David Fincher : American dark

David Fincher has worked his way up from the first rung to become one of Hollywood's leading directors. Starting as a film loader he progressed to ILM and then into the world of commercials followed by a stint creating music videos for some of the world's biggest names.
These videos and adverts showcased a strong talent for evocative framing and a vein of often dark and edgy imagery and humour. L.A. took notice and in 1992 Fincher was bought on board to lens the third in the Alien franchise.

Alien3
To say Fincher's first film was a smooth ride without complication would be a lie. Coming onboard a project that was already a distance down the line he fought almost constantly with the studio at Fox; both over budgetary considerations and the shape the story of the film was taking.
After Cameron's wham bang military actioner Fincher's Alien film moves back to much darker territory; literally as well as thematically.
Set on a penal colony the film is a dark and brooding one, it looks at the nature of redemption, the darkness inside of us all and pitches Ripley up against her greatest fear and pulls no punches when we realise what exactly is growing inside.
Hampered by poorly implemented effects the film (like Scott's first instalment) works much better when the titular Alien is just the a presence lurking in the background as the stranded human characters battle to keep their faith and control their darker instincts. It perhaps receives a colder reception than it deserves overall, but the signs are here. From the dark wit of inter-cutting a funeral with the birth of the Alien to the audacious closing sequence.
Fincher still feels he was not supported on the project (even after release in the US the studio was trying to market the film as something almost totally different in other parts of the globe) and the antagonism caused him to go back to his work in music videos for a few years. But when he returned, it was quite the return…
　
Se7en
Fincher's signature film, Se7en is a police procedural thriller built upon the concept of a killer recreating the seven deadly sins. As we start out we appear to have all the clichés in place; the detective on one last case before retirement is asked to look after the new guy in town who's just moved to the big city and a race for time as they try to stop the killer before he complete his set.
What could have been something as bland as Kiss The Girls becomes something of a twisted fairy tale under Fincher's hand. We are thrown into world where it is always dark or raining (or both), where the killer outwits the heroes until he turns himself in, where the city becomes a gothic hinterland and where we are allowed to realise the true nature of events just the detectives piece it together themselves.
The crime scenes are inventive pieces of both design and staging (still a thousand times more effective than the likes of Saw), who can forget the sudden waking of 'Sloth'?
Crucially Morgan Freeman's Det Somerset and Brad Pitt's Det Mills are allowed to breath as characters and are fleshed out as people rather than just as badges of the law. So when that gut wrenching end comes we feel it as much as they do, even if by this point at least part of us is rooting for the mysterious John Doe.
Sight & Sound proclaimed "Seven has the scariest ending since George Sluizer's original The Vanishing...and stands as the most complex and disturbing entry in the serial killer genre since Manhunter".

The Game
Se7en was followed two years later by the game and with Michael Douglas amongst the cast Fincher was playing with the big boys now. Taking the thriller genre and pushing it to explore the comfortable capitalist lives we can fall into and what it takes to make us feel alive again Fincher uses a tortuous narrative packed with twists and turns to keep the audience on it's it toes.
Once again we are taken along the darker side of life as Douglas' Van Orton is driven to despair and suicide by a series of events that he can't understand and at the end can't be sure if they are even real. Fincher here's tackles much of the ground as Cronenberg's eXistenz but without the need for sci-fi loop holes and in much more satisfying manner. It's the trickery of Loki brought to modern America.
The Game remains Fincher's least recognised film but his next effort would go far from unnoticed…

