Magic

We say "magic," and we say it when confronted with something that doesn't immediately fit into our thoughts. It's astonishment, admiration, or perhaps a bewildering sense of disarray. Sometimes, it's all of these at once. It is how the spectator speaks, struck by what they've witnessed. The producer echoes this sentiment, briskly cutting through the soundstages of their own film studio, claiming that "real magic in this business gives the buyer nothing but memories," as if there is both genuine and invented magic. If it's real, then, of course, it's tied to business; how else? But what is it for the viewer, or rather, what is its essence? Is it genuine?

Magic is typically understood as some action performed supernaturally, directed towards something. Supernaturally means in an inexplicable, incomprehensible manner. Mysterious. When a person sees something before them that they can't explain, they turn not to reason but to belief—belief in something unreal. Therefore, in something non-existent, unreal.

One could say that this is a kind of belief in mystery. Once this belief has taken root in someone, whether directed or discovered, the mystery has already taken hold of them. The essence of the mystery lies in its unravelling—it must remain such, or no magic will happen. Mystery is akin to a question, while the solution is an answer, meaning a definition that separates it from what it is not. Yet, at times, even this is not enough. A person reveals this mystery in an impression, after which, as if reborn, they strive to define it themselves, pretending it into the present. The sequence of what comes first is not as crucial as the distance held between the person and the mystery, maintained so that it can eventually reveal itself before them.

Magic implies something primitive, not as historically ancient but as primal and absolutely natural. Today, the term "primitive" is often understood as primitive or backward, though it is closer to total openness, a unique sensitivity that makes you exceptionally attentive. This openness is the perception of everything as if it has never been touched by anyone or anything, neither by thought nor by a pointing finger. You look with eyes as if seeing everything for the first time, and from this unexplainable experience, you either come into delight or despair.

The state of such primitiveness is entirely natural; therefore, in it, everything is given as real to the extent that there can be nothing else besides it. The unreal becomes real, the real becomes non-existent. All of this lies on both sides of the primitive gaze, and magic, seemingly impossible by its very nature, pretends to come to life.

After all, magic is an action, a movement, or simply a duration. Movement cannot be unreal; otherwise, it would be anything but itself. Now, this action unfolds in the cinema and, in the case of "Mank," in the room, if there is a remote control, in that place of encounter with cinema that has its peculiarities. The cinema, for example, is extremely difficult to confuse with a stage—a platform barely rising above where the viewer sits. The stage, empty, bare, or behind the scenes, perhaps without them, is a predetermined, physical field for the impending action. It is next to you—with it, the collective is hidden from us, and everywhere you can see objects, structures. Behind the film screen, and within it, before the show starts, there is absolutely nothing except for the flatness, a clean barrier—a direct translation of the word "écran." A lifeless frame to which someone has clung. Occupied their place in front.

When does the film begin? Is it when the first frame miraculously appears on this plane? But something precedes this frame—something that happens outside our attention. The light in the hall, or before playing on the monitor, dims. Darkness ensues. After a short, almost imperceptible pause, light cuts into this dark space. A brief, bright flash. And the film begins. Primitiveness would make one clap their hands, or perhaps run away.

Black and White. Consistency

We see a black-and-white image. Colourless, frozen clouds, as if we are looking at someone's photograph—a moment captured by someone, forever frozen within itself. But the clouds, barley, are moving. The opening credits appear.

Why black and white? It creates discomfort, as if I ended up in the wrong place. Internal inconsistency arises from the fact that I entered not at the right time. When I say "there" or "there," I don't just mean the specified direction or the unknown but assumed place. I perceive it as not the "right" place, the one I occupied before starting the film; now, this place is different. Hence, the time and space in which this place exists have changed. My place in front of the screen is like a kind of boundary between me and the cinema. But it is also a boundary in general—between the place that existed before the film started and the place during the film. How does this sudden, initial movement happen?

