David Fincher, the Unhappiest Auteur

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/01/movies/david-fincher.html

by prismatic • 6 years ago

65 52 6 years ago

cm2187• 6 years ago

How do you measure performance when movies are released straight to streaming? Are there “streaming box offices” already?

objclxt• 6 years ago

Internally obviously Netflix et al have all the metrics they need, and goal on things like minutes watched and completed watchings.

Externally, there are companies like Nielsen that attempt to derive ratings for steaming media (via surveys, paying people to install plugins, using audio fingerprinting etc), but it’s not clear how accurate they actually are.

pessimizer3• 6 years ago

I don't think you do. You read the marketing about how well a film has done and decide whether you believe it. The only people who actually know are the distributors, and they have paid teams who spend all day trying to get stories published about how well the films are doing.

tehwebguy• 6 years ago

Now that AT&T owns Warner and HBO I expect to see tons of crossover ads: promoting the each new movie and the fact that it will be on HBO Max.

HBO will get new signups, the movie will get a marketing bill that keeps it in the red forever, and directors + actors with backend deals will get nothing.

pessimizer3• 6 years ago

The most beautiful part of vertical integration; being able to buy services from yourself at whatever arbitrary price you set lets you make the units with contingent liabilities worth the least.

sho6• 6 years ago

The industry needs to change. Charging all movies the same is ridiculous and just totally counter to all reality about their audience. We have fast food and gourmet, why wouldn't we have that with cinema too?

I suppose I could be reluctantly convinced to part with $5 or $10 for the latest predictable comic book CGI-fest. I'll pay much more for Fincher, or anyone else I actually respect. Trying to charge the same for mass-market lowest-common-denominator marvel or transformers nonsense as something aimed for the sniff art crowd sniff just sounds unsustainable. There needs to be a free-floating price, just like any other product with different markets.

goto114• 6 years ago

People like different things.

bshimmin• 6 years ago

This is an interesting but problematic idea.

Firstly, I'm not certain of how the economics would play out: the "marvel or transformers nonsense" (and boy is it nonsense) tends to cost a lot of money to make, because they feature famous actors and they're end-to-end expensive CGI; arthouse films tend to be a lot cheaper because they feature less CGI, and sometimes the actors involved will work for less money because the films are more "worthy", or they like the director. More people watch the superhero drivel than the arthouse films, for sure, so perhaps it would all balance out, but it's unclear.

Secondly, while I broadly love Terrence Malick, if I'd paid £20 for "Knight of Cups" (which was dire), I would have to think very, very hard about parting with another £20 for his next film unless the notices were very good. I think you'd end up with a minuscule audience if you started marking up arthouse films in this way.

Unrelatedly, I have to admit that "Mank" sounds really boring and I'm not eager to watch it, even though I have a Netflix subscription and I've enjoyed many of Fincher's previous films (hell, I even liked "Alien 3").

goto114• 6 years ago

If you are a fan of Citizen Kane and the whole mythos around this movie, you might enjoy Mank. If not, you will probably find it quite boring and pointless.

Fincher is certainly no art house director. He makes big-budget movies with stars like Brad Pitt or Ben Affleck. He is kind of like Steven Spielberg - a director so talented in the craft he elevates rater middlebrow material to be uniquely enjoyable. Fincher just gets a bit more respect because he is "dark". But dark does not mean deep. For example Seven is really quite silly and contrived, but his excellence at directing makes us forget that.

coldtea4• 6 years ago

The industry needs to change. Charging all movies the same is ridiculous and just totally counter to all reality about their audience. We have fast food and gourmet, why wouldn't we have that with cinema too?

That might kill "serious" movies even faster. The people that like to watch them don't necessarily have more income.

sho6• 6 years ago

You might be right. I was just trying to offer a data point and offering a speculative extrapolation.

If I've decided to "make a night of" a movie, the ticket price is almost irrelevant. I guess I'm applying a very narrow stereotype but most of the "serious movie lovers" I know are fairly well paid. I'll pay for quality. Transformers - I wouldn't go even if it was free.

I just feel like there's something being squeezed out of the equation here.

pessimizer3• 6 years ago

I suppose I could be reluctantly convinced to part with $5 or $10 for the latest predictable comic book CGI-fest.

You'd probably never get that chance if prices floated; those films go out to a market that bases their social life on consuming genre fiction and for whom seeing them is not optional. Prices would shoot up to $40 a ticket, and marketing would just be laser-targeted towards that audience, who would pay like putting money into the collection tray at church. Kickstarter has proved that 5-10% of that audience would be willing to pay multiples of that (2x to probably 50x) extra without anything in return but exclusive tokens that are evidence that they paid.