Fight Club
A blistering examination of modern masculinity and searing assault on consumerism, coming from the 'unfilmable' novel by Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club was a divider of audiences. Today it is increasingly scene as one of the most daring films to ever come out of the Hollywood studio's but at the time it was reviled by many critics as being a pro-fascism propaganda piece dressed up in ultra violence. To say these people missed the message is understatement. Much of the film comments on how many men in modern society have found dissatisfaction with the state of masculinity as it currently exists. The characters of the novel lament the fact that many of them were raised by their mothers because their fathers either abandoned their family or divorced their mothers. As a result, they see themselves as being "a generation of men raised by women," being without a male role model in their lives to help shape their masculinity. This ties in with the anti-consumer culture theme, as the men in the film see their "IKEA nesting instinct" as resulting from the feminization of men in a matriarchal culture.
Fight Club mixes and matches from the get go, mixed films stokes, exposures, speeds, tones and graphics to intoxicating effect and then just as you thing you've got the hang of it the film drops its false bottom and the world falls away.
All along the director's dark humour and eye for a shot shine through, it is no mistake Tyler 'appears' several times before he actually appears. Once again working with Pitt, Fincher mould his screen persona to perfectly match him to the idealised version of a man we all wish we were; stylish, cool, witty, unafraid, smart and good in a fight.
It is unlikely a film of this type will ever escape unaltered out of the studios again.

Panic Room
Fincher followed up with the technically outstanding Panic Room, whilst the story and themes of the film are not as developed as his previous work (it revolves around one night inside a New York brownstone as a mother and daughter fight off intruders and seek refuge in the titular panic room) the film is something of a technical playground for the director.
This is best illustrated in the unbroken shot that takes us from outside the house, inside and through the rooms and out the other side, passing through a kettle handle and the way. Pushing his camera set-ups to new heights throughout the purposefully constructed full house set.
Thematically what we do have returning is the idea of those abandoned by or without father figure and a struggle to unleash and control our darker instincts to protect what we hold dear and those around us. The film may be relatively straight forward and lightweight but the skills learned here allowed Fincher to dive deeply into the subject of his next film and retain that striking ability to use images to haunt, unsettle and inspire.

Zodiac
For me Zodiac is (to this date) Fincher's biggest achievement. It is a detailed look into one of America's most discussed criminal cases, the Zodiac killer. Tracking the investigation and it's effects on the men around it (form the police detectives working the case to the newspaper writer and journalist who become fascinated by the case) the film is a study in the power of obsession and the drive to solve the mysteries in front of us. It is not about the case, it is about who the case swallows up and spits out the other side. (The Zodiac killer has never been caught).
A meticulous recreation of the period the films draws together a trio of strong performances to let us into the world of the detectives, the reporters and what it is to be frustrated, intrigued and led along. Meanwhile we occasionally get first hand views of the killer at work and one sequence by the lakeside in particular makes for uncomfortable watching fat more unsettling than many outright horror films. Empire's Kim Newman sums it up well "You'll need patience with the film's approach, which follows its main characters by poring over details, and be prepared to put up with a couple of rote family arguments and weary cop conversations, but this gripping character study becomes more agonisingly suspenseful as it gets closer to an answer that can't be confirmed"
If you have the patience to let it draw you in Zodiac is the best crime thriller of a generation.

The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
After all the dark and death, Fincher finally goes all out to retell a modern fairytale. Benjamin Button ages backwards and we follow him through a life of adventure, love and loss.
Fincher's photography here gives the film an otherworldly glow as we follow Ben through his life so it always feels just across the line from reality and after a few minutes we no longer question the strangeness of his condition.
Flowing like a typical bio-pic albeit with the occasional stop for broad humour and a meditation on the nature of fate the film rolls along from one stage of life to the next through a leisurely running time. Once again issues of father figures rears head but the first time we have Fincher musing on relationships, those that fit the moment and time in which they exist and those which stay with us forever.

Note : This was originally written before the release of The Social Network, Girl With The Dragon Tattoo & Gone Girl. I'm working a piece covering them which I'll put up soon. For now I'll leave you with the awesome trailer for Fincher's first part of the Millennium trilogy.

Trailer of the Day : The Bourne Legacy

With the upcoming new entry that has director Paul Greengrass back onboard and will see Matt Damon's Bourne cross paths with Jeremey Renner's Cross I am actually quite excited.