Naturally, within the framework of my viewing experience, black and white is perceived by me as something inherent to the past and is its distinctive feature. You don't have to be a devoted cinephile to say that black-and-white cinema is old cinema. It is the cinema of a distant past. But old is not the past; the past is elapsed time, a situation where something happened or was happening, something preceding. Old, on the other hand, is something both continuous and lasting in time to such an extent that, in comparison with something recently arisen and lasting since that moment, it lasts much longer than what has arisen. In other words, we perceive as "new" the contemporary, that is, something that lasts "with-time," "our" time, the time in which we exist as in present time, and its duration began at the moment that it arose in "our" time. The old, however, continues from that moment of "other" time, which always, for us, lasts longer than "ours."

It turns out that the definition of "old" and "new" is conditioned solely by our relationship to time and our presence in time in such a way that "new" or "old" can be considered such due to its duration, synchronous or coordinated with our own duration, or lasting longer than it and therefore asynchronous or not coordinated with it. This relationship gives us grounds to assert that "this" is old, "this" is older, and "this" is newer, but not like "this" that has just arisen.

But how should I relate to this film in this way? This film is new, recent, but at the same time completely asynchronous with me, as if this film is simultaneously "with-time" and old. The hissing and muted sound, unfamiliar crackling, and the very image—all of it tells me this. It turns out, my vision and my hearing, in general, my perception—mistaken. I am watching an old film! It's obvious. Herman Mankiewicz, on crutches, enters the house at the North Verde ranch. Day. The year 1940.

We say "black and white." But we do not mean something solid, indivisible from each other, but their combination. Otherwise, where would the distinctiveness for us in this image come from? We look at not so much black or white as their various tonality upon contact, the amplitude of the colours that have emerged, manifested by light. A dynamic palette that connects them in such a way that they merge into one, a kind of scale where the maximum point would be pure white, and the minimum (fallen to zero value) would be pure black, meaning complete absence of light. But are these colours? This scale could be compared to a straight line. Movement along such a line is possible only upwards or downwards (or forward and backward); let's imagine it exactly this way, and any deviation towards, in another direction—to another point, beyond the scale—is impossible because it implies the presence of something else—coloured, and there can be an infinite number of colours. In the case of such deviations, we would no longer speak about a straight line but about a specific space, a space filled uniformly with all colour variations. A precise illustration would be a typical colour palette tool in any graphic editor—a rectangle, square, or circle, depending on the selected shade, filled with it from absolute zero (black) or one (white) to its brightest peak.

Indicator movement, capturing tones, is possible only along a specified line. However, any movement to the right, upward, or downward from the very edge (maximum white or maximum black) creates a new colour, whereas movement from white to black occurs exclusively along the specified line. It could be said that the emergence of colour is not so much a "deviation" as a "reflection," as in the very movement from pure white or pure black to the brightest shade of the selected colour, it intensifies or fades depending on the filling with white or black, which is at the very edge, at the beginning of the movement.

But since we do not observe such "reflections" (other colours), we can only perceive the variability of black and white as a certain dynamic, where one transitions into the other, and vice versa, within the defined boundaries from one point to another, and only between the two.

In this movement, light grays, grays, and dark grays emerge, in them, even lighter or darker shades manifest—the mechanism of this dynamic lies in each tonal relationship with each other. In complete absence—black, reflecting through movement, light reveals shadow, and we begin to distinguish objects, and in the already formed image, a certain reality arises with all its diversity but in complete colourlessness. Astonishingly, in the blending, or rather, in the relationship of two absolute opposites, something new is born, and in each moment of this movement from one to another, fixed in motion, another transition is hidden, and another, until each tone and halftone manifests itself in an elusive moment. This is opposition, but a coordinated opposition that gives rise to the image as a whole, even without colour.

Black and white — a possibility of colour. On one side, both are the absence of colour, but different absences, where one is the condition for the appearance of colour in general, and the other is the condition for its disappearance or absence. In both these opposites, the absence is inherent as the end of both colour and light, as well as absence as their beginning.Why do we delve into this so extensively? In this stretched-to-the-limit opposition lies our acquaintance with "Mank" as cinema. We encounter the phenomenon of black and white not only in the opening frames that introduce the film but also in its very beginning—with the first light in the darkness of the hall. This phenomenon gives rise to that primary, fundamental movement that embodies the image itself, the cinema itself, as their succession. Even before the appearance of a specific image, before the narrative begins.

