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Another post extolling the virtues of David Fincher’s Zodiac. Some Spoilers.

Having just watched Zodiac for the third time i’m struck more than anything by the film’s visual invention. Fincher has made the film so subtly unconventional in it’s use of shots and so visually alluring in it’s cinematography that the film has become richer for me as the viewer once more.

Here i’ll try to show how I think Fincher uses the currently vogue methods of shooting and editing to his advantage. David Bordwell identified this current inclination amongst filmmakers (of cutting fast, using close-cropped close ups of the figures as opposed to a two-shot or a group-shot) in an analysis that he has kindly posted on his blog.

Fincher is for me a true artist insofar as each shot and image in Zodiac can be taken either alone or as part of the sequences of images that make up the scene and look interesting, arresting and beautiful (the last one perhaps only to the film buff or the adolescent male such as myself I’d concede). In the shot below we have Detective Toschi watching the prime suspect in the Zodiac case. I guess this qualifies (when watched in sequence with the rest of the scene) as part of a classic example of Bordwell’s “Intensified Continuity” i.e. it has an over-the-shoulder angle that shows our two participants, one in full profile and the other only partially:

I think this shot actually affords the viewer far more insight than the average OTS. Fincher appears to have positioned the camera so as to capture the characters’ moods perfectly. Lee (the suspect in the foreground) is close-up. Without reading too much into this shot it is this blurred close-up that reflects his situation. He is being grilled by three police detectives who think he’s a serial killer. Also (assuming he really is the killer) he, despite his prodigious, psychopathic mind is confused, his mind must be running like mad. In contrast Toschi is actually quite distant, despite being in full profile. Perhaps this is the moment in the movie where he lets the Zodiac slip away from him.

On a more playful yet equally effective note Fincher gives us three consecutive shots of the detectives. Each quickly cuts to the next after holding up the character to the viewer for just a moment. Perhaps this is the best subversion of today’s prevailing “Intensified Continuity” that there is:

Bordwell’s analysis of the The Departed in relation to the convention seems to offer us the theory that Martin Scorsese’s enthusiastic use of “Intensified Continuity” dulls his style. As Bordwell discusses, at it’s best this style, originality and flair has contributed to some of his greatest works. Look at Mean Streets or Goodfellas (the latter is I think similar to the first in many of its camera choices but more polished. And not necessarily the better for it. ) Whilst I still really like the Departed and can accept that this “Intensified Continuity” works insofar as it coherently conveys the action, characters and plot, I appear to more or less agree with Bordwell in that I cannot honestly say it quite matches up to his similar works that avoid using it.

Perhaps Fincher thought about all this when he was shooting Zodiac. More likely he’s just got so many ideas both visually and narratively going on in his head when he’s making a film that to earnestly use the normal shots and edits that amount to Bordwell’s “Intensified Continuity” would leave him in a straight-jacket. The more I watch Zodiac the more I appreciate how each camera angle and each edit is entirely deliberate and meticulously, almost painfully laboured over before making it into the final cut.