With the impending release of ‘Gone Girl’ this weekend, it’s
time for another directorial retrospective. Today, we’ll be looking at the
filmography of ‘Gone Girl’s director, David Fincher. Before he became a
director, Fincher actually got his start in Hollywood working for ILM on films
like ‘Return of the Jedi’ and ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’. He then
started directing music videos for artists like Madonna, Michael Jackson, and Paula
Abdul. Then, in 1992, he made his directorial debut though unfortunately it didn’t
turn out so good. But as we’ll soon see, that wasn’t really his fault and
thankfully, his career managed to rebound after that. Overall, Fincher has one
of the best track records of any director currently working in Hollywood.
Excluding his first film, he has not made a bad film and given the current
critical reception for ‘Gone Girl’, it looks like Fincher has yet another
success on his hands. But for now, it’s time to look back on his filmography.
I’ve already briefly discussed two of these films, ‘Social Network’ and ‘Girl
with the Dragon Tattoo’, in my lists for my top 10 favorite films of 2010 and
2011, respectively, so I’ll just be expanding on what I said in those two posts
here. So now without further ado, here are the films of director David Fincher.
ALIEN 3 (1992)
Fincher’s directing career unfortunately got off to a fairly
rocky start when he was hired to direct ‘Alien 3’, the third film in the highly
successful ‘Alien’ franchise. It all started in 1979 with Ridley Scott’s
‘Alien’, a film that stands as not only a phenomenal sci-fi film but also a
very effective horror film. It utilized the cramped nature of its locales to
great effect, establishing a sense of claustrophobia and anxiety. That film was
followed in 1986 with ‘Aliens’, directed by James Cameron, fresh off of 1984’s
‘The Terminator’. ‘Aliens’ took a different approach than ‘Alien’, opting instead
for a more action-based aesthetic and it too is one of the best of its genre.
Sigourney Weaver established herself as one of the great female action heroes
but the film also had a great cast of memorable characters, something that
isn’t always easy to do when it comes to these kinds of movies. So as you can
see, Fincher had two incredibly tough acts to follow and ultimately ‘Alien 3’
ended up being a fairly mediocre threequel. But in the end, it isn’t Fincher’s
fault the film didn’t turn out that good. This is a case of a film that had an
infamously hellish production and that certainly shows when watching the final
product.
During pre-production, the film saw numerous rewrites occur,
each of which saw major changes to the film’s plot. One draft apparently had
the action set on Earth. While this ultimately wasn’t what the film was about,
an early teaser of the film had the tagline ‘On Earth, Everyone can hear you
Scream’, making it one of the misleading teasers ever. Another draft was to
have the film be set on a ‘Wooden Monastery’ full of monks. There were also
numerous directors considered for the film, including David Twohy, Renny
Harlin, and Vincent Ward (who came up with the ‘Wooden Monastery’ concept).
When Fincher was brought on, the experience wasn’t very pleasant for him. He
had little time to prepare for the film before it was to start shooting, and
once shooting did begin, the script wasn’t even complete yet. It had to be
worked on as shooting was going on. But even worse is that pretty much every
major idea that Fincher had about the film was shot down by the execs at Fox.
With all of this in mind, it’s very much clear why Fincher now disowns the
film… seriously, can you blame him? I’d disown the film too if I was in his
situation. But anyway, time to get to the actual film itself.
First off, the movie pulls the incredibly stupid move of
killing off all of the remaining characters from ‘Aliens’ except for Ripley. As
I stated earlier, ‘Aliens’ had a great cast of characters and to see most of
them killed off is, to quote James Cameron, ‘a Temple of Doom slap in the face’
to the fans. To make matters worse, Ripley ends up on an all-male prison
planet; to put it simply, there is no ‘silver lining’ for Ripley here. This
film has an incredibly bleak tone to it and while that is something that
Fincher is really good at doing as proven by his later films, here it is a
little bit too much. You’d think that after all that she had gone through in
both ‘Alien’ and ‘Aliens’, you would think that Ripley would catch a break but
that’s not the case here. Also, on another note, due to the fact that this is
an all-male prison planet where all of the men have shaved heads, it is
incredibly hard to tell them apart from one another because they all look the
frigging same so you don’t really care about any of them because you’ll be
spending more time trying to remember who’s who.