In everyday situations, all this is not surprising—we see familiar concrete images, actors' faces, smoking cigarettes, and road dust. However, black and white as such is usually not inherent in what our perception turns to. When we turn to our reality, we perceive it in a variety of colours. We know pitch darkness; we know blinding light. But perceiving reality (nature, streets, people), we discern a multitude of colours, mixed with each other. Yet black and white is there; it is in front of us; it means it is possible in another reality, the reality of the image into which we can enter when watching a film. It's about reality, a prolonged and given to us as something that is.

So, the reality in which we find ourselves significantly differs from the one we were in not long ago. And now our gaze is not so much a leap or movement as it is a presence. Simultaneously "outside" and "within."

"My Story"

We observe the black-and-white world of the film industry, the realm of producers and directors, actresses and actors, directors and scriptwriters, crowded into corridor-room workshops, debating the speed of a paper leaf falling to the floor. We are watching a film about cinema. And here we are again on the ranch; Mankiewicz talks on the phone with the director Welles, casually brushing off the annoying producer Hausman. Later, Mankiewicz strolls through the gardens of Huntington with the actress Marion Davies. Dates change, repeat without exact days or times: the 40s, the 30s, the 34s.The director is filming a film where he plays the lead role, actresses play actresses, a scriptwriter writes the script, and actors play them all. For us, as viewers, it's challenging — both in understanding the film and in viewing it — because, at first glance, everything seems somewhat disjointed and unrelated. As if torn apart.

Why is this film made the way it is? After all, something linear seems more familiar to us: we move, following the film, along a constructed sequence, from event to event, and all of this affects us to some extent based on how fully the film's content is revealed in these events, and how convincing the sequence appears. This is how the viewer perceives the story.

Let's consider two aspects of the story. The first views the story as a narrative; this is its technical layer, where the story remains a story if a certain scheme is present. This side of the story is characterized by the inevitability of the sequence of events (not only formal), causality, and development based on these characteristics — development inexorably follows in this predetermined direction. In this sequence, the active element (character, persona, phenomenon, or event, it doesn't matter) moves toward a predetermined end, changing under the influence of internally defined circumstances and obstacles along the way, both in detail and in general. If all of this is present in the narrative, perhaps, we are witnessing a technically perfect story. However, in the second aspect, the story is seen not as a scheme or a well-thought-out action but as something active. The activity of such a story unfolds not only within its own limits; its world and itself, revealed to the viewer, now also change him. Both during its unfolding and upon its completion. It is a living, unique story, distinct even when adhering to all the above-mentioned objective characteristics. The technical can be duplicated, whereas the unique cannot. Such a story is an impressive story, emerging from the world in which it was placed.

The essence lies in the very structure of the word "impression," which leaves an "imprint" or trace, remaining there or on what is on the other side of what caused it. In cinema, this takes on a remarkable meaning: what is captured, like a seized trace on the other side, leaves an impression — that which leaves a trace on the other side. A story cannot leave an impression in its entirety; it can only leave a trace of itself, after such a throw, returning. However, in cinema, the impression itself, like such a throw, arises from the fact that what is on the other side of it initially also imprinted a "trace" on what was on the other side of the one who imprinted it. And, just like an impression, imprinting is also possible only as a "trace," as neither the movement itself, for example, nor the reality can be imprinted in their entirety. It is only possible to grasp what they left, and even collecting all this countless "left" in a completed combination, the movement itself and the reality will remain inaccessible. That's why we say "trace" — one after another, one after another, through which, with lively hope, one can get somewhere.

We perceive the impression as something "left," thrown, or happened. We say "to leave an impression," "left an impression," speaking as if it has already happened, but we realize this only afterwards, not immediately and right away. Likewise, we become aware of the impression while being "under" it or "with" it, not before it or in front of it — "before it" is impossible in the impression. The story we are now turning to is no longer the story we considered in the first aspect; it may contain technical deficiencies, unevenness, and errors in its construction, but it contains that transition that makes it not just a plot, a narrative, or a work, but a story as a story, with all its inner dynamics of life. It is more than just a story; it is our story, in the sense that its trace is now in us and with us, so we return to it.

