A day off work recently ended up with me being lucky enough to see David Fincher's revered serial killer film from the mid-ninties and I have to say that I was surprised at how fresh it still felt, despite a number of films (and games) copying the formula since and wearing it remarkably thin. I watched it thinking that I would enjoy the film, but more out of nostalgia and would notice dated looks, concepts and themes. However, even 16 years on (yes it is that long), it feels as though it could have been released yesterday.
It's almost as if the stars were aligned (no pun intended), Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt and Kevin Spacey could not be more perfect choices for their roles. Freeman as William Somerset, a homicide detective one week from retirement, Pitt as David Mills, Somerset's new partner, younger and full of ambition, together on the trail of a serial killer obsessed with the seven deadly sins, eloquently played with intelligence and a chilling charm by Spacey. It's excellent casting on all fronts, but they all still need to deliver, and they do by the bucket load.
Pitt was at the top of his game back in 1995, he had been on a remarkable run of films and performances, Kalifornia, True Romance, Interview with a Vampire and Legends of the Fall. All very different films and very different roles, but all notable performances. For me though, as I was 14 at the time (and shouldn't have even been allowed to see it at the cinema - good old mum) this was the first film where I personally really took notice of Pitt. He's great to watch as the hot-headed young detective, wants the action, wants to be the hero all the time. He is perfectly suited to the petulant and at times sarcastic Mills, striving to prove himself to Somerset and his superiors. You sense that it's all a bit of a front and could come crashing down at anytime, which is of course vital to how the story plays out.
There's no doubting Morgan Freeman's quality and he's been doing it for years, a long time before Seven and a long time since, but this is a turn from him that really should be up there with some of his finest. He is the complete opposite to Pitt's Mills, calm, measured, pessimistic and subdued. He just wants to get through this last week on the job, but can't quite let go. He has a paternal quality about him, similar to that of Red in the Shawshank Redemption, and also similar to that character, he is downtrodden, his life has made him weary.
What really sets the film apart from others in the genre and those have tried to emulate is the relationship between Mills and Somerset. Fincher and Andrew Kevin Walker's script take the time and care to explore how the two characters develop with each other during the seven day period. Time is spent with Mills at home, we also see a nice, normal, down to earth scene, where Mills' wife (played by Gwyneth Paltrow very well) invites Somerset over for dinner. It doesn't really help propel the serial killer story along, but the pace doesn't feel plodding at all, instead we really benefit from seeing these two characters in their personal environment. These scenes also highlight the differences between Somerset and Mills, portraying to starkly contrasting world views . The result is a gripping polemic conflict of ideals in society that gives the film, as well as the characters, a vast amount of depth.
On top of all of this is Kevin Spacey's depiction of a serial killer. He doesn't get a massive amount of screen time compared to the others, but he really does steal the last third of the film. Creepy, not scary, and clearly very intelligent, it's a long way from the depictions in films such as Silence of the Lambs, and is all the more chilling because of that. Top notch.
Seven was also the film that really launched Fincher as a director. After the interesting, underrated all be it massively flawed Alien 3, he still had to really make his mark. Seven has all the traits of the Fincher that has gone on to take Hollywood by storm, visually striking and interesting with buckets of atmosphere. It's constantly raining in this film and it adds to the whole film noir aesthetic that the film is clearly more than a nod towards. The colour of the film is dark with a grainy texture, something that again has been copied many times since, and Fincher shows the gore and violence but without the bright red of blood it doesn't quite seem as brutal, more unsettling than anything else.
It's brilliantly handled from start to finish, and what a finish, culminating in Kevin Spacey's murderer's masterpiece that ensures that this was Fincher's masterpiece as well. Great acting from a great cast, with a great director bringing us a great story. Simple as that. Great.
About Me
- Ollie Miney
- Lover of all things film, ready to tell you what to avoid, and more importantly, what to seek out.
Showing posts with label David Fincher. Show all posts
Showing posts with label David Fincher. Show all posts
Monday, 25 April 2011
Monday, 28 February 2011
THE SOCIAL NETWORK (2010 - Cert 12A)
I knew about The Social Network before it was released in the cinema last year. I knew David Fincher was directing and I knew Jesse Eisenberg was playing the awkward creator of the phenomenon that is Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg. As far as I was concerned, as a fan of both of them, that was enough for me. However, I remember being out one night, when the film came up in conversation, and someone I didn't know that well exclaimed 'How can you make a film out of Facebook?'. The key part of that sentence was the phrase 'out of'. It made me wonder whether the film's success could be based on the fact that it was about Facebook, thus ensuring that it had one very large demographic sewn up (Facebook members - only about 600 million of them). Facebook users thought it was a cash-in. A movie version of the pages that we use as a window to our life.
