The Film Boards: 'I felt like destroying something beautiful'

A Profile of David Fincher

For my first post on our blog I decided to write about something or I should say someone I feel I know very well. When I first began to look at films as a student, studying film studies at sixth form, we were asked to pick one director to profile for a presentation. I, on a whim, chose David Fincher as the director who I just happened to have seen and owned most of his films. This project turned me from an accidental unconscious fan of his into someone who loves his films and the work he creates. I purposefully now go and see anything he is involved with, which is unfortunately quite few and far between.

David Fincher always wanted to be a director. He loved Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as a child and at the age of 18 gained his first job in the film industry. He began his directorial career directing adverts for companies such as Coca Cola and big budget music videos for artists such as The Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson and Madonna’s Vogue. His directorial debut in feature films was Alien 3 but Fincher first gained critical attention with 1995’s Se7en. It tells the story of two police officers investigating a serial killer whose motivation for murder follows a pattern of the seven deadly sins. It contains what would become auteur like trade marks noticeable in all of Fincher’s films. For example his lack of geography often setting films within an unknown ‘cityscape’, the weather is often awful throughout with torrential rain and storms and many other editing techniques such as flashing up single frames in the middle of a scene, a most important feature within Fincher’s second film with Brad Pitt, Fight Club. Now a cult classic, Fight Club was originally panned by critics but now appears in the top 10 of many journalistic film lists. It is based upon Chuck Palahniuk’s book of the same name about an insomniac office worker (Edward Norton) who opens up a bare knuckle fight club with a mysterious acquaintance Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt). Fincher’s other notable films are 2002’s Panic Room starring Jodie Foster and 2007’s Zodiac continuing his choice of thriller based storylines which best suit his technical choices discussed above. Although both films were successful in terms of box office figures and critical consideration Fincher did not gain international recognition until The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The Film was nominated for thirteen Academy Awards including best director and is based on the short story of the same name by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Brad Pitt, in his third film with the director, starred as Button, an extraordinary human who ages backwards.

Fincher's next film The Social Network is released on the 15^th of October. It tells the story of the creators of the internet social phenomenon Facebook and the subsequent problems they faced. Nothing could be more apt a subject, particularly for people of my age. With Facebook taking over the world, people’s lives been documented on the web and whether someone is ‘in a relationship’ or not seeming to be determined by your relationship ‘status’ this film is set to be a must see. Fincher, I feel, is bound to have a long and successful career so try him out and see to his back catalogue because with such quality of stories you will not be disappointed.