Such a story happens less often than, let's say, a production story. It adheres to all the necessary rules of creation from the first aspect. Such a story is simpler for us to understand and relies on production techniques proven by the industry as a mechanism of its reproduction. But upon closer inspection, it rarely transitions into what lies in the second aspect. A "production" story is more familiar to us because it is produced for us, the viewers. It, like a sticky creature, finds our "familiar," clinging fiercely. For its creation, scriptwriters fill dream factories, open prestigious university departments, and embed honorary stars in asphalt. But is it true that such familiar stories are natural for us in this regard?

In "Mank," we observe the actors, not just the actors from the film "Mank," but also the actors in the film "Mank" as the characters they portray. An actor, by nature, becomes someone else, plays a role while remaining themselves, at the same time, as individuals. In "Mank," actors play the role of actors, meaning they play the role of those who play a role. Another situation involves Orson Welles, the character in the film, who, as a director, distances himself from cinema as cinema, being its creator involved in its production implementation, yet he also acts as the main actor in his own film. At the same time, behind the invisible screen, there is David Fincher, the director of "Mank" — a film that is also about how cinema is created, acting in the same situation as the character Welles, except without playing an actor.

How is such a relationship established? An actor, therefore, needs to be distanced from themselves, as from themselves, that is, become someone else for themselves within themselves (the main condition of acting), after which, in the case of "Mank," this "other" distances themselves from themselves as the "other," but not in the same way as from the "other" in the first case, but rather as from "themselves," which already exist within themselves as the "other" for themselves. All of this is like a game of "pretend," so here we could indeed call the actor's play a "game." We find something similar in our viewing experience. We watch a film about how what we are watching is created, and at the same time, as viewers, we watch how we watch it. This is characteristic not only of our perception of cinema but also of us as viewers.

The narrative of "Mank" is composed of Mankiewicz's memories, which he shares with his assistant or colleagues while working on the screenplay for "Citizen Kane." In response to the secretary's questions throughout the letter or in conversation with Hausman, we delve into Mankiewicz's past, not at a specific moment but in a period of his life, a scene from his life. His memory is another dimension of this film. Mankiewicz addresses himself in a different time, in his past, as if realizing it in his present, the present where the film unfolds. That is, Mankiewicz addresses his past self, let's say, as Mank. In this distance, and conversely — without it, a story emerges.

However, this narrative is of the film itself, and it includes both Mankiewicz's narrative "about himself" and the narrative he is working on as part of the plot. It would be inaccurate to call the film's or Mankiewicz's narrative "biographical," not in the sense of "writing life," but in the commonly accepted sense — a biography not as life but as its complete accuracy, recreated from an ordered set of certain key situations that have no relation to life itself. A "production" biography, a biopic, is constructed on these authentic key situations within the framework of the first aspect of the story: the hero is born, goes through life like a race with obstacles, sweating and gasping, and depending on the desired "effect" of the story (upset or inspired), either reaches the finish line first against all odds or stumbles at the very ribbon.

"My story," says Mankiewicz in one of the scenes, "is one big circle like a cinnamon roll, not a straight line pointing to the nearest exit. It's impossible to tell a person's whole life in two hours. You can only leave an impression of it," and says it as if in this "only" a rare opportunity for the storyteller to surpass it in itself is hidden. No matter how much talent Mankiewicz had to create a technically refined story down to the smallest detail, the main thing for him is precisely the impression, that is, what is behind it. In this sense, the narrative as Mank's story and the narrative in "Mank" is Mankiewicz's life, that very "my story." In principle, the story as a story. Who cares that Gary Oldman, at the centre of it, doesn't look anything like the once-lived Mankiewicz. By the way, he rightly receives the Oscar at the end of the film.

The relationship with oneself as the "other self," repetitions of such transitions during the course of the film, and increasing complexity are in that very non-linearity that caught the eye at the very beginning of the viewing. Therefore, what seems coordinated appears completely disjointed, and what is uncoordinated seems completely natural, and vice versa. This film is nonlinear because it is about departing from oneself and returning anew as both the viewer and the viewed, the player and the played, the director and the directed, and, ultimately, the storyteller and the story being told. About the circle of history. It's not a straight line, not a chain, not a path of one-way movement, but a system of relationships where something new can emerge from and within the story itself, in the action that unfolds. The new as something that has arisen (been told), as something that was not originally there, and if it was, it was hidden and only revealed in the course of its own development.

