Come anticipate David Fincher's "Zodiac"

"I think you're overstating the film's concluding text, Shakey. All that's said is that DNA could not match Allen to the letters. He was by no means exonerated by the DNA evidence."

It's pretty far from slam dunk. Plus the ID itself is so suspect, so incredible seeming. Far from being conclusive OHMIGOD he did it, it's more OHMIGOD what an endless wild goose chase.

Fair enough. I don't want to beat this to death. It just left me a bit cold.

there are numerous other things in the film pointing to Allen's innocence - lack of match with the handwriting sample, etc.

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I'll watch it again at some point. Too many people have insisted to me that it's better than I think. And maybe I'll come around.

shakey has inside knowledge

the film says he's "guilty" because Graysmith WANTS him so badly to be guilty - at the same time the film contains a number of elements implicitly stating that the film is not trustworthy (three different actors in the killing scenes, the note at the beginning and then the confession that the "actual case files" were destroyed, the constantly shifting evidence, etc.)

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And I think the film comes very close to fingering him. Emotionally, at least, it gives our hero a moment where he can "look the killer the eye" and know that he knows.

haha i interpreted this totally differently!!

the scene in the basement is key, i think. as least as far as gyllenhaal's character goes.

^^^yes

that scene bothered me at first - because it seems so non-germane to the rest of the case - but then that's part of the point; its given this really creepy trad-horror-movie-surprise-reveal staging but then... nothing comes of it. Guy is just a harmless film buff. Graysmith is a totally paranoid obsessive who sees clues everywhere.

I get that. I could see that the movie was setting itself up as a gray-area exploration of our need to find solutions to unanswerable questions. And Graysmith hardly seemed entirely reliable. That's why I was so bugged by what I saw as the fairly straightforward solution offered at the conclusion. I'm not saying it was unambiguous, mind, but I though it was presented as something we might find at least 2/3 convincing. Not strong enought to hold up in court, but good enough to serve in the absence of verifiable truth.

Like I said, though, I need to watch it again.

That is, I accept that I may be wrong about this.

ive only seen it once but i will say that i didnt interpret the "fingering" scene as at all conclusive or final

there was fingering in this movie? talk about subtext!

sorry:(

<i>Not strong enought to hold up in court, but good enough to serve in the absence of verifiable truth.</i>

i think is IS what the movie is about..ie, the distinction between metaphysical certainty and we can indeed "know" (and what is problematic about our knowledge).

That Graysmith's moment at the end can be interpreted as either a transcendent confirmation of his suspicions or as the desperate grasping of an obsessive is to the film's credit...and what I like is that it suggests that these two things are not mutually exclusive...and may even depend upon each other!

this is basically the problem of modernity...how does one obtain certainty in situation that only permits probabilities? how do you reconcile this with any sense of justice?

that is, i dont quite accept that Graysmith is simply a delusional obsessive. there is, as the film puts it, about an 80% chance he is right...what you do with that figure is precisely the point.

I agree that the uncertainty generated by the film is the key thing

Ryan OTM. That's exactly how I saw the conclusion. And the 80% figure is key. I honestly don't think you ever do much better than that. Not with regard to the really difficult questions, anyway. So I didn't see this film's conclusion as particularly ambiguous.

boring pointless movie. looked nice though

today I was (yet again) pondering this movie and was struck by its thematic similarities to Alan Moore's "From Hell" - the serial killer thriving on attention, the collective panic, the essential unknowability of evil, that kind of thing.

ar0ng

^^

^

shakey--excellent! i was just about to start reading that.

one of the big differences is that with Moore its no mystery who the Ripper really is - the reader knows the killer's identity right off the bat. HOWEVER, there's an added ironic parallel to Zodiac in that Moore also very clearly says (somewhere in the appendices, I think) that he does not actually believe his fictionalized version of the Ripper's identity and motives is the truth. Moore's "Dance of the Gull-Catchers" epilogue super-relevant here as it traces all the various attempts to identify the Ripper anad how convoluted and impossible to untangle the whole thing became.

also am0n's not entirely wrong - this movie looked fantastic

and twat

;)

graysmith's book is good though. i'm probably too familiar with it to get anything worthwhile out of the movie

bet it won't be as good as the zodiac killer

-- am0n (am0n), Monday, November 20, 2006 8:28 PM (1 year ago)