IMO, mostly middle-of-the-road, highly-competent directors like Fincher would be in trouble in that world, since they are both going for a general audience and relying on a general media narrative of genius and award potential to market their films. Genre movies withdrawing from general reviewers and general marketing (like awards shows) reduces the impact of those awards, and leaves them as a de facto genre themselves - like mainstream literary fiction. Maybe able to crank out one or two films that crack the top 10 every year and barely self-supporting on average; highly dependent on government and institutional support.

Talent graduates from mainstream non-genre awards-show films to comic book films, not vice-versa, which is why awards shows are desperately trying to get those films into every category, as a means to market those traditional blockbusters to genre fans.

mass-market lowest-common-denominator marvel or transformers nonsense

So, tl;dr, IMO Fincher is the mass-market lowest-common-denominator choice, and bombastic genre trash targets a small inelastic market that would still be sustainable at a far higher price point. The number who would pay a premium for Fincher wouldn't be enough to support his budgets and marketing. Mainstream Fincher films would only survive given away for a token (or in order to market something else.) 20M people would pay $60 for The Avengers 8, but 400M might be willing to pay $3 for Mank or watch it for free if you put it on all of some brand's devices as a promotion (like a U2 album, or Netflix.)

Of course Fincher would be (and probably is) highly desired in genre films, so in that world he'd probably be charging $100 per to 40M fans for The Incredulous Spider-Man: Sapphire Empire's Revenge Chapter II or The New Fast More Furious 19.

sho6• 6 years ago

I can't reply to all of this but I will say - I paid to go see the Avengers finale movies - despite seeing none of the preceding films - purely because I felt a kind of social obligation. Like it or not, Avengers was part of the zeitgeist and I just felt compelled to go see both of them. Part of the shared cultural experience or something.

The movies were just ludicrous but I don't regret it. snap

golemotron2• 6 years ago

That happens right now with streaming services. They jack up the prices for premium movies.

gregmac• 6 years ago

The industry needs to change.

Ticket prices for cinema likely pale in comparison to the changes as a result of technology improvements and COVID.

In the past two decades we've gone from the biggest home screens being a huge heavy CRT or mediocre projection screen, to large 1080p or 4k LCD and OLED displays. The average TV size was 25" in 2000, now approaching 50". [1] Audio has similar improvements, with not only built-in TV audio being better, but now with soundbars, subwoofers, wireless options, Atmos, etc it's much more common to have decent or excellent sound.

What does post-COVID theatre look like? I can't imagine it has zero effect.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/961283/united-states-ave...

mixmastamyk• 6 years ago

Equating Marvel with Tranformers shows a lack of understanding.

They’re both “fun entertainment” but while one is a cynical money grab the other has a commitment to quality. Quality fun may seem paradoxical to some snobs but it is definitely possible.

Keyframe2• 6 years ago

I was in film&tv for a long time. You know, Fincher himself put it really well. I'll paraphrase and add a bit to it along with something Zemeckis said. Any audiovisual work of sufficient scale, let alone film, is a collaborative process. You can't do it alone, you can't finance it alone, yet your name ends up tied to it. Whether you write it yourself or not, as a director it's your interpretation, and every single shooting day (and pre and post) starts with your vision and over the course of that day there are compromises after compromises. You not only have to do your craft, but also give guidance (even when you don't have it) and power through compromises. How well your vision will be delivered is directly proportional to how many compromises you're ready to take. Every single person on that shoot day has their input and 'what they think', from an actor to a grip that pushes dolly and everyone has something to say.. yet, at the end of the day they're already on the next production and you're stuck with footage that will bear your name. It's one of the most challenging things I've been involved with. Put those words into context around Alien 3. Young guy, big production and budget - of course he'll listen to everyone since, well.. insecurity!

One thing Tarantino said about Fincher though is there's a difference between directors like him and Fincher. I agree but it's not negative how he portrayed it. It's one thing to write your own film and then direct it and the other for someone else to write it and you interpret it. Take what you will from it, I don't take it as negative but different.

chokeartist• 6 years ago

Put those words into context around Alien 3. Young guy, big production and budget - of course he'll listen to everyone since, well.. insecurity!

