rigorous understanding of how images work together. Once Welles found this \u2018ankles high, looking up at the ceiling\u2019 thing, he went, \u2018That\u2019s a very interesting place to start,\u2019 because what it does when you\u2019re that low looking up, is when somebody comes closer, they look four or five feet taller than everybody else in the room\u2014so, in terms of staging, it becomes really interesting. It\u2019s also\u2014not surprisingly\u2014the director\u2019s seat in any theater for watching a rehearsal. And they fell into this thing\u2014they started working with it. You can see this point of view at work in Ridley\u2019s Alien. You can see a lot of the lighting techniques at work in Blade Runner. You can see these shafts of light cutting through sets. There were people aping this stuff for the next eighty years. So he happened onto something. And not entirely by accident, but by sifting through and saying, \u2018What are we gonna do to set ourselves apart? What are we gonna do to make people feel that what they\u2019re seeing is not a stage play and is not a movie-movie?\u2019 Look at Frank Capra\u2019s work in the same period, and there\u2019s a kind of mundane, pragmatic, approachable nature of how to stage a scene. And then there\u2019s this incredible audaciousness that Welles unleashes, fully formed, in one movie, and it rewrites the rulebook about how one might think about this medium. But does he have a complete understanding? I mean, when I finally saw The Other Side of the Wind, I can\u2019t imagine that that was the intention\u2014we\u2019ll never know. But when you look at John Huston in that movie, and you look at John Huston in fucking Chinatown\u2014which is a couple of years later\u2014one of them is an actor in service to something, and the other one is an actor left to dangle, you know? And that\u2019s not to say that Welles wasn\u2019t going for something that would\u2019ve been amazing\u2014we\u2019ll never know. But when I watched it, I kind of thought to myself, \u2018He\u2019s trying to rekindle a love for something that has obviously let him down.\u2019 It\u2019s an unfortunate thing, to master something so early on. You don\u2019t wanna just continue to beat that same drum. And Welles was not a session musician. He had to be the headliner.<\/p>

The thing about Kane which is truly kind of sad, is that for all of its reputation, it really was not seen until the 1950s. There were these amazing reviews that existed, and there were the people who had seen it, and film people who were like, \u2018That is the shit.\u2019 Everybody in Hollywood, I\u2019m sure, saw it. I\u2019m sure John Ford, the directors of that period, saw it, and wanted to take a power drill to the roof of their mouths. I do think he got lucky in some cases. But genius is the ability to construct a situation where if you get lucky, it all comes together. You can\u2019t count on it coming together if you haven\u2019t understood how to set the table. You can\u2019t capitalize on that luck if you haven\u2019t been rigorous about how all of these elements are gonna serve the greater thing... And I don\u2019t know that Welles had that. I certainly know he had that relationship with his cast, because, obviously, he knew all those people. He\u2019d worked with them for years. But then, you get lucky. Then you get lucky enough that Mankiewicz hits a fucking home run. And Gregg Toland is available. And the thing coalesces. And I don\u2019t know that it ever happened again for him. It may have been the lesson that he didn\u2019t learn. He may have thought, \u2018You know, if you stand tall holding a metal rod, you\u2019ll get hit by lightning.\u2019 \u2018Well, not always.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div>

HOW DID YOU DECIDE THE RULES FOR THE WORLD YOU\u2019RE IN? \u2019CAUSE IT\u2019S NOT STRICTLY A 1930S MOVIE, ITS ASPECT RATIO IS NOT CITIZEN KANE...<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cWell, yeah, there was no widescreen back then. But when we started talking about trying to do it in four-by-three, I just couldn\u2019t frame for four-by-three. I just don\u2019t know how to do that. I had to overcome that, and I couldn\u2019t. I mean, when I see 1.78, 16-by-9, whatever you wanna call it, it looks square to me. For me, 2.2:1 is as squat as you wanna see something in a theater, and as wide as something you wanna see on a display. So that\u2019s where we fell.\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div>

YOU HAD TO FEEL COMFORTABLE AND PAY ATTENTION TO THE \u201930S\/\u201940S STYLE WITHOUT BEING BOUND BY IT?<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cYeah. We\u2019re making the movie now. But, considering the methods of that period, it steeps you in that style of storytelling, that kind of acting. This is pre-Method. It wasn\u2019t so much about, \u2018Are you feeling it?\u2019 It\u2019s like, \u2018He said it correctly, and all the commas are in the right places? Okay, let\u2019s move on.\u2019 It\u2019s very pragmatic. Now obviously, when you talk about Gary Oldman, Charles Dance\u2014you\u2019re talking about people who can do a lot of different things. They have the full tool kit. Amanda Seyfried, in this odd way, took to it like a duck to water. There are times when you must allow for, \u2018Feel this a little bit more, or find this moving, or this is intensely sad.\u2019 There are times when you want to see those lubricated, emotional mechanisms. But for the most part, it\u2019s: Tell the story. Like, \u2018Just be where you\u2019re supposed to be, don\u2019t knock over the furniture.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div>

YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO SHOOT IT IN BLACK-AND-WHITE\u2014IS THAT A REASON IT DIDN\u2019T HAPPEN EARLIER?<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cPeople are uncomfortable with black-and-white. It\u2019s always considered to be pretentious. But the reality of it was that the middle people involved in the financing, when it would\u2019ve been a PolyGram picture released through Universal, were saddled with all of these stupid parameters put on film production then, because of the downstream, ancillary, tributary markets that they could exploit. Everything was based on, \u2018Well, our television contract in Venezuela says that it has to be in color.\u2019<\/p>

But I\u2019m not gonna say that that\u2019s the thing that derailed it. I think what derailed it was that people thought, \u2018Who wants to see this? It\u2019s gonna have to be more than just you, Dave.\u2019 That was an easy enough shield to hide behind. So, it didn\u2019t get made. And I think what\u2019s fundamentally so great about this new streaming reality that we live in is: You always have a content explosion, an explosion of ideas, whenever you have the people next to the spigot saying to themselves, \u2018I have no idea what people want anymore.\u2019 When that happened in the \u201960s, you end up with Pakula\u2019s paranoia trilogy; you end up making movies about horrendous Sicilian mobsters, or The Exorcist.\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div>

WERE THERE THINGS THAT SURPRISED YOU ABOUT THE PROCESS OF SHOOTING IN BLACK-AND-WHITE?<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cI\u2019ve always loved it. You don\u2019t look at faces photographed in black-and-white as something you can reach out and touch. For my money, I see images much more in terms of their composition\u2014in terms of their architecture, in terms of the foundational shapes and how you create separation. So, for me, black-and-white photography is much more stripped down. It\u2019s like it enters your mind at a purely aesthetic place. I think it\u2019s mostly because color, for me, is so distracting. There are times when colors can say things, and then there\u2019s times when you just don\u2019t have any control over the universe. When you drain all that away, and it\u2019s like, your mind immediately takes on the thing, in terms of its aesthetic structure. And so, you\u2019re aware of shapes. You\u2019re aware of tonality. You\u2019re aware of the size of things. You\u2019re aware of things in a different way than you are with color. So, it\u2019s not so much that it was surprising to me, as much as it was liberating. It feels like you\u2019re talking directly to a part of the brain that is more theoretical. It feels more like you\u2019re talking about ideas. I don\u2019t know why that is.\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div>

