I'm compiling my top ten of 2010, looking at the last year in film, and, just to spoil the suspense a bit, my top film of the year is going to be David Fincher's THE SOCIAL NETWORK.
It's a work of genius. Yes, genius. It's subtle and restrained, haunting and unforgettable. The final frame of the film is simultaneously hopeful and pathetic, funny and touching, taking the mundane and making it beautifully human and resonant. I haven't seen anything like it in years, and I'll be spoiled if I see something that approaches it next year.
I think the highest compliment I can bestow upon the film is that I've been reviewing the past work of it's key creative personnel ever since I watched it. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin's SPORTS NIGHT and THE WEST WING have been my go-to TV shows as of late (sorry, THE VAMPIRE DIARIES), I've been absorbed in composer Trent Reznor's oddly-uplifting "Ghosts" in between bumping the new Kanye, and I've been watching a lot of David Fincher movies.
And not writing about them. In the words of Talib Kweli, one of Kanye's musical mentors, "They say I'm back - but I ain't go nowhere, though - I've been here the whole time. Where you been? You back." Regardless of who left who, who killed who, and who forgot their surprisingly juvenile Blogspot password, the fact is the blog is back.
To celebrate, I've decided to take a ridiculously long look at Fincher's films, and write a little essay about how he uses anger and jealousy in his lead characters.
ANGRY PERSON #1: ELLEN RIPLEY (ALIEN3)
Much has been made of ALIEN3 and it's troubled production history. I don't think Fincher even considers it "his" film any more. But we'd have to assume something drew him to the project to begin with (aside from getting out of the music video world on a huge Hollywood sequel, that is). I'm going to focus mainly on protagonists, so let's look at what happens to Ripley in ALIEN3.
Right off the bat, Fincher kills off Newt, the adorable orphan moppet from ALIENS, in a clear attempt to up the stakes. One of the most interesting things about ALIENS is the Ripley-Newt dynamic, and the depiction of Ripley as a mother. In fact, I would posit that ALIENS is the great female empowerment film of the 1980s, one in which a woman can kick ass and hold her own with the boys without using her sexuality as a bargaining chip. Cameron's Ripley was a badass who could sacrifice life while being incredibly maternal at the same time. Without Newt around, Ripley loses an element that made her so fascinating in the earlier film.
And this isn't the only thing Fincher takes away from the character - he shaves her head and outfits her in the same drab wardrobe as the rest of the all-male cast, stripping her of her sexuality. Fincher (and writer Vincent Ward) seem to be determined to get to the base humanity of Ripley, to the point of completely removing her femininity. Of course, the climax of the film makes it clear that they haven't forgotten that Ripley is a woman - the abortionist overtones of Ripley's death are an interesting and warped counterpoint to ALIENS' defense and indeed, celebration, of motherhood.
But what do we learn about Ripley by the end of ALIEN3? The answer is not much. We find out that she is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to protect the world. We pretty much already knew that. We also see that she's pretty pissed off about this phallic alien who keeps fucking up her life. We can get that, too. That's about it.
One of the (many) problems with ALIEN3 is that you get the sense that Fincher is a lot more interested in the convicts on the planet than with Ripley, but since the story has to be about Ripley, he's never really sure what to do with her. He'd rather be talking about, y'know, jail, and society and stuff. He never taps into the rage we expect to see from Ripley about Newt or Hicks' death, and he never plays her anger off against the anger of the convicts in a particularly interesting way.
Let's be honest: ALIEN3 is clearly a product of eight or nine different interests, and it's a confusingly beautiful mess because of it. Fincher can't be criticized for a lot of that. But Fincher's handling of his female leads is a disturbingly weak spot in my opinion, and one that we'll check back in on as we go.
ANGRY PERSONAGES #2 AND #3: DAVID MILLS AND JOHN DOE (SE7EN)
Another fair criticism of Fincher's work is that he can sometimes paint with too broad a brush, making his characters archetypes instead of real people. Nowhere is that more prevalent than in SE7EN (or, as the sane would type it, SEVEN - thanks for inventing l33tsp3ak, Mr. Fincher). I'd make the argument that this film needs that sort of mythic touch - it is, after all, a moral parable. The characters need to be representative, at least on one level, rather than individuals.
But there's no denying that Brad Pitt occasionally plays it a bit big. His Detective David Mills, or, perhaps more accurately, Wrath, is a man consumed by barely-contained rage, and Pitt likes to play up the explosion and underplay the smolder. I generally like Pitt, and I think he's become a fine actor, but I think he's a little out of his league here. Contrasted with Morgan Freeman, Pitt's performance seems obvious and a little showy - which, in an amusing way, actually enhances the rookie-veteran dynamic between the two.
Mills is perhaps the most fascinating character in Fincher's filmography, and possibly the most telling as well. The fact that character and creator share a first name may be coincidence, but the astounding physical similarities seem more than a bit planned. Watching behind-the-scenes footage of SE7EN and determining who is Pitt and who is Fincher (hint: Fincher's the one who isn't Brad Pitt) is probably the only EPK that can function as a drinking game (aside from the always-popular EPK drinking game of "Take A Shot Every Time Someone Says, 'It was a pleasure working with ...'"). It's clear that Fincher sees a lot of himself in the character, and with the pivotal decision of the climax resting entirely on Mills' shoulders, the audience is placed in his shoes for much of the film.
What truly elevates SE7EN though, is how uncomfortably close we get to John Doe, the killer played with menacing calm by Kevin Spacey. Doe does some truly horrifying things in the film, but when he speaks, it's with disturbing rationality. His philosophy is one without forgiveness, a merciless indictment of his fellow man, but one that is logically derived from it's biblical source. What's even more notable is how little time Doe truly has with the audience - a little over twenty minutes. This is some of the most awkward twenty minutes in modern cinema (excluding, of course, watching SCARY MOVIE with your dad).
Fincher very deliberately puts the cop car divider between the audience and Doe for the entire drive out to the desert (when Doe gets his big speeches and the majority of his screen time), almost as if to emphasize the difference between the emotional gap between what Doe has done and what Fincher's asking us to do: sympathize with the villain. Doe has crafted this morality play, and in that sense, one can see how Fincher would relate to him as well: they're co-directors of this charming pastiche of death and sin.
But what makes Doe disturbingly relatable to the audience is how he has cast himself: as Envy. He isn't above his own moral judgments. He deserves to die for his sins as well. And jealousy, much more than wrath, is a wholly relatable sin. In fact, in Part II of my review of Fincher's characters, I'll make the argument that he often uses jealousy as a tool to make his villains more sympathetic and his heroes more human.
Come back soon when we'll take a look at THE GAME, FIGHT CLUB, and PANIC ROOM. And next time I'll bring the grimy beats out the dungeon.
