The main issue that breaks the illusion for me is the cinematography. the angles and close up tracking shots still make it feel like a movie that was released in our time period.
For me it's the fake softness. They tried keeping that digital sharpness while getting the softness by using a "bloom" type effect, and it just looks icky to me. Fake and cheap.
I also think the acting fails the illusion. By the time method acting had become popular, black/white was no longer the norm, so to see acting in that very realistic and immersive style really takes it out of the area, and we don't see the old character based acting from the 30s and 40s. Some of the charm of the old movies is how "moviesque" the characters are, but Mank is a very realistic depiction of humans, which stops me from feeling the period.
Fun fact: for Persian dub, the voice actors felt that "Mank" doesn't feel like an old movie. So instead of going with the standard modern ways of Dubbing the movie, they went with the old way. The dub sounds like it is from 60s.
@@MonolithproductionsT lol yeah. Iran's dub industry is actually fascinating. Or at least it used to be. Just like anything else, Islamic Republic has lead it to destruction. But they still have good stuff like Mank or BB/BCS dub. I remember they always had a spot in international dub festivals, alongside France and Italy who also have good dub industries. I personally like Japan's dub industry too.
I love how this video takes is through a a thoughtful, even laborious analysis of all the effort David Fincher put in to give us a modern “vintage” movie…and then all the comments leave no question that he completely failed lol
That’s because the video takes Fincher at his word, and yes, Fincher worked hard on it. Perhaps this channel’s creator sympathized too much with Fincher because they see their own work as a digital creator who works hard at editing and so relate to it. Kind of like how Fincher (like Pauline Kael before him) relates to Herman J. Mankiewicz to the point where he misses the forest for a single familiar tree.
I try my best to keep the content of the videos fairly “objective”. In the sense that I more just consolidate, synthesize and relay information I find interesting. Or as you said, take the filmmakers at their word wherever possible, without injecting too much bias when I can. Haha, at least that way people in the comments can argue all they want, without actually arguing with me.
Considering the fact that David Fincher is just difficult to work with, I wouldn’t be surprised. Dude literally overworks the cast and crew just to get even 5 minutes of a film “perfect”. During the production of Zodiac, Robert Downey Jr. literally got no breaks for even to go to the bathroom, so in “a form of protest“, left jars of piss next to Fincher to so how angry he was at him. And Jake Gyllenhaal was always being belittled by Fincher whenever there was an imperfect scene with the actor. Fincher would be destroying every take in front of Gyllenhaal, until he got the scene right, leaving the actor both exhausted and frustrated.
Yeah, I clicked this expecting a critique. Ended up learning a lot about all the work that went into this but so much of that work feels driven by poor decision making at the top: Fincher
there was one key phrase that stuck out to me "he built it from scratch." Not to be a stick in the mud here, but it was David's TEAM that built those things. It was the team who took those green screen elements or necessary computer files and made the magic happen. Without David's vision it wouldnt have come together, no one is denying that, but it's disheartening to see so many youtube cinephiles and movie buffs forget the huge teams of artists and computer software experts that really pull it all together
You dont have yo get so indepth with it, surely you arent expecting them to recite the whole crew name to name or expect him to monolouge about him only being the one who directed his vision
@@Omega-mr1jg no of course not, but i do expect some sort of acknowledgement. It's possible my brain didnt register it, but i cant recall a single line in the video talking about the director's crew and staff which only perpetuates the issue plaguing the entertainment industry
@@alexc8114 Because we're well aware and nobody's paycheck and taxes are on the line. I don't think there's any pretense here, or that anyone believes, Fincher is actually doing every single step, from filming to post, personally.
It’s the color depth, the shot composition, the camera movement that kills it. There’s too many grays, not enough stark shadows. The cameras move too fluidly and freely, the shots feel inspired by modern films. The backgrounds and foregrounds have too much depth, areas that would normally be projected pictures, videos, or matte paintings are cgi. You could’ve made it look like a 40s/50s film on digital with the right cameras, techniques, and editing, I feel, he just didn’t do that.
exactly the shots look too modern too like its subbtle but its like your brain notices it. you might not notice it though but again your brain does. like as much as i hate to admit this it feels like its gotten to the point where creating a flim from that time period is not something that is practical and i mean this because most directors and actors and everyone making a movie or show just has too much of a modern mindset when making a movie. sure you can create accurate looking time period pieces but to make a flim that looks like it was made in that time period is super mega hard.
The grayscale tonalities aren't paid attention to by Fincher. Amanda Seyfried's facial features constantly look like they're about to collapse into gray blobs because the makeup and the lighting aren't defining them enough.
also the general lighting. It still uses very modern soft lighting rather than using lighting more like the cinematography of the era. Moreover that older black and white film is still made and is for sale by Kodak today. The Lighthouse used Eastman double-x which debuted in 1959. If he wanted to make it look like old film he could have literally just shot in on black and white film.
I'm sorry, but you can always tell a difference between digital and 70 year old film. The reason that the old film in home alone fooled everyone into thinking that it was a real movie is because they actually used the old equipment. Every time you switched from modern to old movies in this video we could all see which was which almost immediately.
Yeah, I was wondering who he was trying to fool. The Lighthouse actually had me fooled when it came up, because everything was period made, even the cinematography, but Mank is too modern in how things are set up. Too many close ups and tracking shots and unorthodox angles just take me out of it.
It looks like any other modern film with a b&w filter tbh. It was the limitations of the equipment that drew out the creativity of technique in the time. If you want to emulate the techniques, you need to adopt the limitations of the old equipment. But I think the most obvious part is the voices and mannerism of the actors. Like the aesthetic, they just sound like modern actors doing "old movie voice" impersonations.
All that work to emulate old film and it’s still quite obvious within seconds of watching Mank that it is a modern film made to look classic. Not saying it doesn’t look nice or doesn’t emulates the style well, but if his intention was to have the audience potentially confuse the film for an actual mid 20th century movie then it sadly still doesn’t fully sell it. Really the only way to do it properly is to do it for real with the real equipment of the time.
The whole thing is shot like a film from 2020. Not to mention the film’s in widescreen/16:9, which almost no film was in the ‘40s. Most films were 4:3. And then there’s the exact ways the camera moves and things that which don’t really work. It looks nice, it’s a good homage, but the image is too clean and the it’s all too obvious that the dirt was added in later. A better example is The Lighthouse, which the video brought up, which added to the weird factor because it looked just like some old foreign film you find on Netflix which doesn’t even have its own Wikipedia page.
The “dead giveaway” that usually takes me out of films trying to model classic Hollywood styles? The camera quality. Everything is too clear, too crisp, too fluid. So if a film is overly dependent on needing the viewer/me to believe what I’m watching is not only a film taking place in say the 1930s but actually FILMED during that time too… Turn the 4K down or something, idk 🤷🏾♀️ 8/8/22 🌙 953
I think Fincher's attention to detail for lighting and composition are what ultimately betray the vintage aesthetic. Old movies were lit in a more practical and flat way, where as Fincher lights his movies with deep shadows and perfect compositions.
To be honest despite all their work and effort, it is still *_HIGHLY_* noticeable it was ''faked'' - everything looks to crisp, too ''clean'', to ''sanitized'', contrasts aren't high enough, edges are too sharp, not soft enough, and then the cinematography and lighting are too clean and modern-like. I'm sad to say that he actually really failed in trying to simulate an ''old movie'' - and as I say that as a massive Fincher fan, he's amongst my favourite directors
@@kev3d look you can't be arguing this seriously. Modern movies look miles better, because they have 70 years of innovations behind them. Screen resolutions, brightness, dynamic range, colour range are infinitely better. Even an iPhone could shoot better video than the highest grade cameras of that era, so to actually mimic movies from that era, Fincher would have had to downgrade his video down to the bare minimum and he probably wasn't willing to lose that much quality.
Despite all the work he put in, to me, the entire movie looks modern just with a "soften" filter applied over it. The only time it feels authentic to the era are in specific shots like the title, or if you were to take pause it. I *might* be more persuaded to its supposed origin if it hoped to emulate a 1960s black-and-white film, but the 1930s and 40s? No way...
@@CinemaStix that one does, and so this video cant compete with movies like that, the cgi is well done, but its so easy to better replicate the effects of an old video record + the right ratio, but he even didnt do that, you see the 8k way too hard
There is no denying that David Fincher is a good director, and that he works very hard on his movies... But good God, the idea that he wanted this to look like an actual film from the 1930s is painfully unfortunate because its so clearly not that. The camera is obviously digital no matter how many effects he tries to put on it, the shadows don't look right, the camera angles don't look right, everything is too fluid and clean, the sets have too much depth, and I could keep going on. I feel this is a real problem with Fincher's vision and his style. He is a master of CGI, but he's also obsessed with it, and it's almost a crutch now, he *needed* to leave his comfort zone in order to make this look right, but he didn't, you need practicality for old movies, that roughness and limited resources can't be recreated in the method he chose. But that could just be me.
@@anguishedcarpet you have no idea what you are even talking about. you work in the industry and refer to CGI as 3d? really? also nobody was saying his CGI was bad, infact its really good. saying its poor is clueless. the reason it was bad was that it was used in a movie shot digitally trying to replicate 30s films that use more practical sets and no matter how good CGI is, it will never match the feel of practical sets.
I'll be honest... I think Fincher is wrong. Mank doesn't look quite like an old movie, it still looks too smooth, too fresh, too clear. Film is film, that's that. If you're gonna go out of your way to try and emulate film, only to not even get there... Just use film.
I'm personally a fan of shooting digitally but if you want to make it look old, just use old equipment. That might've been difficult for a small indie filmmaker but I'm sure Fincher could've gotten his hands on some old lenses and film. He put a whole lot of effort into this and failed miserably at making it look old.
I think Knives Out is exceptional at achieving a filmic look with digital. The logic for why to me made sense as they wanted certain scenes to be lit in ways which just wouldn't work with using fim. Even then if you look very closely I find the grain can look like an added layer (I do find the way the light is shaped beautiful.) When you're so set on making it look authentic as Mank does actually doing it the old way honestly seems like less effort. Making things look imperfect also seems to go against what Fincher has been doing for the past decades so it seems like an odd choice.
Digital's powerful. It absolutely could emulate film almost 1:1, it's probably just a pain in the ass to do so. Not perfect, but close enough that only certain details would be off.
I've seen The Lighthouse on the big screen. It was impressive, eerie and looked like exactly what Fincher intended to create: it seems like a forgotten film that resurfaced. Even on TH-cam Mank looks fake. It's exactly the things that you called meticulous that kill the illusion: the fake wobble, the fake grain, the switched-around windows and increased kicked up dust. If you really want to create something period appropriate there is no way around it ... use film, use practical effects, use appropriate equipment build real sets. Everything else will look fake.
I agree that it didn't work, but I disagree about the reasons. All he needed to do was soften the image way more. The sharpness is MUCH too high for a vintage look.
Although there was a lot of PR about the fake film look they worked so hard on for Mank, the whole film looks incredibly digital to me and I found that very distracting throughout. It absolutely doesn't carry the aesthetic of older films in my opinion, and that's a huge missed opportunity. I'm not saying imitating old film stock is impossible, but it's absolutely not achieved in Mank.
@@C3lticlord Film being blurry is one of the damning misconceptions people have. Actual 35mm film projected on the big screen was incredibly sharp. Way sharper than HD. It's the degradation over time, limitations of digital scans, how we remember the look of TV in the 50s and 60s that makes us think old films are blurry and scratchy. They were not. Certainly not when being shown in theaters. Smoothness is also one of the major advantages of film. It's sharp without being hard. It was a faithful recreation. Unfortunately people's perception of what old film should look like is usually wrong and that makes us think that Mank looked too digital. For anyone who's experienced real 35mm film projection, it's pretty accurate.
@@lamenamethefirst Can't agree with you more. But my and most of the people's perception of 35mm is altered, as you said. I'm aware of the fact that the quality back then was fresh and clean, however I like the esthetics of the degradation. Nevertheless I dont like blurry low qulity scans of the old films. I recently watched "The cabinet of Dr. Caligari" in Bluray quality and it was surprisingly clean, and I really wish that more films were hi-res scanned and restorated.