AND YOU LITERALLY SHOT IN BLACK-AND-WHITE, RATHER THAN COLOR AND CONVERTING?<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cYeah. We shot with black-and-white sensors. We tested everything. We tested doing it in color and rolling it off. I would never do that with film, \u2019cause it looks ugly. But with a digital sensor, if you just assign each pixel its luminance setting, the feeling was that we would be able to get close. Then the monochrome sensor got delivered, and we were like, \u2018There\u2019s just no comparison. It\u2019s just so much better.\u2019 And, again, we were trying to do very deep focus. Trying to shoot everything at an 11-16. With technology that we have today, you can imagine Gregg Toland is bemoaning, \u2018God, these nincompoops have all this stuff, imagine what we could have done!\u2019 We tested almost every lens manufactured. We ended up liking the lenses that we already owned, that we\u2019d shot Mindhunter with. The Leica Summiluxes are incredibly neutral, and they\u2019re insanely sharp. And we were prepared to go the long way around, but it turned out that Jarred [Land, at RED] was ready: \u2018Well, we just took a couple of 8K Super 35 helium sensors, and popped the RGB filtration off it, and we\u2019ll send it over to you.\u2019 And it was right there. We traipsed all over L.A. to do our due diligence, and then found out, just like Judy Garland, there\u2019s no place like home.\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div>

YOU HAVE A FEW RETURNING FACES AS HODS, TOO...<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cErik Messerschmidt was somebody that obviously I worked with on Mindhunter, and I enjoyed very much his curiosity and unfettered enthusiasm. He doesn\u2019t have a boilerplate approach. He\u2019s not looking at anything, arms folded: \u2018That\u2019s not the way I work, buddy.\u2019 So, we could have these conversations about, \u2018Can we shoot at T16 here, and then ratchet to a T2.8?\u2019 He was endlessly up for anything. And he has great taste. It was one of my favorite things about Harris Savides. When we were shooting Zodiac digitally one day, he was doing a last-minute check with a light meter. And I remember saying to him, \u2018What are you doing?\u2019 And he said, \u2018I\u2019m just checking.\u2019 And I said, \u2018Why? If you see it on the monitor and you like it, the worst it\u2019s ever gonna look is exactly like that. We can always make it look better.\u2019 And he said, \u2018I think that the reason you like having me around is not for my expertise\u2014it\u2019s for my taste.\u2019 And I thought about it for a while, and then I went over to him, and I said, \u2018The only reason I have you around is because of your exquisite taste.\u2019 And I think Erik has exquisite taste. I think he has a great sense of what light can do for a story, or what light can do for a scene. We had a really good working relationship on two seasons of Mindhunter. And that\u2019s a tricky show. There\u2019s a lot of work. A DP is a department head\u2014and you have to be able to organize your troops and get the most out of them. And I think, being an ex-gaffer, Messerschmidt has a great sense of how he can talk to other people, and how he can get the best out of them.\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div>

THAT\u2019S RARE. BECAUSE THERE ARE PLENTY OF TIMES WHEN YOU\u2019RE THINKING, \u201cWHY AM I HAVING THIS CONVERSATION AGAIN?\u201d<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cThat\u2019s why all my emails have giant words, bold, italicized, and then made in red, so it\u2019s like: I\u2019m going to brand certain phrases into your cerebellum, so that we don\u2019t have to have this conversation again.<\/p>

Erik struck me as somebody who wouldn\u2019t be freaked out by black-and-white, or freaked out by deep focus photography, or freaked out about all the testing that I wanted to do with different lens systems.<\/p>

And Don Burt... I have to quickly get all the projects together that I wanna do in my career, before Don Burt retires, because I have a really hard time imagining working with anyone else. He\u2019s the hardest-working man in show business. There are a lot of production designers who call attention to how much work they\u2019re doing. The thing about Don Burt is, he is working so hard to make all of his contributions, and the art department\u2019s contributions, invisible. It just feels homogenous, this is all coming from the same place. That was a no-brainer. He\u2019s a guy who never creates problems. All he does is solve them. If you\u2019re lucky enough to have one Don Burt in your life, you are blessed.<\/p>

We had Trish Gallaher Glenn, the prop master. I\u2019d worked with her before, with Don. And she\u2019s amazing. The attention to detail, or how you can have overriding thematic conversations with her that actually manifest in the type of pens that are available to choose from, the type of eyeglasses, the type of rings, the... When you have a conversation about, this is who Louis B. Mayer is, and this is the class of person he was before he reinvented himself in Hollywood. And Jan Pascale, who was set decorator. Both Don and I were terrified we were gonna get somebody that was going to make everything about set decoration. Because, I mean, for God\u2019s sake, San Simeon is twelve hundred different suits of armor! You could go craaaazy in that place. So a lot of research went into steeping the people who would have to go out and select what was seen at the sideboard. It was not toney, in that East Coast or wannabe British-French way\u2014it was very American. So, to be able to have these conversations with people like Jan and Trish and Don, and have all that actually permeate everything we see.\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div>

AND THEN, ON COSTUMES...<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cTrish Summerville is a genius. We needed the costumes to have genuine irreverence, yet a classic irreverence. How do you say to Charles Dance, \u2018This is the circus-wear that you will be sporting in this penultimate scene?\u2019 And it\u2019s fucking gold lam\u00e9. She has impeccable taste and an incredible work ethic, and understands that it\u2019s not only about what you want to say about the character in terms of their wardrobe, but how it works on that person\u2019s body. You can\u2019t just impose. When you show up for a circus-themed dinner party in the last reel, you still have to kind of look at it and, \u2018Oh, that makes sense.\u2019 At the same time, you\u2019re asking, \u2018Is that a pith helmet? He\u2019s taking his pith helmet with him?!\u2019 It has to, in some way, say, \u2018Yeah, that\u2019s how Louis saw himself. He was the lion-tamer. Leo, the MGM lion-tamer.\u2019 It\u2019s finding those collaborators who are going to run with it. Kirk Baxter. He and Don are probably the first calls. I always say, \u2018Okay, I\u2019m gonna send you a script. This is your chance to talk me out of it now.\u2019 And Ren [Klyce] is the angel on the shoulder. He\u2019s the one who\u2019s going, \u2018If you do it this way, it could be...\u2019 He\u2019s not the devil who\u2019s harping, \u2018Nah, you can get away with this!\u2019 He\u2019s the guy who\u2019s going, \u2018Well, if you do this and this and this, then it\u2019s multifaceted enough to be real.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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AND YOU HAVE TRENT REZNOR AND ATTICUS ROSS BACK FOR THE SCORE. WHAT IS YOUR PROCESS WITH THEM?<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cIt\u2019s the way we\u2019ve always worked with them, which is, \u2018Why don\u2019t you see as much as you wanna see, and, based on the script and our discussions, start generating music? And we\u2019ll cut and paste it, and put it where we think. And you respond to that.\u2019 And if they feel, \u2018Oh my God, this is an outrage: This is a moral imperative that we stop you from doing that,\u2019 we wanna hear it. And if they feel it\u2019s kind of working, or could work if X, Y, or Z happened, then we all talk about that.<\/p>