The reality of course is that you can't really make a film 'out of' Facebook. This theme is something it shares with it's biggest rival for the Best Picture Oscar - you can't make a whole film (and keep it interesting) based solely on a speech impediment, much in the same way that you can't create two engrossing hours of cinema with people poking, tagging and posting on walls. The key to what is great about both films is the story behind the central ideas. The real events that unfolded around George VI are as interesting and equally as unbelievable as those that surround the creation of the social tool that defines an entire generation.
Ben Mezrich, author of the incredibly overrated Bringing Down the House (adapted for the screen as '21' - even worse than the book) is the basis for Aaron Sorkin's (The West Wing) adapted screenplay and exposes the back stabbing, deceit and selfishness of how Facebook was born. The subtitle to the book is actually A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal (not like Mezrich to sensationalise....). The narrative is full of examples of Sorkin's clever approach to storytelling as it jumps from two separate deposition rooms housing two different sets of legal proceedings against Zuckerberg, to the moments in the past that are being described by the protagonists. In one room are the Winklevoss twins, who claimed Zuckerberg stole their idea from their website The Harvard Connection, and the other is Eduardo Saverin, long time friend of Zuckerberg and co-founder of Facebook. It's a device that works very well once you get your head round it. The early scenes jump between the two rooms and the past very quickly and with the sharp-tongued, pacey dialogue it can be difficult to keep up. Hang in there though, it's well worth it.
It isn't just Sorkin's writing that helps the film zip along though, David Fincher's direction manages to make a film that consists almost completely of people typing at keyboards or talking in rooms, incerdibly exciting. The film has a real energy. The camera never seeming to keep still, jumping between speakers, sweeping across the Harvard grounds. An at times techy score pulsating underneath Eissenberg's relentless diatribe. The opening sequence sees Zuckerberg blogging while building a website called Facemash at the same time. Fincher's fast editing, brilliant use of music and a determination to always have something happening in the periphery ensures that we are not lost in the Zuckerberg's jargon and are not bogged down in the technicalities of that he is doing. Another brilliant scene involves a rowing race at Henley regatta highlights the creativity of Fincher and makes me want to go through his back catalogue, kicking off with Alien 3 (which I still think is better than a lot of people give credit).
Eisenberg is very good as Zuckerberg. I haven't seen Mr Facebook other than a picture, so I don't know whether Eissenburg's portrayal is accurate, but it is a totally convincing performance of a ludicrously clever, yet criminally awkward individual, creating a social tool that he needs with a ruthlessness that will not waver. Is Zuckerberg as he is presented in the film? I have no idea, I don't really care, I'm not watching a documentary, I'm here for entertainment, not facts. And Eisenberg entertains, but not as much as he did for me in Zombieland.
I've got to be honest though, Eisenberg isn't the standout performance. It's Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Saverin, the co-founder. Its true that Saverin isn't as monotone as Zuckerberg, and that may be the reason why Garfield was more noticeable, but having watched Never Let Me Go just a couple of days before this, I am now firmly in Camp Garfield (nothing to do with a ginger cat). In a film full of people being nasty to each other, Saverin was the only one I felt any warmth towards and I'm convinced that is due to Garfield.
The Winklevoss twins are both played by the amazingly named Armie Hammer, Fincher pulling that off so well that I had to double check on IMDB afterwards that it wasn't two separate people. Hammer is perfectly decent as the angry jock brothers and gets most of the funny lines. The other member of the cast worth mentioning is Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker, creator of Napster. He is all smooth talking pumped up confidence (or is it arrogance), just as I imagine him to be in real life. He is perfectly watchable, if a little underwhelming when on screen, and doesn't quite have enough in the locker to really convince when in conflict with the other characters.
It's a brilliant film, there's no doubt about it, and perhaps it's unfortunate that it falls in such a strong field at this year's Oscars. However for everything that is great about it, in my opinion it suffers from the same affliction that Blue Valentine suffered from. It's about bad people being horrible to each other. The story is fascinating - its a commentary on something that we are all so familar with (you may even be reading this blog from a post on my Facebook page), it explains how $1000 became $82.9 billion and shows the noses that were broken in the process, it may not be completely accurate but it does make for compelling and insightful viewing. It's also about someone who, no matter how hard he tries, can't connect and he builds something that will help him do so. But because all of the characters are so nasty, all the backstabbing, all the accusations, they wear us down - we don't sympathise with them and consequently we do not care. The Kings Speech, 127 Hours, Black Swan - we sided with all of the protagonists and come the end of the film we were moved, in one way or another. The Social Network may be more pessimistic, perhaps even realistic, but as the film finishes there is a distinct chill there. It shouldn't be a criticism, especially as I hate a happy ending, but as a consequence, it's as if your router packs in - it does leave you disconnected....