@@lamenamethefirst Thank you, many people forget that a lot of remasters of stuff from the early 2000s are as crisp as they are because it's barely degraded film stock, and up-scaling that to our bigger resolutions is sooooo easy. Whereas shooting digital then caps the resolution at what was worthwhile. You can't have up-scaling film out-perform upscaling digital if it's inherently blurry.
Something that I think a lot of people forget is that old films, often pre-Hitchcock films, are shot as if they're stage plays. Long takes, sets with 3 walls, undramatic lighting except for a few strong shadows. Even the actors move like they're playing to an audience instead of a camera. I remember one of the American Girl Rebecca books talking about this a bit when Rebecca has a small part in a silent movie. Stage actors and screen actors move and fill the space differently, and expect large, rapt audiences vs smaller, silent crews. It's not just about the look of the cameras and technology, but about the mindset of the presentation.
Mank does not look like movie shot on film, it looks exactly like what it is; a digital film trying to emulate film. It's blatantly obvious to anyone who remember going to the cinema before digital was a thing. It just isn't, and will never be the same. The human eye is very good at catching fakes.
Especially since you CAN just do digital editing on a film-shot movie. You're going to have to digitse it anyway if you want to show it in a modern threatre (or put it on Netflix, sell it on DVD, etc.) so why not? Yes you'd run the risk of something looking out of place, but first off it'd far easier to tell if something will fit perfectly in-style with the rest of the scene when you already HAVE the scene (and you can know beforehand the scene's going to look as you want with little-to-know post production beyond this), but also it's far less work to edit some aspects of a scene than it is an entire movie, so there's sufficiently less room for mess-ups this way. I genuinely don't understand why they didn't do this.
It's probably possible to make digital look indistinguishable from film, but Mank certainly did not achieve it. Comparing this to The Lighthouse just shows how spectacularly Fincher failed.
Fincher's "old film look" is quite fake. Not because he shot in digitally in 8K, but his approach. Old films from 1930s were shot on low sensitive films rated at 25 ASA (Technicolor movies were 6 ASA, because of a beam splitter). That's why the filmmakers used back then extra lights even on sunny days. Fincher's DP could use strong ND filters to lower the sensor sensitivity and use more studio lights. Next he could shot the film in academy format, or made a compromise of 1.66:1 ratio, not to shoot it in wider aspect ratio. Cue blips may be cool, but those are squashed in 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Movies shot on film are not sharp because of the film grain, but they are not soft like Fincher did in post-production. He could do one thing: use Arrilaser and print/burn the movie on a 35mm B&W film stock and then scan it back to digital, it would look more convincing.
"Movies shot on film are not sharp..." they were actually quite sharp, even with film grain. They just got softer because through the process of time passing, the frames being scaled, them and then the actual projection process. This is what Fincher failed to account for: The effects were not all being introduced at the same time. There's a noticeable difference between a once-sharp movie becoming softer through lots of changes and natural processes, and "let's slap some filters on it in post".
I’m almost certain David Fincher isn’t spending countless days and nights in 3DS Max, modeling these extraordinary settings, backgrounds, effects, and dioramas.
all of this work largely is fine but there's one thing he didn't account for at all. everyone in Mank is still doing modern style acting. the way people act in front of a camera has changed a lot since Citizen Kane and everyone in Mank moves and talks like they would in any other film made now, not like people did back then
honestly just in general i think its a very hard thing to recreate a flim from the 1930s-1940s exactly just due to well its hard to explain but even the sets themselves look modern as well. i mean wandda vission tired this as well to recreate the feel of sitcoms from the 1950s and1960s and i wont lie idk if it pulled it off or not but yeah actors do talk and act differently compared today even if you were accurately recreate every set from a movie or tv show i dont know if any modern day actor could pull of the same type of acting that happened back then ironically at least not without looking like they were acting lol.
I think Lilly Collins was the only one who at least put some effort to keep that 40s british hollywood style accent till the end. others just dropped their accents after 20 minutes did their own style of acting lol
Another difference is average shot length - modern films have significantly shorter shots then in the past. Partly due to technological change and partly due to the cultural influence music videos and commercials have had on film making. Plus fully digital NLE’s make it extremely easy to make rapid edits compared to a time when reels of film had to be physically cut and spliced together. The 1929 film Man with a Movie Camera was criticized on release for it’s average shot length of 2.3 seconds, which was 4x faster then films from it’s time period - some critics even found it physically disorienting to watch. Today it’s fairly common to see films with average shot lengths of 2-3 seconds, even for films which aren’t particularly action-packed. And not only that, but the camera moves a lot more frequently in those shots compared to before, with steadycam and lighter equipment making it easy for cameras to make complex movements instead of simply being fixed in place, or needing to use expensive rigs for simple pans or tracking shots. Many traditional visual effects, like matte painting, required the camera to be kept completely still to maintain the illusion, something that VFX doesn’t require due to 3D match moving. I think these differences are probably the main reason why many people find older films “boring”. The editing for older films simply linger on shots for far too long, and many shots contain very little movement outside that created by the actors. Ultimately, the question is whether the intention is to create a film that merely “feels” like it’s from that period, or one that’s literally shot as though it was from that period, using the old language of film. The latter will probably just alienate many viewers as that language is now foreign to us.
Gesticulating and enunciating like theater actors while using a mid-atlantic accent. Those things don't fly in a movie today and people didn't talk like that off-camera, either. This movie is about real people who aren't acting for the camera, so to speak. Consider it a documentary shot with hidden cameras.
of all of the criticisms in these comments, I think this aspect was intentional. The film also includes harsh language and gestures which wouldn't have flown under the Hays Code
4:56 This really shows that even with 1 frame, he couldn’t do it. Look at how the non faked image has harsher greys with the blacks being super dark while the faked one is very smooth with its greys. Basically, one is very much black and white while the other is grey scale, adding other effects won’t change that.
@@eugenelevin9809 i agree. play around with contrast, white, shadow, black, and a filter known only as "pop"! I don't understand why the "meticulous one" didn't do that. unless the stills above were further manipulated to prove a point. The crispness of well's famous long-shot is incredibly superior. [edit] I just had the idea that side-by-side comparisons of film & digital are not fair play. because with film, every frame *is* a photo. One cannot get such a good still from digital because it's fluid.
Agreed. overall the digital sensor seems to be capturing a lower-contrast image than with film. The soft, diffuse lighting in Mank isn't helping either.
I think another thing to keep in mind is the aspect ratio of the film. The 2.35:1 ratio wasn't a thing until the 1950s when anamorphic lenses were being used. Before then movies had a more square shape at a 4:3 ratio. This could also be another factor as to why the lighthouse was effective in creating that TCM atmosphere.
And scope ultrawide aspect was being used on the big budget, brand new CoLoR films! A B&W noir or drama during the early days of CinemaScope (et al) would still use a narrower 1.85 to 1 or close to it.
A thing you realize when watching older films is the placement of actors in spaces and with regards to each other because of the square ("smaller") ratio, something that cannot be emulated with widescreen.
I remember many years ago (probably the 1990s) someone wrote a letter to Roger Ebert complaining that they went to see "The Wizard of Oz" in the theater, and the left and right sides of the screen were cut off! They said it looked like a big tv screen! They complained to the theater, but they said that is how they made movies in 1939. The letter writer thought they were lying to him, so wrote a letter to Ebert to ask if this was true. He of course just said yes, that's how the movie was originally made.
I was under the impression that 4:3 ratio was for television. The vacuum tube technolgy couldn't handle a wider ratio. The projecters in cinemas and movie thertres could handle the wider aspect ratio. 2.35:1 might not have been a thing but I think 4:3 is narrower than the pre-television ratio.
The 4-shot you show at 6:47 is a perfect showcase of Fincher's failure to replicate the style. It's not just the digital-ness and the aspect ratio, it's the lighting. Everything is covered in gray midtone, and the central character is blending into the background. It's like the DP didn't know it was going to be shown in black & white.
The sound mixing in this film really bothers me. The lo-fi mono mixing runs counter to what is still, despite Fincher's best efforts, a film that was clearly shot on digital. The efforts to make Mank look like a movie from the '40s ultimately fail to convince imo because Fincher refuses to do what Robert Eggers did with The Lighthouse, because he's sticking with digital and he refuses to change.
Yeah, it’s an interesting exercise in moviemaking. Film grain is alive and organic and unpredictable. The best attempt to replicate is still ultimately a simulation. It’s almost like a Turing test.
If he aimed to look like film, he failed utterly. It looks totally artificial, the contrast is off, the dynamic range is off, and the lighting is off. And I'm no film purist (in fact, couldn't care less)
@@myopiczeal Get this: he cares about the commentary given in CinemaStix review, which is what he's commenting under - not about film purity or the endeavours of David Fincher, which is the TOPIC of the video, not the video itself. We've all watched a few videos (mostly by recommendation) on things we genuinely don't care about normally, but turn out to so too well-made or engaging we're intrigued and finish watching them regardless. I don't particularly care about serial killers, I've still found quite a few fascinating truecrime vids.
All this effort to capture the "look" of older films and a layman can tell at a glance that it's shot on digital. Looking at these shots, it's not even close. There's more to it than just "make it black and white, then blur it a bit," the older cameras would pick up the light spectrums differently to give you deeper contrasts, particularly with people's faces. On this front, it simply does not succeed, and it was perhaps foolish to think that it could.
@@fater8711 they put a lot of effort into trying to achieve the effect, like they said in the video, they even got a custom monochrome sensor for their cameras, but they failed because there's no amount of effort they could put in that would perfectly recreate film
the problem isn't lenses, or camerawork, or digital film... it's the lighting. Look at any movie pre-1970 and you'll notice that everything is lit from the front with undiffused sharp shadows on the background or actors faces, usually 3 separate shadows because of the 3-point lighting. Once you notice it you wont be able to unnotice it because every single Hollywood movie (save for Kubrick) was lit like this. THIS is the look of old movies, not grain or film.
@@osmanyousif7849 I don't think that's accurate about Schindler's list. They went with black and white to match the documentary footage of the time, but made no attempt to make it feel like an 'old movie', as far as I recall. I don't think that would have made much sense either, given the subject matter. This was a modern retrospect, not an old school type of narrative.
Something that is so easily forgotten about replicating the feel of old movies is that the tools at their disposal at a time helped shape the movies. It's not just the look, it's the way everything had to be done, working within a set of rules and restraints. Like pointed out multiple times in this video, today it's easy to do anything, add whatever you want digitally. It permits a certain level of unrestrained freedom, but that has implications on how the movie is assembled as a whole. There is also the effect this style of film making has on creative focus. Modern movies often feel like their creative focus is spread too wide and too thin. Old movies tend to have much more focus on the basics - framing, blocking, movement, cutting - what is in front of you, because there wouldn't be all this peripheral hubris and fluff to consider.
It feels like I'm being sold something that I can see with my eyes isn't true. It legitimately feels like only a black and white filter is applied when you compare it directly to actual old films. Hearing all the "things" they did to it does not seem true, how can so much work produce what seems like a snapchat filter?
There is also the fact that many older films used painted backdrops and were set exclusively in studios so natural lights and shadows felt 2d. Modern movies can have real, expansive shots. He missed the mark because he didn’t have any real limitations to work through.
I don’t think it really worked at all! The lighthouse is a shining example of how it’s done, this film just looks digital but they turned down the saturation…
I think a big thing that stops Mank from looking like a true classic film is the aspect ratio. A film that was shot in the era Mank takes place in would be 1.375:1, instead of the 2.39:1 he chose to shoot in. It's kind of confusing that he went through all this effort to make the movie look old-timey but he didn't simply shoot it in a different size, which would have taken no extra effort, unlike painstakingly digitally manipulating the film in post-production.