I think everybody involved in our post-production process has way too much respect to ever sit down and say, \u2018We need a minute, thirty-eight seconds here. A minute, two seconds here.\u2019 You gotta show it to them; and then I\u2019m always interested in their response to what we\u2019ve outlined as the things emotionally that the movie is trying to engage with. And sometimes it\u2019s shocking, what they come up with, \u2019cause it\u2019s so anathema to what you would\u2019ve anticipated. And sometimes, it\u2019s like... I remember \u201cHand Covers Bruise\u201d [on The Social Network] was one of those things where I didn\u2019t know where they intended it to be used. But when you heard it, you immediately thought, \u2018Oh my God, we gotta open the movie with this.\u2019 To be honest with you, I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever discussed it with Trent or Atticus. I don\u2019t know that they composed it thinking, \u2018This one opens the movie.\u2019 We want them as uninhibited and unrestricted as possible.\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div>

BUT WERE YOU SAYING TO THEM TO BE AWARE OF THE PERIOD IN WHICH IT WAS SET?<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cYeah. Kane itself has a lot of music in it. It\u2019s not wall-to-wall music. But Bernard Herrmann does an awful lot of \u2018this moment\u2019s funny,\u2019 and, \u2018Now we\u2019re moving... here\u2019s some shoe leather.\u2019 There\u2019s also a lot of ominousness, you know? So I think we\u2019re trying to pay homage to that, without it being slavish and silly.\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div>

WHEN IT CAME TO CASTING, OBVIOUSLY IT\u2019S NOT A SECRET THAT GARY OLDMAN IS TALENTED, BUT IN TERMS OF KNOWING ALL THE ASPECTS OF THE CHARACTER YOU NEEDED FULFILLED, DID IT HELP THAT YOU KNEW HIM?<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cAbsolutely. I mean, Gary has a kind of primordial decency. He\u2019s essentially decent. And you can\u2019t fake that. He\u2019s a complicated guy\u2014but that was perfect for Mank. Mank was a complicated guy. He was really, really funny, and he was really, really sad, and he was really, really angry, and he was really, really compassionate\u2014and he was a great shoulder to cry on. So, it needs somebody who\u2019s gonna take all that on. A lot of people will look at it and say, \u2018Well, I can\u2019t do that in this scene, because that\u2019ll be overly complex for the audience.\u2019 But an actor playing this part\u2019s gonna have to juggle four or five plates at the same time.<\/p>

And, really, when you\u2019re making a movie about a generational wit, it\u2019s probably good to have a generational actor. There\u2019s no reason to have somebody in a role like this who doesn\u2019t inspire some kind of awe. I mean, people are curious. Who is Gary Oldman? You kind of don\u2019t know what he\u2019s gonna do. There are times when you forget that Gary Oldman\u2019s been in a movie. I remember I was having a conversation with Eric Roth and saying, \u2018No, no, what we want is Gary to disappear into Mank in the same way that he did with Lee Harvey Oswald.\u2019 And I remember watching the wheels at work, as Eric was processing, \u2018Oh my God, that\u2019s right! That was played by the guy sitting eight feet from me, in that canvas chair!\u2019 He had completely forgotten that Gary had played Lee. In some weird way, he remembered it as though Oswald himself had appeared in the film.\u201d So, Gary, the degree to which he\u2019s going to disappear into a role, is always of peculiar interest to me.<\/p>

When I was first looking at doing this movie, I was looking for people who sort of looked like Mankiewicz. There was Charles Haid, and actors who just had the physiognomy. And then Spacey, at one point, wanted to do it. And we talked about him. I certainly felt he was verbal enough. But maybe not as naturally... We had to get at kind of a lovable thing with Mank, he had to be somebody that you\u2019re hanging on his every word, to hear what tightrope he\u2019s going to stretch for himself next.<\/p>

There\u2019s a kind of warmth and menschy-ness that Mankiewicz had to have, or that I felt he had to have. And that was most of the discussion with Gary. We offered him the role, but I wanted to meet him to just sort of say, \u2018This guy is not Arthur\u2014but there has to be an element of Dudley Moore to this. Not to make light of alcoholism, but to understand he was the train-wreck [that] people were waiting to witness. So, there has to be an aspect of that. And then there has to be this amazing gregariousness that makes him not only the keeper of the gin, but the life of the party.\u2019 So we talked a lot about that.\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div>

WERE THERE OTHER, PREVIOUS BITS OF CASTING THAT YOU HAD IN MIND FOR OTHER CHARACTERS?<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cAt one point, I talked to Mike Nichols about playing Hearst. I don\u2019t think he could see himself acting in that role. But I knew that I needed somebody to play Hearst who had, not just an imperiousness, because that\u2019s something you can sort of create, the force field of imperiousness\u2014but I felt that Hearst had to have that sort of entitlement that comes from being oblivious to one\u2019s silver spoon. Certainly the guy knew he was born rich, or into wealth. Extreme wealth. But by the time he was fourteen, fifteen, he\u2019d pretty much forgotten. \u2018Born on third base, thought he stole second.\u2019 But then I started thinking about people that I had worked with, that I loved and thought could be playful with the text. And Hearst is a tricky role, because you cast somebody basically for the last scene. When Charles came aboard, we knew that Charles was gonna ostensibly be an extra, until he gets his chance to speak. And so, we needed it to be somebody who could embrace that, be a good sport about it, as well as: You constantly wanna know what the moneyed elite are up to over there. And Charles, from my experience with him, was incredibly generous to me on Alien 3, incredibly supportive of what it was I was trying to do. And he\u2019s so regal, and has such a great presence and bearing, that I thought, if we could talk him into taking the ten weeks of the extra role, in order to be able to do two days of the reason we cast him, that we\u2019d be really well off.\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div>

