Must've tuned out, it's clear as day!! Ta, Fillow.
I am out of words. I can't believe the music I'm hearing on that website comes from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. This is amazing. Amazing. Stunning.
This Mank segment was featured on CBS Sunday Morning.
I adore NIN and Trent Reznor, i have for years, and I am a HUGE fan of both recent NIN and score work. Watchmen was utterly brilliant and I can't get enough of the score or the show. I went to the site for Mank and I listened to it and I was stunned by how beautiful the music is, how much they nailed it. The movie looks really amazing, very artistic and very well executed. I am sure it is incredible. Like a modern Citizen Kane.
Okay, now this is where I am going to burn, but I am going to say it anyway... I am bothered that this movie has an entirely white cast about a period in our history that edited out people of color and pushed them to the margins in every way. Where are Mexican, Black, Asian men and women in any of these scenes? Well realistically, they wouldn't have been there right? So then how much do we need a story that celebrates these "good old days" in a year where so many racists are trying to take us back there?
Will I watch Mank? Maybe. Does it look amazing? Yes it does. Does it cut people of color right out completely in every way, and put a story out there that makes a SUPER racist time period look pretty awesome? Yeah, it sure does.
I'm not saying Mank is bad, I have only seen the trailer. I am not saying Trent or Fincher or anyone involved are bad people, or that you should boycott it or ANYTHING like that. I am not trying to take a dump in the party punch bowl here.
But until we notice this, until we talk about it and question it and wonder whose stories are not being told, it is never going to change.
Trent chose to work with Damon Linderoff on Watchmen. Linderoff filled the writer's room with people of color to help him tell a real story that history had edited out. Yay Damon. Yay Trent. I am not overlooking this. It's huge. I am not overlooking all the good projects Trent and Atticus have done.
All I am saying is let's just ask questions. Let's notice. Let's think. Let's be critical of ourselves and try to grow. That's it.
According to IMDB "News Reel 2" is played a man of colour. Crisis averted!
You're right to point out that the story behind Mank is filled with white people, and to point out how POC were persecuted back then, but what exactly did you expect this film to do? That's just the truth of the story. I don't think Fincher or anyone else involved with the film is trying to whitewash history. I certainly don't see the film as some sort of celebration of that time period, especially with all the backstabbing and power grabs going on. Is it terrible that POC were treated the way they were back then? Yes. Does this story have anything to do with it? No. You can't shoehorn in equality into a story when there was none.
Here's an article on the sound design of Mank. The only mention of the score is about the music being recorded with older microphones "so it has a sort of sizzle and wheeze around the edges".
https://collider.com/david-fincher-m...n-inspiration/
Maybe you should give Fincher a break since the script was by his dead dad and was supposed to be filmed in the late 90s. It’s clearly taken a long time to get the green light.
and also when they were involved in Soul they got accused of appropriation. So maybe they can’t win?
Last edited by WorzelG; 10-27-2020 at 01:13 AM.
There's nothing wrong with thinking critically about things like this. Seeing the movie will probably explain a lot and if it doesn't Fincher should have to answer for it. Re: Soul, the appropriation cries were from people talking out their asses knowing nothing about the different musical scopes.
Besides "Someone else wrote this and it's long delayed so therefore I have no responsibility to consider equal representation." is kinda bogus and shame on anyone if they try to float that as an explanation.
Answer for what exactly? Not having POC in a story that they had no involvement in? If you guys want to dig up evidence that POC were specifically excluded from this story, go ahead, but it seems to me that you're making it a target simply because it's a period piece with a predominantly white cast, which is only the case because the people involved were...well...white. Is it territory that is well worn at this point? Sure, but that's not the fault of this film alone, and considering the narrow scope of the story, asking it to deal with an incredibly sensitive issue that, frankly, deserves more than just a glance in a film like this is kind of ridiculous.
Last edited by BRoswell; 10-27-2020 at 09:51 AM.
That ‘someone else’ is David Fincher’s actual father FFS so shame on Fincher I suppose if he doesn’t cancel this labour of love tribute to his dead father he’s been trying to get off the ground since the 90s because some people on a NIN forum go around looking for slights against minorities where there are none. Jesus Christ
Last edited by WorzelG; 10-27-2020 at 10:06 AM. Reason: Calling people twats is probably uncalled for
Don't already know? No one here has seen the movie yet. Just a slideshow of a majority white cast. @Max was very diplomatic in the way he pointed it out and it's a fair observation. I'm a Fincher fan and have an open mind regarding the story and casting decisions but he's not above criticism if it's warranted.
