‘Mank’ earned 10 Oscar nominations. It’s a perfect illustration of Hollywood’s self-absorption.
It was far more exciting to see the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ nominating bodies give recognition to a new generation of filmmakers, such as Chloé Zhao and Emerald Fennell, for movies including “Nomadland,” “Promising Young Woman” and “Judas and the Black Messiah” that didn’t need to make anxiety-ridden cases for their own importance.
Since the outbreak of the pandemic, the entertainment industry has — not unjustifiably — been consumed with its own survival. Unlike restaurants, which could at least ramp up their takeout and delivery operations, every aspect of the movie and television business has been under threat. Production of new shows and movies shut down. When work resumed, casts and crews gathered for projects that suddenly required new practices and new budget lines for testing and personal protective equipment. And the prolonged closure of movie theaters in major markets like California and New York pushed studios into new and unproven models for getting films in front of audiences, potentially upending a century-long relationship between moviemakers and moviegoers.
In this context, no wonder the academy’s fondness for movies about moviemaking kicked in. But “Mank” isn’t “Argo,” about a CIA operation to use a movie production to rescue American hostages, or “The Artist,” about the transition from silent film to talkies.
Rather, “Mank” is a movie about what a torture it is to be in the movie business, about how horrible it is to have to hang out with Hearst, how awful it is to be an alcoholic genius cloistered in a very nice house. Certainly, it’s a rather good movie about those emotions. But there’s a difference between self-defense and self-pity; at a moment when Hollywood needs to mount the former, “Mank” is an expression of the latter.
This is an unattractive sentiment to wallow in, not least because of Hollywood’s curious absence from the fight against covid-19.
As acid-penned entertainment industry observer Richard Rushfield noted in a December edition of his newsletter, “The entertainment community never, during this year, not even a little, rose in any organized way to help during this moment. If, for instance, the marketing geniuses and stars of Hollywood had gotten behind a massive Just Wear Masks campaign, think of the difference that might’ve made…. Let the record show that when the world was suffering, strife divided the land and the greatest communication apparatus in history had nothing to say about that, being too consumed with its own headaches.”
And more than that, so many of the other Oscar contenders make the case for the continued vitality and relevance of cinema far more effectively than “Mank” does.
Take “Promising Young Woman,” Fennell’s best picture-nominated debut about a young woman seeking revenge for the rape — and eventual suicide — of her childhood best friend. “Promising Young Woman” is visually distinct and full of great performances. It’s also a genuine provocation, asking questions about the lines between justice and vengeance that are difficult to ponder in the middle of heated debates about real-world wrongdoing. “Promising Young Woman” is a terrific example of the distinct political role that art can play — and it felt like a real loss to watch it at home on my television, instead of in a crowded theater, so I could have argued about it immediately after with friends.
Or take Zhao’s “Nomadland,” Lee Isaac Chung’s “Minari” and Darius Marder’s “Sound of Metal,” all surprisingly gentle movies about building and sustaining community in the face of harsh obstacles. Oscar voters have a long-demonstrated weakness for rather limp movies about overcoming differences, from “Green Book” to “Crash,” so it was exciting to see recognition for three films that are both more morally rigorous than those past contenders and more deeply kind.
And in films like “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” “One Night in Miami,” “Judas and the Black Messiah” and even Pixar’s animated “Soul,” Black actors, including Viola Davis, Daniel Kaluuya, LaKeith Stanfield, Leslie Odom Jr. and the late Chadwick Boseman got to be fully human: brilliant, difficult, brave, cowardly and deceptive — even to themselves. Without denying the world as George Floyd’s and Breonna Taylor’s deaths so clearly showed it to be, movies in 2020 also showed cinephiles the richness of Black life, not just the tragedy of Black death.
So if, like most Americans, the Oscar nominations are a chance to catch up on everything you missed during the past year, put “Mank” at the bottom of the queue. Let Hollywood obsess over its past, and focus on the films that will carry both the industry, and those of us watching at home, into the future.
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