HE HAS THAT QUALITY WHICH MAKES YOU FEEL HE CAN BREAK EITHER WAY AS A PERSON...<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cThere was an element of reclaiming the real people from Kane. And I feel like Charles Foster Kane is Mank and Welles\u2019s creation. A lot of the things that happen through Kane and to Kane are things that happened to Hearst. But I think there\u2019s monstrous aspects of Hearst, and there\u2019s also... Hearst liked having Mankiewicz around. I don\u2019t think that he ever saw himself as somebody who needed to protect his legacy from Herman. I think there is a tiny sense of betrayal, and we wanna feel that, in that Mank had been allowed into the inner sanctum and had overheard a lot of interactions between these people, and knew a lot about them. I wanted to talk about the Truman Capote aspects of, \u2018Well, if you didn\u2019t want to read about it, why would you have that conversation in front of me?\u2019 There had to be that aspect. And then, Marion, in 1992, was going to be Jodie Foster. I originally talked to Jodie about it, way, way back when. And Rooney Mara was interested at one point. Then, there were scheduling conflicts, and Amanda Seyfried became available. It\u2019s hard to look at those eyes and that platinum-blonde hair, and not think... the world conspires to show you the way.\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div>

AMANDA KNEW ABOUT ROONEY, BUT WAS QUITE HAPPY\u2014SHE SAID SOMETHING LIKE, \u201cI\u2019LL TAKE HER TRASH ANY DAY!\u201d<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cIt\u2019s luck and alchemy. We were constantly saying, \u2018Okay, well, if I have this person, then that ups this aspect of it, so I need to now kind of tamp this down and allow this to spill.\u2019 But Amanda was a real gift. Just watching her take the Brooklyn chorus girl, a \u201930s, \u201940s movie staple. The broad. It needed to be deft and clever. There\u2019s an earthiness that I wanted Marion to have. The conversations she has with Mank are almost always sidebar conversations from the polite conversation at the adults table. And there\u2019s no doubt that their collective alcoholism informs a lot of their relationship. Mank had a lot of women friends\u2014he was a friend to women. He wasn\u2019t gonna put moves on them. He was gonna be the guy holding the flask, and the guy who could wander away from the party and have a laugh at someone else\u2019s expense, for all the right reasons. In some kind of way, he was the starlet\u2019s best friend. Greta Garbo used to go and take lunch with him. And I\u2019m sure he got off on the fact that powerful, gorgeous women wanted his company, wanted to be amused by him and dish dirt with him, and hear what it is he had to say about things. He also gave career advice\u2014so we attempted to fold that into the relationship.<\/p>

I think that the only thing that really is transplanted in Kane from the reality\u2014picture puzzles aside\u2014in terms of the characterization of Susan Alexander and Marion Davies, is that both Kane and Hearst wanted their concubines to be thought of more seriously. And I saw Marion as very much like the Cameron Diaz of her generation. She was smart and funny and sexy, and she exuded fun. And I think that the thing that we tried to do with this, and the thing that Amanda plays so wonderfully into, is this idea of, \u2018I don\u2019t wanna play Marie Antoinette. I like being a light comic entertainer. I don\u2019t have to think of acting as inordinately serious.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div>

AND THEN WE HAVE THE MOGULS...<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cArliss [Howard] was somebody that I thought of immediately, and just called him up and asked, \u2018Would you be interested?\u2019 I think it was because I felt he was a serious actor, and there\u2019s a lot of moments that Mayer could be kind of ridiculous. Mayer needed to be serious about the things that he was concerned with, not in an earnest way, but in a sort of ground-acquisitional way. I do believe that the speech that he gives to Joe upon meeting him, about \u2018Here\u2019s the magic of the movies,\u2019 is a great speech. I think it\u2019s a great way to understand a lot of early moguls. I didn\u2019t want him to be a cartoon or a caricature. It was funny, I remember saying, when we were doing the big walk and talk with Mayer, giving the magic of the movies speech. Arliss was asking, \u2018Good God, what is this? I just wander around bloviating to the rafters?\u2019 And I said, \u2018You gotta think of it as the Yiddish Untouchables.\u2019 He laughed, \u2018I got it. I know what I\u2019m doing now.\u2019 He needed to get the idea that this guy not only had his name on the gate, but that he cared about his name on the gate. You find out later that he certainly had his price. But Arliss was somebody that I thought would take the serious parts seriously, so that you could appreciate the comic aftertaste.<\/p>

And then Thalberg... Ferdinand [Kingsley] was somebody that I didn\u2019t know. He was one of the first tapes that we saw. And it was tricky, \u2019cause Thalberg is such a beloved establishment figure. He\u2019s a statue, for Chrissakes. What he represents is almost more important than who he was or what he did. And he did a lot. Truly, he and Selznick were the two guys who kind of created what we think of today as the producer\u2019s job, or... the micromanaged fractal overview. Both Selznick and Thalberg really created what we today know as the somebody who picks the material and finds the writer, and gets the best out of the writer, and then finds the right director, and puts that together, and gets them what they need. All of that stuff that we\u2019ve come to associate with the higher end, most tasteful, and powerful producers today, all took a page from Selznick and Thalberg\u2019s way of doing things.<\/p>

I don\u2019t think Jack really wrote Thalberg as a villain. I think Thalberg is a guy who forgives process for outcome\u2014for results. I thought he was an interesting character. I mean, I saw Thalberg\u2019s relationship with Mankiewicz as very much a mutual respect thing. That Thalberg knew that Culver City wanted to be a hot spot for the people who could really do it\u2014really tell stories and really craft drama. And he had a lot of respect for Mankiewicz\u2014but with Mankiewicz, you didn\u2019t know if he was going to turn in the pages, or crash his car, or throw up in the commissary. The unpredictability of it was something that Thalberg could never reconcile. And so, at the same time, he\u2019s a little bit in awe\u2014I mean, he wants the Algonquin Round Table. Kane says, \u2018I wanted all those Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists, so I went out and I got them.\u2019 And that\u2019s a lot of what was going on in Hollywood at that time. Because movies needed to talk, and that meant a different kind of movie\u2014because now you had this gigantic four-inch umbilical cable that went from the camera to the recorder. And you had to build a room on the set to be able to make the wax disks that recorded the audio. So, all those Douglas Fairbanks swashbucklers, that shit was over. Now you needed a whole new kind of talent, and a new kind of discipline\u2014and they were all New York theater dramatists that Paramount and MGM went out to tie up. So, hopefully the movie deals with that in a way that feels cogent and not beside the point. But I wanted an actor in Thalberg to not be somebody who would get into the mustache twirling as much as make it seem... he\u2019s a thoughtful, bright, inventive problem-solver. But how do you solve a problem like Herman Mankiewicz?\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div>