What Mank really takes from Citizen Kane is the wish to have a long look at a complex, multi-faceted protagonist. It's a very literary approach. The most significant component of the film is its screenplay, and I'd say that that's why so far it hadn't really attracted the attention of video essayists. To me it wasn't that unexpected that Fincher would try to make a film like this, because there are several slow and quiet and indirect films among those that he has called his favourites. Films like Days of Heaven and Being There and Zelig. And although Citizen Kane and Lawrence of Arabia are not as sedate as Mank is, they are still character studies of a kind that Fincher had yet to attempt to make, and so I wasn't surprised at Mank being what it was. Yes, I worried in the first fifteen minutes that it was completely losing my interest, but I got into it and do think it's good. From my perspective it's irrelevant whether or not it's convincing as a pastiche of older filmmaking techniques. What does that add in terms of substance? One way or another the film lives or dies on the question of whether Herman Mankiewicz is an interesting character in himself, and a useful conduit through which to experience something of Hollywood in the 1930's.
I recall listening to an interview with Robert Bogdanovich and he said the secret to filming convincing old looking black and white footage is in the lighting. Black and white has to be lit a certain way. When he filmed Nickelodeon, the studio wanted it in color. So Bogdanovich had it lit as if it were black and white because he knew that one day it would be released in black and white.
I’m afraid I’d have to agree with a lot of the comments here. Mank still feels distinctly modern. I’d still say that the film look IS emulate-able using digital technology; I’ve seen it done. This is one of the rare cases where I’d have to say that Fincher wasn’t meticulous enough. The shaking looks algorithmic, the halation looks wrong, the dynamic range too wide, the image too sharp. All of these could have been rectified, of course, but they weren’t.
The Coen Brothers “The Man who wasn’t there” and “O Brother” are better examples on how to make modern movies look classic. They’re no Citizen Kane’s but the look, feel and sound are spot on. Mank is a good film but like the Aviator it’s in the uncanny valley and takes me out of it.
I've watched plenty of 30-50's B&W films here on TH-cam, and most of them possess common qualities. Long stationary shots, theatrical scripts, cross-fade or zooming transitions, painted scenery/constructed set backdrops, halting orchestral soundtrack, and high contrast lighting that comes with using film. I've never seen Mank, but from the clips here, I think they focused more on the filming procedure than the other qualities listed. There's so many elements that affected film production back in the day, and they need to be replicated as accurately as possible too.
Any amount of CG immediately pops out. If you're going for the old movie look you can't fake it. You need the old film and practical effects. I wish more current movies used practical effects tbh. You see those short clips of modern movie sets and they're just the actors in a bright green room surrounded by dude with green morph suits. Sure the amount of things that they can make is so much more, but it's so much less impressive on screen to me
A totally pointless process. Fincher had the budget to shoot on 35mm, which he should have shot on for authenticity instead of all these fake-looking digital filters. There's a world of difference between the look of 'The Lighthouse' and this movie.
The funny thing is that despite all this effort I didn't think for one second when watching Mank that they were even trying to make it look like a film from the era, because it doesn't. It just looks like a modern b&w movie to me. So he had all that work done altering every frame, only to have the viewer not notice or appreciate what he was going for. From his claims about how you can simulate anything, I guess he's also unaware that most of the cg effects he employs are not seamless. Whenever he has cameras appear to pass through keyholes or like at 5:05 through a handle, everything looks very artificial. These types of technique draw a lot of attention to themselves, which I can only assume they are meant to, but they are not convincing.
As an actor first and a filmmaker second; His reason for refusal of Gary Oldmans request is so fuckin annoying considering the amount of shit he does to edit the scene and what we’re looking at. It absolutely helps an actor when you give them the right makeup/costuming, it can create more honest performances to not look like yourself, free yourself of yourself and the fact finches thinks that’s artifice but not what he does post production is insane
It's like a Shakesperean play where the actors are dressed in period costumes. That helps suspend your disbelief just a tad more. Then there are modern productions where everyone is dressed in modern fashion. It's all artifice and your senses won't let you go deeper than the voice acting. Might as well listen to such productions on the radio.
Gee, I guess DeNiro shouldn't have worn all that make-up and artificial broken nose when he played Jake Lamotta in Raging Bull. Same goes for Lawrence Olivier in Richard the Third. Seems to me Fincher got it ass-backward. What looked wrong and acted as an obstacle to the viewer was the pseudo-vintage look. I found Mank unwatchable because of the cinematography.
@@jmchez Shakespearan productions that give modern looks (or re-interpret the time period, so not necessarily modern but also not exactly 1500-1600s either) is always a hit or miss. I appreciate what they do, because the whole marvel of Shakespeare's stories is that they can stand through the test of time, but they're certainly not for everyone and, as you say, can ruin the suspension of disbelief for people. I suppose the problem with trying to modernize the aesthetic of Shakespearan plays is a little bit like what people are discussing with Fincher's movie: you can't just change the visual aspect of it, you have to take into account the things of that period in history that influenced the making/techniques of stories/movies of that time. If you're modernizing the aesthetic, then you have to see how the modern setting/image will affect the way the play as a whole will be taken in. Successful "modern" Shakespeare performances though usually either do a mix of both (i.e. anachronistic costumes that doesn't try to fit itself into _any_ time period, just focusing on making the character visually distinct, OR yeah they're all in t-shirts or jeans or what have you, but the performers adjust their own movements and staging to match with the anachronism of aesthetic, sort of like Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet). At least with Shakespearan performances though, you can argue budget comes into play with the choice to costume the actors differently - not every theatre is guaranteed great margins of profit, after all.
Recently watched "The Love Witch". It's fantastic! It was made in 2016 but shot and cut together in a fashion that mimics the style of old horror films from the '60s and '70s. Despite having modern cars and phones in it, they really perfected the old movie feel because they went to the lengths of using 35mm film, old style cinematography, old sound equipment, hard lighting, and even the actors' performances feel reminiscent of the era. The point I want to make from this is A: the best way to replicate the look of an old movie is to just use as many old techniques as possible, and B: watch the The Love Witch if you haven't already. haha
Mank didn't look like a film from the 1930s or 1940s at all, despite how great it looked. Zodiac, while being a sensational movie also looked pretty ugly at times with hideous colors (those yellows are so yucky) due to the primitive digital camera used and how Fincher used it. Nowadays the current digital cameras are drastically more capable in every way though, so there's little to nothing holding back filmmakers to creating a specific and vivid look for any movie.
yeah i mean my dad tired watching the first 2 episodes of wanda vission for example he said it was like watching a rerun of betwiched or something lol.
"...also looked pretty ugly at times with hideous colors (those yellows are so yucky)..." Having lived then...that's literally what the Seventies looked like.
@@cinemascope53 I’m more referencing the night scene in Zodiac where he desaturated everything except the yellows, I’ve always thought that looked hideous. Either down to how and how much color that camera could record, or the filmmakers’ taste; neither was a good result. I don’t mind digital cinematography, and Fincher’s attention to detail is wonderful, but he can feel too wound up at times. Mank is kind of a good example of a lot of detail but not a lot of movie. And then when it comes to the “important” scenes, they feel so slight. You can look at films by Paul Thomas Anderson like Phantom Thread (1950s), Inherent Vice (late 60s), Licorice Pizza (early 70s), and Boogie Nights (late 70s) and they all are rich in colors, tones, textures that feel connected to/lived in by the characters. He paints such a rich palette even when in a “lo-fi” mode (the greasy 1970s), each image is a delight. I also generally prefer his movies (well not Inherent Vice hah) to Finchers, though I might like Zodiac more than most of PTA’s work.
To be honest, I love the look of old digital cameras. There’s a unique aesthetic to them that’s rarely acknowledged, probably because there isn’t a huge amount of nostalgia for it right now. Films like Inland Empire with it’s shitty consumer-level mini-DV camcorder has an almost voyaguristic look, like you’ve discovered some mysterious, cursed VHS tape. But yeah, using digital cameras for a film intended to look like something from the 1940’s probably isn’t the best choice.
@@cinemascope53 I think he's agreeing as well yes, Zodiac was great at capturing the time periods from 60s to 90s all the way I felt going through times when the killings were taken place and the Investigation continued
You would think a guy whose one of the most well known names in hollywood and a budget of 25 million dollars would simply just use the same old cameras and equipment from the time period.. instead of, ya know... spending 80% of the budget on VFX companies that failed to deliver the result he was actually looking for.
You know, I love the feel of old film. It's hard to put a finger on it, if it's the grain or the sharpless quality, but I've always found it more pleasant to look at.
40’s pictures didn’t have this gliding, slippery ultra smooth camera movement and chaotic cutting and unnaturally realistic, glossy picture quality that lacks grain, simply adding a B&W filter over any modern movie wont create the glorious essence of a golden age of Hollywood movie.
I thought of this video too while watching that last night! It’s still mot perfect but it’s much better looking than Mank. It had nice crunchy shadows, correctly shaped reel cues, and authentic anamorphic distortion. It was just enough that I could trick my brain into accepting I was watching a 60s Roger Corman movie.
I still dont get why go through all this hassle to then shoot on 2:35:1 aspect ratio. Which obviously is not contemporary to Kane. Was it THAT hard to crop it to 4:3? Even in 4:3 it still looks digital, the grain is too consistent and fine, the picture too sharp. My guess is that since its a made for Netflix movie, they require to shoot in 4K, hence the super sharp look. Ugh, I love Fincher but mank its such a miss. Even if it was shot in film and looked old, its still a meh movie :(
There's a reason more people have heard of The Lighthouse than Mank, and it's because the other way IS wrong, but that other way is creating everything through post production. Sometimes, there is no substitute, and nowhere is it more obvious than in Mank, which tries its hardest to emulate an aesthetic to trick the viewer, but fails in its trickery. I also find it hilariously ironic that Fincher doesn't want any sort of "Artifice" on his actors, and yet is willing to compose entire scenes of greenscreen and CGI. The setting is an actor too.
It seems Fincher wanted the look without any false authenticity or deception, he didn't even stick to a period accurate aspect ratio. I don't think with Fincher's approach to making movies (6:20) that he'd work well with film.
That’s a really interesting way of looking at it. Like maybe it isn’t meant to necessarily trick anyone? And yeah, it’d be a lot of wasted film and money doing that many takes. And I mean, it was. SE7EN, Fight Club.. he managed on film for a long time… somehow.
@@CinemaStix I suppose a good comparison would be looking at the VERY early widescreen stuff, like Raoul Walsh's "The Big Trail" or Roland West's "The Bat Whispers", both from the early 1930s.
One thing must be said though... Even when Fincher fails or doesn't quite achieve what he wanted, he's never boring. At the very least, his works always generate this kind of discussions, which are very enlightening.
5:42 I don't think any of these shots are day for night. It looks like a regular night scene just with powerful lights. The sky is pitch black and you can see the shadow from the tree on the top of the church like it's being lit from a low angle.
Yeah, that just seems like a patently bad example. I mean, at the very end of that shot, we see multiple "long stark shadows"... I guess that means there must be a second sun present, lol. Also, why use Welles's The Stranger as a would-be exemplar of a "low-budget" movie? And why, particularly, if you're going to claim that this technique was "the ONLY WAY [emphasis mine] to get enough light"? Then it wouldn't matter if you're budget was large or small. I don't have much faith in this TH-camr's acumen, tbh.
Something about this bugs me, and bear in mind I am not a film student or work in it. What is the point of trying to recreate that era specifically, something that should be next to Citizen Kane, not just homage but more than that? Why not any other era, why not the first film? well, aside from no one would understand/care? I haven't heard of this movie until now. I mean, it's interesting that he attempted to do it, but this just looks like another homage to Citizen Kane stepped up unlike any other. But if Citizen Kane is so ground breaking, why not break new ground? Like it did? It just seems to me without seeing it, on face value, it seems more like a vanity and gimmick project. But, I dunno, what do I know?
I find the obsession with attempting to digitally recreate what can simply be achieved with existing, tried-and-true tools (a la eggers in the lighthouse) used by generations of directors to be its own form of arrogance. Feels like it is missing the very point of the era of filmmaking it is trying to be a love letter to.
Honestly, the amount of mid tone details seem to be the biggest giveaway to me. With old film cameras, there's a way that details drop off in the shadows, and there's less crispness. If he had been willing to part with those details, I think he could have gotten a lot closer
Early film camera images looked, when new and projected correctly, something like HD. Filmmakers of the era added lens filters and post production filters and all kinds of tricks to give the image an added aesthetic. This is just the same thing really. It’s the way Fincher framed the shots not the tricks he used to sell the audiences preconceived idea of old film which makes it looks like Howard Hawks or Michael Curtiz shooting a making of Citizen Kane.
