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.