Acclaimed auteur David Fincher returns to feature filmmaking later this year with Netflix’s “Mank,” a biopic about Hollywood screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz who wrote “Citizen Kane”.
Fincher is famous for being a perfectionist, an exacting director who makes big demands of actors, famously doing dozens upon dozens of takes of many key scenes because of his meticulousness.
Actress Amanda Seyfried stars as actress Marion Davis in “Mank” and recently she told Collider that Fincher hasn’t changed one bit – in fact he took an entire week to get one scene right:
“I was part of scenes with tons of people in it and we would do it for an entire week. I can’t tell you how many takes we did, but I would guess 200, maybe I could be wrong and could be way off. Um, I could be underestimating by five days of one scene when I didn’t have one line… ‘You think I can just relax?’ No, because there are probably about nine or ten different camera angles that had been on me at one point.”
Seyfried admits her number “could be wrong and could be way off” but it’s not that surprising. Fincher took at least 50 takes for several scenes, while a 9-minute sequence in “Mindhunter” took a reported 75 takes before Fincher was satisfied.
Fincher’s late father Jack penned the film which tells the story of Hollywood screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz as he prepares to write ‘Kane’ even though he faces many professional and personal challenges.