There’s this weird bloom and smoothness on all the effects. Even with added “grained” the light and detail is TOO SMOOTH and the light is too flat. It feels video game-y
It’s like the uncanny valley, but with a new film looking like old films instead. It can look as close to the real thing as possible, but one can feel something’s off with barely a second of footage.
Mank was a hard to watch film because of how much it kept to the aesthetic and techniques of the time. I feel like it's one of those movies that are genuingly masterpieces but purely from an intelectual point of view. If you don't know what you're looking for then it's really hard to appreciate.
I’d have to agree. It’s not what you put on when you want to watch a Fincher movie by any means. But it does things that few people in the position to make well-budgeted movies do, and that’s special in its own right. It’s an exercise in… something.
No. He didn't do it for himself. He even kept asking the interviewer what he thought about the movie when he gave an interview for Esquire or some other magazine I can't remember. Mank is hard to watch because the movie is bad. Yes, technicaly it has it's "beauty" (I personaly think it looks awful - moden lighting, modern camera movement, modern lenses with a black and white filter and fake grain and scratches??? Like, that doesn't make any sense. Anyway...), but it has a lot of problems. Yes, Fincher can do a bad movie. And there is nothing wrong with that.
@@tiburc10 Just because you're making something for yourself doesn't meant you won't seek feedback, on the contrary I'd say. Still, I agree with you that it does look pretty... odd? I feel like he aimed to get the best of both worlds and didn't achieve it.
Hard disagree. The film doesn’t commit to the idea of making a movie in the 1930s. The aspect ratio for one. Why would you make this film with a modern aspect ratio? And I would’ve liked some grain. They filmed it on a digital camera and it looks like a digital camera. They did do one thing right and that’s with the sound. They nailed that. But the visuals? No way.
Actually that Riverboat Casino from Gone Girl is real. It MIGHT be digitally added into that shot, but it is a totally real thing. I know because I live near it. It's about 2 hours north of ST. Louis. Fincher being the perfectionist that he is got so real with not only the scouting locations but also to the minutiae of the area. A great example, is that my town has two rather popular news corporations, and BOTH of them had new vans featured in the movie as cameros/easter eggs. And a town about 25 minutes away also had a news channel's acronym featured on a van. Being that the movie takes place in the Ozark/ STL area, I find that SUPER immersive and also super cool my town has something featured in a FINCHER movie! That his moody aesthetic comes near my home and familiar locations. Look for WGEM van (seen twice) and KHQA van and you will see them (and the exact symbols of their channels) in the movie! (Terrence Malick also has a movie that feels very midwestern and super close to home!) My favorite film is GWTDT. (big Murder mystery fan! and love the characters!) I feel like him doing this same concept with the Sweden of that film feel super escapist, almost like fantasy!
@@CinemaStix Sadly, Fincher is not a fan of shooting on film anymore. I remember reading somewhere that when Sam Mendes asked several filmmakers if they preferred film or digital, Fincher's reply was "Digital. What if this film?" Sadly, I can't find the goddamned original article but if I do find it, I'll send the link.
@@vik.1903 No, yeah, crediting the labor of the VFX industry is silly. I'm not just being literal. Fincher didn't build those things figuratively or literally. He just simply did not build them.
Well, for a meticulous director, he failed at ''faking'' it with this movie. Traditional film cameras still exist and some major movies still use them. He could've made the movie feel more classic by using the actual tools, which are still around even today.
The problem with 35mm film is that it is almost just as clean and crisp as Alexa digital footage. You can literally apply a similar powergrade and get the same look. The real key to making film look like film is to shoot on 16mm. Look at First Man or Moonrise Kingdom, very beautiful filmic films that aren’t super sharp.
If you're talking about resolution and grain (versus noise), sure. But film has other inherent qualities that still make it distinguishable from digital, perhaps most obviously how it responds to highlights.
That was a really awesome little video essay, haha but man that last line pulling in the Every Frame a Painting line? *chefs kiss* So good :) Really brought me back, and this is at least on the level of some of his original videos he did, and he did some really darn incredible video essays.
Gotta say, when people comment that they got the reference, it makes me the happiest. I just couldn’t resist adding it. I mean obviously that video (and channel) was massively popular, but it’s been out of commission so long I worry more and more people just aren’t seeing it. Dude’s a legend. So, of course, your comment means a ton.
@@CinemaStix Genuinely, first video I've seen in a long time that reminds me of Every Frame and, as you know, that's just such the highest of compliments. Similar feel, you make your points well but don't draw the essay out too long, just great stuff. If you can hit this sort of sweet spot again, I'll really be looking forward to your future work. Loved the reference as this feels like a spiritual sequel to Every Frame's Fincher piece. I'll be hoping for a spiritual sequel to his Bong Joon Ho piece as I've always wished he'd still been in the TH-cam video essay business for Parasite.
I truly can’t thank you enough for this. It was the greatest video essay channel to ever exist, hands down. Truly legendary. Funny thing is, while I do take inspiration from his work in the structure and style of a number of my videos, this wasn’t consciously one of them. Must just be engrained or something. Anyway, I hope you’ll enjoy my next one this Saturday. I also wish they hadn’t retired. They left quite the void of a special kind of video essay. Anyway, thanks again :) -Danny
@@CinemaStix Ooo exciting! Haha I've got notifications on, I'll be there haha :) . But ya, like Elysian Frost said, you're filling a super awesome niche here, I think I've been trying to find something similar on youtube since they stopped posting, and your content is really hitting that sweet spot of awesome cinema analysis (not that it's an exact copy! just that it's kind of hitting those "deep insight and awesome editing" feels). Keep it up, it's legitimately great!
I think its funny with how much effort he put into trying to achieve the look of a 40s movie and how hard he failed at achieving it. When home alone 2 can do a better job in actually making a film look like it was a movie made in that era for the fake movie “angels with even filther souls”
I’m a bit confused. Is it prohibitively difficult or expensive to just like…use the actual cameras they would have used in the forties? I don’t understand how they could care so much about this aesthetic, and have this kind of technical knowledge and money, and bungle the intended effect so badly. The digital post-processing was too little too late - I’m not into editing or cinematography at all, but even I can tell the shot composition is totally wrong, the fidelity (and maybe frame rate?) is too high, the effects are too slick, the sound is too crisp, literally everything except the most superficial veneer is unmistakably modern.
I feel like the cinematography, camera angles and the way it moves is what gives it away. That and it's shot on a very high res camera and it's obvious the grain was added after
The main issue is the soft light. Film cameras can't capture low lighting as good as digital cameras. What's worst is that the point of B&W films is to have contrast. In Mank everything is a big grayish tone where nothing highlights and with no color, makes it hard to the eye to read. I think we can honestly say this is the worst Lincher film. I couldn't even finish it.
it's almost insulting to even mention Mank in the same sentence as The Lighthouse because Mank fails on basically every level to capture the feeling of film. I have much more respect for Eggers going out of his way in the script, working with his actors to get the period dialogue and accents right, going to a real location, and his filmmaking process in general to capture that specific feeling and texture, compared to Fincher doing however many hundreds of takes on digital in front of a green screen. The digital way just looks fake at first glance and it's not even up for discussion.
A film that looks completely within its period but isn’t, would be Mid 90s. Of course you also mentioned lighthouse. I for the most part like Finchers movies. In comparison with other recent black and white films, watching Roma, is way more impactful than watching an obvious digital film-made to look like it isn’t! The disparity between the authenticity of his actors and that of Finchers aesthetic, couldn’t be more emphasised.
I think one of the biggest tells that this is a modern film and not a classic film that I don't see anyone else talking about is the aspect ratio. Fincher shot Mank in his usual widescreen, specifically 2.20:1, an aspect ratio that wouldn't have been possible in 1941, as every film at the time was in 4:3.
The main issue that breaks the illusion for me is the cinematography. the angles and close up tracking shots still make it feel like a movie that was released in our time period.
For me it's the fake softness. They tried keeping that digital sharpness while getting the softness by using a "bloom" type effect, and it just looks icky to me. Fake and cheap.
@@MFKitten "Citizen Kane" was never that gauzy.
It can also just feel like nostalgia bait most of the time if not done tastefully and purposefully.
I also think the acting fails the illusion. By the time method acting had become popular, black/white was no longer the norm, so to see acting in that very realistic and immersive style really takes it out of the area, and we don't see the old character based acting from the 30s and 40s. Some of the charm of the old movies is how "moviesque" the characters are, but Mank is a very realistic depiction of humans, which stops me from feeling the period.
I just didn't enjoy this movie which is too bad because I like Fincher.
Fun fact: for Persian dub, the voice actors felt that "Mank" doesn't feel like an old movie. So instead of going with the standard modern ways of Dubbing the movie, they went with the old way. The dub sounds like it is from 60s.
That moment when Persian mank feels older than the original
@@MonolithproductionsT lol yeah. Iran's dub industry is actually fascinating. Or at least it used to be. Just like anything else, Islamic Republic has lead it to destruction. But they still have good stuff like Mank or BB/BCS dub. I remember they always had a spot in international dub festivals, alongside France and Italy who also have good dub industries. I personally like Japan's dub industry too.
So that's one of the movie where the dubbed version may be better than the original lol
@@daijoubu4529 literally the same was with Star Wars prequel trilogy with dubbing from different countries, not so cringe
I didn't know films were dubbed in Persian especially high quality ones
I love how this video takes is through a a thoughtful, even laborious analysis of all the effort David Fincher put in to give us a modern “vintage” movie…and then all the comments leave no question that he completely failed lol
That’s because the video takes Fincher at his word, and yes, Fincher worked hard on it. Perhaps this channel’s creator sympathized too much with Fincher because they see their own work as a digital creator who works hard at editing and so relate to it. Kind of like how Fincher (like Pauline Kael before him) relates to Herman J. Mankiewicz to the point where he misses the forest for a single familiar tree.
I try my best to keep the content of the videos fairly “objective”. In the sense that I more just consolidate, synthesize and relay information I find interesting. Or as you said, take the filmmakers at their word wherever possible, without injecting too much bias when I can. Haha, at least that way people in the comments can argue all they want, without actually arguing with me.
Considering the fact that David Fincher is just difficult to work with, I wouldn’t be surprised. Dude literally overworks the cast and crew just to get even 5 minutes of a film “perfect”. During the production of Zodiac, Robert Downey Jr. literally got no breaks for even to go to the bathroom, so in “a form of protest“, left jars of piss next to Fincher to so how angry he was at him. And Jake Gyllenhaal was always being belittled by Fincher whenever there was an imperfect scene with the actor. Fincher would be destroying every take in front of Gyllenhaal, until he got the scene right, leaving the actor both exhausted and frustrated.
Yeah, I clicked this expecting a critique. Ended up learning a lot about all the work that went into this but so much of that work feels driven by poor decision making at the top: Fincher
Won’t find many opinion-filled critiques from me on this channel :)
there was one key phrase that stuck out to me "he built it from scratch." Not to be a stick in the mud here, but it was David's TEAM that built those things. It was the team who took those green screen elements or necessary computer files and made the magic happen. Without David's vision it wouldnt have come together, no one is denying that, but it's disheartening to see so many youtube cinephiles and movie buffs forget the huge teams of artists and computer software experts that really pull it all together
You dont have yo get so indepth with it, surely you arent expecting them to recite the whole crew name to name or expect him to monolouge about him only being the one who directed his vision
@@Omega-mr1jg no of course not, but i do expect some sort of acknowledgement. It's possible my brain didnt register it, but i cant recall a single line in the video talking about the director's crew and staff which only perpetuates the issue plaguing the entertainment industry
@@Omega-mr1jg I mean there are a lot of union rules that specify that film credits have to be specific, so why shouldn't we?
It could have been and it looks like it was done by interns lol
@@alexc8114 Because we're well aware and nobody's paycheck and taxes are on the line.
I don't think there's any pretense here, or that anyone believes, Fincher is actually doing every single step, from filming to post, personally.