My point is not to say that people of color should be shoe-horned into a period piece. My point is to ask why do we need that story? Why do we need that period piece? Why, in 2020, do we want to tell any more stories about wealthy racist white people, when there are no many amazing stories left untold?
and if we still think we need the story, if this is so necessary and desirable, then let’s just at least face it. Look at the cast and just learn to see the obvious. Learn to be comfortable talking about it and asking questions.
again, not calling for a boycott or saying anything bad about anyone. Go follow Saul Williams on Twitter or IG and see the kinds of things he posts about, the questions he asks about history and how we tell it. Listen to his music and hear him talking about The Noise Came From Here. Read his books and see what we are missing.
not every white story is a bad story. But a lot of times we can’t even see that this is a white story. I am pointing that out and people are getting mad about it, which shows just how uncomfortable we are with seeing whiteness and naming it. Seeing bias and talking about it.
how can we change if we aren’t even willing to see or hear?
I am just making it impossible for you to ignore it now, you can’t un-know it now. That’s good because people of color don’t have a choice to ignore it.
Reznor and Fincher are geniuses. But we all have room to grow, myself included. Let’s be open to it. Evolution and growth and caring about people who society mistreats, are the most NIN values I know.
What the fuck? No one is fucking cancelling anyone. An observation was made, that the slideshow and trailer were majority white, and was articulated quite well. I had a similar observation and I'd like to know more about it. Will seeing the movie explain a lot of those decisions? Yeah, probably. Will it have missed an opportunity to explain why the cast is nearly all white? I dunno, maybe. If so, I'd like to hear Fincher's take. Pretty fucking reasonable to me.
As for his father's part in this...hypothetically...if you put your name on something you, in part, own the criticism just as much as the accolades. Being his late father's passion project doesn't absolve from criticism if it's warranted, something we'll find out once we see the goddamn movie.
i think the other thing is that, even if you're making a period piece, you are CREATING A PIECE OF ART and you can put WHATEVER and WHOMEVER you want into it. there weren't people of color involved in the making of citizen kane? that's shitty, but you're not making a documentary. idunno. it's like when people say "there were no people of color in the LotR books" and that justifies why every single person in the movie is white (except for deep roy, i guess?) and it's like...it's a FANTASY WORLD. why is it unreasonable to cast some PoC for some roles?
on the other side of this, there's an episode of doctor who (capaldi's run) where the doctor and bill go to victorian(?) london and bill is SHOCKED to see so many people of color, because when you watch movies and tv shows that take place in that time, it's like PoC didn't exist, which is simply a complete misrepresentation of the population of england at the time. it made me so happy to see that on something with such a big reach.
sorry, i'm really fired up about what happened in philly last night and i'm sick of people making excuses for racism, whether overt or casual or just a perpetuation of the systems currently in place.
there's literally no reason why people of color can't or shouldn't be cast in things for "period accuracy." why not improve upon the things that have been historically fucked up?
@eversonpoe Isn’t shoehorning POC into everything called ‘tokenism’ though and considered a really BAD THING on social media. Also surely Herbert Mankiewicz is Jewish so unless people are saying Jewish people aren’t a repressed minority and have never been persecuted, there’s your minority representation. The film is also about him getting fair credit on a film so for @Max to say it’s some Hollywood tooting celebration is ridiculous. The only way it’s celebratory is in the film-making sense.
if Max wants to start a thread in Speak Your Mind about this subject I’d be interested though
Last edited by WorzelG; 10-27-2020 at 02:24 PM.
Yeah just read what happened in Philadelphia, that’s awful, it’s like why is there never any attempt to deescalate the situation, like the guy only had a knife, are the police so crap at shooting they can’t just shoot his arm or something? It just seems to escalate so often into an execution
Why are people giving Trent shit about this? He wrote the fuckin music. He's not supposed to get involved with casting. Take it up with Fincher
yeah you're totally right, i was more talking in general than about this film in specific, and i definitely wasn't clear about that. tokenism is bad, for sure, which is why it's good that people are telling more stories that represent the diversity that's actually present in the world.
also, yeah, agreed on the part of mank himself. as a jew myself, the erasure of jewish persecution in society is baffling to me.
