It's Official: David Fincher Peaked With 'Fight Club'

There are few moments from my high school days that I can actually recall with some clarity, yet one that sticks out like an ironic thumb is the awful year I spent learning about content and form; namely, that good art takes both into consideration. Of course, there are those acts that have made a living out of ignoring one or the other. There are also the acts that have made a living out of ignoring both, altogether, leaving the fate of their mindfruit to the demigods and sirens. For the record, I have absolutely no issue with acts/artists who do not consciously determine and/or synchronize form and content. I'm not going to sit around and type a blog about what "art" really is. We'll leave that to the freshmen visual art students at Parsons (sidenote: they should really open these forums to the public and allow pedestrians like you and me to watch from the sidelines--it would be better than anything playing at the Sunshine). But here's my problem: when good artists go bad.



David Fincher, director ("auteur", says the film school prof) of 'Fight Club' and far less notably, 'Panic Room', is slated to release an adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". In this sure-to-be typically time-bending adaptation, Fincher's boy-muse, Brad Pitt, "will play a character who ages in reverse." Sounds like a Fincher-worthy, pie-in-the-sky idea. Here's the catch; here's what's catching my panties and bunching them ever-so-chafingly underneath my grundle: the entire plot of the film (and the production, I assume) is based on the new Contour Camera System, designed by former Apple engineer Steve Perlman, which allows directors/photographers to capture a fully synthesized representation of an actor/subject. I'm sure you see where this is going...

I really don't want to go to a movie that's more of a trade-show advertisement for new technology than a piece of art for public consumption. We've already seen what happens when form dictates content: 'Matrix: Reloaded', 'Matrix: Revolutions', etc. What made 'The Matrix' so incredible was that the form bolstered the content and vice-versa. The story was great, the ideas were fresh, the acting was terrible (well, who gives a shit anyway), and the production quality was stunning. The Wachowski bros didn't create a scene in which Keanu Reaves could see in binary code and then develop a plot around that idea. It just seems like that's what's going on here with Mr. Fincher. If he really wants to get our attention, maybe he should try directing a movie that doesn't rely on innovative technologies to tell a story.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com