Scatterbrain

David Fincher and Momentum

03/27/21

A plethora of spoilers about Se7en, Fight Club, and The Social Network await you below.

Early in his career, David Fincher established himself as a master of the thriller genre. His work has received prolific praise and admiration from fans and critics alike. Fincher was lauded for his trademark film style which has held consistent throughout most of his work: shadowy lighting, impressively fluid camerawork, jaggedly interjecting frames, and especially his melancholy (or downright depressing) endings.

However, one aspect of his cinematography style is rarely mentioned, but I believe is easily his most iconic.

Fincher’s three most critically acclaimed films are Se7en, Fight Club, and The Social Network¹. While Fincher is generally considered a thriller director, something odd immediately stands out about these films: only Se7en can be considered a true thriller. Fight Club, while dark and moody, features too much humor and not quite enough mystery to really fall into the category. On the other hand, The Social Network could be classified as a biography sooner than it could a thriller. Therefore, if two of the accoladed thriller director’s most well-received films are not even considered thrillers, what makes them so special?

Raw momentum. What exactly do I mean by this, and where is it exhibited in Fincher’s best films?

Se7en’s protagonist was David Mills – a young, hot-headed detective who transferred into the city in search of action and purpose. Mentored by the experienced detective William Somerset, Mills was quickly thrust into a violent, chaotic world which he admitted was a stark contrast to the one he left. The duo began to investigate a series of seemingly unconnected crimes until Somerset discovered they were all committed by the same individual. After this realization, the film started to quickly spiral out of control. Increasingly grotesque murders occurred one after another and a shroud of darkness descended over the lives of the protagonists. The audience watched in silent horror as the movie reached its climax, which resulted in Mills himself becoming a murderer. After this haunting scene took place, viewers awaited some sort of closure, any type of resolution which would lessen the effect of the previous scene. Instead, they were only met with a bleak final line from Somerset:

Ernest Hemingway once wrote: "The world is a fine place, and worth saving." I believe in the second part.

At first glance, many would merely remark that this ending was typical of Fincher – after all, simply examine the praise he normally receives for his downbeat endings. However, I disagree. After re-watching most of Fincher’s films recently, I don’t believe the ending of Se7en was impactful due solely to its bleak, nihilistic tone. Instead, I am of the opinion that the buildup before the ending, rather than the ending itself, was what really left the audience with a sense of incompleteness. Se7en was paced akin to a typical action film (think Taken): after a slow start where these films generally introduce the characters, a sudden event launches their protagonist into an adrenaline-fueled frenzy of non-stop turmoil until finally the hero defeats the villain, or rescues his daughter, or saves the nation. Se7en obviously featured a similar pacing: Mills and Somerset lead normal lives (or as normal as can be expected for detectives) until this horrendous series of murders entered the fray. The resulting chaos did not subsid until the screen faded to black – the audience was never allowed to breathe easy, never allowed to sigh in relief as the protagonist overcame the adversity he faced, never allowed to experience any form of catharsis. Instead, they received no satisfying resolution or easy-to-digest moral message. They were merely left with the hole it would have normally filled.

Fight Club and The Social Network followed similar structures, but with a few key differences. Instead of despair, the audience of Fight Club experienced a feeling of generalized confusion as they attempted to process that the film’s protagonist and antagonist were the actually the same person all along. The Social Network’s ending encouraged viewers to feel the same loneliness which Zuckerberg exhibited at the end of the film². The final scenes of all three movies each had drastically different emotional impacts on their viewers. Nevertheless, the degree of intensity of the audiences’ final emotions remained consistent because the movies all shared similar plot momentum and resolution structure.

This combination of relentless pacing followed by an unexpectedly nonfulfilling ending is Fincher’s most iconic trademark and one of the many reasons I hold his films in such high regard.