Legacy is actually a in my view a good action thriller despite it's lackluster reception on release. Smartly exploring an expanded history of the black ops programs with a different angle as the main character know fully who he is and is just looking to survive. It does have a unsatisfying ending which leaves things very much open for the continuing story. But hopefully that can be forgive now a new entry has been confirmed.

Quote Quiz

Ok, some thoughts still forming for a next proper post (and I may write a Recommends later) but in the interests of keeping up the pace after a week off (Superbowl awesomeness) it's quote quiz time.

You pretty much know the score, 15 quotes below simply guess where they come from. I'd say there some really easy ones here and maybe a couple that'll throw people....

1. "Dear diary, my teen-angst bullshit now has a body count" Heathers

2. "I take no pleasure in taking a life if it's from a person who doesn't care about it" Leon

3. "The only skater to win four national championships and an adult film award" Blades Of Glory

4. "It is strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt over so small a thing" Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring

5. "When I was growing up they would say you could become cops or criminals. But what I'm saying is this; when you're facing a loaded gun, what's the difference?" The Departed

6. "You're US government property. You're a malfunctioning thirty million dollar weapon" The Bourne Identity

7. "Do you buy all these books retail or do you send away for, like, a shrink kit that comes with all these volumes?" Good Will Hunting

8. "I am Jack's inflamed sense of rejection." Fight Club

9. "Hermione just stole all of our shit." This Is The End

10. "So what, "It's better than eleven percent"! What the hell does that have to do with anything?" Guardians Of The Galaxy

11. "You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger darling." Inception

12. "Somewhere along the way I lost a step. I got sloppy. Dulled my edge. Maybe I went and did the worst crime of all. I got civilised."

13. "This is the best bad idea we have, sir. By far."

14. "All those years wasted fighting each other, Charles. To have a precious few of them back." X-Men : Days Of Future Past

15. "I'm not sure I agree with you a hundred percent on your police work there, Lou." Fargo

So off you go, I'll cross off the answers as people get them.

Leon

Coming before the patented Besson film-o-matic conveyor belt of identikit action thrillers Leon (known as The Professional in the States) in 1994 cemented Luc Besson as filmmaker to watch.

His first American outing after a trio of accomplished cult films (Subway, The Big Blue, La Femme Nikita) it's a great action thriller and at the same time a drama based around the growing relationship between an orphaned girl and the emotionally cut off man who comes to be her carer

The film centers around Jean Reno's "Cleaner" character who cameo'd in La Femme Nikita (although this is a different version of the same character rather than literally being the same), a professional hit-man who lives alone with his handler being the only person he knows.

He ends up taking in the girl, Mathilda (Natalie Portman) who lives down the hall after her family are killed by corrupt cops. She discovers how he makes a living and eventually convinces him to let her learn from him so she can avenger her baby brother.

The pair slowly grow closer as adopted father and daughter. Giving him the personal connection he's never had and her the caring father figure she has never had.

With strong performances all round, from Reno's stoic title character who loves musicals, Gary Oldman's unhinged corrupt DEA officer and of course Natalie Portman's startling debut performance. Showing a range well beyond her then 13 years.

Besson's style perfectly suits the film, zooms (with some great use of depth of field) and tracking shots work to emphasize moments of action & tension as well moments of reflection and emotion.Whilst the framing brings the feel of the French new wave of the 80s from which he emerged and is almost comic book styled at times.

In short a thriller that is guaranteed to bring a tear to your eye at the end. Just don't watch the trailer first, it gives basically everything away.

Lightening In A Bottle : Jurassic Park

I have said it a number of times before but I believe that in amongst a basically legendary filmography that Jurassic Park is the time that Steven Spielberg knocked it out of the park. The time that he basically made a practically perfect film.

That's not to say that the like of Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Munich aren't all very good films but Jurassic Park is the perfect example of it's adventure blockbuster genre.

