David Fincher (Warning: Fan Entry!!!)
Created | Updated Sep 27, 2012
David Fincher, film director, started off his movie career as an animator at Industrial Light and Magic (he initially was drawn to the movie industry being fascinated by 'The Empire Strikes Back').
After leaving ILM, he directed numerous TV commercials and music videos (for example "Express Yourself" for Madonna) before he was set to direct his first major movie, 'Alien 3', in 1992. It is considered his worst film (I haven't seen it myself), mainly because Fincher wasn't given final cut.
Fincher's breakthrough, however, was the surprise success of 'Seven' (1995), a serial killer movie with some philosophy in it, which starred actors Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow and two-time Academy Award winner Kevin Spacey, the king of supporting roles, as religious-fanatic serial killer John Doe. The movie cost around $30 million and had a box office of over $100 million in the US alone.
Fincher's next movie The Game (1997) is said to be one of his weaker works, probably because he lacks a cohesive storyline. Michael Douglas stars as multi-millionaire Nicholas Van Orton who is facing his secure-thought existence slowly dissolving while he embarks on a kafkaesque 'game' presented to him by his brother.
The film features a trick Fincher continued with 'Fight Club': In the end, everything turns upside down.
With his most recent movie 'Fight Club' (1999), Fincher hit big time again. Based on the cult novel by Chuck Palahniuk, the story concentrates on a frustrated-with-job recall-coordinator around 30 (Edward Norton, two-time Academy Award nominee for Primal Fear and American History X, genius), who learns to live life in a more violent and self-destructive way when he founds 'Fight Club' together with society-hater Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt, almost as genius as Norton), a club in which society-frustrated workers can let loose of their agressions by fighting each other.
The film is two-and-a-half hours long, but the story never hangs. It features some of the weirdest brutal humour in it (beating yourself to pulp in front of your boss can indeed get you some years of paid vacation) and furthermore stars Helena Bonham Carter and Meat Loaf (should have got the Academy Award for weirdest supporting role).
I recently found out how to characterize the film in short: If 'American Beauty' is the diagnosis of an ill society, 'Fight Club' is the no-compromisises, frontal high-speed chainsaw autopsy. And for all know-it-alls out there: This film provides you with the story twist to end all story twists.
Although 'Fight Club' wasn't very successful at the box office, the film is expected to become an underground classic and get its budget in by means of Video and DVD.
David Fincher has most recently directed the music video 'Judith' for the band A Perfect Circle. His next movie, 'The Panic Room', starring (as I've heard) Jodie Foster, has been shot in autumn 2000. Fincher is also scheduled to turn Arthur C. Clarkes 'Rendezvous With Rama' into celluloid.
About Fincher's style
David Fincher's films feature an intense visual styling and have a dark and dirty ambience, partly produced by the use of scarce light. Some of his best scenes picture the "Beauty of Ugliness" in a perfect way (compare the Pride victim in 'Seven'). His last three movies seem to fit in a 'Three Ways to prove that today's world is mad' theme.
After leaving ILM, he directed numerous TV commercials and music videos (for example "Express Yourself" for Madonna) before he was set to direct his first major movie, 'Alien 3', in 1992. It is considered his worst film (I haven't seen it myself), mainly because Fincher wasn't given final cut.
Fincher's breakthrough, however, was the surprise success of 'Seven' (1995), a serial killer movie with some philosophy in it, which starred actors Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow and two-time Academy Award winner Kevin Spacey, the king of supporting roles, as religious-fanatic serial killer John Doe. The movie cost around $30 million and had a box office of over $100 million in the US alone.
Fincher's next movie The Game (1997) is said to be one of his weaker works, probably because he lacks a cohesive storyline. Michael Douglas stars as multi-millionaire Nicholas Van Orton who is facing his secure-thought existence slowly dissolving while he embarks on a kafkaesque 'game' presented to him by his brother.
The film features a trick Fincher continued with 'Fight Club': In the end, everything turns upside down.
With his most recent movie 'Fight Club' (1999), Fincher hit big time again. Based on the cult novel by Chuck Palahniuk, the story concentrates on a frustrated-with-job recall-coordinator around 30 (Edward Norton, two-time Academy Award nominee for Primal Fear and American History X, genius), who learns to live life in a more violent and self-destructive way when he founds 'Fight Club' together with society-hater Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt, almost as genius as Norton), a club in which society-frustrated workers can let loose of their agressions by fighting each other.
The film is two-and-a-half hours long, but the story never hangs. It features some of the weirdest brutal humour in it (beating yourself to pulp in front of your boss can indeed get you some years of paid vacation) and furthermore stars Helena Bonham Carter and Meat Loaf (should have got the Academy Award for weirdest supporting role).
I recently found out how to characterize the film in short: If 'American Beauty' is the diagnosis of an ill society, 'Fight Club' is the no-compromisises, frontal high-speed chainsaw autopsy. And for all know-it-alls out there: This film provides you with the story twist to end all story twists.
Although 'Fight Club' wasn't very successful at the box office, the film is expected to become an underground classic and get its budget in by means of Video and DVD.
David Fincher has most recently directed the music video 'Judith' for the band A Perfect Circle. His next movie, 'The Panic Room', starring (as I've heard) Jodie Foster, has been shot in autumn 2000. Fincher is also scheduled to turn Arthur C. Clarkes 'Rendezvous With Rama' into celluloid.
About Fincher's style
David Fincher's films feature an intense visual styling and have a dark and dirty ambience, partly produced by the use of scarce light. Some of his best scenes picture the "Beauty of Ugliness" in a perfect way (compare the Pride victim in 'Seven'). His last three movies seem to fit in a 'Three Ways to prove that today's world is mad' theme.
