With his latest film The Social Network hitting cinemas this October, Trevor Hogg profiles the career of director David Fincher in the first of a three part feature…
Watching a behind the scenes documentary on the making of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) was a life altering experience for the six year old son of a Life magazine bureau chief and a mental health nurse. “Prior to seeing that, I just assumed that movies took place in real time,” recalled Denver, Colorado born filmmaker David Fincher. “But they were filming train robberies and shoot-outs, and blowing up balsa-wood trains at locations across the West. It never occurred to me that you could infer this whole world, putting together the pieces. It was just revelatory. And that’s pretty much when I made up my mind. If you want to be happy, you’ve got to direct movies.”
Transplanted to California and armed with an 8mm camera given to him as a birthday present, Fincher pursued his cinematic ambition not far from the front doorsteps of movie celebrities such as George Lucas. “In my neighborhood, none of my friends ever looked at the film industry as this thing you couldn’t do,” explained the director who along with his friends watched Lucas shoot American Graffiti (1973). Graduating from high school, Fincher landed a job loading cameras and performing animation duties for director John Korty (Who Are the DeBolts?); one of his assignments involved providing the visual effects for Twice Upon a Time (1983) where he met frequent collaborator Ren Klyce. “He’d use his hands and tell a story,” stated Klyce who remembers Fincher’s uncanny ability to find a way to pitch ideas to producers while having lunch with them, “and everyone at the table would be completely silent, listening to him describe this movie idea he had floating around in his head. He had this knack at eighteen to hold court in a very creative manner and suck people in.” The determination of the aspiring filmmaker paid off, for the eighteen year old was hired by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), the special effects company owned by George Lucas. For the next four years, David Fincher did matte photography for pictures such as Return of the Jedi (1983) and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984).
Presented with an opportunity to director his first commercial, Fincher left ILM to produce a public service ad for the American Cancer Society, featuring a fetus smoking inside a womb; the huge buzz created by the shock value led to TV spots for Revlon, Converse, Nike, Pepsi and Levi’s. “I would never do commercials where people hold the product by their head and tell you how great it is,” remarked the moviemaker. “I just wouldn’t do that stuff. It’s all inference…The Levis commercials I did weren’t really about jeans, the Nike commercials weren’t about shoes. The Instant Karma spot was some of the better stuff I got offered, and it was never about people going, ‘Buy this shoe, this shoe will change everything,’ because I think that’s nonsense.” Joining Propaganda Films, David Fincher produced a series of high profile music videos for Don Henley (The End of the Innocence), Paula Abdul (Straight Up and Cold Hearted), Billy Idol (L.A. Woman), Aerosmith (Janie’s Got a Gun) and Madonna (Express Yourself and Vogue). “All of a sudden there’s this thing called MTV,” stated Fincher, “and I’m going, ‘I know how to do that.’”
Buoyed by his success as a music video director, the twenty-seven year old approached 20th Century-Fox about helming the third installment of the Alien movie franchise starring Sigourney Weaver (The Year of Living Dangerously). “The idea was not to make a whiz bang, shoot ’em up, but to deal with this character,” remarked David Fincher. “Let’s put a forty year-old woman in outer space, not an underwear clad victim like in the first Alien [1979].” The transition from commercials and music videos to feature films was not an easy one. “They probably hired me because they wanted someone to push around,” confessed the moviemaker as he looked back upon his directorial debut Alien 3 (1992). “That was a bad situation. I didn’t respond well to that.”
An escape pod carrying Ellen Ripley crashes on a planet inhabited by a penal colony; unknown to her and the inhabitants is that she has been accompanied by a stowaway – a hostile and vicious predator. “I always thought Ridley [Scott] was brilliant and I never appreciated how brilliant he was until I tried to make this movie,” admitted Fincher whose visual sensibilities have often been compared to those of the British filmmaker responsible for the original Alien. “Actually he came down to the set once when we were setting fire to something. In he walked with his silk suit and one of his big Cuban cigars, looking fabulous. Ridley asked how it was going and I said, ‘Really bad.’ And he said, ‘It never goes well… this is not the way to make movies, make sure you make a little film where you have some control whilst they’re beating you up.’” Fincher considered quitting the $50 million production but was warned by his agent if he did that Hollywood would never call upon him again. “The lesson to be learned is that you can’t take on an enterprise of this size and scope if you don’t have a movie like The Terminator [1984] or Jaws [1975] behind you,” reflected the director. “Because when everybody’s wringing their handkerchiefs and sweating and puking blood over the money, it’s very nice to be able to say, ‘This is the guy who directed the biggest grossing movie of all-time, sit down, shut up and feel lucky that you’ve got him.’ It’s another thing when you are there and you’re going, ‘Trust me, this is really what I believe in,’ and they turn round and say, ‘Well, who the hell is this guy?’”
Modern Review declared Alien 3 to be the “first $50 million art movie.” Criticism of the picture which earned $160 million worldwide was not confined strictly to the members of the media. “My dentist,” said Fincher, “as he was drilling my teeth, was giving me his thesis on the things wrong with this film and he said, ‘When you go out of this movie you haven’t gotten away from AIDS, you haven’t gotten away from race riots, you haven’t gotten away from fear of other cultures.’” The film which stars Charles S. Dutton (Secret Window), Charles Dance (Hilary and Jackie), Paul McGann (Downtime), Brian Glover (Kafka), Vincenzo Nicoli (Sixty Six), Pete Postlethwaite (Dark Water), and Danny Webb (The Upside of Anger) did not go unrecognized as it contended for Best Visual Effects at the Oscars and received a BAFTA nomination for Best Special Effects.
A chance for David Fincher to redeem himself emerged three years later when he was handed a script written by a record store clerk.
Continue to part two.
Watch 10 commercials directed by David Fincher at Unreality Magazine and for more on the director visit The Works and Genius of David Fincher.
Trevor Hogg is a freelance video editor and writer who currently resides in Canada.
Originally published September 29, 2010. Updated November 6, 2019.
