Come anticipate David Fincher's "Zodiac"

xpost

whole final act being a kind of "what now" after the pure uncertainty and irresolution already arrived at earlier (and why all the other investigators fall away from the case).

It's only presented as a postscript--so you're partially right!

weirdly, if you want to see a film that's very oddly structured--and kind of hypnotically boring-- b/c it largely hews to the uneventful flow of someone's actual biography, rent "jolson sings again"

with the nagging uncertainty chiefly limited to the fact that because he's dead we can never be sure

there is a title card saying he was exonerated by DNA evidence.

yeah, I'm gonna bail on this in favor of the Irene Dunne movie tomorrow morning at IFC Center, which I am much more likely to find profound.

btw Alfred has never directly faced the screen while a film is running.

with the nagging uncertainty chiefly limited to the fact that because he's dead we can never be sure

there is a title card saying he was exonerated by DNA evidence.

― Οὖτις, Friday, September 19, 2014 3:30 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

right, i remember that. i think my feeling was that relegating that to a title card allows the film proper to end on a more traditional beat than it would otherwise.

I put the mop where my heart ought to be.

relegating that to a title card allows the film proper to end on a more traditional beat than it would otherwise.

the title card is immediately preceded by a scene of the lone survivor "positively" identifying the suspect as Allen

I suppose they could've leapt forward 20 years to a scene at a DNA lab or something if the title card wasn't definitive enough for you

i mean, i wish the film completely lived up to the way it's often billed (as sort of spinning out into uncertainty and irresolution) but i don't think that's truly the case. i think it is more conventional than a lot of its admirers would seem to argue.

― I dunno. (amateurist), Friday, September 19, 2014 8:23 PM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's a largely straight adaptation of Graysmith's highly misleading and inaccurate account.

e.g. there's a scene where we're supposed to believe that Graysmith solved the second cipher, which is just fucking absurd

say more, i'm interested...

the story itself is more like 'hey here's a guy who's totally crazy, follow him down the rabbithole while he thinks he's solving the Zodiac case'

the facts of the murders as they stand are pretty well depicted, but everything else is pretty much Graysmith-ian

we've discussed this--extensively, i think--but the murder by the lake is one of the most terrifying things i've seen in a film

otm

say more, i'm interested...

― I dunno. (amateurist), Friday, September 19, 2014 9:28 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well he didn't solve the second cipher, no one has. but there's a scene in the movie where a reporter interviews Graysmith on TV announcing he solved it, with an admiring Paul Avery watching it in a bar.

Then there's the scene with the Paul Stine witnesses where they make it sound like it was just some dumb kids who didn't get a good look at him (I think the similar description from a cop is just ignored), the way they just dismiss the fingerprint evidence, the rather silly excuses for the handwriting evidence (e.g. writing left handed).

When I saw the movie I didn't know anything about the case and it's amazing to watch it a second time and see how hard it strains to make Graysmith's theory viable.

the attack at Lake Berryessa is totally disturbing and as unglamorous a staging of the event as you could make.

And yes, the Lake Berryessa sequence was the scariest murder scene I can think of, from any film. Just horrifying.

the one by the lake was v scary but,

the lake murder and the roadside abduction sequences were horrifying and great.

lake berryessa stabbing is so hellishly realistic...the dull thuds of each stab, his faint grunting each time...every tiny detail is so horrifying

the sequence with the murder by the lake is utterly terrifying

the lake scene is really disturbing but

the lake scene is terrifying, but

haha

yeah that scene is really stomach-turning in a no-nonsense way

no music makes it so much worse.

i heard the original cut had it scored to "mr. blue sky"

the way that scene puts you in the minds of the victims is really masterful filmmaking, especially when you see him like they must have first seen him, from far away, in the daytime, with his homemade costume and his tool belt and you're like "is this fucking guy serious or what?" and then horrors just keep building.

There's even a great moment of levity in that scene, the way the guy corrects his girlfriend on what his major is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFN4Bb7wcog

I love that first scene with Ruffalo and Edwards at the Paul Stine crime scene, when Ruffalo kind of walks into the middle of street. He's presented with what should be a standard cab robbery/murder, with eyewitnesses and a suspect probably still in the neighborhood, and yet from the very beginning nothing makes sense and he just has this look of befuddled frustration.

You guys are making me take this one off the shelf.

Still amazed at the FX in this. That aforementioned scene, post cab murder ... that making of still blows me away.

I can barely post this enough:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sZS8OVyVr4

There's even a great moment of levity in that scene, the way the guy corrects his girlfriend on what his major is.

― clemenza, Friday, September 19, 2014 7:00 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

weren't they on their first or second date?

everything about that incident is gut wrenching

and yeah fincher is the master at using FX in the most discreet, unspectacular ways. in fact his team pioneered some important aspects of what's now standard workflow on higher-budget films, for which FX is now fully integrated into production from day one, even if the film isn't what we think of as an FX film. i taught girl w/ dragon tattoo for just this aspect of his work.

I'd like to know more about that, are there any good articles or videos online?

He just films everything with a green screen in back, just in case.

I'm pretty good at not watching violent scenes and sensing when they're about to happen, so I haven't seen the lakeside scene but saw the expression on the face of my date watching it. Felt like we'd seen two different movies afterwards.

Fincher knowing the Bay Area so well and having so many emotional ties to its geography seems like a central part of why this works so well.

Every time this thread gets resurrected, I end up watching the film again.

weren't they on their first or second date?

Couldn't have been: early in the clip above, the girls says "We were here last spring, remember?"

IRL hadn't they already broken up and were just hanging out as friends?

and twat

Will he ever make a better movie than this?

I don't know

he has

goddamn me for this latest revive btw

I watched the girl with &c the other day, it was rubbish. So was the Swedish one tho

Will he ever make a better movie than this?

probably not

he's doing Gone Girl which could really go either way, has potential for something interesting but won't rival Zodiac

>:(

Gyllenhaal is apparently in town filming Zodiac 2, a followup to the 2007 Zodiac telling the story of a serial killer who stalked San Francisco residents.

that's a joke, right?

never has the Electric Boogaloo chestnut been more badly needed

zodiac harder

2 Zod 2 Iac

2odiac

'Ac is Back

The Zodiackening

Thread:
https://twitter.com/RealGDT/status/838415427424387072

good stuff. GDT otm