The reality of course is that you can't really make a film 'out of' Facebook. This theme is something it shares with it's biggest rival for the Best Picture Oscar - you can't make a whole film (and keep it interesting) based solely on a speech impediment, much in the same way that you can't create two engrossing hours of cinema with people poking, tagging and posting on walls. The key to what is great about both films is the story behind the central ideas. The real events that unfolded around George VI are as interesting and equally as unbelievable as those that surround the creation of the social tool that defines an entire generation.
Ben Mezrich, author of the incredibly overrated Bringing Down the House (adapted for the screen as '21' - even worse than the book) is the basis for Aaron Sorkin's (The West Wing) adapted screenplay and exposes the back stabbing, deceit and selfishness of how Facebook was born. The subtitle to the book is actually A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal (not like Mezrich to sensationalise....). The narrative is full of examples of Sorkin's clever approach to storytelling as it jumps from two separate deposition rooms housing two different sets of legal proceedings against Zuckerberg, to the moments in the past that are being described by the protagonists. In one room are the Winklevoss twins, who claimed Zuckerberg stole their idea from their website The Harvard Connection, and the other is Eduardo Saverin, long time friend of Zuckerberg and co-founder of Facebook. It's a device that works very well once you get your head round it. The early scenes jump between the two rooms and the past very quickly and with the sharp-tongued, pacey dialogue it can be difficult to keep up. Hang in there though, it's well worth it.
It isn't just Sorkin's writing that helps the film zip along though, David Fincher's direction manages to make a film that consists almost completely of people typing at keyboards or talking in rooms, incerdibly exciting. The film has a real energy. The camera never seeming to keep still, jumping between speakers, sweeping across the Harvard grounds. An at times techy score pulsating underneath Eissenberg's relentless diatribe. The opening sequence sees Zuckerberg blogging while building a website called Facemash at the same time. Fincher's fast editing, brilliant use of music and a determination to always have something happening in the periphery ensures that we are not lost in the Zuckerberg's jargon and are not bogged down in the technicalities of that he is doing. Another brilliant scene involves a rowing race at Henley regatta highlights the creativity of Fincher and makes me want to go through his back catalogue, kicking off with Alien 3 (which I still think is better than a lot of people give credit).
Eisenberg is very good as Zuckerberg. I haven't seen Mr Facebook other than a picture, so I don't know whether Eissenburg's portrayal is accurate, but it is a totally convincing performance of a ludicrously clever, yet criminally awkward individual, creating a social tool that he needs with a ruthlessness that will not waver. Is Zuckerberg as he is presented in the film? I have no idea, I don't really care, I'm not watching a documentary, I'm here for entertainment, not facts. And Eisenberg entertains, but not as much as he did for me in Zombieland.
I've got to be honest though, Eisenberg isn't the standout performance. It's Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Saverin, the co-founder. Its true that Saverin isn't as monotone as Zuckerberg, and that may be the reason why Garfield was more noticeable, but having watched Never Let Me Go just a couple of days before this, I am now firmly in Camp Garfield (nothing to do with a ginger cat). In a film full of people being nasty to each other, Saverin was the only one I felt any warmth towards and I'm convinced that is due to Garfield.
The Winklevoss twins are both played by the amazingly named Armie Hammer, Fincher pulling that off so well that I had to double check on IMDB afterwards that it wasn't two separate people. Hammer is perfectly decent as the angry jock brothers and gets most of the funny lines. The other member of the cast worth mentioning is Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker, creator of Napster. He is all smooth talking pumped up confidence (or is it arrogance), just as I imagine him to be in real life. He is perfectly watchable, if a little underwhelming when on screen, and doesn't quite have enough in the locker to really convince when in conflict with the other characters.
It's a brilliant film, there's no doubt about it, and perhaps it's unfortunate that it falls in such a strong field at this year's Oscars. However for everything that is great about it, in my opinion it suffers from the same affliction that Blue Valentine suffered from. It's about bad people being horrible to each other. The story is fascinating - its a commentary on something that we are all so familar with (you may even be reading this blog from a post on my Facebook page), it explains how $1000 became $82.9 billion and shows the noses that were broken in the process, it may not be completely accurate but it does make for compelling and insightful viewing. It's also about someone who, no matter how hard he tries, can't connect and he builds something that will help him do so. But because all of the characters are so nasty, all the backstabbing, all the accusations, they wear us down - we don't sympathise with them and consequently we do not care. The Kings Speech, 127 Hours, Black Swan - we sided with all of the protagonists and come the end of the film we were moved, in one way or another. The Social Network may be more pessimistic, perhaps even realistic, but as the film finishes there is a distinct chill there. It shouldn't be a criticism, especially as I hate a happy ending, but as a consequence, it's as if your router packs in - it does leave you disconnected....
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