It’s the color depth, the shot composition, the camera movement that kills it. There’s too many grays, not enough stark shadows. The cameras move too fluidly and freely, the shots feel inspired by modern films. The backgrounds and foregrounds have too much depth, areas that would normally be projected pictures, videos, or matte paintings are cgi. You could’ve made it look like a 40s/50s film on digital with the right cameras, techniques, and editing, I feel, he just didn’t do that.
exactly the shots look too modern too like its subbtle but its like your brain notices it. you might not notice it though but again your brain does. like as much as i hate to admit this it feels like its gotten to the point where creating a flim from that time period is not something that is practical and i mean this because most directors and actors and everyone making a movie or show just has too much of a modern mindset when making a movie. sure you can create accurate looking time period pieces but to make a flim that looks like it was made in that time period is super mega hard.
The grayscale tonalities aren't paid attention to by Fincher. Amanda Seyfried's facial features constantly look like they're about to collapse into gray blobs because the makeup and the lighting aren't defining them enough.
All you film experts live in comment sections lmao
@@thewewguy8t88 I’d argue that Guy Maddin is excellent proof that this isn’t the truth
also the general lighting. It still uses very modern soft lighting rather than using lighting more like the cinematography of the era. Moreover that older black and white film is still made and is for sale by Kodak today. The Lighthouse used Eastman double-x which debuted in 1959. If he wanted to make it look like old film he could have literally just shot in on black and white film.
I'm sorry, but you can always tell a difference between digital and 70 year old film. The reason that the old film in home alone fooled everyone into thinking that it was a real movie is because they actually used the old equipment. Every time you switched from modern to old movies in this video we could all see which was which almost immediately.
Hah, I’m so happy you mentioned the movie in Home Alone. They did that one brilliantly.
Yeah, I was wondering who he was trying to fool. The Lighthouse actually had me fooled when it came up, because everything was period made, even the cinematography, but Mank is too modern in how things are set up. Too many close ups and tracking shots and unorthodox angles just take me out of it.
It looks like any other modern film with a b&w filter tbh. It was the limitations of the equipment that drew out the creativity of technique in the time. If you want to emulate the techniques, you need to adopt the limitations of the old equipment. But I think the most obvious part is the voices and mannerism of the actors. Like the aesthetic, they just sound like modern actors doing "old movie voice" impersonations.
I actually didn't know and never realised that wasn't a real film.
Don't forget the sound. The audio in Mank is too quiet and soft. Lots of old movies were fucking loud and had echoey-sound mixing.
All that work to emulate old film and it’s still quite obvious within seconds of watching Mank that it is a modern film made to look classic. Not saying it doesn’t look nice or doesn’t emulates the style well, but if his intention was to have the audience potentially confuse the film for an actual mid 20th century movie then it sadly still doesn’t fully sell it. Really the only way to do it properly is to do it for real with the real equipment of the time.
The whole thing is shot like a film from 2020. Not to mention the film’s in widescreen/16:9, which almost no film was in the ‘40s. Most films were 4:3. And then there’s the exact ways the camera moves and things that which don’t really work. It looks nice, it’s a good homage, but the image is too clean and the it’s all too obvious that the dirt was added in later. A better example is The Lighthouse, which the video brought up, which added to the weird factor because it looked just like some old foreign film you find on Netflix which doesn’t even have its own Wikipedia page.
The “dead giveaway” that usually takes me out of films trying to model classic Hollywood styles? The camera quality. Everything is too clear, too crisp, too fluid. So if a film is overly dependent on needing the viewer/me to believe what I’m watching is not only a film taking place in say the 1930s but actually FILMED during that time too… Turn the 4K down or something, idk 🤷🏾♀️
8/8/22 🌙 953
@@randombrokeperson same goes for the audio as well
I think Fincher's attention to detail for lighting and composition are what ultimately betray the vintage aesthetic. Old movies were lit in a more practical and flat way, where as Fincher lights his movies with deep shadows and perfect compositions.
It doesnt look like or emulated the style well. Mank looks like a Jackson Pollack painting
To be honest despite all their work and effort, it is still *_HIGHLY_* noticeable it was ''faked'' - everything looks to crisp, too ''clean'', to ''sanitized'', contrasts aren't high enough, edges are too sharp, not soft enough, and then the cinematography and lighting are too clean and modern-like.
I'm sad to say that he actually really failed in trying to simulate an ''old movie'' - and as I say that as a massive Fincher fan, he's amongst my favourite directors
@@myopiczeal digital transfers of old movies stopped looking awful about 10 years ago lol
@@myopiczeal "All those old movies look terrible." You must not have seen many old movies.
@@myopiczeal I would say some of the old movies look way better than Mank.
@@myopiczeal He's your favorite director because he couldn't accomplish what he wanted? Weird take but okay dude
@@kev3d look you can't be arguing this seriously. Modern movies look miles better, because they have 70 years of innovations behind them. Screen resolutions, brightness, dynamic range, colour range are infinitely better. Even an iPhone could shoot better video than the highest grade cameras of that era, so to actually mimic movies from that era, Fincher would have had to downgrade his video down to the bare minimum and he probably wasn't willing to lose that much quality.
Despite all the work he put in, to me, the entire movie looks modern just with a "soften" filter applied over it. The only time it feels authentic to the era are in specific shots like the title, or if you were to take pause it. I *might* be more persuaded to its supposed origin if it hoped to emulate a 1960s black-and-white film, but the 1930s and 40s? No way...
Did you ever see The Artist? If so, what did you think about that one?
Exactly. It looks nothing like a movie "made in the period" like Fincher said.
@@CinemaStix The Artist looks like an authentic film from that era.
I was thinking exactly this throughout the videoè
@@CinemaStix that one does, and so this video cant compete with movies like that, the cgi is well done, but its so easy to better replicate the effects of an old video record + the right ratio, but he even didnt do that, you see the 8k way too hard
There is no denying that David Fincher is a good director, and that he works very hard on his movies... But good God, the idea that he wanted this to look like an actual film from the 1930s is painfully unfortunate because its so clearly not that. The camera is obviously digital no matter how many effects he tries to put on it, the shadows don't look right, the camera angles don't look right, everything is too fluid and clean, the sets have too much depth, and I could keep going on. I feel this is a real problem with Fincher's vision and his style. He is a master of CGI, but he's also obsessed with it, and it's almost a crutch now, he *needed* to leave his comfort zone in order to make this look right, but he didn't, you need practicality for old movies, that roughness and limited resources can't be recreated in the method he chose. But that could just be me.
Pushing this comment up.
Agree. Using an insane amount of modern filmmaking tools to try to make a movie look like it was made with old equipment just doesn't do the trick.
Nice eye fr
Disagree, you have literally no idea how invisible 3d can be. As someone that works in the industry, fincher just did it poorly here
@@anguishedcarpet you have no idea what you are even talking about. you work in the industry and refer to CGI as 3d? really? also nobody was saying his CGI was bad, infact its really good. saying its poor is clueless. the reason it was bad was that it was used in a movie shot digitally trying to replicate 30s films that use more practical sets and no matter how good CGI is, it will never match the feel of practical sets.
I'll be honest... I think Fincher is wrong. Mank doesn't look quite like an old movie, it still looks too smooth, too fresh, too clear. Film is film, that's that. If you're gonna go out of your way to try and emulate film, only to not even get there... Just use film.
I'm personally a fan of shooting digitally but if you want to make it look old, just use old equipment. That might've been difficult for a small indie filmmaker but I'm sure Fincher could've gotten his hands on some old lenses and film. He put a whole lot of effort into this and failed miserably at making it look old.
Also the cinematographers are spethal now, they don't seem to understand actual exposure, or color.
I think Knives Out is exceptional at achieving a filmic look with digital. The logic for why to me made sense as they wanted certain scenes to be lit in ways which just wouldn't work with using fim. Even then if you look very closely I find the grain can look like an added layer (I do find the way the light is shaped beautiful.)
When you're so set on making it look authentic as Mank does actually doing it the old way honestly seems like less effort. Making things look imperfect also seems to go against what Fincher has been doing for the past decades so it seems like an odd choice.
@@PauLtus_B I wonder if Fincher is so far removed from using old Hollywood practical techniques that he just couldn't do it on his own.
Digital's powerful. It absolutely could emulate film almost 1:1, it's probably just a pain in the ass to do so. Not perfect, but close enough that only certain details would be off.
I've seen The Lighthouse on the big screen. It was impressive, eerie and looked like exactly what Fincher intended to create: it seems like a forgotten film that resurfaced. Even on TH-cam Mank looks fake. It's exactly the things that you called meticulous that kill the illusion: the fake wobble, the fake grain, the switched-around windows and increased kicked up dust.
If you really want to create something period appropriate there is no way around it ... use film, use practical effects, use appropriate equipment build real sets. Everything else will look fake.
I agree that it didn't work, but I disagree about the reasons. All he needed to do was soften the image way more. The sharpness is MUCH too high for a vintage look.
Although there was a lot of PR about the fake film look they worked so hard on for Mank, the whole film looks incredibly digital to me and I found that very distracting throughout. It absolutely doesn't carry the aesthetic of older films in my opinion, and that's a huge missed opportunity. I'm not saying imitating old film stock is impossible, but it's absolutely not achieved in Mank.
yeah it doesn't look like an old film at all, everything is so smooth and HD
Same! it doesn't look ANYTHING LIKE an old Film movie. The Lighthouse? 100%. Mank? its a Wanna-Be.
@@C3lticlord Film being blurry is one of the damning misconceptions people have. Actual 35mm film projected on the big screen was incredibly sharp. Way sharper than HD. It's the degradation over time, limitations of digital scans, how we remember the look of TV in the 50s and 60s that makes us think old films are blurry and scratchy. They were not. Certainly not when being shown in theaters. Smoothness is also one of the major advantages of film. It's sharp without being hard. It was a faithful recreation. Unfortunately people's perception of what old film should look like is usually wrong and that makes us think that Mank looked too digital. For anyone who's experienced real 35mm film projection, it's pretty accurate.
@@lamenamethefirst Can't agree with you more. But my and most of the people's perception of 35mm is altered, as you said. I'm aware of the fact that the quality back then was fresh and clean, however I like the esthetics of the degradation. Nevertheless I dont like blurry low qulity scans of the old films. I recently watched "The cabinet of Dr. Caligari" in Bluray quality and it was surprisingly clean, and I really wish that more films were hi-res scanned and restorated.
@@lamenamethefirst Thank you, many people forget that a lot of remasters of stuff from the early 2000s are as crisp as they are because it's barely degraded film stock, and up-scaling that to our bigger resolutions is sooooo easy. Whereas shooting digital then caps the resolution at what was worthwhile. You can't have up-scaling film out-perform upscaling digital if it's inherently blurry.
Something that I think a lot of people forget is that old films, often pre-Hitchcock films, are shot as if they're stage plays. Long takes, sets with 3 walls, undramatic lighting except for a few strong shadows. Even the actors move like they're playing to an audience instead of a camera.
I remember one of the American Girl Rebecca books talking about this a bit when Rebecca has a small part in a silent movie. Stage actors and screen actors move and fill the space differently, and expect large, rapt audiences vs smaller, silent crews.
It's not just about the look of the cameras and technology, but about the mindset of the presentation.
Mank does not look like movie shot on film, it looks exactly like what it is; a digital film trying to emulate film. It's blatantly obvious to anyone who remember going to the cinema before digital was a thing. It just isn't, and will never be the same. The human eye is very good at catching fakes.
Yep, should have just used film
Especially since you CAN just do digital editing on a film-shot movie. You're going to have to digitse it anyway if you want to show it in a modern threatre (or put it on Netflix, sell it on DVD, etc.) so why not?
Yes you'd run the risk of something looking out of place, but first off it'd far easier to tell if something will fit perfectly in-style with the rest of the scene when you already HAVE the scene (and you can know beforehand the scene's going to look as you want with little-to-know post production beyond this), but also it's far less work to edit some aspects of a scene than it is an entire movie, so there's sufficiently less room for mess-ups this way.
I genuinely don't understand why they didn't do this.
Is it? I confused a blurry moving cgi of Weasel from Suicide Squad for a real animal. That scene where it is licking the grates.
It's probably possible to make digital look indistinguishable from film, but Mank certainly did not achieve it. Comparing this to The Lighthouse just shows how spectacularly Fincher failed.