Alien 3 was my first thought when I saw David Fincher in this headline. As flawed as that movie was, I still really enjoyed it. I can tell he legitimately tried to make it a legitimate "art" piece in his mind.

Your commentary about him being young+big money... is absolutely correct. Alien 3 could have had 3x the box market pop if there was a more collaborative process in my view.

Oh well, you live and you learn. Personal bias: I have enjoyed pretty much every one of David Fincher's movies.

morley• 6 years ago

I wish there were more literature about film directors as managers, as opposed to visionaries. A lot of film workers talk about their favorite directors as "knowing exactly what they want" or "having a clear vision," but it's harder to know how they get what they want, or how they express their vision, or how they navigate situations where their vision is wrong or conflicts with someone else's. Or simply how they do that at 4am at the end of a 14-hour work day. I like the stories about how Tarantino will make everyone say "because we love making movies" as a rallying cry. I wish there were more stories like that.

dylan604• 6 years ago

Just like every other job, some directors are better than others at certain aspects. Some are great with getting talent to perform, some are great with camera work, and some are visionaries. Just like any CEO/founder of a start-up, to have a successful film, you have to staff up with people that are strong where you are weak. A director that is great with talent but less in the camera dept hires a great DP. A strong Assitant Director can keep the day to day management going while the visionary director focuses on the 30,000' view.

wodenokoto• 6 years ago

The guy who did Shazam and a few lessor known hollywood scary movies has a youtube channel where he talks about this stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzNS4U_aE28

goto114• 6 years ago

I think his issue with Alien 3 was he was forced by the studio to compromise his vision, not that he listened to much or was insecure. Unless you have "final cut" in the contract, the studio can and probably will force you to make changes against your will.

golemotron2• 6 years ago

This is all reminiscent of David Lynch and Dune. It was his first big box movie and someone else's material.

justin663• 6 years ago

Put those words into context around Alien 3. Young guy, big production and budget - of course he'll listen to everyone since, well.. insecurity!

Where are you getting this? The story about Alien 3's production has been told from a few different points of view and I've never heard it said that Fincher took too much advice.

Keyframe2• 6 years ago

Fincher himself, he spoke about it, I think on The Game, commentary track. You can also hear what he thinks about actors there and their input. Something along the lines of they're a color, but I'm the painter.

rainworld2• 6 years ago

Speaking of Fincher and streaming, I found Mank, as released by Netflix, completely unwatchable because of overwhelming compression artifacts induced by artficial grain. I hope there will be a Blu-ray release at some point.

billjings2• 6 years ago

Surprising. What platform? How much bandwidth? Now I need to watch Mann....was the artificial grain just pure noise of some kind?

rainworld2• 6 years ago

Netflix Ultra HD at the highest bitrate. The 1080p version on the standard plan appears to be heavily DNR’d.

It’s not really surprising, though. Think of the HBO ident; noise just does not compress well. I’ve encountered (supposedly well-encoded) 40+GB BRs of old b/w movies with obvious, distracting artifacts.

But then, most people can’t tell the difference.

As for the source of the problem, I’m sure it looked a lot like real film grain on the reference monitor, but on my screen it looks a bit embarrassing.

Grakel• 6 years ago

This article feels written for a high school audience in both reading level and content knowledge, it's a bit strange.

l33tbro• 6 years ago

A director in many ways is just a curator - assembling the right artists who they feel will be capable of recognising and contributing to a stated sensibility. Establishing and empowering those artists, while, simultaneously, ensuring the thematic and aesthetic coherency of the finished work is the craft.

Fincher's technical acumen and understanding of screen performance is exceptional. While his work can be hit or miss (just my opinion), he is almost inarguably one of the finest directors to practice in this medium of all time.

pas2• 6 years ago

So ... how do producers factor into this? Isn't the production team that brings in the artists? Or they try to bring in the artists that the director wishes? Or the director has a soft veto during casting?

megameter• 6 years ago

Producers are the more influential overall, in terms of the business metrics(budget, schedule, box office). They get to make a lot of key decisions, if only through vetos.

What a director does is more akin to structuring the day-to-day focus. A director who has taken to relaxing intent on some broad aspects of the production is going to have a smoother production, be more agreeable, be easy to hire again. But a director who is more stringent may deliver a product that coheres better. It's a kind of balancing act on the part of the producer to not end up with a staff full of prima donnas fighting for control and wasting money through indecision and résumé-driven development.

neonate• 6 years ago

https://archive.is/mutpV

David Fincher, the Unhappiest Auteur

Related Stories