Your Local Furry Loser

“I think most of the modern film audience equates black and white with noir, and it’s probably because the classic noir look is, in many cases, the most memorable. But within the canon of black-and-white cinematography, the spectrum is incredibly wide.

So what we did is, we looked at a variety of references. I basically went through and watched a bunch of films that I thought might have elements that would contribute to formulating the aesthetic playbook for the film. Some were classic noir films, others were classic ’30s glamour films, but really segmenting them out, and pulling certain elements of certain films together [resulted in] this overarching aesthetic for the movie. There are scenes in Mank that are essentially noir-based, there are others that are more ’30s glamour, and then there are others that are very modern or more naturalistic, and that’s all done with intent. It depended on the location and the scene construction, and the content of the story, as well.” — Erik Messerschmidt for Deadline, January 2021

AMANDA SEYFRIED as MARION DAVIES in MANK (2020)