The nerd in me has just exploded. I love this.
There is something about even old concert recordings that just can't be emulated with the mics of today. Hence, why I own some older mics of my favorite recordings I have from the 80s. [I know, not as old as the period of this movie. But still, on the same track]
It's not just a period piece. It's a historical biopic. I expect it to at least mostly accurately represent the characters and situations involved. If Mankiewicz had a black best friend in real life, then I expect his best friend in the movie to be black. If he didn't, then I don't expect one to be shoe-horned in there "for representation". Were there PoC involved in the making of Citizen Kane? I don't know, but if so, then I expect their parts to be accurately represented in the film and not whitewashed. THAT would be problematic.
But the comparison to LotR is ridiculous, as that is a completely fictional work set in a fantasy world. Very different situation from a biopic.
The anger and energy in some of the responses to the mere suggestion that race should be considered is really staggering. And telling.
I want to reiterate AGAIN that I am not asking for anyone to be "shoe-horned" into the movie. Please go back and read my posts again instead of replying to a straw man. My two major points I am making, yet again:
1. I just want us to be aware that this movie is all-white in the year 2020. This is significant and often people who are white do not even notice this. It doesn't even occur to people. When I was younger I never "saw race" at all and it is part of how we got here. Just be aware of it. Be willing to have a conversation about it, acknowledge it. Face it. That's my main point.
2. If you make it that far, then let's be willing to have a conversation about whose stories get to be told in major films. Who gets the funding. Who green lights the new movies. And yes, who gets to score the films. There are finite resources. Who didn't get their story told? Who didn't get funding? Who gets to make these decisions?
3. NONE of this is a knock on Reznor, Ross, Fincher, Fincher's father, or Mank himself. It isn't about them. It's not about canceling anyone. It's about us. What do we see? What are we willing to talk about. What conversations make us angry? Why do they make us angry?
For example, I randomly ran across this story about Neerja Bhanot, because a friend posted about her.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neerja_Bhanot
She sacrificed her life at the age of 22 to save many others including 42 Americans. No American has made a film about her. She's just one person. There are thousands of other stories we don't know. We all just learned about "Black Wall Street Massacre" through Watchmena hundred years after. Thanks to Ta Nahesi Coates, Damon Linderoff, a room of black writers, and yes, Trent and Atticus.
Who decides what stories are told to us? Who decides who gets to tell them? Are we willing to talk about it, when it is hard to? When it involves our heroes and favorite artists?
I looooooooove Trent Reznor. I have a NIN shirt on right now, one of his records three feet away from me as I right this in a really obscure online forum dedicated to him. And we are exactly the people who have a responsibility to ask questions and have hard conversations.
It's okay to enjoy Mank. It's okay to love the music Trent so painstakingly crafted to match the period. What an achievement. ALSO think critically and ask the big questions. Expand your mind. Listen to artists you might not normally listen to, watch movies that expand your understanding, support artists of color TOO. That's it.
You assume too much that people don't think about these things generally, but maybe just want to celebrate this film on this board. I talk about this kind of thing a lot with my husband actually. This may not be about colour specifically but both my boys are autistic so I think a lot about representation in films and books of autistic people - you see my boys aren't the autistic savant geniuses that are depicted everywhere but have a lot of learning issues, so I don't have any answers but I think about representation a lot.
Also the Oscars are changing things up and have announced measures to improve diversity
https://www.theguardian.com/film/202...ty-race-gender
And finally, One Night in Miami and Nomadland are 2 films directed by women of colour which are predicted to do well in best Director and Best Picture categories (and I'm sure there are others)
Last edited by WorzelG; 10-28-2020 at 09:26 AM.
Yes, and as you said...
So why are you singling out this film? Because Trent & Atticus are involved? Are we now going to go back and criticize them for doing The Social Network too?
Like I said, I get your frustration with films in general and I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but laying all this on one film is just ridiculous, no matter who is involved with it. There are far more egregious examples out there that are more deserving of this kind of ire.