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Fincher seems to me like a remarkably brilliant director. But I worry that this emphasis on his attention to detail contributes to a view that directing is akin
by hardwaregeek 6y ago
Fincher seems to me like a remarkably brilliant director. But I worry that this emphasis on his attention to detail contributes to a view that directing is akin to micromanagement, and that the best directors are the best micromanagers. Yes, Kubrick and Fincher and many others are perfectionists. But they are only one school. The author even acknowledges this briefly.
> Fincher has leaned toward a “very classical” visual rule book whose fundamentals predate French New Wave and vérité.
Filmmakers such as Agnes Varda or Truffaut wouldn't care about a camera bumping or a light being off. Varda made The Gleaners and I on a digital camera in the early 2000's and I'd put it up against any Fincher.
I don't mean to dismiss Fincher. But there's definitely this image of a director being this picky person yelling "cut cut" over the smallest issue.
- elchief 6y agoI mean, he is infamous for "breaking" Gyllenhaal on Zodiac, after 80 takes
- geden 6y agoWhich is probably his worst film. Expending more effort on a more rewarding ending would have been time better spent.
- elchief 6y agoThe point of the film is that all the work was for naught
- I-M-S 6y agoI think the lack of a rewarding ending is what that film is all about!
- geden 6y agoHmm perhaps ‘rewarding’ wasn’t the right word. Satisfying is closer. I wasn’t looking for a ‘the baddie got caught and everyone lived happily ever after’ per se. I thought the pacing / editing was unsatisfying towards the end, I inferred studio meddling.
- Ntrails 6y agoDefinitely disagree
- skinpop 6y agonot having the movie explain itself in the end was the real reward.
- mjklin 6y agoScorsese’s editor Thelma Schoonmaker has been known to use takes that don’t match up (e.g. cup in hand, cut, cup not in hand) as long as the emotional truth carries through.
- hardwaregeek 6y agoThe more movies I watch the more I agree with this philosophy. Either the movie works or it doesn’t. If continuity helps the movie work, then great. Otherwise who cares? If you went up to Herzog about a continuity error, he’d probably tell you to get a life.
- _old_dude_ 6y agoI don't think it's that simple. As an anecdote i've recently seen Extraction with Chris Hemsworth, great movie but in the middle of the first big action scene, the camera goes through the windscreen of the back of the car without the glass being shattered. It was enough to pull me out of the action into a moment of disbelief. Breaking continuity has a cost
- jquery 6y agoSounds like the emotional truth of the action didn’t carry through.
- mrec 6y agoHow is that a continuity break? It's not like the camera is a real, solid entity in the movie's fictional world.
- aspaceman 6y agoYeah that doesn’t make sense for me. The camera isn’t real but just a virtual pinhole with a screen on the other end. A “window to another world”.
- bombela 6y agoIt felt like noclip=1 for a second. I genuinely liked it. You are within the action, but it reminds you that you are an omniscient and untouchable spectator.