Director Spotlight David Fincher

The other night I watched Gone Girl a film directed by David Fincher. I started watching it way too late and stayed up till 2am. I could not stop watching. I enjoyed it as I do most of the films he directs. The first movie he directed was Aliens 3 and is the only movie where he did not have full creative control. A director with full creative control is like the god of the film. They control and make decisions that impact every aspect of the film, from the look, the sound, the way the actors portray the characters. Directors may develop trademark things that they do in their movies.

David Fincher trademarks include:
A use of silhouettes and shadows to obscure
Strong blue, green and sometimes yellow tinting of the film, usually with blacks without the colors becoming muddy.
Use of color to signify the mood of the characters
Fluid tracking shots
While it may have a long running time the pacing keeps you from noticing
Either a sleek and modern look or dingy and decaying, sometime both in the same film
At the core most have to do with truth or the hunt for truth

Let's take a look at some favorites in chronological order of release date, notice the similarities in the screenshots of each movie.

Se7en 1995

Detective William Sommerset and his new partner, Detective David Mills are on a desperate hunt for a serial killer who they eventually uncover.-Amazon Description

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Fight Club 1999

 Sick of his dead end, white bread existence, Jack encounters an intriguing stranger who alters his relationship with reality.- Amazon Description

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Panic Room 2002

 When her home is invaded by three armed robbers, a divorced woman and her young daughter hide in their specially designed "panic room" but end up in a deadly cat-and-mouse game anyway. -Amazon Description 

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Zodiac 2007

 As a serial killer terrifies the San Francisco Bay Area and taunts police with his ciphers and letters, investigators in four jurisdictions search for the murderer. - Amazon Description

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The Curious Case of Benjamin Button 2008

Tells the story of Benjamin Button, a man who starts aging backwards with bizarre consequences. -Amazon Description

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The Social Network 2010

 A story about the founders of the social-networking website, Facebook.-Amazon Description

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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 2011

 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the first film in Columbia Pictures' three-picture adaptation of Stieg Larsson's literary blockbuster The Millennium Trilogy. Directed by David Fincher and starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara, the film is based on the first novel in the trilogy, which altogether have sold 50 million copies in 46 countries and become a worldwide phenomenon. -Amazon Description

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House of Cards 2013-present 

Executicve Producer 

Director season 1 episodes 1 & 2 

 Ruthless and cunning, Congressman Francis Underwood (Kevin Spacey) and his wife Claire (Robin Wright) stop at nothing to conquer everything. This wicked political drama penetrates the shadowy world of greed, sex and corruption in modern D.C. Kate Mara and Corey Stoll co-star in the first original series from David Fincher and Beau Willimon.-Amazon Description

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Gone Girl 2014

 Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike head an all-star cast in this thriller based on Gillian Flynn's bestseller about a man suspected of wrongdoing when his wife goes missing.-Amazon Description

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I put all the screenshots into one image:

In it you can see that there is a style and they all kinda go together, it looks as if all this images could have been from one movie. And for fun I ran the image through http://www.palettefx.com/ to get a color palette. 

As always the above items are available for checkout from the Lake County Library System here.