^ i wuz RITE

is that movie ref'd in Zodiac...? I know Bullitt and Dirty Harry are

no but it gets mention in the book

Good call on From Hell and Zodiac parallels. There's also the occult and symbolist similarities to both murderers' MOs.

the director's edit dvd is still unavailable in the uk :(

Director's cut doesn't add much, really -- one scene of detectives outlining evidence to get a search warrant, and one with a black screen for about four (!) minutes while the passage of time is denoted via a radio/musical montage.

dude, your dvd is defective. the passage of time wasn't a blank screen, it was a scene of the zodiac dancing to the music in his sinister lair.

in silhouette of course

naked

jiggle jiggle

with his junk tucked away?

because if so I want my money back.

aha! 29 09 08 uk release for the 2 disc cut. no reason given as to why we get it a full year after everyone else but there we are.

watching this again right now. so good! the vertigo echoes strike me more this time through, including in the score (david shire being very herrmannesque). not that the story matches up, except in the setting and the obesessiveness. and the lighting -- lots of disconcerting west coast daylight.

Zodiac Killer's Identity Could be Revealed
Comments 1 | Recommend 2
August 29, 2008 - 11:41AM

He terrorized the San Francisco bay area and taunted police in the 60's and 70's.

The FBI has now confirmed to CBS13 in Sacramento they are running laboratory tests on some items that may link a suspect to the Zodiac Killer.

The evidence was given to the FBI by a Sacramento area man who also claims he recently found a disguise worn by the Zodiac Killer.

This is a man who believes he has a very personal connection to the zodiac...as

"The identity of the zodiac killer is Jack Torrance. He's my step father" said Dennis Kaufman. "Am I obsessed? No obligated."

Kaufman spent eight years attempting to prove the only father he's known since he was five years old is the Zodiac Killer.

His Handwriting samples are similar.

The composite sketch of the killer shares similarities with his step father's photo.

Kaufman believes the similarities are to strong to be coincidence.

Dennis also claims his step-father, in a taped phone conversation indirectly admitted being the Zodiac Killer.

"If I wrote a book and said I think my step father is the Zodiac Killer they wouldn't (expletive deleted) believe me," said Kaufman.

Tarrance died in 2006.

Kaufman claims going through his dead step fathers belonging that there were disturbing finds including a knife still covered with what could possibly be dried blood.

"It could be a knife he BBQ'd with or a knife he murdered someone with," said Kaufman.

Tarrance also left behind rolls of undeveloped film, Kaufman plans to hand over to the FBI.

The roll Kaufman did develop on his own appeared to show the images of people who were murdered.

Recently Kaufman remembered his step father asked him several times about an old P.A. system, which led him to take it apart.

"When I first opened it up that did affect me. My heart skipped a couple of beats when I saw it," said Kaufman.

The material folded and tucked inside he believes may unmask the Zodiac Killer. It was a black hood with a zodiac symbol on it.

In Lake Berryessa, 1968, a couple, Cecelia Shepard and Bryan Hartnell were stabbed.

Hartnell survived and said his attacker was wearing a black hood that fell to his waist and had the symbol of the zodiac on it.

"I was definitely in shock when i saw this," said Kaufman.

Dennis claims this is the hood worn during the vicious attack, a possible key piece of evidence connecting his step father to the killings.

He also believes there are dozens more victims, never linked to the Zodiac Killer.

Including Kaufman's own mother who he claims was suffocated.

"She sat there and told me Jack was trying to kill her and I didn't listen. I can only imagine how she felt. Imagine how scary that would be. That is what kept me going this whole time," Kaufman said.

There's a small voice in the back of my mind that always screams 'Nutjob!' whenever Kaufman shows up. Maybe it's totally valid...guy just sounds like he's Graysmith all over again.

http://www.zodiackiller.com/discus/messages/27/786.html

yeah i don't really think he knows shit but i'm curious to see what the fbi makes of the "evidence"

video interview here http://cbs13.com/crime/zodiac.killer.kaufman.2.805799.html

btw ive read the zodiac killer msg board in the wake of the flick & every single person who posts there is as nuts as this kaufmann guy, just posting that link as fyi