Fincher's "old film look" is quite fake. Not because he shot in digitally in 8K, but his approach. Old films from 1930s were shot on low sensitive films rated at 25 ASA (Technicolor movies were 6 ASA, because of a beam splitter). That's why the filmmakers used back then extra lights even on sunny days. Fincher's DP could use strong ND filters to lower the sensor sensitivity and use more studio lights. Next he could shot the film in academy format, or made a compromise of 1.66:1 ratio, not to shoot it in wider aspect ratio. Cue blips may be cool, but those are squashed in 2.35:1 aspect ratio.
Movies shot on film are not sharp because of the film grain, but they are not soft like Fincher did in post-production.
He could do one thing: use Arrilaser and print/burn the movie on a 35mm B&W film stock and then scan it back to digital, it would look more convincing.
"Movies shot on film are not sharp..." they were actually quite sharp, even with film grain. They just got softer because through the process of time passing, the frames being scaled, them and then the actual projection process. This is what Fincher failed to account for: The effects were not all being introduced at the same time. There's a noticeable difference between a once-sharp movie becoming softer through lots of changes and natural processes, and "let's slap some filters on it in post".
Has anyone done that before? Burnt the digital to film then scanned back to digital? I'm curious how the final result looks
@@drewlop Basically every Pixar movie until Up, all CGI effects, every movie from cca. 2000.
@@BlueNeon81 oh interesting, didn't know that; do you know any live action examples where that technique was used?
@@drewlop Every movie released since 2000.
I’m almost certain David Fincher isn’t spending countless days and nights in 3DS Max, modeling these extraordinary settings, backgrounds, effects, and dioramas.
Lol true
Fr, I thought to myself "really? A director directs and edits cgi by his own?" Gotta have team that suits his needs
Lol, yea the way he worded it made it sound like Fincher did that work himself.
exactly what I came to say
@@Kinbote4444 It says "assistant cameraman and matte photographer" on Wikipedia for his time at ILM
"The other way was wrong" what a great nod from one brilliant video essayist to another!
:)
all of this work largely is fine but there's one thing he didn't account for at all. everyone in Mank is still doing modern style acting. the way people act in front of a camera has changed a lot since Citizen Kane and everyone in Mank moves and talks like they would in any other film made now, not like people did back then
honestly just in general i think its a very hard thing to recreate a flim from the 1930s-1940s exactly just due to well its hard to explain but even the sets themselves look modern as well. i mean wandda vission tired this as well to recreate the feel of sitcoms from the 1950s and1960s and i wont lie idk if it pulled it off or not but yeah actors do talk and act differently compared today even if you were accurately recreate every set from a movie or tv show i dont know if any modern day actor could pull of the same type of acting that happened back then ironically at least not without looking like they were acting lol.
I think Lilly Collins was the only one who at least put some effort to keep that 40s british hollywood style accent till the end. others just dropped their accents after 20 minutes did their own style of acting lol
Another difference is average shot length - modern films have significantly shorter shots then in the past. Partly due to technological change and partly due to the cultural influence music videos and commercials have had on film making. Plus fully digital NLE’s make it extremely easy to make rapid edits compared to a time when reels of film had to be physically cut and spliced together. The 1929 film Man with a Movie Camera was criticized on release for it’s average shot length of 2.3 seconds, which was 4x faster then films from it’s time period - some critics even found it physically disorienting to watch. Today it’s fairly common to see films with average shot lengths of 2-3 seconds, even for films which aren’t particularly action-packed.
And not only that, but the camera moves a lot more frequently in those shots compared to before, with steadycam and lighter equipment making it easy for cameras to make complex movements instead of simply being fixed in place, or needing to use expensive rigs for simple pans or tracking shots. Many traditional visual effects, like matte painting, required the camera to be kept completely still to maintain the illusion, something that VFX doesn’t require due to 3D match moving.
I think these differences are probably the main reason why many people find older films “boring”. The editing for older films simply linger on shots for far too long, and many shots contain very little movement outside that created by the actors. Ultimately, the question is whether the intention is to create a film that merely “feels” like it’s from that period, or one that’s literally shot as though it was from that period, using the old language of film. The latter will probably just alienate many viewers as that language is now foreign to us.
Gesticulating and enunciating like theater actors while using a mid-atlantic accent. Those things don't fly in a movie today and people didn't talk like that off-camera, either. This movie is about real people who aren't acting for the camera, so to speak. Consider it a documentary shot with hidden cameras.
of all of the criticisms in these comments, I think this aspect was intentional. The film also includes harsh language and gestures which wouldn't have flown under the Hays Code
4:56
This really shows that even with 1 frame, he couldn’t do it. Look at how the non faked image has harsher greys with the blacks being super dark while the faked one is very smooth with its greys.
Basically, one is very much black and white while the other is grey scale, adding other effects won’t change that.
Adding other effects definitely will change it. I can make a more convincing fake on my phone.
@@eugenelevin9809 i agree. play around with contrast, white, shadow, black, and a filter known only as "pop"!
I don't understand why the "meticulous one" didn't do that. unless the stills above were further manipulated to prove a point. The crispness of well's famous long-shot is incredibly superior.
[edit] I just had the idea that side-by-side comparisons of film & digital are not fair play. because with film, every frame *is* a photo. One cannot get such a good still from digital because it's fluid.
Yes that's it.
Agreed. overall the digital sensor seems to be capturing a lower-contrast image than with film. The soft, diffuse lighting in Mank isn't helping either.
I think another thing to keep in mind is the aspect ratio of the film. The 2.35:1 ratio wasn't a thing until the 1950s when anamorphic lenses were being used. Before then movies had a more square shape at a 4:3 ratio. This could also be another factor as to why the lighthouse was effective in creating that TCM atmosphere.
And scope ultrawide aspect was being used on the big budget, brand new CoLoR films! A B&W noir or drama during the early days of CinemaScope (et al) would still use a narrower 1.85 to 1 or close to it.
A thing you realize when watching older films is the placement of actors in spaces and with regards to each other because of the square ("smaller") ratio, something that cannot be emulated with widescreen.
I remember many years ago (probably the 1990s) someone wrote a letter to Roger Ebert complaining that they went to see "The Wizard of Oz" in the theater, and the left and right sides of the screen were cut off! They said it looked like a big tv screen! They complained to the theater, but they said that is how they made movies in 1939. The letter writer thought they were lying to him, so wrote a letter to Ebert to ask if this was true. He of course just said yes, that's how the movie was originally made.
This bugged the hell out of me.
I was under the impression that 4:3 ratio was for television. The vacuum tube technolgy couldn't handle a wider ratio. The projecters in cinemas and movie thertres could handle the wider aspect ratio. 2.35:1 might not have been a thing but I think 4:3 is narrower than the pre-television ratio.
The 4-shot you show at 6:47 is a perfect showcase of Fincher's failure to replicate the style. It's not just the digital-ness and the aspect ratio, it's the lighting. Everything is covered in gray midtone, and the central character is blending into the background. It's like the DP didn't know it was going to be shown in black & white.
Exactly, lol, it looks as bad as just shooting with a random phone and then slapping a b&w filter on it
The sound mixing in this film really bothers me. The lo-fi mono mixing runs counter to what is still, despite Fincher's best efforts, a film that was clearly shot on digital. The efforts to make Mank look like a movie from the '40s ultimately fail to convince imo because Fincher refuses to do what Robert Eggers did with The Lighthouse, because he's sticking with digital and he refuses to change.
Yeah, it’s an interesting exercise in moviemaking. Film grain is alive and organic and unpredictable. The best attempt to replicate is still ultimately a simulation. It’s almost like a Turing test.
@@CinemaStix maybe AI would have made it possible to recreate the film look
It's bad when there's a better attempt in Home Alone than in Fincher's movie.
If he aimed to look like film, he failed utterly. It looks totally artificial, the contrast is off, the dynamic range is off, and the lighting is off. And I'm no film purist (in fact, couldn't care less)
Hit the nail on the head
@@myopiczeal as if thats such a hard thing to do? commenting on youtube is about as hard as taking in a deep breath
@@myopiczeal Get this: he cares about the commentary given in CinemaStix review, which is what he's commenting under - not about film purity or the endeavours of David Fincher, which is the TOPIC of the video, not the video itself.
We've all watched a few videos (mostly by recommendation) on things we genuinely don't care about normally, but turn out to so too well-made or engaging we're intrigued and finish watching them regardless.
I don't particularly care about serial killers, I've still found quite a few fascinating truecrime vids.
Do you mean could care less? I'm still confused by this
@@Equinox_5 Could care less is wrong. It implies you do care at least a bit
I can see a lot of work went into making the film seem old. Which is why it's a damn shame that it completely failed to look old.
All this effort to capture the "look" of older films and a layman can tell at a glance that it's shot on digital. Looking at these shots, it's not even close. There's more to it than just "make it black and white, then blur it a bit," the older cameras would pick up the light spectrums differently to give you deeper contrasts, particularly with people's faces. On this front, it simply does not succeed, and it was perhaps foolish to think that it could.
It's a bit funny how you say "all this effort" and then say "just black and white with blur"... I mean decide man!
@@fater8711 Because that's the end effect. They put a ton of effort in, but all it looks like is a slightly blurry black and white filter.
@@fater8711 they put a lot of effort into trying to achieve the effect, like they said in the video, they even got a custom monochrome sensor for their cameras, but they failed because there's no amount of effort they could put in that would perfectly recreate film
@@LordVader1094 Nah, he said like the crew didnt make a effort
" There's more to it than just 'make it black and white, then blur it a bit''
Whatever they did didn't work though. Looks like a filter at best.
the problem isn't lenses, or camerawork, or digital film... it's the lighting. Look at any movie pre-1970 and you'll notice that everything is lit from the front with undiffused sharp shadows on the background or actors faces, usually 3 separate shadows because of the 3-point lighting. Once you notice it you wont be able to unnotice it because every single Hollywood movie (save for Kubrick) was lit like this. THIS is the look of old movies, not grain or film.
Ed Wood is one of the best examples of a fake old movie that truly feels like it was made in the time period it portrayed
Schindler’s List and The Artist too.
@@osmanyousif7849 True!
@@osmanyousif7849 I don't think that's accurate about Schindler's list. They went with black and white to match the documentary footage of the time, but made no attempt to make it feel like an 'old movie', as far as I recall. I don't think that would have made much sense either, given the subject matter. This was a modern retrospect, not an old school type of narrative.
Paper moon is also really good!
Different era but boogie nights does that well
This puts in even great value what The Lighthouse has achieved, Eggers delivering another absolute masterpiece.
Fincher is the literal embodiment of "Oh we'll fix it in post".
which is quite ironic given his reputation for being a perfectionist, lol
Something that is so easily forgotten about replicating the feel of old movies is that the tools at their disposal at a time helped shape the movies. It's not just the look, it's the way everything had to be done, working within a set of rules and restraints.
Like pointed out multiple times in this video, today it's easy to do anything, add whatever you want digitally. It permits a certain level of unrestrained freedom, but that has implications on how the movie is assembled as a whole.
There is also the effect this style of film making has on creative focus. Modern movies often feel like their creative focus is spread too wide and too thin. Old movies tend to have much more focus on the basics - framing, blocking, movement, cutting - what is in front of you, because there wouldn't be all this peripheral hubris and fluff to consider.
It feels like I'm being sold something that I can see with my eyes isn't true. It legitimately feels like only a black and white filter is applied when you compare it directly to actual old films. Hearing all the "things" they did to it does not seem true, how can so much work produce what seems like a snapchat filter?
Am I right? People in the comments are only criticizing Fincher like the video also isn’t bullshit
@@eugenelevin9809 Sorry but I am basically calling Fincher a hack
@@eugenelevin9809 Exactly, worst video in an oderwise great channel
There is also the fact that many older films used painted backdrops and were set exclusively in studios so natural lights and shadows felt 2d. Modern movies can have real, expansive shots. He missed the mark because he didn’t have any real limitations to work through.
