David Fincher's Trademarks
- Royale W/ Cheese
- Nov 13, 2018
- 4 min read
“In film, we sculpt time, we sculpt behaviour, and we sculpt light."
David Leo Fincher, popularly known as David Fincher, is an American film and music video director characterized by his dark and stylish movies. The director was fascinated by movies since his childhood and was merely a teenager when he became an assistant cameraman at Industrial Light & Magic, George Lucas’s special effects studio.
The filmmaker started by directing commercials in the 1980s, which then led him to become an appraised music video director, making videos for icons such as Aerosmith’s “Janie’s Got a Gun” and Madonna’s “Express Yourself.” His videos were said to have cinematic qualities.
It wasn’t until 1992 that he directed his first film Alien 3, which was widely criticized by the public and critics. In an interview with The Guardian in 2009 he said: “No one hated it more than me; to this day, no one hates it more than me." Despite how tempted he was to end his filmmaking career and retreat to directing music videos and commercials, he ended up directing Se7en, which was released in 1995. Besides being one of the highest earning films of that year, it received excellent reviews by film critics.
Nowadays, he is one of the most acclaimed directors of modern cinema, known for his tendency to film multiple takes. In The Social Network (2010), Rooney Mara had to redo a scene 99 times.
Fincher has directed so many films, that it is now possible to distinguish his major trademarks:
Use of Black with Gold or Blue
The director’s films are easily recognized because of their steely color palette. He has a unique visual style mixing dark lighting with a filter or overlay. His palette usually consists of black with gold or blue.
He chooses these colors purposefully; they usually have some symbolism in the film. For example, in Fight Club (1999), the dominant ones are black and blue, representing the bruises the members of the club will get. In The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2012), he majorly uses black and icy blue, representing the cold setting of the film. Another example is Zodiac (2007), with the primary colors being black and yellow to contrast the warmth of the day, when it's safe from the killer, with the darkness of the knight, when he finds his next victim.
Characters Obscured by Shadows
A typical technique of Fincher is covering the characters with shadows to conceal them from the audience and to keep their identities a secret. He uses this technique to advance the story without giving anything away, while keeping the audience guessing (most of his films have some mystery element). Since the director always includes black in the film’s color palette, this technique fits perfectly with the visual style.
One can see this technique used in Zodiac when the killer gives a woman and her daughter “a ride” in his car, and his face is concealed by a shadow to keep his identity hidden. Another example is how Kevin Spacey’s face is covered by a shadow in Se7en (1996).
Fincher also uses shadows to cover half of the face of different characters in dialogue scenes. Perhaps it's his way of showing how everyone has a dark side or that the characters remain a mystery and could be either good or bad, as is the case with several of the dialogue scenes featuring Tyler Durden.
Frequent Use of Fluid Tracking Shots
When watching his films, one will definitely see lengthy tracking shots. He often uses them to give the film a stylistic edge and to capture the scene effectively. Fincher is meticulous when it comes to camera movement. The director is at a different level when it comes to this. Regardless of the terrain, his camera movement will always be smooth; sometimes with the use of CGI, it will even travel through walls or solid objects.
An iconic tracking shot of his is in Fight Club when the camera pans down from the office where Tyler Durden is, down to a parking garage, past a van and then through another building until the explosives are filmed. This serves to show the perspective of where Durden is in relation to the explosives, avoiding confusion for the audience.
Use of Single Frames
A reason why Fincher is such a dynamic director is due to his background. As previously mentioned, the filmmaker used to be a successful music video and commercial director, hence, he learned how to make the most out of short formats.
He likes to insert a single frame image in his films, which can be easily missed, to add more context. This can be seen in Se7en where the images inserted serve to frighten the audience, enhancing the film’s emotional impact. In Fight Club the single frame scenes are a way of assaulting the audience with obscene material.
Use of CGI and Digital Compositing
Fincher is perhaps one of the directors better acquainted with modern stylistic elements of cinema and new technologies, including CGI and digital composition. This is majorly because of his extensive background in visual effects, beginning as far as 1980 with his work in The Return of Jedi.
The director knows exactly how and when to use an effect. Take again the opening scene in Fight Club where he uses a massive shot panning down from the office all the way to the nitroglycerin bombs. Without the use of CGI he would’ve needed to film four different shots and yet the distance and location in relation to Tyler, wouldn't have been clear.
With CGI it’s possible for the director to makes sure the audience always know where they are in a scene.
Bibliography
Augustyn, Adam. “David Fincher.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 2018, www.britannica.com/biography/David-Fincher.Perno, G.S. “Directors' Trademarks: David Fincher.” Cinelinx, 1 Oct. 2014, www.cinelinx.com/movie-stuff/item/6492-directors-trademarks-david-fincher.html.
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