Whatever happened to David Fincher? a friend of mine asked after watching the director s latest film Zodiac.
With Panic Room and now this, the man seems to have lost it.
That was the fourth comment of the like I’d heard about Fincher s first work in five years. Most of Fincher s fans – or rather fans of Seven and Fight Club – were disappointed by the low-key, slow-moving film, which contains none of Hollywood wonder kid s stylized, vibrant visuals.
The film is essentially a detective flick about an unsolved crime, which means that the story’s payoff can never be as strong, clear-cut and satisfactory in an American/mainstream sense.
Zodiac is based on the story of the infamous serial killer who terrorized California and San Francisco (SF) bay during the late 60s and 70s with a series of horrifying, random murders.
The film follows the lengthy endeavors of Inspector David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo), the San Francisco Chronicle reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr) and the paper’s cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) to catch the Zodiac and solve the mystery.
The film opens with a shot of a 1969 California, where fireworks light up the state to celebrate the 4th of July. A car swiftly cruises around the blocks with Three Dog Night s somber classic Easy to Be Hard playing in the background. The car stops, picks up a young man and drives off. The driver is a young wife taking her lover to a desolate spot to steal some private moments with him.
A car drifts slowly towards them. A man, whose face never appears on screen, gets out of his vehicle, holding a flashlight and heads towards them. What follows is the first chilling Zodiac murder.
Later on, Zodiac sends a letter to the Chronicles and other publications, claiming to be responsible for the said murder. He threatens to resume his killing spree unless his letter is published along with the cryptic puzzle he created.
The Zodiac quickly makes headlines in American media. Coverage of the murders, replete with endless analysis and every little bit of information the media snatches or fabricates, makes the fame-seeking cold-blooded criminal a star. In one letter to the Chronicles, the Zodiac writes: Waiting for a good movie about me, I wonder who will play me.
The film is a throwback to the 70s detective films like Klute, the Sidney Lumet pictures and, most prominently, All the President s Men.
Zodiac uses the narrative process of the latter film to reconstruct the events of the murders and the murderer s true identity through bits and pieces of data and investigations the three amass over many years.
The audience is treated to extensive conversations as the three study the case. Zodiac is, to some extent, a talky film but these dialogues aren t without a function. In fact, the many veiled facets behind their words hold the key to the film’s main theme: The fragility of truth.
The main characters embark on a quixotic expedition to reach an unattainable truth. The pieces of evidence they uncover create a form of truth they all believe despite the lack of concrete proof.
The fundamental ambiguity surrounding the Zodiac is no different than Kennedy s assassination, 9/11 or other inexplicable events. In theory, truth resembles a distant basic object that changes as soon as someone else reports on it. In the end, we start believing what we want to believe.
It s not only the search for truth that triggers off these characters; it s their deep, dark obsessions.
Graysmith sacrifices his domestic bliss and safe job to hunt for the Zodiac – this lasts for more than 20 years. Hundreds of murders and crimes take place throughout, but ridding society of the criminal’s evils was never the incentive for the former artist s actions. In one scene, Graysmith tells his wife, I need to know who he is. I need to stand there, I need to look him in the eye and I need to know that it s him.
For Graysmith, the danger and gruesomeness lurking behind the murders is what makes him tick, what gives purpose to his life. The Zodiac serves as a catalyst that incites this ordinary man to become much more than what he is.
The entire film, in fact, gradually unveils Fincher s personal obsession with recreating the mystery and solving it. Zodiac is a work of perfection. The little details entrenched in every single frame of the movie are jaw dropping. Notice, for example, how the Warner Bros. logo at the start of the film is identical to the ones used in the 60s. In another, an announcement for an upcoming Rolling Stones concert at the time could be heard on the radio.
Everything from the set to the type of streaming bright light used to illuminate the offices then and the incredible depth of field each scene carries isn t the work of an ordinary filmmaker, but a man with a maddening fixation that drove him to repeat a single take 70 times.
Fincher s world is outlined with the legendary director Stanley Kubrick s spirit and themes. It s a remote, emotionless world populated with selfish, self-hating inhabitants. Like Kubrick, Fincher doesn t attempt to conceal his contempt for the arrogance of humans; reaffirming at the end of the film that man will always remain ignorant and misguided.
Fincher suggests that the media is the main source of our misguidance. American press and TV were behind the spread of the Zodiac myth. Pubic interest and the people s right to be informed were an imaginary façade. The media’s real goal was to sell more papers, score better ratings or to fill their papers. The media needed Zodiac as much as he needed the media – two sides of the same dirty coin.
Zodiac is a brooding, intense and dark film. Unlike Fincher s pervious works, it requires patience with its static scenes and lack of closure. It s Fincher s most mature, experimental film to date. A film with plenty of ideas and themes not necessarily associated with the genre it is classified under.
It is a thought-provoking film that challenges conceptions of truth, desire and the media. While The Bourne Ultimatum is the hot ticket this week, Zodiac is the worthier, richer film.