I don’t think it really worked at all! The lighthouse is a shining example of how it’s done, this film just looks digital but they turned down the saturation…
I think a big thing that stops Mank from looking like a true classic film is the aspect ratio. A film that was shot in the era Mank takes place in would be 1.375:1, instead of the 2.39:1 he chose to shoot in. It's kind of confusing that he went through all this effort to make the movie look old-timey but he didn't simply shoot it in a different size, which would have taken no extra effort, unlike painstakingly digitally manipulating the film in post-production.
What Mank really takes from Citizen Kane is the wish to have a long look at a complex, multi-faceted protagonist. It's a very literary approach. The most significant component of the film is its screenplay, and I'd say that that's why so far it hadn't really attracted the attention of video essayists.
To me it wasn't that unexpected that Fincher would try to make a film like this, because there are several slow and quiet and indirect films among those that he has called his favourites. Films like Days of Heaven and Being There and Zelig. And although Citizen Kane and Lawrence of Arabia are not as sedate as Mank is, they are still character studies of a kind that Fincher had yet to attempt to make, and so I wasn't surprised at Mank being what it was. Yes, I worried in the first fifteen minutes that it was completely losing my interest, but I got into it and do think it's good.
From my perspective it's irrelevant whether or not it's convincing as a pastiche of older filmmaking techniques. What does that add in terms of substance? One way or another the film lives or dies on the question of whether Herman Mankiewicz is an interesting character in himself, and a useful conduit through which to experience something of Hollywood in the 1930's.
@Gavin B. They should've cast an actual Jewish person to play the actually-Jewish Herman J. Mankiewicz.
Well put.
they should've got the actual guy
I recall listening to an interview with Robert Bogdanovich and he said the secret to filming convincing old looking black and white footage is in the lighting. Black and white has to be lit a certain way. When he filmed Nickelodeon, the studio wanted it in color. So Bogdanovich had it lit as if it were black and white because he knew that one day it would be released in black and white.
I’m afraid I’d have to agree with a lot of the comments here. Mank still feels distinctly modern. I’d still say that the film look IS emulate-able using digital technology; I’ve seen it done. This is one of the rare cases where I’d have to say that Fincher wasn’t meticulous enough. The shaking looks algorithmic, the halation looks wrong, the dynamic range too wide, the image too sharp. All of these could have been rectified, of course, but they weren’t.
The way people act these days is completely different, it creates an uncanny feeling watching a fake 'old' movie.
The Coen Brothers “The Man who wasn’t there” and “O Brother” are better examples on how to make modern movies look classic. They’re no Citizen Kane’s but the look, feel and sound are spot on. Mank is a good film but like the Aviator it’s in the uncanny valley and takes me out of it.
I've watched plenty of 30-50's B&W films here on TH-cam, and most of them possess common qualities. Long stationary shots, theatrical scripts, cross-fade or zooming transitions, painted scenery/constructed set backdrops, halting orchestral soundtrack, and high contrast lighting that comes with using film.
I've never seen Mank, but from the clips here, I think they focused more on the filming procedure than the other qualities listed. There's so many elements that affected film production back in the day, and they need to be replicated as accurately as possible too.
All that work and it still looked like it was shot on digital.
Any amount of CG immediately pops out. If you're going for the old movie look you can't fake it. You need the old film and practical effects.
I wish more current movies used practical effects tbh. You see those short clips of modern movie sets and they're just the actors in a bright green room surrounded by dude with green morph suits. Sure the amount of things that they can make is so much more, but it's so much less impressive on screen to me
A totally pointless process. Fincher had the budget to shoot on 35mm, which he should have shot on for authenticity instead of all these fake-looking digital filters. There's a world of difference between the look of 'The Lighthouse' and this movie.
I loved the nod to Taylor Ramos and Tony Zhou's Every Frame a Painting video about Fincher at 7:00
Legends!
The funny thing is that despite all this effort I didn't think for one second when watching Mank that they were even trying to make it look like a film from the era, because it doesn't. It just looks like a modern b&w movie to me. So he had all that work done altering every frame, only to have the viewer not notice or appreciate what he was going for. From his claims about how you can simulate anything, I guess he's also unaware that most of the cg effects he employs are not seamless. Whenever he has cameras appear to pass through keyholes or like at 5:05 through a handle, everything looks very artificial. These types of technique draw a lot of attention to themselves, which I can only assume they are meant to, but they are not convincing.
it's very obviously shot on digital no matter how many tricks he used. i clocked it immediately
As an actor first and a filmmaker second; His reason for refusal of Gary Oldmans request is so fuckin annoying considering the amount of shit he does to edit the scene and what we’re looking at. It absolutely helps an actor when you give them the right makeup/costuming, it can create more honest performances to not look like yourself, free yourself of yourself and the fact finches thinks that’s artifice but not what he does post production is insane
It's like a Shakesperean play where the actors are dressed in period costumes. That helps suspend your disbelief just a tad more. Then there are modern productions where everyone is dressed in modern fashion. It's all artifice and your senses won't let you go deeper than the voice acting. Might as well listen to such productions on the radio.
Even Orson Welles had ever-changing prosthetic makeup to age as Kane from young to old -- including at least three prosthetic noses!
Gee, I guess DeNiro shouldn't have worn all that make-up and artificial broken nose when he played Jake Lamotta in Raging Bull. Same goes for Lawrence Olivier in Richard the Third. Seems to me Fincher got it ass-backward. What looked wrong and acted as an obstacle to the viewer was the pseudo-vintage look. I found Mank unwatchable because of the cinematography.
@@jmchez Shakespearan productions that give modern looks (or re-interpret the time period, so not necessarily modern but also not exactly 1500-1600s either) is always a hit or miss. I appreciate what they do, because the whole marvel of Shakespeare's stories is that they can stand through the test of time, but they're certainly not for everyone and, as you say, can ruin the suspension of disbelief for people. I suppose the problem with trying to modernize the aesthetic of Shakespearan plays is a little bit like what people are discussing with Fincher's movie: you can't just change the visual aspect of it, you have to take into account the things of that period in history that influenced the making/techniques of stories/movies of that time. If you're modernizing the aesthetic, then you have to see how the modern setting/image will affect the way the play as a whole will be taken in. Successful "modern" Shakespeare performances though usually either do a mix of both (i.e. anachronistic costumes that doesn't try to fit itself into _any_ time period, just focusing on making the character visually distinct, OR yeah they're all in t-shirts or jeans or what have you, but the performers adjust their own movements and staging to match with the anachronism of aesthetic, sort of like Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet).
At least with Shakespearan performances though, you can argue budget comes into play with the choice to costume the actors differently - not every theatre is guaranteed great margins of profit, after all.
the best example of a modern director making a fake old movie is "Young Frankenstein" hands down
Recently watched "The Love Witch". It's fantastic! It was made in 2016 but shot and cut together in a fashion that mimics the style of old horror films from the '60s and '70s. Despite having modern cars and phones in it, they really perfected the old movie feel because they went to the lengths of using 35mm film, old style cinematography, old sound equipment, hard lighting, and even the actors' performances feel reminiscent of the era. The point I want to make from this is A: the best way to replicate the look of an old movie is to just use as many old techniques as possible, and B: watch the The Love Witch if you haven't already. haha
The director, Anna Biller, has other films of hers that use that 60s feel, like Viva from 2007. It’s her signature and it works better than Mank
Even this video's thumbnail looks obviously digital. The composition, depth of field, and dynamic range--all modern.
Mank didn't look like a film from the 1930s or 1940s at all, despite how great it looked. Zodiac, while being a sensational movie also looked pretty ugly at times with hideous colors (those yellows are so yucky) due to the primitive digital camera used and how Fincher used it. Nowadays the current digital cameras are drastically more capable in every way though, so there's little to nothing holding back filmmakers to creating a specific and vivid look for any movie.
yeah i mean my dad tired watching the first 2 episodes of wanda vission for example he said it was like watching a rerun of betwiched or something lol.
"...also looked pretty ugly at times with hideous colors (those yellows are so yucky)..." Having lived then...that's literally what the Seventies looked like.
@@cinemascope53 I’m more referencing the night scene in Zodiac where he desaturated everything except the yellows, I’ve always thought that looked hideous. Either down to how and how much color that camera could record, or the filmmakers’ taste; neither was a good result. I don’t mind digital cinematography, and Fincher’s attention to detail is wonderful, but he can feel too wound up at times. Mank is kind of a good example of a lot of detail but not a lot of movie. And then when it comes to the “important” scenes, they feel so slight.
You can look at films by Paul Thomas Anderson like Phantom Thread (1950s), Inherent Vice (late 60s), Licorice Pizza (early 70s), and Boogie Nights (late 70s) and they all are rich in colors, tones, textures that feel connected to/lived in by the characters. He paints such a rich palette even when in a “lo-fi” mode (the greasy 1970s), each image is a delight.
I also generally prefer his movies (well not Inherent Vice hah) to Finchers, though I might like Zodiac more than most of PTA’s work.
To be honest, I love the look of old digital cameras. There’s a unique aesthetic to them that’s rarely acknowledged, probably because there isn’t a huge amount of nostalgia for it right now. Films like Inland Empire with it’s shitty consumer-level mini-DV camcorder has an almost voyaguristic look, like you’ve discovered some mysterious, cursed VHS tape.
But yeah, using digital cameras for a film intended to look like something from the 1940’s probably isn’t the best choice.
@@cinemascope53 I think he's agreeing as well
yes, Zodiac was great at capturing the time periods from 60s to 90s all the way
I felt going through times when the killings were taken place and the Investigation continued
You would think a guy whose one of the most well known names in hollywood and a budget of 25 million dollars would simply just use the same old cameras and equipment from the time period.. instead of, ya know... spending 80% of the budget on VFX companies that failed to deliver the result he was actually looking for.
You know, I love the feel of old film. It's hard to put a finger on it, if it's the grain or the sharpless quality, but I've always found it more pleasant to look at.
Agreed. The look of lightning on film is also unmatched. Way more crisp and appealing than the washed-out feeling a lot of digital light has.
I think Steve Yedlin’s work on Knives Out is the only digital film that has fooled me into thinking it was shot on 35mm. It’s flawless.
40’s pictures didn’t have this gliding, slippery ultra smooth camera movement and chaotic cutting and unnaturally realistic, glossy picture quality that lacks grain, simply adding a B&W filter over any modern movie wont create the glorious essence of a golden age of Hollywood movie.
The recently-released Werewolf by Night special actually achieves this old-timey feel beautifully.
I thought of this video too while watching that last night! It’s still mot perfect but it’s much better looking than Mank. It had nice crunchy shadows, correctly shaped reel cues, and authentic anamorphic distortion. It was just enough that I could trick my brain into accepting I was watching a 60s Roger Corman movie.
I still dont get why go through all this hassle to then shoot on 2:35:1 aspect ratio. Which obviously is not contemporary to Kane. Was it THAT hard to crop it to 4:3? Even in 4:3 it still looks digital, the grain is too consistent and fine, the picture too sharp. My guess is that since its a made for Netflix movie, they require to shoot in 4K, hence the super sharp look. Ugh, I love Fincher but mank its such a miss. Even if it was shot in film and looked old, its still a meh movie :(
There's a reason more people have heard of The Lighthouse than Mank, and it's because the other way IS wrong, but that other way is creating everything through post production. Sometimes, there is no substitute, and nowhere is it more obvious than in Mank, which tries its hardest to emulate an aesthetic to trick the viewer, but fails in its trickery.
I also find it hilariously ironic that Fincher doesn't want any sort of "Artifice" on his actors, and yet is willing to compose entire scenes of greenscreen and CGI. The setting is an actor too.
I remember watching Mank and thinking, "Mindhunter" looks 10x better.
this is the most cohesive and unified comment section I have seen in my life
It seems Fincher wanted the look without any false authenticity or deception, he didn't even stick to a period accurate aspect ratio. I don't think with Fincher's approach to making movies (6:20) that he'd work well with film.
That’s a really interesting way of looking at it. Like maybe it isn’t meant to necessarily trick anyone? And yeah, it’d be a lot of wasted film and money doing that many takes. And I mean, it was. SE7EN, Fight Club.. he managed on film for a long time… somehow.