BOTH SARA MANKIEWICZ (TUPPENCE MIDDLETON) AND MRS. ALEXANDER (LILY COLLINS) HAVE TO DEAL WITH THAT PROBLEM, TOO...<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cTuppence [Middleton] was somebody that we found very late. I asked her to read a number of times. I don\u2019t think you can make a movie about, or tell a story about, the writer\u2019s wife, without it having some aspect of the apologetic, right? The thing that Eric and I would talk about, when we were polishing some of these phone-call scenes, is that the writer\u2019s wife is always talking about, \u2018What\u2019s your next job? That\u2019s fine, and that\u2019s great\u2014and you\u2019ve turned that in, right? Okay\u2014so what\u2019s next?\u2019 And that can come across as shrewishness, and it\u2019s not. In my family\u2019s house, growing up, it was just reflexive. My dad would say, \u2018Well, the editor from Smithsonian has accepted, and I\u2019m done with that job.\u2019 And my mother would say, \u2018Great, what\u2019s next?\u2019 And he would have three things he was pitching, and, not that she was his manager or his agent, but she was his fucking wife, she was gonna make sure that he did not lose sight of what was important. Tuppence was critical in that way, because I needed her to be the storyteller\u2019s wife, the writer\u2019s wife, the wife of that person who is wrestling with the gestation of how to tell a story, and how to tell it exceptionally. Because, part of what we wanted to say about Mankiewicz was that... I do believe that Mankiewicz signed on to write what became Citizen Kane, with the idea that it was a gig. It was a job. And it was only through the act of doing it, and seeing how people responded to it, and being outed around Hollywood as the guy helping Orson, he realized... I think he thought his knives could be sharper if he wasn\u2019t in the billing block. And I think that allowing him to sharpen those knives, and to get that off his chest, is the foundation of a story for Kane. The fact that Mankiewicz was given cover. And the fact that Mankiewicz was ostensibly a sniper and not the guy leading the charge, but the guy firing the longest-range projectiles, I think that it gave him a kind of courage to really unload, really vent. And I think that, ultimately, that is at least one of the reasons why it is his crowning achievement as a screenwriter\u2014because I think that for anything to be great, you have to invest in it. You have to make it personal. He doesn\u2019t really hate Hearst, he hates what Hearst stands for. He hates Hearst\u2019s indifference. He hates Hearst\u2019s dabbling in and changing the outcome of other people\u2019s lives.<\/p>

And when Laray brought up Lily Collins, it was like, \u2018Oh God, just \u2019cause it\u2019s perfect, doesn\u2019t mean we shouldn\u2019t do it.\u2019 It seems like a cheat to be able to put somebody who\u2019s that perfect into that part.\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>

<\/div><\/div>
YOU HAVE PEOPLE WHO ARE ADVERSARIES, OF SORTS, AND ALLIES, AND THEN THERE ARE THOSE MORE ALONGSIDE HIM, FOR GOOD OR ILL: HOUSEMAN, WELLES...<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cThere was a lot of concern over whether or not what had been written for Houseman could be made to work. And Sam Troughton was one of the first people that we all said, \u2018Well this guy\u2019s making it work. It\u2019s amusing. It\u2019s human. You enjoy his discomfort.\u2019 I didn\u2019t know Sam\u2019s work. Now, of course I\u2019ve realized that I\u2019ve seen it. I didn\u2019t really wanna turn Houseman into a nervous schoolteacher from Animal House. If our movie does a disservice to anyone, it probably does a disservice to Houseman. But I do believe that Houseman was installed. When Welles really codified his dream of transporting the Mercury Theatre ideals and the cast and the players from New York to Hollywood, of course he would go to John Houseman, who had been his trusted confidante for all those years. And somebody he relied on to be able to step on the right feet to forward his own ambitions and directives. But Houseman was also somebody that, in further research, turns out, saw himself as an immense contributor to Kane\u2014and, at one point, may have actually considered being part of the arbitration. I wanted to dramatize that view of Houseman. He\u2019s not just a factotum, he\u2019s this kind of semi-permeable membrane between Welles and Mankiewicz; and, that Houseman, you could see as somebody who, when he was with Welles, is whining, \u2018Oh my God, you have no idea what I\u2019m up against.\u2019 And then, of course, when he\u2019s with Mankiewicz, he\u2019s saying, \u2018Uch, you have no idea what the boy genius...\u2019 Because that happens all the time. There are the people who are there to be the brake-lining between the intractable artistry and the deadline. What I loved about Sam was he had this amazing wit in his discomfort. And he never made the easy choice. He always made the choice that was most excruciating for Houseman, so I felt we had to have him.<\/p>

Tom Pelphrey [as Joseph Mankiewicz] was somebody that I had read on Mindhunter. Laray Mayfield loves Tom\u2014and kept putting him front and center. And I was concerned, initially, that he was too modern. But when I met him, I found him to be exquisitely mannered. I mean he has great manners, as opposed to being mannered in terms of his presentation. He has a real concern about the other person. And that was something that I hadn\u2019t really thought about for Joe. I do think that Joe was the more able political warrior, that Herman\u2019s coming to Hollywood before Joe, kind of interestingly enough, paved a way for Joe. Joe got a lot of really good contacts, and had a living example of what not to do if you wanted to find happiness in Hollywood. Part of this got cleaved out of the script, because I think it was based on some research that Jack had done, that there was acrimony between Joe and Herman. And I think the film is talking about this moment in time where Joe\u2019s star is rising, and Herman\u2019s star is falling. And there\u2019s a handoff that happens toward the end of the movie. But Joe\u2019s North Star was Herman in a lot of ways\u2014even the ways that he tailored himself not to be. He got most of that from Herman. And there\u2019s no doubt that Joe enjoyed real success and power in Hollywood after the baton had been passed.<\/p>

And then, Tom Burke was somebody who I did not know\u2014but when I told Steven Soderbergh that Netflix wanted to make Mank finally, he said, \u2018Okay\u2014you\u2019re gonna cast Tom Burke as Orson Welles.\u2019 And we read a lot of people. And I did want baby Orson\u2014seeing the lot as \u2018the biggest electric train set any boy ever had\u2019\u2014but Tom is not a twenty-four-year-old. And I had to give that up. But what he does have is incredible presence. An incredible voice. There\u2019s this spirit of the guy\u2014\u2019cause Orson Welles is not saying, \u2018Goddamn it, I wrote this\u2019; he\u2019s saying, \u2018Goddamn it, you agreed to this. This is what the understanding was. For me to go forward, I have to have all my ducks in the right order. And now you\u2019re upsetting this. You\u2019re changing it.\u2019 Obviously, he made his peace with it, because he shares screen credit with the guy, and didn\u2019t go scorched-earth...<\/p>

So, I never saw Orson Welles as \u2018Harrumph!\u2019\u2014the cry baby that has to have it all his way; I just saw him as a very public artist, and a guy who is staring down both barrels of Hollywood\u2019s hatred of true, individual talent, and confidence. And my feeling was that it wasn\u2019t so much that Orson Welles wanted everyone to think that he had done something that he hadn\u2019t done, as much as what he really wanted to do was transport the Mercury Theatre to the West Coast. \u2018I wanna take all this stuff that we\u2019ve been doing, where it\u2019s entirely collaborative, yet I\u2019m at the center, and I want to put everything under the umbrella aegis of the Mercury.\u2019<\/p>