So let's have a look at some of the reasons why; these are some general thoughts as to write about each masterfully executed shot and moment would take a very, very long time.

The film opens with a deliberate slight of hand sight gag that demonstrates a fantastic confidence. Spielberg knows we've all come to see dinosaurs and so the film opens with swaying trees as something big heads towards us (the audience) and group of nervous and determined looking men.
After a few seconds it's revealed to be...a forklift with a boxed cargo.

There are number of these smart visual cues within the film. Another great example is the Jurassic Park gate which is deliberate homage to King Kong, the peak of all creature features. My favourite comes right towards the end of the film as the "When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth" banners flutters in front of the roaring T-Rex. (Just, look past the fact it managed to sneak up on everyone!)

Seamlessly we move from this gag into something with an air of menace as the transfer goes wrong and we get a view, albeit a smartly restricted one of the dangerous that will be faced later in the film.
From here it's on to a sequence of scence that establish the characters and start the wheels of the plot in motion. (A later spot of exposition is cunningly inserted as an explantory film forming part of a theme park ride). Crucially we get to know the characters before they are fighting for thier lives, including the supporting characters like Nedry & Muldoon.

So unlike so many of today's films we actually care what happens to people once the actions starts.
These all tap into the themes that run through the film. Corporate greed, morality in science (the core themes of Micheal Crichton's novel - who worked on the screenplay as well), the power of nature and set up Dr. Grant in particular for Spielberg's trademark missing father and father figures themes. (Can you honestly say that a lot of a modern blockbusters having any themes beyond EXPLOSIONS? I'm looking at you, Mr Bay.)

We even get sly tip-offs. Note Grant's struggle with the seat belt in the Helicopter as he tries to connect two of the 'female' ends of a belt. Eventually he finds a way by tying the straps together. Only females present but life finds a way....

Following this we get one of the key sequences twenty minutes in and it's time for our first dinosaur proper.

   

The sequences starts by building anticaption masterfully as we watch the reactions of the characters to what they are seeing whilst crucially not seeing it ourselves. The looks of wonder lead the audience towards the same feeling as the music builds, then we get the shot of the huge creature they are observing and it's perfectly timed.
 
It's a technique used to great effect again as the characters witness the Raptors for the first time. We see the swaying foliage and the looks of horror on the faces of the characters but not the Raptors.
 In another canny move we are told that THE classic dinosaur, the T-Rex will appear, but we're not shown one yet. But we know it's coming. Anticpation is once again used to sway the audience as the early dinsosaur tour shows no dinosaurs.

Indeed once again Muldoon's tension is used to build the audience's as the tour passes the T-Rex paddock of the first time. Smartly this tension is allowed to pass unresolved.

(In fact the second creature we get a good look at is a sick Triceratops.)

Spielberg later demonstrates his mastery of suspense with the T-Rex attack sequence. (A sequence so good I might well write a full post just on that) It all kicks off with the by now legendary cup of water showing the impact of the steps from the approaching menace. (A trick so good Spielberg uses it twice in the same film).

Also look at the fence climb/power breaker sequence. A master class in the cross cut art of building suspense. Brilliantly finished off with a moment that shows judiciously used jump scares can be fantastically effective.



Again it's a case of showing something is coming, something is about to happen. But what? The audience feels the same panic as the characters., frozen with fear.

In general the pacing of the film as a whole is as sure footed as pacing within individual sequences. It flows and ebb,s starting with a snap then quietening down before settling into a pattern almost like waves as it builds to each set piece then allows space for the audience to breathe before building up again. Whilst always moving at a pace to keep you swept up in the adventure.

The film progressed CGI technology massively and it is very well done (note the details like the DNA code like pattern of light and the Raptor's face as it looks towards the ceiling) but crucially Spielberg was smart enough to also use a range of practical effects.

