2007: Zodiac

Zodiac (Fincher, 2007) 10/10

There is more than one way to lose your life to a killer (Zodiac Poster Tagline)

American director David Fincher is one of contemporary cinema's most perplexing talents. His films are often artfully constructed, yet he has been noted for his fondness for mainstream fare such as Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. His career began in music videos and- has continuted to be involved with- commercials, yet his films overtly use the cinematic medium to its fullest, rather than to create extended pop videos.

His oeuvre has currently been defined by two characteristics: first, a dark aesthetic prowess embodied in astute cinematography and a taste for psychologically menancing and often violently gruesome subject matter. From The Game through Seven and Panic Room, Fincher has demonstrated a cunning ability to create films that artfully menace both the audience and his high calibre actors with suspenseful chills and morbid curiousities.

The second notable facet of Fincher's career has occurred off-screen. For all his talent and precision in creating gems such as Fight Club and the aforementioned projects, Fincher has had a hit and miss connection to the audience. Seven, Panic Room and The Game all raked in hundreds of millions, whereas Fight Club and Zodiac tanked at the box-office. And while the former notably became a best-selling cult classic after its release on DVD, one can only believe that the public response to Zodiac will be less vocal, yet equally passionate amongst its supporters.

Despite its critical acclaim, Zodiac was a major flop domestically; breaking even due to the ever-important overseas markets. Certainly several factors played into the film's commercial failure. The almost three-hour running length turned off countless viewers asininely unwilling to sit through Fincher's work, which also limited the amount of times the film could be run. The studio's decision to release a film with potential for mass critical acclaim at the beginning of March, rather than the Fall award season was equally damning to the film's commercial potential. But then again, grosses and popularity does not automatically equate brilliance.

Brilliant however is an appropriate euphemism to describe Zodiac: a jazzy riff of a film that winds through dark alleys, smoky factories, cluttered apartments and decrepit basements with obessive intrigue and innate destruction. With Zodiac, Fincher has created a mature and fully realized project that will probably always remain a forgotten classic when bookended against his other films. Yet, a contemporary classic it is: a film with countless potential to be acclaimed the year's best film a decade from now.

Based on two books by former San Francisco Chronicle cartoonist Robert Graysmith, the film documents the hunt for the elusive killer through the eyes of three principal characters: Chronicle cartoonist Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), Chronicle crime reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr) and San Francisco police officer Dave Toschi (Mark Ruffalo). Through a series of encrypted letters in the aftermath of a slew of gruesome crimes, the mysterious individiual simply known as "The Zodiac" terrorizes The Bay Area for almost a decade. Armed with their own respective interests into the case, the three men each desire to solve the riddled identity of the killer, yet at a cost to their own personal and private lives.

Filmed with neo-noirish sensibilities, Fincher creates a masterly and detailed portrait of San Francisco and California in the late Sixties through the Seventies. Spending eighteen months researching, interviewing and investigating the case, director David Fincher and screenwriter James Vanderbilt created a dialogue-driven film structured in fact, yet coolly enveloped in mythology, intrigue and personal loss.The period flavour is astutely captured by referencing the styles and cinematic approaches used in films ranging from San Fransisco based action films such as Dirty Harry and Bullitt to 70's political thrillers like All The President's Men and The Conversation, as well as the photography of Stephen Shore.

Hauntingly shot in digital cinematography by Harris Savides, Fincher is able to convincingly utilize CGI to create a forgotten analog world of Noirish tropes, spacious offices and amateur sleuthdom. Through this environment, Fincher uses Graysmith's work and the research he and Vanderbilt undertook to establish a thematic aura of obsession. Toschi, Graysmith and Avery each become gripped on discovering the true identity of the killer at the expense of their personal and private lives.

The lust to solve the case takes each man to the edge. Like the Zodiac, they court the media and lose the sanctum of privacy governed by their badge or pen strokes. Their faces become exposed to the media and subsequently their personal downfall hastens. The extroverted Avery retreats into an alcohol induced solitude to ease his demons, only for alcoholism to quickly envelop him.

Toschi can no longer decide whether he wants a principal suspect to be the Zodiac simply to end the case, or to find satisfaction in unravelling the riddle. Toschi's partner William Armstrong (Anthony Edwards) asks for a transfer to prevent himself from becoming too attached to the case. Like Toschi, Graysmith wants his main suspect to be the killer at all costs; in his case to simply to release himself from the marital and professional strife his obsession has brought into his home.

The stressful, tension-filled hours of disappointment and desire are perfectly captured in Fincher's astute pacing, allowing the audience to soak up the atmosphere. Although Fincher's film tends to lean toward the conclusion's of the Zodiac's identity as in Graysmith's book, the director produces a fair and balanced film. His protagonists are not glorified, but rather are viewed as victims of their own self-induced tragedies brought upon by their obsessions. Furthermore, the director grounds his story deep in fact to produce a gritty texture and realistic mood. There is an everyday ordinariness to the proceedings. There are no action sequences, no political critiques or unneccessary and stereotypical glances toward Haight-Ashbury drug culture and hippiedom.

Instead, Fincher avoids cliches and happy endings to create a swath of darkness. When moments of suspense do arrive, they are usually created through situations in which the characters are trapped by their increasingly dangerous personal involvement into the case. This unsettling realm is enhanced by an excellent cast and crew featuring a nervy performance by Jake Gyllenhaal, a distrustful effort by Mark Ruffalo, a somber Anthony Edwards and a marvellously unkempt Robert Downey Jr. If the film does have a weak point in the casting is that the baby-faced Gyllenhaal seems too young to be a divorced father, but his nerdy awkwardness produces a superb counterpoint to Downey's cocky Avery and Ruffalo's unrelenting Toschi.

Filmed with an unnerving spectre of bleakness, Zodiac is an intelligent, meticulously constructed epic thriller. Structured with elegant digital cinematography and gaunt production design, Fincher creates a sphere of destructive compulsions and dearth infatuations. The result is a film not bound by contemporary cliches of the recent past, but rather it is attunted and gratefully indebted to a filmic language of yesteryear: an era when thrillers needed no pre-fabricated solutions, but rather captured the destitute realities of puzzles that forever remain unsolved.

* Zodiac is availble on a bare-bones DVD through Paramount Home Video. An edition featuring the director's cut, director and cast commentary as well as extras regarding the unsolved case is to be released in 2008.

Copyright 2007 8½ Cinematheque