#100
Post
by therewillbeblus » Sun Dec 08, 2019 4:34 pm
One aspect of the film I’ve warmed to over time is how Eve, for all her “dishonest” or “disloyal” acts, actually earns her place as replacement for Davis. Mank establishes a world in which individualism reigns and personal gain and interest are drives woven into every exchange. Mank isn’t wagging his finger at any industry or society but instead presenting a matter-of-fact authenticity than bleeds what idealists may dub to be inauthentic relationships or skeptics may reduce to terms like a “dog-eat-dog” world. There is a social fake of course, as there is in just about any culture, but the seams of any reciprocal connection are so delicate they’re transparent.
Early on, Davis recalls Baxter’s integration into her life and states all her roles in their partnership in voiceover while we see Davis reclining and basking in the pleasures of her status (taking an aggressive bite out of that baguette!) as Baxter acts as her maid in flashback. The dissonance between perspective and actuality is somewhat cheeky but taken seriously enough to not assign blame as much as question any moral arguments in the first place. So many other scenes contribute to the ending where all characters Eve steps on are complicit in their fates. Are they free now, from this world of deceit and selfishness? I don’t think so, but it would be fitting if they thought they were, still blind to the stance of ambivalence in the world at large!
The notion of responsibility is omitted from the equation throughout, and Eve’s manipulation is therefore a strength as much as a weakness. Mank furthers his worldview of impermanent position and abstract subjective determinations of happiness or status in allowing Eve to have her moment but presenting another obstacle coming in as a new threat. The existential theme of aging splits its interest to the mortality of life as well as that death as applied to social validation and position. The focus on women in particular raises the stakes, for a population who are typically left in the sidelines and whose psychological ‘offensive’ defense mechanisms sway towards relational vs physical aggression to ascends ranks in external social mobility as well as internal ego growth. Mank gives us a picture of the ideas in Sartre’s “hell is other people” played out, while acknowledging that without these people one would have nothing to aspire to, in a sense appreciating the game of maneuvering through life to achieve a sense of identity and self-imposed accomplishment. Here there is support of the power of the will and the limitations of such will power if one seeks static finite gains, and also in the idea of fate.
Davis recognizes what is happening early on but is powerless to stop the movement. Is this because of Baxter’s will opposing her opposition, following a social form of Newton’s laws of physics, or because of the support of the men in the industry, or simply because it is fate, the way of the world, the circle of life? As Davis desperately tries to hang on to her significance and role in her social context, the director declares that actors never die, actors never change- as if making a plea to hold onto the facade that is their worldview, preventing vulnerability and acceptance of existential death. The joke is on everyone here (but it’s not a mean joke) because as they pine against reality for that cemented statuses in denial or full awareness, and even momentarily achieve such serenity through selfish means, fate bars the sustainable wishes of their dreams. And yet what is life but a series of moments where you can look at yourself in that mirror, see your passion, desires, ambitions, and dreams, and appreciate what you see?
To some people, like Eve, who have something to aspire to, there is a hope which drives lively participation in the system of life, no matter how flawed. This is contrasted with people like Davis who have achieved these aspirations and scrapple in anxiety and paranoia to hang onto that which fate’s gravity will pull from them, living in complacency and stagnation. The ideas of belongingness and achievement make life worth living, even if there is pain through and on the other side, but it’s the process - that which Eve takes and that Margot has already taken- that really make one feel alive. I think about the studies that show how drug addicts fire most dopamine prior to shooting up, even more than all that fires as a result of the drug itself. Eve reaches her dreams but that moment will be short lived, and perhaps ironically she’ll never understand that it was about the journey there and not the actual end, even when she too becomes complacent and apathetic until her back is also against a wall and she enters the crisis part of the cycle.
Mank’s technical prowess and willingness to meet his characters where they are at is probably used best here, in his best film. Why is it his best film? Well, how many filmmakers can flesh out so many characters in such a socially aggressive drama, and leave the audience engaging with all parties equally without an aggressive urge in our bodies, while also moved with ephemeral camerawork that dances with the content and doesn’t repeat the same choice twice?
This is a film that is, among many things, about our societally driven psychologies that support ignorance of the present, including possible contentment, relationships, or morality, in favor of the past and future. Mank doesn’t damn us, but he exposes the satire with an objective cold kind of empathy for all playing the game in this melodramatic machine of life, without any interest in becoming didactic. A bold avenue to take, and assimilated into the excellent performances, script, spacial design, and countless other perfect attributes of this film I haven’t even touched on, the product blossoms into a beautiful flower whose name we can pronounce but whose contents we can’t, which only makes it more pronounced as a whole. The wonderful self-reflexive exchange between Sanders and Baxter toward the end refers to the content of the film and the history of the 20th century as melodrama, before then turning inward succumbing to, and becoming, such a melodramatic peak cinematically, puts a cherry on top of the genius already exhibited in this magnum opus and layered defining work of the industry, social experience, and the art form itself.