Effects which help ground the creatures in reality (there are more practical effects then you think. Pretty much everything that doesn't feature a dinosaur moving at speed or over a distance was done practically with animatronics) making it really feel like the dinosaurs do exist in the same time and space as the cast. Something so often neglected in a lot of more recent films. Everyone remembers the CGI in the film being so good because it's actually used a lot less than people assume.

Yes, it's not totally perfect (Lex's computer skills are handled clumsily, some of the spatial geography is a bit off) but it nails the crucial sense of wonder, excitement, fear, suspense, & elation that an adventure like this needs.

For want of a different way to say it, it has soul. It has a heart. It's not a cynical, technically proficient blueprint with an empty mind like say the Transformer's films. And next time someone says a director is the new Spielberg, ask yourself, could they have made Jurassic Park anywhere near as well as he did?

Don't look now, it's 2015

Ok, so I thought I'll once again try writing a few posts on here since I've had a few ideas and since we're still early into the year it makes sense to start with a preview of a few of the films I'm looking forward toward this year.

So in no particular order lets have a look see. First up is Jurassic World. Ok, the trailer is a bit hit and miss but the original film remains to this day one of my favorites and I'm still a sucker for dinosaur related mayhem it seems.

There are some interesting ideas at play which do riff on Crichton's original premise and theme of "just because you can doesn't mean you should" amongst others. Add to that a decent looking cast with rising star Chris Pratt and the hope is for a daft but fun effort.

Recently given it's title officially Spectre is the next Bond installment. Skyfall was an interesting thriller but didn't feel like a Bond film so with Sam Mendes staying in the director's chair it's going to be interesting to see if he goes back towards more familiar ground for the franchise or retains that 70s thriller feel.

American Sniper is already attracting a certain level of controversy over in the states over it's message but critical word is positive. I'm hoping it'll be something along the lines of Jarhead or The Hurt Locker looking at what it means to be a soldier under high pressure without necessarily taking a stance on the wrongs or rights of the wars being fought.

Micheal Keaton plays off his own legacy in Birdman as a former superhero star trying to relaunch a fading career. Inarritu;s film already has a very positive critical reaction and is tipped to do well in this year's award season.

After a lack lustre couple of years by their high standards it looks like Pixar are returning to form with the imaginative Inside Out.

Meanwhile Tarantino returns with Hateful Eight. I loved Inglorious Bastards, but was less keen on Django Unchained however QT's films are always worth watching and he's talking more often about retirement these days so we may only get a couple more from him.

Malick also returns with Knight of Cups. His films often split people but they're always look amazing and are a welcome bastion of  slow burn in amongst so much frenetic output.

Terminator: Genisys is either going to be terrible ot quite good. (But I'm in the minority liking Salvation) Initial looks sere not promising but the trailer showcases a potentially canny timeline altering curve-ball recreating shots for the opening of the original film only to almost literally crash through it.

Pixels hopefully will have the wit and imagination of Wreck-It ralph and be a smart comedy fusing retro gaming with Pacific Rim's baisc plot!

Closing to release is Ex Machina which is Alex Garland's debut behind the camera. It certainly looks stylish and Garland is fond of playing around with expectations.

In on a totally different note look out for  Night Will Fall coming up on Channel 4 towards the end of this month. A documentary which promises to be a moving and fascinating look at the efforts of filmmakers to document the Holocaust camps at the end of the second World War.

Back to lighter things we get more super-heroing this year as the Avengers return in Avengers: Age Of Ultron. Can it deliever on being the next BIG thing in the Marvel Universe? Whedon certainly has a strong track record and the cast by now really wear these roles.

I'm sure there will be surprises along the way, films that appear almost out of nowhere that i will love (like Brick and Winter's Bone) but in all honesty my most anticipated film comes towards the end of the year....

JJ Abrams style suits Star Wars much better than it does Trek and Lawrence Kasdan is on writing duties so he should recapture the feel of Empire and Jedi. At the end of the day it just taps into my inner child and I'm hopeful he won't be disappointed!