Search found 1 match: David Fincher

Searched query: david fincher

by AFlickering
Sat Dec 29, 2012 12:27 am
Forum: Full Reviews
Topic: the social network (david fincher)
Replies: 0
Views: 1243

the social network (david fincher)

it's zeitgeisty as fuck, this ultra-slick follow up to the bloated, oscar-baiting fluff that was benjamin button, but unlike that crowdpleasing slog david fincher's the social network is a dank, toxic little pool of filth which, although compared by critics to citizen kane, has most in common with paul thomas anderson's foil to that classic there will be blood. it's another film about sex and family (or lack thereof - there are no biological relations and no real women in either of these pictures) wherein rosebuds aren't lost in the snow but pushed away by men too smart, too discerning, too self-preserving to countenance them--perpetually self-cockblocking intellectual giants who bubble with impotent rage and extract their sole joy from copulating with whatever landscape (be it the plains of early 20th century california or the coded jungle of the interweb) best mirrors their barren souls, giving birth to structures that drain everything they touch and then fill the holes with the exact same gunk in a different guise.

there's no overt moralising in the social network, but there seems to me no compassion either for zuckerberg or his creation (screenwriter aaron sorkin of west wing fame has himself expressed distaste), presenting both as the inevitable product of the festering megalomania and smug exclusivity of his (probably not very) caricaturised, microcosmic harvard, in turn holding them up as the ultimate reflection and enablement of our disassociated, narcissistic youth. yes, there's obvious irony in this idea that one of the most revolutionary methods of communication was born out of one man's complete inability to connect with other people; but there's a much murkier concern here about technology being the collective shield for a brittle generation both terrified and disdainful of the vulnerability and responsibility that comes with direct human contact.

more fundmentally, this is a mucky film about apes beating their chests and slinging mud in each other's faces for hollow, bitter gains, where intellect isn't what elevates us above animals but rather the most efficient weapon in the battle for title of alpha male. it asks not for empathy nor explicitly for condemnation, but rather an understanding that social networking is the logical extension of an economic system - hell, a biological system - driven by oneupmanship, and far from bringing us all together, accelerates the devaluing of genuine emotional connection between peers, hastening our slide back toward our dog-eat-dog nature and the accompanying loneliness we try so hard to escape. it's not that things are getting worse, only that we're getting worse at lying about how things always were, and the internet, a forum where all the information in the world is publicly available, is accelerating that process tenfold.

even more primally it demonstrates how all non-coital creation, structures built in the name of power, innovation or indeed art, are substitutes for real offspring, and so we have a delicious meta-idea analogising zuckerberg's process with that of the filmmakers, backed up by the way fincher's stuffy greys and browns, his cold, hooded gaze, foster a kinship with the rhythms of zuckerberg's bile-black heart. it raises the question of whether we as moviegoers can look down on zuckerberg if cinema, surely the ultimate projection of this generation's collective subconscious, serves as both symptom & cause of the exact same impulses, that same vicious masturbatory cycle.

in there will be blood daniel plainview ends up returning to the childhood home that "makes him sick", drinking himself half to death in disgust at every naive, hollow ideal that house represents; in the social network, we don't see how zuckerberg fares after adding his own rosebud on the facebook that he designed, but it's fair to assume that her acceptance, even willingness to give the relationship another go, would ultimately leave him no less nauseated and frustrated and alienated than he was when he pushed her away in the first place, and failed to apologise in the aftermath. it's zeitgeisty as fuck, this film, but it takes no joy out of it; it merely sighs, knowingly standing as a model of this generation of zuckerbergs shooting their load over ms. liberty and her corpse of an american dream, wishing it felt more like we were all heading into the abyss hand-in-hand.