48th NYFF 2010: David Fincher’s The Social Network

David Fincher’s and Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Network, otherwise popularly known as “the Facebook movie,” is as easy of a watch and impressive a film as they come, but might leave some who do not care about the events, or just the deeper thinkers out there, longing for more meaning. Unlike Fincher’s last film, the two hour forty minute so-called “epic” known as the cringe-inducing The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, this one could have gone that long without anyone noticing the time. Even with this opportunity to grab the audience’s attention, given the most topical subject matter imaginable, Fincher and Sorkin actually don’t let this go over two hours. Sorkin’s script was 168 pages, but as they explained afterwards, scenes like the opening of the film were written as nine pages, but came out to four and a half minutes of screen time. That’s what Fincher calls “Sorkinian.”

Oscar buzz or not, it’s unlikely that we’ll see a more well-done film this year (only one possibly challenging this is Aronofsky’s Black Swan). Whether you want to vomit from the self-importance that Sorkin has made his trademark, or cannot stand Fincher’s wanna-be the next Spielberg/Kubrick but with even more misplaced sentimentality, you cannot argue that Sorkin knows how to craft a story and move it along tightly (see the opening sequence), and Fincher is without peer in terms of technical filmmaking (see the Henley Regatta scene). Even though this is not a piece with some obvious revolutionary visual effects that Fincher gets to show off, his well-oiled machine of a crew is still on display here.

You watch other movies right now and none compare. They have dead spots. There are holes in the narrative. There are obvious scenes added or stylized to make the film more marketable, or ones that are less than they should be do to budgetary constraints. Everything here is just so smooth and effortless. It’s one of those instances where the best thing you can say is that you do not notice the filmmaking (save for some goofy CGI effects on the characters’ breath to make it look really cold outside).

This is a rare case in history where all elements came together perfectly and whether they’ll admit it or not, we have a story that everyone cares about right now. It’s the craftiest screenwriter out there. The current master of the medium of filmmaking. A superb group of actors, all cast perfectly to type, without any of the annoying attempts at catching fire with a name or egomaniacally long-stretch castings.

Now I admit I went into this movie ready to hate it, and ready to rant about that on, well, my Facebook and Twitter pages, perhaps in person to some lucky people. I’ll admit further, I even wanted to hate it, after Fincher’s last flop and the ridiculous Radiohead trailer.

What all of the previous paragraphs of praise add up to is this being the perfect vehicle to give the masses a dose of profundity. This is not very profound profundity, rather it deserves credit just for having actual characterizations, in a time when we rarely get anything beyond one or a weak two dimensions. Simplified—Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) is no Travis Bickle, or to keep it topical to New York Film Festival, he’s no Viorel in Aurora.

Everyone’s going to enjoy it though. For the older set and some of the simpler viewers, it’s going to expose them to much more meaning and depth. For the younger cognoscenti, they’ll love its cultural relevance and significance. All parties are accounted for that is. The only problems this film runs into are with those whippersnappers looking for more than the entertainment value, the inside scoop, or some slightly left of center characters.

Regarding the cultural relevance, the film is actually more influenced by Citizen Kane (pointed out by press conference moderator Todd McCarthy) and Rashomon (although they need to go easy on those comparisons—I’m looking at you Sorkin) than anything to do with Facebook or contemporary youth culture. It’s structured as a rise to power tale, showing us how and why Zuckerberg did what he did, told from a few different perspectives via the two lawsuits. The specifics are not actually important, and thus those parts with anecdotes injected into them are simply gimmicks, albeit gimmicks that work very well for this audience.

For example, the “Sean-athon” (thank you Andrew Garfield/Aaron Sorkin for adding that one to my lexicon) scene where Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) meets Zuckerberg is capped off by Sean giving one piece of advice as he leaves—“Drop the ‘the.’ Just Facebook. It’s cleaner.” Anyone who was around in Facebook’s early days remembers frustrations with logging onto facebook.com over and over again and getting nothing, or just typing the extra three letters, until they changed it. Additionally, the emergence of the catchphrase “Facebook me” will get a reaction out of literally anyone who has not been in a coma for the last six years.