Despite all of this, there are two legitimately great things
about this movie. The first is Sigourney Weaver, who is once again fantastic as
Ellen Ripley. She carries the movie on her back though the rest of the cast is
pretty good as well. It’s just that, as I noted earlier, the majority of them
look exactly the same so this is more in regards to their performances than the
characters themselves. The other great part of this film is the ending (so…
Spoilers!). After defeating the Alien of the film, Ripley learns that she has
the embryo of an Alien queen inside of her. When the Weyland Corporation offers
to remove it from her body, Ripley sacrifices herself knowing that they are
going to use it for biological weaponry. It’s an incredibly bold move on behalf
of the filmmakers to kill off the main character of the franchise and it looked
as if this was going to be the final film in the series, though that ultimately
wasn’t the case with the release of ‘Alien: Resurrection’ five years later
(which for the record I haven’t seen yet). And unfortunately, despite those two
great aspects of ‘Alien 3’, they don’t help it that much as it is still a very
inferior follow-up to the first two ‘Alien’ films that came before it. But of
course this isn’t the fault of Fincher given the situation that he was in while
it was being made. I’m aware of the film’s ‘Assembly Cut’, which is viewed as
the superior cut of the film, which is also notably very different from the
original theatrical cut, but I haven’t seen it and even with that in mind, I’m
not sure how it much it improves the theatrical cut.
Rating: 2/5
SE7EN (1995)
Thankfully, ‘Alien 3’ didn’t sink Fincher’s career as a
director as he immediately rebounded with ‘Se7en’, a film in which two
detectives (played by Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman) investigate a series of
bizarre murders that are inspired by the seven deadly sins: Greed, Lust,
Gluttony, Pride, Envy, Sloth, and Wrath. This film is a much better example of
how Fincher does a great job at establishing dark environments, with the film
being set in a city that is slowly falling apart where it’s always raining.
This fits well with the murders that occur in this film. The majority of them
aren’t actually seen happening on screen, but the descriptions of them (e.g. an
obese man eating until his stomach burst or a woman whose face was heavily
disfigured, resulting in her choosing to end her life instead of having to live
with the scars for the rest of her life) certainly hit you hard in how graphic/disgusting
they are. But the best part of the film is its two leads, Pitt and Freeman.
There is an excellent dynamic between them with Pitt’s character being the
hot-headed rookie while Freeman’s character is the calm and collected veteran who
is nearing retirement.
And of course, there is the film’s infamous twist ending,
which I won’t dare spoil here for those of you who haven’t seen it. Needless to
say, it is a fantastic ending. The best way I can describe it without actually
talking about what happens in it is that it takes a much darker turn that one
might expect but at the same time it fits perfectly given the atmosphere and
tone that the film establishes. It’s a good thing that New Line Cinema didn’t
reject this ending which they were originally going to do, which would’ve resulted
in a much more straight-forward ‘mystery thriller’ ending. But thankfully Pitt
declared that he wouldn’t do the film if this ending wasn’t kept in the movie.
In the end, it was and ultimately this is why ‘Se7en’ is such a great crime
thriller. Fincher’s style matches perfectly with the story and the film holds
your interest from beginning to end with a compelling mystery and a truly
jaw-dropping finale (‘What’s in the Box??’). Of course, it’s also thanks to a
terrific cast headlined by Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman. In short, ‘Se7en’ is
easily one of Fincher’s best films, if not his absolute best.
Rating: 5/5!
THE GAME (1997)
Sandwiched in between the two films that are arguably still
David Fincher’s most notable films to date is 1997’s ‘The Game’. In the film,
Michael Douglas stars as Nicholas Van Orton, a successful but cold banker who,
on his 48th birthday, receives a present from his brother Conrad
(Sean Penn). This present is a ‘voucher’ for a ‘game’ run by a new company
called Consumer Recreation Services (CRS). He ends up using the voucher and soon
finds that this ‘game’ begins to take over his life. As one would expect from a
Fincher film, ‘The Game’ is an incredibly suspenseful thriller that has you on
the edge of your seat as we see how this game takes over Nicholas’ life.
Michael Douglas is fantastic in the lead role as is Sean Penn in his fairly brief
appearance in the film (probably about only 10 minutes of screen-time). But
unfortunately there is one major thing holding this film back from being one of
Fincher’s best films and that is the one thing that has been pretty much
universally criticized by almost everyone who seen it; the ending. Even Fincher
admits that it wasn’t that good. For those who haven’t seen the film yet, I
won’t spoil anything major but I will try and describe to the best of my
ability why the ending is so mediocre.
As the movie goes on, Nicholas begins to get very paranoid
due to how much ‘the Game’ has affected his life. He loses his house, his
money, etc. He begins to suspect that there’s this major ‘conspiracy’ behind
the whole thing and confronts the workers of CRS for answers. But he finds out
too late that there wasn’t any ‘conspiracy’ going on and does something
terrible. Immediately feeling regret for it, he does something out of despair.