So, \u2018Written, produced, directed and starring\u2019 Orson Welles was not so much his way of having this giant egoic land grab, as much as it was like, \u2018You got a problem, you come to Papa,\u2019 right? I think his sense of it was he was granting everyone a chance to stow their egos at the door and do something for the collective.\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div>

WHAT WAS YOUR BIGGEST CONCERN BEFORE PRODUCTION, AND THEN DURING PRODUCTION?<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cIt\u2019s an ongoing concern. Are we doing justice to the guy, where we bend the truth, where we conflate things? Are we doing justice to the situation? Are we doing justice to the people that we\u2019ve pulled in from the sidelines to make part of our drama? Are we doing justice to the period? We wanted to be transportive for people, but I don\u2019t want it to be frustrating for people watching the movie. So, all that stuff. How do we do it for the money? How do we do it in this day and age, and make it really feel like it\u2019s the Great Depression?\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div>

HE FILM DEALS WITH CORPORATE GREED AND PROPAGANDA\u2014WAS RELEASING IT BEFORE THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN YOUR MIND AT ALL WHEN YOU WENT INTO PRODUCTION?<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cNo. Not at all. I just think socialism has gotten a bad rap, and it\u2019s been tarred and feathered like it\u2019s Stalinism or something. And I feel like when we agree on what civilization is, there has to be certain infrastructure there to support holding people accountable and making sure people aren\u2019t taken advantage of\u2014that\u2019s why we have laws. It\u2019s important, I think, in terms of having an understanding of what socialism meant during the Great Depression, and what socialism has come to mean in this highly politicized twenty-first century.\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div>

YOU HAVE THE NOTION, IN YOUR FILM, OF MANKIEWICZ BEING THE GUY WHO ACCIDENTALLY INVENTED FAKE NEWS, IN A WAY...<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cYeah. Or... Look, Thalberg\u2019s position on this is, \u2018That\u2019s politics, and I didn\u2019t invent it. And I don\u2019t make excuses for it.\u2019 I know that Mankiewicz didn\u2019t have this interaction with Thalberg to get out of a ten-dollar contribution to the anti-Sinclair fund. Fake news has been around as long as people talk about politics. As long as people talk politics, you\u2019re going to get parsed information. When somebody says, \u2018Here\u2019s my subjective opinion,\u2019 they\u2019re immediately saying, \u2018There are things that are gonna fall outside the purview of this, that I, for the purposes of expediency, don\u2019t wanna go into.\u2019 Now, some of the things that are left out of the discussion are telling.<\/p>

And, to me, it was a novel idea\u2014the notion of somebody tossing a \u2018You don\u2019t need me. You don\u2019t need my ten bucks.\u2019 And that thing becomes the spark that leads him to feel queasy. I mean, this is a guy who would routinely walk into a room and go, \u2018All the Kansas stuff\u2019s in black-and-white, all Munchkinland is in color. That\u2019s all I got. I\u2019m gonna be at the Frolic Room, if you need me.\u2019 And he\u2019s gone. And that\u2019s the world that he lives in. He\u2019s an idea hitman. They bring him in to fire the diamond bullet and pierce the fucking heart of the matter, and get to an actionable dramatizable solution. He\u2019s a problem-solver. Right? And his thing is, \u2018You can spend a whole bunch of money buying ads and doing all this stuff, but you got cameras lying around. You know, the whole fucking front gates are filled with bums. You could use that.\u2019 He doesn\u2019t even know how this stuff gets weaponized. His idea didn\u2019t go that far. But I love this notion of a guy who\u2019s too smart for his own good, tossing off this idea that again becomes something that comes back to haunt him.\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div>

WELL, IT TIES IN THE WHOLE IDEA OF THE DANGER OF BEING CLEVER BUT NOT BEING COMMITTED. IT\u2019S THE LIBERAL COMPLACENCY THING.<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cYeah. It is. And Thalberg is just a guy who is solving problems, too. I love the notion that Thalberg begins, \u2018When I was a boy, handing out socialist leaflets...\u2019 It\u2019s like: We all change. We dance to different songs at different points in our lives. We have different taste in music at different points in our lives. And Thalberg is saying, \u2018I see what you\u2019re saying,\u2019 as: \u2018I agree with you about a way to be, but I also disagree with you, as it relates to advocacy\u2014advocacy requires effort. And how formidable people like you would be, if they actually gave at the office. You see that Thalberg gives at the office.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div>

WHEN YOU\u2019RE WORKING WITH A WRITER\u2014IN THIS CASE, ERIC, BUT AS A PRODUCER, TO HELP YOU WITH THE SHOOTING SCRIPT\u2014ARE YOU JUST SITTING FOR A FEW HOURS EACH DAY TALKING THROUGH SCENE BY SCENE, LINE BY LINE, GOING, \u201cWHAT DO YOU THINK THIS MEANS?\u201d \u201cTHIS WORKS.\u201d \u201cNOT SURE ABOUT THIS?\u201d<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cThe process was more of kind of sitting with him, and saying, \u2018I think this is what... [was intended],\u2019 \u2019cause I\u2019m pretty savvy to what Jack Fincher was about. But, remember, this thing began with me\u2014my father wasn\u2019t like, \u2018I have this movie about Herman Mankiewicz I\u2019ve always wanted to write.\u2019 He came to me, saying, \u2018If I was to write a movie, tell me a movie you\u2019d like to see.\u2019 And I said, \u2018Okay, what about this?\u2019 And then it became this \u2018boo-hoo\u2019 kitty thing about screen credit. And I sent him back to the well to find another way around it\u2014or through it. And that\u2019s when he came up with the Upton Sinclair stuff, and conflated those two storylines. (It was interesting, because, obviously, he was very sensitive about things that are couched as journalism, that aren\u2019t. And things that are couched as the truth, that aren\u2019t.) But none of the scenes changed. Like, literally every scene is the scene that was written.<\/p>

The one thing I think that I encouraged Eric, and wanted from Eric, and stoked\u2014is that Eric has, because he\u2019s a fucking old pro in Hollywood, a lot more pragmatic... contempt for the process.<\/p>

Now it does not have anywhere near as straight a line through it dramatically as it used to when it was the WGA wet dream for righteous indignation on behalf of one of their most celebrated members. But I think, ultimately, it\u2019s a truer portrait of Hollywood.<\/p>

The only thing that we did, was take every scene and go, \u2018Let\u2019s blow the pixie dust off this.\u2019 And when Jack was talking about filmmaking, he was talking about something he had read about; when Eric and I talk about filmmaking, we\u2019re talking about something that we do fourteen hours a day, five and six days a week\u2014so it\u2019s a slightly more informed, and less reverent, view.\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div>