While these moments are fun highlights of the film, they could easily have been cut and we’d have the same story. They’re there though to get that cultural relevance that we’re going to keep hearing spoken of with this film. Between various press conference attendees Sorkin, Fincher, Eisenberg, Timberlake, Armie Hammer and Garfield, only Garfield says he had actually used Facebook at any time before this. Sorkin and Eisenberg used it while writing and rehearsing, respectively, but then cancelled their accounts, and none have accounts now.

Depending on your school of thought, you might be thoroughly pleased by this or annoyed. Each actor expressed their love affair with Sorkin’s script, and agreed that they needed little or no extra research beyond what was on the page. The performances all came out very well, so I don’t personally care that they have no first hand knowledge of the people or events. It does feel a little weird though, and certainly exemplifies the film’s subtle detachment to our society—one of its only flaws.

The topical characterizations are most notable for the dynamic between Zuckerberg and his antagonists the Winkevoss twins (both played by Armie Hammer with stand-in Josh Pence in a technical visual effect feat that Fincher thankfully and admirably does not call attention to…unlike all of Benjamin Button’s look at this shit, how cool is that? moments). Most know this story, but to sum up, Zuckerberg is a nerd who hates the cool kids because he craves their approval, and the Winklevoss twins are 6’5” good looking, athletic, blue blood, rich sons. The “Winklevi,” (guaranteed to be one of the catch phrases) as Zuckerberg hilariously calls them, and their partner Divya (Max Minghella) approach Zuckerberg with an idea very similar to Facebook, Zuckerberg says he’ll do it, but then goes and creates Facebook on his own. They sue his ass.

The interesting part of this dynamic is we’re used to feeling sympathetic to the nerd/underdog and antagonistic to the good looking rich dudes, but in this case if there is an offender, it’s certainly only the squid Zuckerberg. The “Winklevi” do not want to take serious action because they “are gentlemen of Harvard and gentlemen of Harvard do not sue people.” Why? “Because it would look like we’re wearing skeleton costumes chasing the Karate Kid around the gymnasium.” In quite possibly the film’s best scene, the “Winklevi” finally appeal to Harvard University President Larry Summers (featured in NYFF documentary Inside Job) (played by Gary Oldman’s manager Douglas Urbanski) to intervene, and he just shuts them down unequivocally. The scene is so well-played by talent manager Douglas Urbanski, as it really sells that this is the first guy to ever speak to the “Winklevi” like this, and as Zuckerberg later paraphrases, the first time they don’t get to win.

So the big coup in this story is that we’re reversing the roles of the nerds and the jocks. It sells itself too, works very well. But wait. I almost wanted to Google some article from, I don’t know, say 1996, and that’s being awfully generous, about how the nerds are taking over the world. Is this a new idea? As many Facebook users, aka “the kids” would say—“I mean, really?” Or “For serious?”

Sorkin and Fincher are for serious. So is Eisenberg. But we don’t buy it. We know this is all old news shrouded in fancy camera work, better looking girls than 99.99999% of actual female Harvard students, and a melodramatic cover of Radiohead’s “Creep.” Once you dig a little deeper, you get what I expected going in.

Aaron Sorkin is a speed addict who loves his own style more than Joanie crushed on Chachi. The Social Network carries the same self-important, wanna-be “epic” qualities that was toned down by networks in Sports Night, that worked for a few episodes of The West Wing, some scenes of Charlie Wilson’s War, worked as far as it got us excited at some cool quotes in A Few Good Men, but got beyond ridiculous when it came to Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Just because his scripts tell us they are deep does not mean they are deep. In press conferences, the guy compared himself and this story to Aeschylus, Shakespeare and Paddy Chayefsky. Don’t get sucked in.

