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Mank maestro David Fincher on the frustrations of filmmaking.

The guys who invented Hollywood, tried to ostensibly organise something entirely couture – which is storytelling – and put it in a factory, and design it around the principles of an assembly line. I think the movie business still suffers from Louis B. Mayer’s complete misunderstanding about his life’s work [laughs]. He was a businessman, and this was how he could account for things.

Sometimes you have to roll up your sleeves, and get with people, and listen to them when they say, “I don’t get what I’m doing here. Why am I doing this?” And you have to work that stuff out.

Because I’ve already seen the movie, especially this movie – I’ve seen Mank four times a year for 30 years [laughs]. So for my money, every time somebody would say, “What is this movie about?” – I would just be like, “WHO CARES?! [laughs] I already told this story!”

As a director, your job is to tell the story. You’re going to tell the story to Gary [Oldman], you’re going to tell the story to Amanda [Seyfried], you’re going to tell the story to Tom [Burke]. Every actor, you’re trying to seduce to be part of your Mercury players. You have to gird yourself, and get up your excitement and energy, and hopefully tell them something in a coffee shop that makes them go, “Oh my God, I would love to give six months of my life to something like this [laughs].”

So by the time you get to shooting, you’re kind of exhausted with telling your story. And then you get on the set. And I often say this to film students: I get why Francis Coppola built that trailer that had all the television screens in it. I get it. I get the impetus. I don’t want to have to go on set and have to talk everybody through this thing again.

But, strangely enough, I find that you just have to do it. You have to make yourself available. And by the way, it is a bit of an odd gift. When you get in the van to go back to base camp, and the driver, who may or may or not even know that you’re directing the movie, says, “What’s this movie about?” – you can get impatient in that moment. “[sighs] Alright, it’s about a guy…”

Or you can go, “This is a great opportunity to tell the story in the most concise way.” Because what I find is that every time I’m forced to explain myself, I leave out another one of the boring parts [laughs]. I find myself naturally pre-selecting – you begin your editorial process when you’re going, “I don’t want to tell that. That’s boring.” That’s a pretty good hint that you should take that thing out of the script. If you don’t want to tell the teamsters about what happens in the third act, chances are you’ve got third-act problems.

Look, it’s a love/hate thing. I can’t imagine doing anything else, and I can’t wait to retire.

MANK IS STREAMING ON NETFLIX NOW.