THERE\u2019S THE NOTION THAT THE SCRIPT IS A BLUEPRINT, BUT\u2014TRYING TO ARTICULATE THIS PROPERLY\u2014IT\u2019S ACTUALLY A THING YOU\u2019RE GONNA USE AND THEN PUSH PAST. IT\u2019S NOT SIMPLY A QUESTION OF EXECUTING WHAT\u2019S ON THE PAGE...<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cI think the analogy of architecture is a really good one. There is the intention, right? And then there are the geological realities of the site, and all of the shortfalls that make you adapt and\/or change the blueprint. And once the walls are up, there\u2019s that difference of perception between how something looks in a blueprint and orthographically, and then what it feels like when you walk through it. And you\u2019ve put up the sheet rock, and you\u2019ve painted the walls. And then you gotta stage the thing. You gotta put furniture in it. You gotta have the right handles. So, there\u2019s all of those things that go into finishing something that started off as blue lines on white paper, and now is something that people are going to live in. And hopefully invest in. And so, I feel like architecture is a pretty good analogy for filmmaking, because, yeah\u2014the script is imperative. The blueprint is imperative, but you\u2019ve got to have the flexibility to say, \u2018Hey, as it turns out, we dynamited into this granite, and we\u2019re not going any further. So, wherever we thought we were putting the basement, that\u2019s now moved.\u2019 And that\u2019s just the reality of best-laid plans.\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div>

PEOPLE WATCHING DON\u2019T NECESSARILY REALIZE THE NATURE OF CHOICES. LIKE, \u201cWHY HAS THAT ACTOR DONE THIS MOVIE?\u201d WELL, MAYBE IT WAS NEAR THEIR HOUSE, AND THEY NEEDED MONEY...<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cYeah. This is part of the problem of mythologizing. In the Great Depression, a movie was a very fiscally responsible way of forgetting about your daily existence for an hour and forty-five minutes. And the movie business threw off an enormous amount of cash. And I am sure that the people who rightfully benefited from that, the Charlie Chaplins and the Douglas Fairbankses, in the same way as Mank, had real feelings of guilt. And, for the studios, it was hard to explain why the movie business is so expensive. It\u2019s expensive because it\u2019s wasteful. Because you\u2019re gonna have to sit there all day and try ten different hairstyles until you go, \u2018That\u2019s the one!\u2019 Now, most people\u2014even lauded, famous characters in history\u2014don\u2019t get to do that. Well, maybe Marie Antoinette had a day where she just tried out wigs. Probably makes all the sense in the world. But not many people can relate to this idea of, \u2018We wanted to get it just right.\u2019 There\u2019re all these things that you need to do that are very difficult to explain. So I think that this mythology grew around the idea of, \u2018Why does it cost millions of dollars to make Gone with the Wind or King Kong? You can buy a car in the 1930s for X\u2014why does it cost millions of dollars to make a movie?\u2019 And I\u2019m sure that what that fertilized was this notion (and it\u2019s the thing that I work so hard to dispel) that everything is NASA wind tunnel-tested.<\/p>

You see it, I see it\u2014anybody who comes on a movie set knows there\u2019s a lot of grab-ass, and a lot of, \u2018Oh, wow, that was really interesting, the way you just said that. Hang on a sec\u2014if that becomes more of a question at the end of it, well, what if we change that line?\u2019 The notion that you simply execute the plan... You don\u2019t. It\u2019s a feeling, evolving organism. You have an idea of who the character is, and you shoot one scene, and the actor brings you this new idea as to how to read this line, and, all of a sudden, the ripple effect is in every scene subsequent to that. You kind of realize, \u2018No, maybe he should be more unsure...\u2019 And it starts to make sense to you, in a way that it wasn\u2019t planned. Or, you give yourself options: \u2018Let\u2019s do it the way it was written. Okay? And now let\u2019s play with it being this other way. And now we have both of those, and I\u2019ll see in the edit room.\u2019<\/p>

If you\u2019re shooting a movie, and you have to have a scene that takes place in a set, and it has to evoke X, Y, and Z, you may be asking those questions: Is this wall color too bright? You\u2019re doing all of these things, because you\u2019re trying to work backwards from this thing that\u2019s, as yet, not even imagined by the people who are in it, right?<\/p>

There are all of these things [and] to the layman\u2014and my father I would consider one as it relates to this\u2014it seems insane. I told my father about being on the set of Seven and having thirty-gallon garbage bags filled with sterilized cockroaches that we could pour on the floor before a take, because they were going to escape into the rafters of the studio, and all we could do was say, \u2018Well, they\u2019ve been irradiated, so they won\u2019t procreate.\u2019 My dad was like, \u2018This is insanity\u2019\u2014but there were no C.G. [computer-generated] cockroaches at the time. This was 1995. So, we did what we could, and the only way that Warner Hollywood would let us unleash thirty gallons of cockroaches for every take, was if we assured them that they\u2019d been sterilized and would not escape our set and go off to procreate. You can\u2019t make this shit up. I mean, it sounds insane. But these are the things that you have to go through. Whereas, I say that to Eric Roth, and Eric Roth just goes, \u2018Ach, yeah, of course. That kind of shit happens.\u2019 And so, we cleaved a lot of that stuff out, Eric and I... I remember the day we shot the Thalberg funeral. Jack wrote the interaction between Selznick and Mank. And it\u2019s not really based on Mank. I\u2019m sure it\u2019s based on my dad\u2019s getting the runaround from some agent in Hollywood, or something. The whole \u2018Come and see me\u2014let\u2019s talk.\u2019 And I realized, as I was shooting the scene, it reminds me so much of that amazing line from James Ellroy, \u2018Hollywood will fuck you when no one else will.\u2019 And I kind of realized that\u2019s the groundwater from which all of this is growing. And maybe that\u2019s unfair. Maybe in the \u201930s and \u201940s it was different. But it seems to me like it\u2019s still true.\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div>

WHAT\u2019S YOUR VIEW, OR WHAT DO YOU THINK JACK\u2019S VIEW WAS, ON THE IDEA OF THE AUTEUR, DIRECTOR AS AUTEUR?<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cI think when your son is a director, you have a fairly realistic view of what auteurism is: Which is, it\u2019s a misnomer. I mean, I think anybody who knows anything, knows trying to get the troops to all face the same direction is fucking hard. And the notion that you\u2019re going to be able to beautifully articulate for all of these different interests, educational backgrounds, generations, this entire group that\u2019s separated by all these different personal experiences, and simply impart to them how you\u2019d like to see it happen then sit back in your chair and watch it unfold...<\/p>