He says that the opening followed by Zuckerberg’s telling the Harvard Ad board “That’s not what happened,” sets the structure, meaning it’s all subjective, just one version of the truth, but not necessarily what happened. This is not how I took it. I took it as Zuckerberg wanting the night to have gone differently, and thus using nitpicky details that were off to summarize the entire accusation as false. He does this often in the film. It’s that kind of lying by omission and neurosis. It’s still interesting, but let’s not get carried away and compare ourselves to Rashomon.

He explains that the story is told through multiple unreliable narrators, but that’s not really the way it happens. It’s linear, and while it does dart between them telling stories and them living it out, it’s not like we’re meant to believe that these things are only that narrator’s version. This movie is portrayed as at least one version that Sorkin, Fincher & company think or at least are purporting is true.

Whether Fincher will admit it or not (he wouldn’t discuss it at the DGA screening of Benjamin Button then, and he denied it again at NYFF), the filmmaker has shifted gears completely. Zodiac marked a huge leap for him, but was followed by a much greater dive. Before BB, I loved his plot-based, twisting, highly and effectively stylized films like Se7en, The Game and Fight Club. His take on a city taken hostage seemed to be the maturing of the same edgy subject matter but brought into character driven work. After the momentary dip, Social Network continues on that path, as does The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

He seems to have two big ideas about himself. The first is that his skills are far and beyond everyone else, to quote Mark Romanek “Fincher can recite the back of the manual.” Because of this he does not need to answer to anyone or explain himself if he does not feel like it. The second is that he wants to be a great filmmaker and in order to achieve such a status you need to work with HUGE ideas like Spielberg and Kubrick did. You also need to pull on the heartstrings of the audience. He’s getting there, but I’m not proud of him for it. I’d much prefer if he continued on his pre-Button trajectory.

Since I’m giving him a hard time, I must also cite the Henley Regatta sequence. If you enjoy Fincher’s music videos or commercials, this is going to be your favorite two minutes of all time. It’s visual hot sex on a platter. This is where Fincher injects himself as a character in the film. Ironically, the most Fincher-esque scene was shot well after principle photography had wrapped, in June of this year, to coincide with the actual event. Everything else had been cut, and then they went to go shoot this. Fincher really knocked this scene out of the park. I need not describe it, just watch it and do not blink nor breath until it’s over.

As previously referenced, Sorkin shines in the opening scene between Eisenberg and his girlfriend Erica Albright (Rooney Mara). The scene is the only one edited in this way, with a very staccato cutting style, going from one single to the other as they speak. They talk over one another, so there are a few L-cuts, but the majority of the conversation is a rapid fire back and forth in both sound and image. The emotional center of the written scene is quite well married to the direction, so this also introduces to us a fruitful collaboration between writer and director.

Apart from the back and forth conversation, Eisenberg’s focus goes in a million directions. He’s juggling about three internal monologues and two dialogues with Mara. The distraction is so exquisitely played through gesture more than anything. The performances are not obvious at all. Most scripts would have parenthetical descriptors filled with “ly”’s (nervously, sarcastically, seriously, etc.). I doubt there were any in Sorkin’s script. I would bet that about half of the gestures are written into the script and the rest come from the actors and director. Eisenberg, for example, takes credit for having his hands in his hoodie’s pockets. Each sip of their beers are taken with a timely purpose. Eisenberg also told us that they did 99 takes of this scene alone. They were all worth it. It’s (I’m hating myself for this already) one of the best opening scenes and dialogue scenes ever. The scene introduces the central character of Zuckerberg, his central conflicts, reveals the tone and style, presents the central conflict, and begins the first half of the bookend that will summarize the story and Zuckerberg’s character’s experience.

Fact is, while this The Social Network is not the transcendent wonder that it will be called, it is pretty fantastic. Its greatest feat is bringing us something so accessible while also dosing us with those real stories and characterizations. Whatever negatives one can cite, this is absolutely a must-see for literally everyone, and New York Film Festival should be proud to have it as its opener.