After multiple delays in 2006, David Fincher's Zodiac was finally released into theaters a couple weekends ago only to be roundly trounced by a film about four middle-aged bikers facing a midlife crisis.
Ah, the taste of the masses.
Still, Zodiac is truly the first great film of 2007 despite not exactly setting the world ablaze with its box office figures. And as irritating as it is to see a true work of art get run down by an obvious paycheck comedy, Zodiac's 14 million dollar take was in keeping with Fincher's other three dark-minded dramas The Game, Fight Club and Se7en whose box office take fluctuated from $11 to $19 mil. So, it's not exactly surprising - even if it is dispiriting - to think we'll almost inevitably end up with a Wild Hogs 2 a couple summers from now.
But settling in on Zodiac, this is a return to the previous mastery of the genre that Fincher has exhibited (after taking a break to film the solid-but-unspectacular Panic Room). A lot has been written about Fincher's idea to present an All the President's Men-like feature focusing on the police procedural side of a serial killer investigation, but this is Presidents crossed with Se7en, keeping the off-kilter and often distrubing aura that seems to permeate Fincher's work.
Starting off typically for a serial killer picture could be Fincher's greatest - and sickest - joke yet. We sit and watch as Fincher sets us up to expect the standard seek and capture film we're used to: the first scene being the standard murder to draw you in, the second introducing you to his would-be captors.
But as the running time of the picture and the years of the film roll on, it becomes increasingly obvious even if you don't know the story that "hey, he's really gonna get away with this." And as the time ticks away Fincher's protagonists only get more desperate, some falling to their vices, others giving up completely and in the end leaving us with only our cartoonist lead (Jake Gyllenhaal) as the viewer's hope.
Gyllenhaal's Graysmith has been overwhelmingly considered the weak link of the film, but to me he fits perfectly. He's not the rock star that Robert Downey Jr. is, nor is he the quirky cop that Ruffalo portrays so well but he does play the everyman. He plays us. And it's his character that lures the viewer into the role of the protagonist. As the movie goes on, we become Robert Graysmith. We become more obsessed with having to know who the Zodiac was. We can't walk out of the theater without knowing.
That Zodiac might arguably be only Fincher's 3rd best film (behind Fight Club and Se7en) is just another reason to celebrate, because with a film as magnificent as Zodiac, Fincher proves himself again as a top-tier filmmaker we'll have for years to come.
5 comments:
I want to echo your sentiments. I would say it is Finchers 3rd best, but still it is a masterpiece i think. Fincher captures both the paranoia and the obsession that Graysmith goes through, and you the viewer become paranoid and obsessed yourself. A serial killer movie with no real conclusion, no really cartharsis,..how brave of Fincher and the screenwriter to adapt. Yet don't be fooled into thinking it doesn't have Finchers flair. It is quite subdued, but so appropriate when used. From the opening "car" shot to the Chrysler construction to the absolute most brutal murder i think Ive ever seen. It is a movie that really gets under your skin. I think everyone is cast perfectly even Jake. The best movie of its kind since perhaps Seven itself. Can't wait for Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
You weren't kidding about having a similar experience during Zodiac (although I'm happy to note a distinct difference at least in anticipation towards 300). It is the best serial killer film since Fincher's Se7en, no questions asked. I can't even think of something that comes close.
You are right about its melding of old school techniques however, which is something I was trying to get across with the whole President's-crossed-with-Se7en example. It mixes the best of both worlds. Somehow Fincher has created a world in which soaring cameras over the head of the San Francisco Bay Area and CGI creations of the Chrysler blend in with the 70s dynamic of an Alan J. Pakula or a Sidney Lumet. There doesn't appear to be a misstep here.
I can see how some of the audience who walk in unknowingly to an unsolved murder can be taken aback, but that seriously is the whole point. Fincher wants to forego the usual serial killer setup and plot. He's trying to keep you off balance. As he's said in interviews, that was his only reason for returning to the genre.
And now that Fincher has roundly conquered and disposed of the serial killer genre, I as well look forward to his own version of a what IMDB bills as a romantic comedy in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Plus it reunites Fincher with his greatest collaborator up to this point, none other than 1/2 of Brangelina himself, Brad Pitt.
I'm gonna have to disagree. Now, before you all kill me next time you see me, let me explain. This film wasn't awful or terrible, but it's never fully satisfying seeing as how the only character's obession I believed in was that of Mark Ruffalo's cop. I never bought Gyllenhal's character becoming obessed with this killer. I do accperiate what Fincher was tyring to do, in not making a typical serial killer film, but all the characters need to be real, and I felt Graysmith was just going through the cycles of becoming obsessed/ paranoid. The cop fared much better and had many more reasons to become so. I think I would've preffered a movie about him. Now, the acting all around as quite good, but I'm not sure what Gyllenhal saw in his character; perhaps there is something on the cutting room floor, which if so, I'd love to see. The movie moved quickly, despite it's length (a very good thing). When Graysmith's left him, I was thinking that the bastard deserved, not a really good thing to be thinking, considering he is our hero. Again, looked goregous, with one of the coolest car tracking shots ever (the taxi thing), and the last 45 minutes or so, are wonderful, but everything but until then (storywise), didn't do it for me.
Bobby, I hate you. I don't understand how you can find the obsession and the paranoia to be anything but believable. Fincher's hand is still, yet you the viewer want to see everything that he holds so that there are no tricks up his sleeve. That alone festered an obsessive nature within myself, let alone with Graysmith. I have to know who the Zodiac is. I want to see him face to face and know that it is him. I dont even want justice, just the thought that he couldnt outsmart everyone. That developed in me, and I wasn;t even a direct participant in these actions, like Graysmith was. So I totally bought into the obsessive nature that Gyllenhaal has. Many reviewers have commented that he is the weak spot. I wont necessarily argue with you, but I think he is completely believable and sells it quite well. So once again Irish-1: French Jew-0.
It's always interesting to hear another perspective on a film, especially one so contradictory to my own, but I honestly don't see how this film would have worked at all with Mark Ruffalo's cop as the central character. Graysmith was the one to become obsessed with this case and is still the one obsessing over it, continuing to publish books and contribute to screenplays some thirty plus years after the fact. He's the impetus for the story to continue. When the investigation effectively goes cold - for years at a time - Graysmith continues to plow away at the evidence when even Dave Toschi has all but given up hope.
The funny thing is, Zodiac really isn't focused on Graysmith at all until about the halfway point. When this investigation was still fresh and new, the movie bounces from Graysmith to Toschi and even to Downey Jr.'s Paul Avery character from scene to scene. It isn't until the "Four Years Later" jump that Graysmith inherits the focus... and that's simply because Graysmith is the character to draw Toschi (and Avery to an extent) back into the case.
Whether you bought the acting or not is one thing (I did), but to have this movie focus on a character other than Graysmith (or, perhaps, the Zodiac himself) seems impossible. Had this movie focused on Toschi, the film would have ended after the last Zodiac letter was proven to be authentic and Toschi was cleared of any possible charges from allegedly forging it. Graysmith and the Zodiac are really the only characters to ride this story out to the end.
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