The history, understood as life itself, is now not a collection or order of selected moments within a common scheme; it is the very fabric of what is happening, fluid, like reality, and arising in reality, sometimes sinking into its past, almost disappearing, and returning to itself. We "live life," while the biography, the "production" of life, is utterly unnatural. It's dead, too. After all, history as such a biography would simply be insincere. It would hide from life instead of becoming it. Maybe that's why they mostly make them about those who are already dead?

 To break agreement

Go, Mank, into 'his story,' to rest, dissolving into indifference on the black screen before the credits, everything would seem to us simply false. Not untrue, but insincerity, were not something does not coincide with the fact, but the realized, lived remains incomplete and fictitious. When history is presented as what it is not in reality. In this opposition of the genuine and the fake, or the sincere and the insincere, lies the conflict, in the words of the screenwriters — the setup of the film. The conflict between the industry and the author. And not just the industry as an industry in a film about movies, about the world of cinema, but the industry as the ruler of this world, permeated by it so much that it's hard to distinguish where is what.

The demand of Mank to have his name in the credits, to "be in the credits," against the previously signed agreement, becomes the turning point of the film. Wells reacts with anger, but Mank remains calm and ironic, grabbing a sheet of paper and adding to the story. Perhaps, he is even starting it. When asked why this film was made, David Fincher simply answered, "I wanted to make a film about a man who agreed not to appear in the credits. And who then changed his mind. It interested me." But what's so special about this demand?

Elements of the relationship between the author and the industry unfold throughout the film, and it starts with Mankiewicz being placed in the desert by deception after the accident. The accident is also quite interesting when considered as the first incident in the film. Particularly when it's stated that "Mank" begins with Mankiewicz getting into an accident. The industry, the producers, the director, and everyone who saturates it, place Mankiewicz in the desert—a place where nothing grows, and almost nothing can grow. The desert is the conditions where he must create. Create within two months and not a day more.

Mankiewicz, observing this desert or a curtained window, recalls numerous foolish bets made with screenwriters, directors—with this world in general. The bets are entirely reckless, with Mankiewicz knowingly having a losing option, understanding this distinctly. He repeatedly agrees to situations where the opponent always has a more winning position. In addition to the inherent gamble of a true author, such a gamble implying openness to chance, unpredictability, as if each work or even an approach to it is a tossed coin. Besides this gamble, there is also the opportunity to challenge. A gamble as an opportunity for such, and a bet as a realized dispute, an emerged contradiction, even if your position is doomed to failure. Is victory really that important if the dispute has already taken place?

The competition with the world of cinema into which Mank enters is an absolute necessity for him. Accepting himself as a worker or labourer, such an author only has to dispute, to argue, after he has accepted his absence in the credits. "I needed a job," Mank replies when asked why he decided on this. But how else to engage in a dispute with the industry? Expose it? It exposes itself, exposes itself by the hands of those who decide to expose it. Ridicule it? One cannot find anything more insightful than self-mockery, and the industry is a master of that, the sound of its machinery is laughter itself, even if Houseman never smiles. Leave it? There is a labour market. There are salaries. Attack it? They will expel you. Just tear up the contract... one cannot think of a more obvious reason to declare war, total and irreversible, shaking the industry to its foundations. And Mank violates the contract.

What is a contract? An agreement. The acceptance of each other by two opposing parties with their conditions. The concluded agreement requires synchronous movement, mutual acceptance, the fulfilment of certain settings, actions, or established norms. Agreements have rules and laws. Agreement requires trust and openness from both sides. Agreement is the establishment of a balance between opposites, and the space of agreement is where they coexist and evolve.

To break a contract means to disagree. Disagreement is no longer opposition; it is a contradiction or confrontation. Before an agreement, there was only opposition, in which one and the other were aware of their own, just like the other, and in opposition, they collide, realizing the need for the other, part ways only to collide again. One may even transform into the other, and vice versa. But breaking the agreement means not placing oneself in a position opposite to something in terms of characteristics or properties; it means entering into a confrontation with it, where the first and the second are already aware of the gap that has emerged between them, the breach of agreement, and thus themselves, "before" or "after" it. There will be no more encounters, transitions here. Rebellion begins.