This climax definitely feels like the ending to a David Fincher film… and then
all of a sudden that’s not how it all ends. Instead, it ends more on a ‘happy
ending’ where everything is fine. I’m sorry, but this doesn’t really gel well
with the shocking conclusion we had just witnessed which, as I just noted, is
very much in line with how most of Fincher’s films usually end. I feel that the
movie should’ve ended ten minutes earlier because as is, to quote my friend
Matt, the ‘true’ ending sort of feels like a major ‘copout’. Now with that
said, I still think that the movie is still a very solid mystery thriller but
while some may feel that it is Fincher’s most underrated film, I feel that it’s
actually his weakest film not counting Alien 3. I do think it is underrated but
as for his most underrated… that one would come a decade later. But overall
‘The Game’ is still very much worth checking out.
Rating: 4/5
FIGHT CLUB (1999)
As crazy as it may seem, ‘Fight Club’, based off of the
novel of the same name by Chuck Palahniuk, wasn’t as well-regarded upon its
initial release as it is today. When it was first released in theaters, it was
arguably the most controversial film of 1999. There were those who loved it for
its thought-provoking script while those who hated it believed that it was
overly excessive in regards to its brutal violence. But since then, this
negative reception towards the film has died down considerably and ‘Fight Club’
is now considered to not only be a cult classic, but is also regarded as one of
the ultimate ‘guy movies’. Even Palahniuk has admitted that he thinks the film
is an improvement over the book. Now when it comes to this film, there has been
quite a lot of analysis towards it by those who are much better than I am when
it comes to this sort of thing. So because of this, I’m not going into too much
detail when it comes to ‘analyzing’ this film’s themes and messages. Instead,
I’m just going to talk about my overall thoughts on the film.
‘Fight Club’ is a visual assault on all of the senses, what
some may call a ‘mindf***’… and it is frigging awesome. It’s a film that, yes,
is full of violence, mostly via the titular ‘Fight Club’ but at the same time
it’s a very smartly written film. It’s a biting satire on the consumerist
culture and the ‘lost generation’. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg when
it comes to this film but like I said, that’s about as far as I go with that
stuff. The film features terrific performances from Edward Norton, Brad Pitt,
and Helena Bonham Carter. Pitt especially steals the show here as one of the
best characters ever to be put onto film; the one and only Tyler Durden. Yes,
he may be very extreme at times but he’s also incredibly charismatic and very
smart. This was the film that really got me into being a fan of Pitt as an
actor. I’ll admit that before I saw this I wasn’t really that big a fan of his,
which I guess was mostly because I got really sick of the fact that he was
always in the headlines due to his relationship with Angelina Jolie. But this
film thankfully changed my mind about all of that. After all, most of the time
you should just ‘separate the art from the artist’ like I do with other actors
like Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson. Really, what else more is there needed to be
said about ‘Fight Club’? It may not have made a big splash initially but in the
years since it has earned its rightful place as one of the all-time classics.
Rating: 5/5!
PANIC ROOM (2002)
‘Panic Room’ is another one of the forgotten entries in David
Fincher’s filmography probably because, on the surface, it’s not as
thought-provoking as something like ‘Fight Club’ or ‘Se7en’. Instead, it’s more
like your straight-forward thriller film; it’s a ‘popcorn flick’. And according
to Fincher, that’s exactly the kind of movie he wanted to make so in short, he
definitely delivers on that front. But at the same time, Fincher does, once
again, establish an effectively dark atmosphere that fits well with this story
of a home invasion. Jodie Foster does a fantastic job in the lead role of Meg
Altman, a recently divorced mother who has just moved into a new house with her
daughter Sarah (pre-Twilight Kristen Stewart) but who then has to deal with
robbers on just the first night they’re there. But really, the major standouts
of this film are Jared Leto and Forest Whitaker as two of the three robbers
(the other played by Dwight Yoakam). Leto’s an absolute scene-stealer as
Junior, the hot-headed member of the group, while Whitaker gives an excellent
reserved performance as Burnham, who had a hand in designing the titular ‘Panic
Room’ in which Meg and Sarah hide in for most of the film. All in all, ‘Panic
Room’ may be the simplest of Fincher’s films in terms of its ideas but it is
still a very solid and tense thriller that will have you on the edge of your
seat.
Rating: 4/5
ZODIAC (2007)
‘Zodiac’ is quite frankly David Fincher’s most underrated
film to date, at least from a commercial standpoint. While the film did get
glowing reviews from critics, it wasn’t too successful at the U.S. box office.