@@CinemaStix I suppose a good comparison would be looking at the VERY early widescreen stuff, like Raoul Walsh's "The Big Trail" or Roland West's "The Bat Whispers", both from the early 1930s.
He didn't build that from scratch at all he doesn't know how to build cgi but to tell someone else what he desires.
This video is a great watch! Glad I stumbled upon it.
I’m glad too! Thanks so much. Really means a lot.
-Danny
One thing must be said though... Even when Fincher fails or doesn't quite achieve what he wanted, he's never boring. At the very least, his works always generate this kind of discussions, which are very enlightening.
5:42 I don't think any of these shots are day for night. It looks like a regular night scene just with powerful lights. The sky is pitch black and you can see the shadow from the tree on the top of the church like it's being lit from a low angle.
Yeah, that just seems like a patently bad example. I mean, at the very end of that shot, we see multiple "long stark shadows"... I guess that means there must be a second sun present, lol. Also, why use Welles's The Stranger as a would-be exemplar of a "low-budget" movie? And why, particularly, if you're going to claim that this technique was "the ONLY WAY [emphasis mine] to get enough light"? Then it wouldn't matter if you're budget was large or small. I don't have much faith in this TH-camr's acumen, tbh.
Yeah, this video essay is so terrible. If you ever wanted an example of the Dunning-krugereffect, just look at this.
Something about this bugs me, and bear in mind I am not a film student or work in it. What is the point of trying to recreate that era specifically, something that should be next to Citizen Kane, not just homage but more than that? Why not any other era, why not the first film? well, aside from no one would understand/care? I haven't heard of this movie until now. I mean, it's interesting that he attempted to do it, but this just looks like another homage to Citizen Kane stepped up unlike any other. But if Citizen Kane is so ground breaking, why not break new ground? Like it did? It just seems to me without seeing it, on face value, it seems more like a vanity and gimmick project. But, I dunno, what do I know?
I find the obsession with attempting to digitally recreate what can simply be achieved with existing, tried-and-true tools (a la eggers in the lighthouse) used by generations of directors to be its own form of arrogance. Feels like it is missing the very point of the era of filmmaking it is trying to be a love letter to.
I cannot stress enough how much this movie does not look like film.
It is like an indie game trying to emulate the 8-bit aesthetics, but it's clearly made in a modern engine, such as Unity or Unreal.
Honestly, the amount of mid tone details seem to be the biggest giveaway to me. With old film cameras, there's a way that details drop off in the shadows, and there's less crispness. If he had been willing to part with those details, I think he could have gotten a lot closer
Early film camera images looked, when new and projected correctly, something like HD.
Filmmakers of the era added lens filters and post production filters and all kinds of tricks to give the image an added aesthetic.
This is just the same thing really.
It’s the way Fincher framed the shots not the tricks he used to sell the audiences preconceived idea of old film which makes it looks like Howard Hawks or Michael Curtiz shooting a making of Citizen Kane.
There’s this weird bloom and smoothness on all the effects. Even with added “grained” the light and detail is TOO SMOOTH and the light is too flat. It feels video game-y
Loved that nod at the end to the now legendary Fincher analysis by Every Frame a Painting! The video essayist equivalent of paying your taxes.
Legendary indeed! Haha, and yes, that’s exactly right. That’s an excellent analogy.
It’s like the uncanny valley, but with a new film looking like old films instead. It can look as close to the real thing as possible, but one can feel something’s off with barely a second of footage.
Mank was a hard to watch film because of how much it kept to the aesthetic and techniques of the time. I feel like it's one of those movies that are genuingly masterpieces but purely from an intelectual point of view. If you don't know what you're looking for then it's really hard to appreciate.
I’d have to agree. It’s not what you put on when you want to watch a Fincher movie by any means. But it does things that few people in the position to make well-budgeted movies do, and that’s special in its own right. It’s an exercise in… something.
yes exactly. Probably David Fincher made it for him self or the dude is just flexin haha
No. He didn't do it for himself. He even kept asking the interviewer what he thought about the movie when he gave an interview for Esquire or some other magazine I can't remember. Mank is hard to watch because the movie is bad. Yes, technicaly it has it's "beauty" (I personaly think it looks awful - moden lighting, modern camera movement, modern lenses with a black and white filter and fake grain and scratches??? Like, that doesn't make any sense. Anyway...), but it has a lot of problems.
Yes, Fincher can do a bad movie. And there is nothing wrong with that.
@@tiburc10 Just because you're making something for yourself doesn't meant you won't seek feedback, on the contrary I'd say.
Still, I agree with you that it does look pretty... odd? I feel like he aimed to get the best of both worlds and didn't achieve it.
Hard disagree. The film doesn’t commit to the idea of making a movie in the 1930s. The aspect ratio for one. Why would you make this film with a modern aspect ratio? And I would’ve liked some grain. They filmed it on a digital camera and it looks like a digital camera. They did do one thing right and that’s with the sound. They nailed that. But the visuals? No way.
Actually that Riverboat Casino from Gone Girl is real. It MIGHT be digitally added into that shot, but it is a totally real thing. I know because I live near it. It's about 2 hours north of ST. Louis. Fincher being the perfectionist that he is got so real with not only the scouting locations but also to the minutiae of the area. A great example, is that my town has two rather popular news corporations, and BOTH of them had new vans featured in the movie as cameros/easter eggs. And a town about 25 minutes away also had a news channel's acronym featured on a van. Being that the movie takes place in the Ozark/ STL area, I find that SUPER immersive and also super cool my town has something featured in a FINCHER movie! That his moody aesthetic comes near my home and familiar locations. Look for WGEM van (seen twice) and KHQA van and you will see them (and the exact symbols of their channels) in the movie! (Terrence Malick also has a movie that feels very midwestern and super close to home!)
My favorite film is GWTDT. (big Murder mystery fan! and love the characters!) I feel like him doing this same concept with the Sweden of that film feel super escapist, almost like fantasy!
And dude coulda just shot it on film
Word
@@CinemaStix Sadly, Fincher is not a fan of shooting on film anymore. I remember reading somewhere that when Sam Mendes asked several filmmakers if they preferred film or digital, Fincher's reply was "Digital. What if this film?" Sadly, I can't find the goddamned original article but if I do find it, I'll send the link.
Please do!
I love how The Lighthouse does a better job emulating a 1930s film than Mank.
When you say "he built that from scratch," I think you mean teams of underpaid and underrepresented VFX artists made it from scratch.
Yes :)
Thanks for creating the concept of being literal, Chris!
Great addition!
@@vik.1903 No, yeah, crediting the labor of the VFX industry is silly.
I'm not just being literal. Fincher didn't build those things figuratively or literally. He just simply did not build them.
@@christianlarson4201 most he did was bark orders tbh
The every frame a painting reference at the end made me smile.
:) Really glad. I just couldn’t resist.
Well, for a meticulous director, he failed at ''faking'' it with this movie. Traditional film cameras still exist and some major movies still use them. He could've made the movie feel more classic by using the actual tools, which are still around even today.
It’s amazing because it looks exactly like someone trying make it look old but can’t.
The problem with 35mm film is that it is almost just as clean and crisp as Alexa digital footage. You can literally apply a similar powergrade and get the same look. The real key to making film look like film is to shoot on 16mm. Look at First Man or Moonrise Kingdom, very beautiful filmic films that aren’t super sharp.
If you're talking about resolution and grain (versus noise), sure. But film has other inherent qualities that still make it distinguishable from digital, perhaps most obviously how it responds to highlights.
I love how this ends with a nod to Every Frame a Painting's essay on Fincher, "And the Other Way Is Wrong"
That was a really awesome little video essay, haha but man that last line pulling in the Every Frame a Painting line? *chefs kiss* So good :) Really brought me back, and this is at least on the level of some of his original videos he did, and he did some really darn incredible video essays.
Gotta say, when people comment that they got the reference, it makes me the happiest. I just couldn’t resist adding it. I mean obviously that video (and channel) was massively popular, but it’s been out of commission so long I worry more and more people just aren’t seeing it. Dude’s a legend. So, of course, your comment means a ton.
@@CinemaStix Genuinely, first video I've seen in a long time that reminds me of Every Frame and, as you know, that's just such the highest of compliments. Similar feel, you make your points well but don't draw the essay out too long, just great stuff. If you can hit this sort of sweet spot again, I'll really be looking forward to your future work. Loved the reference as this feels like a spiritual sequel to Every Frame's Fincher piece. I'll be hoping for a spiritual sequel to his Bong Joon Ho piece as I've always wished he'd still been in the TH-cam video essay business for Parasite.
I truly can’t thank you enough for this. It was the greatest video essay channel to ever exist, hands down. Truly legendary. Funny thing is, while I do take inspiration from his work in the structure and style of a number of my videos, this wasn’t consciously one of them. Must just be engrained or something. Anyway, I hope you’ll enjoy my next one this Saturday. I also wish they hadn’t retired. They left quite the void of a special kind of video essay.
Anyway, thanks again :)
-Danny
@@CinemaStix Ooo exciting! Haha I've got notifications on, I'll be there haha :) .
But ya, like Elysian Frost said, you're filling a super awesome niche here, I think I've been trying to find something similar on youtube since they stopped posting, and your content is really hitting that sweet spot of awesome cinema analysis (not that it's an exact copy! just that it's kind of hitting those "deep insight and awesome editing" feels). Keep it up, it's legitimately great!
I love the shoutout to every frame a painting at the end there
:)
Well, if anything, he has succeeded in making a film that looks like it was made in the 1990s.
Love that Every Frame a Painting reference (one of the greatest TH-cam channels ever)
Yes!
Got to give you props for the final homage to Every Frame a Painting… Well done sir…
Thank ya thank ya! Best video essayist there ever was, so I just couldn’t resist.
@@CinemaStix That was very cool to see!
And I'm sure the two blokes from EFAP would agree with your essay!
I think its funny with how much effort he put into trying to achieve the look of a 40s movie and how hard he failed at achieving it. When home alone 2 can do a better job in actually making a film look like it was a movie made in that era for the fake movie “angels with even filther souls”
I’m a bit confused. Is it prohibitively difficult or expensive to just like…use the actual cameras they would have used in the forties? I don’t understand how they could care so much about this aesthetic, and have this kind of technical knowledge and money, and bungle the intended effect so badly. The digital post-processing was too little too late - I’m not into editing or cinematography at all, but even I can tell the shot composition is totally wrong, the fidelity (and maybe frame rate?) is too high, the effects are too slick, the sound is too crisp, literally everything except the most superficial veneer is unmistakably modern.
I feel like the cinematography, camera angles and the way it moves is what gives it away. That and it's shot on a very high res camera and it's obvious the grain was added after
The other way is wrong=) Man, that's the best essay channel of all time.(EVERY FRAME IS A PAINTING) Hope you will achieve something like that guy
Yeah it is! Legendary.
And thank you :)
The main issue is the soft light. Film cameras can't capture low lighting as good as digital cameras. What's worst is that the point of B&W films is to have contrast. In Mank everything is a big grayish tone where nothing highlights and with no color, makes it hard to the eye to read. I think we can honestly say this is the worst Lincher film. I couldn't even finish it.
it's almost insulting to even mention Mank in the same sentence as The Lighthouse because Mank fails on basically every level to capture the feeling of film. I have much more respect for Eggers going out of his way in the script, working with his actors to get the period dialogue and accents right, going to a real location, and his filmmaking process in general to capture that specific feeling and texture, compared to Fincher doing however many hundreds of takes on digital in front of a green screen. The digital way just looks fake at first glance and it's not even up for discussion.
The black and white edits you did of the Mank interviews look more convincing than the film.
Hah. Yeah..
A film that looks completely within its period but isn’t, would be Mid 90s. Of course you also mentioned lighthouse. I for the most part like Finchers movies. In comparison with other recent black and white films, watching Roma, is way more impactful than watching an obvious digital film-made to look like it isn’t! The disparity between the authenticity of his actors and that of Finchers aesthetic, couldn’t be more emphasised.
I think one of the biggest tells that this is a modern film and not a classic film that I don't see anyone else talking about is the aspect ratio.
Fincher shot Mank in his usual widescreen, specifically 2.20:1, an aspect ratio that wouldn't have been possible in 1941, as every film at the time was in 4:3.