What Makes a Talented Man Drink Himself to Death? In the Film, Mank
Herman Mankiewicz was a tragic figure — in 1940’s Hollywood and in David Fincher’s film Mank. Sure. he had his principles. Mank stood up for what was right and against what was wrong at MGM and in the political world of the times — but too often in self-destructive ways. He was equally hurtful towards those who loved him. In fact, he turned away from love as he drank himself to death. Why couldn’t Mank get out of his “self-created trap?” And, especially, why does such a talented man not love himself? Because when he doesn’t, he can’t love anyone else either …
When Self-Doubt Rages Inside
“Why do you love me?” Mank (Gary Oldman) repeatedly asks his long-suffering but loving wife, Sara (Tuppence Middleton). This time, while she helps a sloppily drunk Mank undress as he torments himself: “I should’ve done something by now … Give me a sign, Oh Lord, I am as your servant, Moses …” The fact is, he’s already done a lot.
Raging self-doubt is Mank’s nemesis. Where does it come from? His history tells us about emotional abuse in childhood: “Mankiewicz was described as a ‘bookish, introspective child who, despite his intelligence, was never able to win approval from his demanding father’ who was known to belittle his achievements.”
Now Mank belittles his own. This happens. You get a self-doubting critical voice in your head when you’re demeaned. Mank has one of those voices, in spades.
When he won an Oscar for Citizen Kane, he wasn’t even there, drinking as always, hiding at home. He didn’t expect to win: “The members of the Academy … probably felt good because their hearts had gone out to crazy, reckless Mank, their own resident loser-genius.”(Meryman, R. Mank, New York, William Morrow, 1978, p. 272)
The sad part is that Mank was a genius, a huge talent, who couldn’t help but make himself a loser. His self-contempt is all over the film, as he refuses to stop drinking to write Citizen Kane, belittling himself all the way. His assistant, Rita Alexander (Lily Collins) tries to help: “Will you stop? You write for movies because you’re super at it.”
That’s not how Mank sees himself (at least not through the lens of his self-hate.) His mantra is: “Write hard, aim low.” There are good reasons. Being belittled as a child is hard to overcome, it lives inside you. One form of self-defense is to become arrogant.
The Purpose of Arrogance & Alcohol
The other side of Mank’s self-hate is grandiosity and contempt. We see his grandiosity when he assures his nervous brother, Joe (Tom Pelphrey), before his interview with L.B. Mayer (Arliss Howard): “You’re related to me, he already knows you’re a genius.”
Yet, he needs alcohol to blot out the belittling voice in his head. Alcohol gives him the “courage” of arrogance. Drunk, and meeting William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance), watching Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried) rehearse, his contempt breaks through.
He calls Hearst a “muckraker,” They banter: Hearst is impressed by Mank’s wit: “Have him seated next to me.” “Pops likes you,” Marion concludes. But in spite of Hearst being a big admirer of Mank, even later bankrolling 1/2 his paycheck for MGM, by the end of the film, Mank’s destroyed his relationship with Hearst with his binges and mockery.
Joe tries hard to turn him around: “How bad is it, baby brother?” “I went to a party and Scott Fitzgerald referred to you as a ruined man. No one could ever tell you what to do.” No one can. Mank won’t listen. He has principles. Even “Poor Sara “can’t reign him in.
At L.B. Mayer’s birthday party, at Willie Hearst’s home, he gives an insulting toast to the man who ruined Christmas and cut salaries for everyone at MGM, except himself. Enraged that L.B. plead his case by: “this is what families do for each other,” Mank knows what “fathers” are and how they don’t care. He refuses to be anyone’s monkey.
If he’s not the organ grinder, the one pulling the strings, he feels too vulnerable to humiliation. Instead, he humiliates others — a brilliant provocateur. Mank can’t leave his prisons of arrogance or alcohol. He needs them, to drown his unrelenting self-contempt.
The “Safety” of Prisons in the Mind
When you’ve been traumatized as a child, you’re helpless, and you try to get some power however you can. Sometimes, like Mank, it’s by trying to drown your feelings to stave off anymore hurt. Sometimes it doesn’t serve you well. That’s what happened to Mank.
He won’t bow to anyone; won’t join the Writer’s Guild; won’t belong to any club that would have him as a member. He acts as if he’s above everything and everyone.
He won’t be anybody’s monkey; No, he won’t try to get anyone’s love, ever again. He’ll stay inside his shelters. He can’t give up his principles or his drinking, they’re all he has.
So, Mank retreats to his alcohol haze, where self-hate disappears, at least for a while. Where he feels nothing. Where he gets the courage to speak out even if it does him in. If you’ve been abused as a child, you might resort to anything not to be controlled.
Even using Hearst’s personal stories for the character of Citizen Kane is not beyond Mank’s contempt. Yet, underneath his bluster, he can be caring. Note his sometimes-kindness to Marion Davies. But, for Mank, getting too soft is dangerous.
So is wanting anything. You can’t, when wanting love as a child failed you, as it did for Mank. You can’t care about screen credit for Citizen Kane (until you do, and it’s the best thing you’ve ever written.) Then, you have to fight for it, against Orson Welles.
Yes, when you’ve been hurt as a child, you fight. Hard. With all your “tools.” Even if it destroys the love you have; hurts the one you love the most (because you can’t let yourself give into love). No, you can’t let yourself need love or take it, it’s too dangerous.
Sadly, that’s Mank.
Why Being Loved Isn’t Enough for Mank
It doesn’t matter how much other people love you or see your talent when you can’t believe in yourself. Sara loves Mank, she’s “put up with your suicidal drinking, compulsive gambling, your silly platonic affairs.” Joe loves him too. When Mank moans: “I’m all washed up, Joe.” Joe soothes: “It’s the best thing you’ve ever written…”
If only Mank could see himself. What he gets right in Citizen Kane is how lonely Hearst was as a boy. That wasn’t hard. Mank’s lonely too. When you’re hurt as a child, you can’t let anyone in. Loneliness becomes yet another self-imposed “safe” retreat.
Even though Sara pleads with him: “Please be mindful of those who care about you most,” he can’t. He can’t exit his own prisons. Even when he wins an Oscar in 1942 for the Best Original Screenplay, shared with Orson Welles, of course — it doesn’t matter.
“I seem to have become a rat in a trap of his own construction, a trap I regularly repair when there seems to be danger of an opening that will enable me to escape.”
Mank drinks himself to death soon after his Oscar, never to write or work in Hollywood again. That’s one form childhood trauma can take. It’s the tragedy of a talented man.
Love might have helped him, if he’d let it. Success too, if he could see he had any worth.
But the scars of his father’s belittling ate away at him over the years, never allowing Mank to feel he was any good at all. It was too scary to exit the trap of his beloved drinking, his “perfect” retreat from self-hate– a refuge that blurred out all of his fears.
This piece was written for and published on my Film and TV blog, Characters on the Couch.
Sandra E. Cohen, Ph.D. is a psychologist and psychoanalyst practicing in Beverly Hills, CA, and doing teletherapy during the COVID-19 pandemic. She specializes in childhood trauma, persistent depression, and anxiety.