It only grossed about 33 million stateside, which was only about half of its
$65 million budget. Thankfully, it made enough overseas to make its budget back
at the box office but still it’s a shame that this film didn’t do so well here.
Why is that, you ask? Well, it’s probably because this is a two and a half hour
movie that mostly consists of characters talking with one another. There’s not
exactly a lot of ‘action’ and pretty much all of that action occurs within the
first 45 minutes. But in this case it’s not a problem because the story is just
so incredibly compelling. This is based off of the real-life murder case of the
‘Zodiac Killer’, who terrorized northern California in the 60’s and 70’s. The
crazy thing about this whole story is that this case has never been solved and
while that does technically mean we kind of already know going in how this will
all turn out, we’re still engrossed in the movie and we feel the same frustration
that those investigating the case are going through. And once you think they’re
finally going to solve the case, the film ends with a caption stating that
their prime suspect died before he could be questioned and that a DNA test
conducted a few years after that was unable to link him to their evidence.
But at its heart, this story is mainly about the obsession
of cartoonist Robert Graysmith, who worked for years trying to figure out the
identity of the Zodiac killer, even years after the Zodiac killings occurred.
It’s interesting how someone like Graysmith, who really shouldn’t even be
involved in this case (he is described by many people as a ‘boy scout’) but we
do follow him as this investigation consumes every aspect of his life to the
point where he loses his job and his wife divorces him. It’s an interesting
look into a character’s psyche and Jake Gyllenhaal gives one of the best
performances of his career in this movie but he is also backed up by a really
solid supporting cast. This includes Robert Downey Jr. as reporter Paul Avery and
sure if you really look at it, it’s just Downey Jr. playing Tony Stark (a year
before ‘Iron Man’ came out) but you now what? I don’t mind that at all because
he’s so damn good when it comes to portraying characters with a ‘cocky/destructive’
personality. And then you factor in the rest of the cast, which includes the
likes of Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Edwards, and Brian Cox and you have yourselves
one fine ensemble cast. The film is well-shot (and yes, I’m aware that a lot of
the scenes were mostly CGI but it’s still some pretty good-looking CGI),
well-acted, and has a very engaging story to follow. I highly recommend this
one for you all; sure it’s mostly a dialogue movie but it’s still a very
intriguing look into one of the most infamous unsolved cases in American
history.
Rating: 4.5/5
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON (2008)
Some probably like to refer to this movie as David Fincher’s
‘Forrest Gump’ and it’s understandable why. While this film is based (albeit
loosely) off of a different source material, in this case a short story by F.
Scott Fitzgerald, both films center around the main character living his life
over many years. Heck, both films even have the same screenwriter, Eric Roth.
However, while I do still really like ‘Forrest Gump’, I think ‘Benjamin Button’
is the better film. While ‘Gump’ is more about nostalgia and American history,
this film focuses more on the idea of life and how ultimately nothing lasts
forever. The main character of Benjamin Button, who was born with a condition
where, at birth, he appears to be an old man and as he gets older, he begins to
look much younger, meets a lot of people over the course of his life… and most
of them end up dying. Death is a common theme in the film as Benjamin lives his
life; he is raised in a nursing home by his surrogate mother Queenie (who later
dies), he works on a tugboat that gets caught up in World War II, and he falls
in love with a girl named Daisy even though they’re on different life paths.
This film really handles this whole situation perfectly and because of that,
the film really gets to you on an emotional level.
It’s an incredibly beautiful looking film. The
cinematography is absolutely spectacular (what else would you expect from a
Fincher film?) and then you also factor in the incredible special effects used
in portraying Benjamin as he goes from an ‘older-looking’ child to a
‘younger-looking’ old man. It’s been noted that if this movie had been done at
an earlier time than when it finally got made, the role would have required
more than one actor in regards to the various periods of life. But thanks to
advances in technology, Brad Pitt was able to play the role as much as possible
and because of that, he gives one of the absolute best performances of his
entire career here. Cate Blanchett and Taraji P. Henson are also fantastic in
this film as well and at the film’s core is the love story between Benjamin and
Daisy, executed brilliantly here by both Fincher’s directing and the chemistry
between Pitt and Blanchett. I’m just going to say it… this is my favorite
Fincher film and it’s slowly becoming one of my favorite films of all time. I
absolutely love this movie. Not only is it an incredibly beautiful looking film
in regards to its visual look but it also does a phenomenal job in its handling
of the concept of life and death. I’ll even admit that I get a little
teary-eyed at certain points. That’s how great this film is.
Rating: 5/5!
