Formal Film Study

Formal Film Study 

Director: David Fincher 

Films Viewed: 

-Girl with The Dragon Tattoo 

-The Social Network 

-Fight Club

-Seven 

For my formal film study I watched four films that were directed by David Fincher. The four films were The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo, The Social Network, Seven, and Fight Club. I found many similarities and differences in all elements of all three films. The style used in all the films had a similar edgy feel. There wasn’t much color involved. All of the settings seems dull and lacked vibrancy. These films are all dramas for the most part. Seven is more of a crime movie, The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo is a mystery, Social network is a true drama, and Fight Club is a dramatic comedy. The scoring of all three movies was subtle but all the scores fit in well with the movies. 

All of these films seem to have the motive of sending a message to the viewer. They all have something to say about today’s culture. The Social Network is the story of how Facebook came to be. The message in this film is that you have to go to certain extremes in order to have a successful business. The movie Seven is about the murder investigation of seven murders based off of the seven deadly sins. What this film is trying to say about culture is that people today sin way too much. Fight Club is about a group of anarchists who rebel against the government. This film reflects how Fincher felt about the government and the message in the film is that there are too may rules in todays society. All of these films seem to be saying that there is a problem with today’s society and how we all live. The political messages in all three that show that David Fincher has liberal views. 

All of david Fincher's films are very edgy. For example the setting is always dull and dark. Nothing is colorful and fun. Everyone in the films are very serious and have strong opinions on things. All the main characters are stubborn. Many of the characters are monotone and sarcastic. "There is a generally down beat or grim subject matter, lack or resolution or "happy endings", dark colors and tones, low angles, dark subject tones, use of fear as motive for characters, violent content, lots of dark greens and blue tones that add to the tone of the film, more low angles, as well as wide angles, generally long-ish movies (over two hours.) "(Smith 2.) 

Overall, after spending some time viewing and analyzing the works of David Fincher, I can say that he is truly an artist. He is now one of my favorite directors and I will definitely be viewing his other films and anticipating many more great ones. 

30's Blog Post

For the 30's project my group wanted to create a movie that sent the audience a message while still being time period appropriate. We came up with Hit or Miss. This is a story about a girl who dreams of playing baseball but feels like she doesn't have what it takes because of the impact of society's views on women. She gets help from a professional baseball player who guides her through her learning experience. As they work together more and more, they slowly fall in love. The style we went for is a lighthearted easy watch. Since feminism was very popular in the 30's, our message to the audience is that gender does not make a difference when it comes to potential. The genre of our film is romantic comedy, so we chose the actors Ginger Rogers, Cary Grant, and Charles Coburn. We chose them because they all starred in the popular romantic comedy, Monkey Business. Ginger Rogers was chosen because she was one of the most famous and talented comedians at the time. We chose to use the studio 20th Century Fox because we want our film to be a large scale production, which this studio is known for producing. Our main focus for the movie is sound, which will be edited by Thomas Moulton. We chose sound because baseball involves a lot of sound like the bat swinging, the ball being hit, and the crowd cheering. this movie is Hay's Code friendly and does not include anything scandalous like kissing or drinking. Overall out group worked very nicely together and all agreed on everything so there is nothing that I would change about our project.

MYST

MYST
Over the weekend i viewed the film seven, directed by David Fincher. I would give this film a 4 out of 5 stars. I thought the plot was awesome and i could tell that a lot of thought was put into every detail in the movie. Its about the investigation of murders based off the seven deadly sins. Although it was like many other crime and mystery movies, it kept me entertained and interested the whole time. It wasn't predictable at all which was surprising to me because the plot makes it seem like the film would have been predictable, but i was surprised by things the whole way through. I haven't viewed many films in this genre but it reminded me of another one of David Fincher's films, The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo. This film was a murder mystery just like seven. I felt the same feeling while viewing these two films. I couldn't wait to know more about the mysteries in these films.



This film included a lot of great cinematic elements. The film was well structured and you could tell it was well thought out.  The look of the film was very grim and dark. It is set in an unknown city where everyone seems depressed. The use of lighting is well done. At times the light is perfectly angled so you can only see the shadow of someones face. Also the camera work is phenomenal with the use of many long shots. The camera also captures action scenes perfectly.

One particular scene that stood out to me was when the two investigators first encounter the serial killer. They are knocking on his apartment door and he tries to shoot them from down the hall, then a lot of action occurs as Brad Pitt chases the serial killer through the building and the streets of the city. The scene begins with a perfect long shot of the serial killer down the hall, he notices the investigators and whips out his gun to shoot at them. The scene is quiet and calm until this moment. Then there is an abrupt change of feeling as Brad Pitt runs down the hall to catch him. The killer and Pitt chase each other and shoot at each other all over the building. The film work is awesome in this scene because it shows Pitt in the exact same places as the killer as he is trying to follow him. The camera angles are the same as both men pass through different spots in the building. This is my favorite scene because it shows great cinematic work and is the most suspenseful part of the film.