(Almost) 12 Angry (Or Jealous) Men (and Women): The Characters of David Fincher (Part II)

On the heels of THE SOCIAL NETWORK's 8 Oscar nominations this morning, we now return to our exploration of the filmography and protagonists of David Fincher. Part I can be found here.

ANGRY PERSON #4: NICHOLAS VAN ORTON (THE GAME)

Following the critical and commercial success of SE7EN, Fincher could have done almost anything he wanted. So why, in the whole wide world, did he pick a script from the writers of THE NET? (Amusing side note: these two All-Stars would go on to write TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES, TERMINATOR: SALVATION, and Halle Berry's CATWOMAN. We can all dread Anne Hathaway stepping into Michelle Pfeiffer's boots if we want to, but I think we've already reached the depths of Catwoman-related depravity, don't you?)

Despite the astounding levels of future failure reached by these writers, THE GAME actually remains a very fun film, and a very Fincher-ian one at that. All three films I'll look at today hinge on an exploration of violence and subdued anger, and it's a definite thematic link through this section of Fincher's filmography. THE GAME does this almost entirely through the character of Nicholas Van Orton, one of Michael Douglas' most interesting performances.

The emotional key to his performance is the line, "Right now, I am extremely dangerous," which comes in the last act of the film. Fincher's interested in what leads him to this point. Van Orton is set up as an emotionally frigid and aloof character, but the film charts his path from disconnected loner to violent paranoid in such a way that, by the end of the film, Douglas seems more rabid animal than sophisticated man of finance.

Not to say this transformation isn't understandable. Van Orton is the audience's eyes and ears - every scene is told from his perspective. He is the one constant. He is us. THE GAME is a wonderfully post-modern film, playing with genre conventions in a dizzying, layered way, and if you can convince yourself that "the game" is really about filmmaking, there's an interesting angle to approach the character of Van Orton from, where he literally becomes the embodiment of a film audience.

At the beginning of the film, Van Orton is a man in charge of his environment. He lets nothing and no one in. All of his relationships are strictly one-way, similar to our notions of how the relation between film and viewer should be. But from the moment the game begins, Van Orton begins to surrender control, first over his environment, then over others, and finally over himself, to the point where he is willing to commit murder. He is driven to a point where his control ceases to exist, and he becomes pure rage.

It's relatively clear what Fincher is saying about humanity here, that we live in delusions of control, and underneath these pretenses is a simmering rage at being unable to reign in the chaos of life (sidebar: holy shit, was this what ALIEN3 was supposed to be about? Is the alien a representation of the rage at our own illusions? Did I not get enough sleep last night?), but what is he saying about film?

The key here is whether or not we believe Van Orton "completes" the game. Certainly, there seems to be an ending, and a lesson learned, but there's that ambiguous scene at the very end of the film which leaves this question open to interpretation. If Van Orton completes, then Fincher's thesis on film appears to be that the medium (and, I suppose, art as a whole) allows us to learn things about ourselves, but that it's ultimately an entertainment. If the game continues on past the credits, than the view of film is decidedly more complex, arguing that we may be unable to categorize between reality and fantasy, that they can become interchangeable, and that we live in both, perhaps simultaneously.

ANGRY PERSON #5: TYLER DURDEN/JACK (FIGHT CLUB)


Which brings us to living two realities at once, and the inherent envies and wraths that entails. Have you, somehow, not seen FIGHT CLUB? Because not only should you not read the next section, you should also run out to your local place of video procurement, get a copy, and watch it at your earliest convenience.

Actually, there's not a lot I want to talk about in regards to FIGHT CLUB. The whole film seethes with rage at the trappings of modern society, perfectly given a voice in Tyler Durden, who sounds like some sort of Oprah-Unabomber love-child:

Tyler: Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.

Brad Pitt's Tyler Durden is essentially the other side of David Mills, his detective character from SE7EN. The depiction of anger in SE7EN was about how that emotion blinded and enslaved us. FIGHT CLUB is about that, too, but it approaches it from the completely opposite angle - from a look at how that anger feels freeing and exuberant. Tyler Durden is a man without limits, freed by his rage to accomplish anything. Of course, that's because he's only half a man. Here, Fincher finally gets down to why anger is such a powerful force: because it feels good. We give into anger because the anger feels like it completes us, or brings us power.

The flip side of the coin is Ed Norton's character, who has no name, but is usually referred to as Jack (due to the meme-inspiring "I am Jack's colon" articles the narrator reads aloud at one point). Jack is consumed with jealousy, and it is this jealousy that helps make him relatable. Durden's anger gives him power, but it also makes him an outcast. It's through Jack's envy of Durden's freedom that we enter the world of FIGHT CLUB. It's a perfect mirror to the interior conflicts of the social contract. Our surrender of the survival instincts in exchange for the comforts of civilization chafes against the animal inside each of us. On some level, we envy the purity of the animal kingdom. Despite our intellectual understanding of the benefits of society, a part of us emotionally wants to be an alpha male, or a mother protecting her cub, because it is, in a word, simpler.

ANGRY PERSON #6: MEG ALTMAN (PANIC ROOM)


That simple mother-cub relationship is at the crux of PANIC ROOM. But first, before we get too into this, can anyone explain these fucking titles to me?


This is the first time I can remember seeing these 3D titles composited into live plates like they were actually hanging in real space, and even then, I was confused. What are they supposed to represent? Are you making me aware of the artifice of the titles for any particular reason? I'm pretty sure it's just supposed to look cool.

And that's pretty much the reason I think PANIC ROOM is kind of a shitty film (along with this ridiculous look-at-me into-the-lock-through-the-coffeepot-handle establishing shot, which no one will be able to convince me was a good idea). It's a film obsessed with style, and little else. There's some suspenseful moments, but it's not a film you ever really want to re-watch. Fincher ushered in the era of the completely-previsualized studio film with PANIC ROOM, diagramming the entire set in a computer and moving around little digitized models of his actors so he could work everything out before shooting commenced. When Nicole Kidman dropped out of the production, and Jodie Foster stepped in, all the camera information had to be re-calculated for the 8" difference in heights between the two actresses. The whole thing is just a little too constructed.

To that point, I've read defenses of PANIC ROOM that argue that the entire film is constructed as an elaborate look at Freudian psychology, with either the different levels of the house or the three thieves representing the id, ego, and superego. I'm not sure that I buy that (in fact, I'm pretty sure I don't), but there's definitely a tug-of-war between those animalistic tendencies and the higher forms of social behaviour throughout the film.

Meg tries to bargain with the thieves at first, negotiating with them, but it devolves into a fight for survival fairly rapidly. This is another reason PANIC ROOM is less interesting than Fincher's other films from this period. THE GAME and FIGHT CLUB are about a struggle between ideologies. PANIC ROOM is like a time-traveling Roman emperor who microwaves some popcorn, throws a sledgehammer and a gun into the Colosseum, and gives Jodie Foster a shield, just to sit back and see what happens. I mean, it's still interesting, and other films have been made about pretty much this exact thing (subtle Ridley Scott burn!), but it doesn't really engage the viewer mentally beyond a where-are-they/where-is-she interest. PANIC ROOM is all about visceral, primal needs.

I think that's been enough for one day. I'll be back with an evisceration of Benjamin Button and Jake Gyllenhaal, then balance it out with praise for Jesse Eisenberg and why I think Fincher really, really needs to not do the remake of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO.

(Almost) 12 Angry (Or Jealous) Men (and Women): The Characters of David Fincher (Part I)

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.