THE SOCIAL NETWORK (2010)
On the surface, a movie about Facebook sort of seems like a
really stupid idea… at least that’s what I thought when I first heard about
this film getting made. At that time, I remember that I had recently watched
this video from collegehumor.com which was a Facebook-themed parody of the film
‘Face/Off’ in which two guys hacked each other’s Facebook account in order to
vie for the affections of this one girl they both liked. Back then, I thought
that this was the best way anyone could even make a movie about Facebook… and
it wasn’t even a real movie. But the great thing about ‘The Social Network’ is
that while it is centered on the origins of Facebook, this movie has much more
to it than that. It’s also about the legal battles that occurred due to Facebook
creator Mark Zuckerberg’s (Jesse Eisenberg) actions during the initial years of
the website. In one lawsuit, he’s being sued by the Winklevoss twins
(amazingly, both of them are portrayed by the same actor, Armie Hammer), who
claim that he ‘stole their idea’ for the website when they had approached him
to help them make their own website, ‘Harvard Connection’. And in another
lawsuit, he is being sued by his best friend and Facebook co-founder, Eduardo
Saverin (Andrew Garfield) after Saverin finds out that he was getting screwed
out of his shares of the website.
It’s pretty much a Greek tragedy; Zuckerberg is someone who
is undeniably a genius but at the same time, his general lack of social skills
and his tendency to judge people end up costing him the value of companion-ship.
It’s even sadder when looking at the relationship between him and Saverin; they
were best friends and yet Zuckerberg ends up destroying that friendship.
Eisenberg and Garfield really sell that friendship and as a result, you really
sympathize with Eduardo when he learns he got screwed over. Now on that note,
that may seem like the movie ‘vilifies’ Zuckerberg but that’s not entirely the
case as, noted earlier, there’s no denying that he’s a smart guy. And for the
record yes I am very much aware that the film isn’t entirely accurate in
regards to the whole story about the creation of Facebook (namely that Zuckerberg
wasn’t really as big of an asshole as this movie may paint him as). Still, with
Fincher’s directing, Aaron Sorkin’s smart and snappy screenplay, and brilliant
performances from all involved, ‘The Social Network’ is one truly compelling
drama and that is why I listed it as my favorite film of 2010.
Rating: 5/5!
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (2011)
Finally we come to Fincher’s adaptation of ‘The Girl with
the Dragon Tattoo’, based off of the first book in the Millennium trilogy by
author Steig Larsson. The series was previously adapted into a trilogy in
Sweden starring Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander and Michael Nyqvist as Mikael
Blomkvist. In Fincher’s film, Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig portray these roles
and overall I must say that I do prefer Fincher’s film to the Swedish film. Now
for the record, I don’t want this to look like I’m biased because I’m American
but I do think that Fincher’s version is superior for one main reason; it does
a better job in regards to the darker elements of the story. To put it quite
simply, this is one very dark story and while the Swedish film did do a good
job at adapting the story, Fincher was ultimately the perfect choice to direct
this story. After all, as we’ve already established, Fincher is really great
when it comes to creating gloomy and unsettling environments and that style
fits perfectly with the story. Fincher isn’t afraid to show off some of the
more disturbing moments of the book. Yes that does mean that this movie can be
really hard to watch at times but at the same time it’s also a very compelling
murder mystery.
The film also benefits from terrific performances from its
two main leads. As it has been noted by pretty much everyone, Rooney Mara
absolutely steals the show here as Lisbeth Salander. This character is an
incredibly interesting character that is shrouded in mystery. Mara completely
disappears into the role, resulting in an incredibly mesmerizing performance.
But at the same time, Daniel Craig also does a fantastic job as Mikael
Blomkvist. Craig made sure that the character felt different than James Bond;
he’s someone who wants to expose corruption but can occasionally go a little
too far, as shown in the opening when he is seen after losing a libel case. Watching
him, I didn’t see James Bond; I saw Mikael Blomkvist. Both Mara and Craig
really get into their roles and work off each other well when they’re on-screen
together. Overall, Fincher delivered a brutal, unapologetic but ultimately very
engaging take on this story and I’m hoping that this version of the trilogy
will continue on with film adaptations of ‘The Girl who Played with Fire’ and
‘The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest’. The status of those two proposed films
is currently up in the air right now but I for one hope they do get made.
Rating: 4.5/5
And now I close out
with a list ranking all of Fincher’s films to date.
9. Alien 3
8. The Game
7. Panic Room
6. The Girl with the
Dragon Tattoo
5. Zodiac
4. Se7en
3. Fight Club
2. The Social Network
1. The Curious Case
of Benjamin Button