As you well know, and as anybody who\u2019s spent any time on a set knows, there\u2019s a lot of sweat and swearing and trickery and manipulation, and you have to be equally good at blunt-force trauma as you are sculpting rice grains. It\u2019s brain surgery, and interior house painting, and pouring a foundation, and child psychology. It\u2019s all of those things happening simultaneously. It\u2019s a very difficult thing for the uninitiated to imagine the kind of self-possessed douchebaggery that it takes to make it happen. And sometimes it happens by accident, and sometimes it happens by explicit fractal design. And sometimes somebody fucks up a line in the best possible way, and it changes the coverage and what that scene finally means. When you see Robert De Niro say, \u2018You talking to me?\u2019 That is part and parcel of the fabric of the way they were thinking about that movie, up until then. The fact that that line of dialogue had never been committed to paper via a typewriter, doesn\u2019t make it any less of a perfect collaboration. The screenwriter, who may have not even been present for this, gave the actor and the director, everyone\u2014the cinematographer, the boom operator, all of them\u2014this kind of framework for understanding who Travis Bickle was. And in that moment, a bunch of frustrated, sweaty people are shooting in a fifth-floor walk-up, to try and give you an idea of who Travis Bickle is. And somebody goes, \u2018I know, I\u2019m gonna look in the mirror and I\u2019m gonna... You\u2019re gonna like it. Just roll.\u2019 And you do it. And I\u2019m sure Scorsese saw this moment and went, \u2018Holy shit. That\u2019s the treatise... That is the Travis Bickle experience!\u2019 \u2018You talking to me?\u2019 Like, there is no better way to encapsulate what this guy is looking for. He\u2019s looking to be respected. He doesn\u2019t understand what that\u2019s gonna take. That doesn\u2019t mean that Robert De Niro wrote Taxi Driver. It doesn\u2019t mean that Martin Scorsese is any less of a fucking genius for going, \u2018Definitely print that take!\u2019 You know what I mean? All of that goodness accrues to everyone who was paying attention. And when you ask an actor to improv, more than nine times out of ten, it does not accrue to, \u2018You talking to me?\u2019 Sometimes, it\u2019s dog shit, and you go, \u2018Okay, I didn\u2019t give you enough to work with\u2019; or, \u2018This moment isn\u2019t about that\u2019; or, \u2018This moment actually plays just as a kind of a withering look.\u2019 And we can move on. But, when an entity: writer, producer, director, cameraman, sound recordist, actor, stand-in, dolly grip, focus-puller\u2014when that whole dynamic is cooking with gas, you\u2019re gonna come up with these things. \u2018You talking to me?\u2019 should accrue to Paul Schrader. Even if he didn\u2019t write it, it\u2019s not about what he wrote, it\u2019s about what he wrote around this that infused everyone with this intense understanding of what they were talking about. So, I don\u2019t look at it and say, \u2018Well, for one, brief, shining moment, Robert De Niro should get a WGA card!\u2019 That\u2019s his job. The actor\u2019s job is to be finding all of these impulses. That\u2019s a guy who\u2019s steeped in what he\u2019s doing and what he\u2019s bringing to this endeavor. And that\u2019s what made it a movie that we still talk about. I don\u2019t think any less of Paul Schrader for not having actually put pen to paper and conceived of that line. Everything else that he did made it possible for that moment to happen. So, I guess what I\u2019m saying is, I don\u2019t believe in auteurism, because I don\u2019t ultimately feel that anyone can inform a moment so explicitly, that what everyone is in service to is simply that one person\u2019s idea. I feel like moviemaking owes a lot more to demolition derby than it does to neurosurgery.\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div>

BUT THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO, WHETHER IT\u2019S THROUGH A COMBINATION OF CURIOSITY AND TALENT OR WHAT, WILL CONSISTENTLY DELIVER GOOD WORK OVER DECADES...<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cThere are a few. But I think the problem is that, if you work backwards from this idea that everything is an exquisite evocation of a specific command, then you\u2019re off the fucking reservation. What you realize is that this is sculpting. You know what I mean? And you are gonna be covered in fucking dust and sweat, and when you get on your hands and knees, people are gonna see the crack of your ass, and you\u2019re going to explain over and over and over what it is that you feel you need or want, and you\u2019re gonna try to come up with different ways to say the same thing. Auteurism could work if I\u2019d ever seen anyone have the power to be able to perfectly explain what it is that they want, and then eighty-five other people to deliver on exactly what that is. And then you could definitely turn and point to that person. But if you\u2019re a talented fucking sculptor, you\u2019re gonna have hits, and you\u2019re gonna have misses. And you\u2019re gonna have stuff that you\u2019re still trying to wrestle with, and it\u2019s ultimately gonna be a process that involves a lot of people and a lot of dirt and a lot of waste-making. And, as we always say, \u2018Movies are not finished\u2014they\u2019re abandoned.\u2019 And you\u2019re gonna get down to the nut-cutting, and you\u2019re gonna go, \u2018It\u2019s the best I can make it, given all of the things...\u2019 You know this, you go into projects convinced, \u2018If I had this person at the center of my film, I barely need to show up.\u2019 We all know that that doesn\u2019t exist. Even if you cast George Sanders because you want precisely what George Sanders does, I guarantee you you\u2019re gonna cast him at the moment in time he\u2019s trying to break from that. He\u2019s like, \u2018I\u2019m looking to stretch myself. I just don\u2019t wanna do this, like, snide and knowing.\u2019 It\u2019s like, \u2018Fuck! That\u2019s what I needed from you!\u2019 So it never works out that way. It is always seduction and negotiation and belligerence\u2014all of that. And that\u2019s what makes it so amazing, and so depressing.\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div>

DO YOU THINK CERTAIN DIRECTORS START BELIEVING THEIR OWN PUBLICITY? THEY STOP BEING CURIOUS OR OPEN ENOUGH\u2014OR IS IT JUST THAT IT\u2019S HARD?<\/div>

FINCHER<\/span>: <\/span>\u201cIt\u2019s just fucking hard. It just takes a lot of energy. I cannot imagine doing this at seventy-seven. I mean, Clint Eastwood is ninety fucking years old. I have literally no idea how that\u2019s possible. I\u2019m fifty-seven\u2014I\u2019m like, \u2018Uch, God, listen, if I can just stay in this [for] nine more days...\u2019 And I\u2019m not saying this like, \u2018Oh, boo-hoo, look at how difficult it is for meee!\u2019 You do have those days where you leap, \u2018Fuck, that was [great]...\u2019 I always find that the days that I really like are the ones that are better than I ever thought it was gonna be. Yet you have to ask yourself, \u2018Really, you didn\u2019t think it was gonna be that good? Why not? What\u2019s wrong with your imagination?\u2019 I look at it this way, if you really want a challenge, if you never wanna be happy with what you\u2019re capable of, by all means, direct. I say that joking, but laughing, crying and desperately serious.\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>