Mank, staggering, bursts into Hearst's castle. A circus costume party. The conversation of MGM studio heads discussing new projects is shattered by the strike of a knife against a glass, the loud ringing echoing through the hall. Of course, we once again fall into Mank's memory of his children and "poor Sarah," but here he is, back in the hall, rising from the table with the creak of a chair, beginning the narration. The narration of "The American." The Don Quixote of modernity. Another, new narrative of this cinema, encompassing all others. Mank strides around the table full of guests, unfolding the story at his leisure, pointing, specifically pointing, at whom he opposes. Standing before them, and it's no longer rebellion for the sake of rebellion, directed at everything around, shoot or beat in all directions, no. Wells, a moment later, already at North Verde, will point as well. The confrontation is no longer abstract, not symbolic; it is extremely concrete and is expressed even in the physical rejection of the other side, in vomiting, because how else can one endure it? So much has accumulated. Even fish with white wine.

Often, on the eve of rebellion, it is associated with an accumulation, a gradual gathering of what must break free. Or explode. This excessive accumulation is an interesting word, meaning not a whole so much that it exceeds its bounds, but an overflowing aggregate that loses coordination with the processes that previously lay in the connection of the scattered, and formerly disjointed, turning into something else. A rebellion arising as a result is always directed at the prevailing, coercive, therefore equivalent relationship, sincere agreement between the one rebelling and the one against whom the rebellion is directed, either did not exist, or it was violated from the beginning, representing submission or suppression of one by the other. Violence, not trust. After all, even without the organ-grinder monkey, they will still play the organ grinder. Therefore, simply walking away, without condemning the industry, is not an exit. With it, one must not agree. But rebellion is self-destructive, and, unlike opposition, confrontation tends to exhaust itself. The activity of the one who opposes always leads to something: either the exhaustion of the other side or one's own. Confrontation is seen as something that reaches a limit, but a limit that cannot be crossed, hitting an impossibility to remove. And so on until complete destruction. This world of the film industry does not confront Mank; in his case, it does not confront anything at all. It merely opposes, but it is still the same game, an unfair game that does not allow anyone to be truly free in it.

Mank's confrontation, however, is necessary and, therefore, even more destructive. Is it despair or forgetfulness? The instruments of such destruction are diverse. Even alcohol can be a "supporting device." All that remains is that morning gaze of the slouched Oldman lying down, squinting from the pulled curtains that let in the unnecessary sunlight. But the rejection of disagreement, whether through silence or escape, rolls over the author with the same force of self-destruction.

Shelley, who worked in state propaganda, realizing this, makes a logical, final decision. "We must be attentive to the people sitting on the other side of the screen in the darkness with an open heart," Mank tells him before Shelley commits suicide. Just as after these words, Shelley cries, every author who traded authenticity for such "agreement" should cry. That's why Mank refuses even Marion Davies and his own brother, not to mention Wells' threats and the ensuing scandal. To refuse to remain genuine in his deadly confrontation to the end, because the direction of the desert, the barren workshop, was almost set.

This is the end and the beginning of his story. It's the year 1942, or is it 1940, or 1934, the story of Mank, a tale stretched between the crash and confrontation of life. Film history, a work, cinema itself as cinema, bringing life to life—isn't our way of thinking structured the same way, from openness, colour, and impression perception to the story unfolding before us? And all of this is not just art or industry. When we turn to thought, we inevitably take that step aside from ourselves in it, perhaps precisely to what we think about. A step aside, as if from one who sees the phenomenon or image as if we were looking at them for the first time, as if primitively. Away from cinema while watching cinema, and cinema about cinema, cinema with cinema, moving away from itself in the critique of its own foundations. It questions them, puts them into doubt, subjecting itself to that self-critique in the viewer's thoughts, allowing it to rediscover itself. A step away from life to live life. Maybe such a step is for us the same as the actor's—a kind of play at this distance, but a free game, a game of changing from "self" to "other" but still within oneself. After all, to watch a film, you also need to pretend a little.