After the somewhat troubled production of Panic Room, David Fincher went on his longest break between features, five years passed before he returned with his gripping true crime tale of one of America’s most infamous cold cases, that of the Zodiac serial killer. With the suitably named Zodiac in 2007, Fincher once again entered into the world of crime and dark psychology, and the impact of crime on those who are unfortunate enough to encounter it.
The story of the Zodiac killer is one surrounded by mystique, he is one of America’s most intriguing serial killers, one whom has been continually written and hypothesised about by many different minds, and due to its open and unresolved status, it has become ever more legendary in its infamy. Having spent his formative years living in California – The Zodiac’s killing grounds – David Fincher had grown up surrounded by the legend, and considering his interest in the darker themes of criminal psychology, it was only so long before he added his creative mind to the plethora of minds that have taken on the Zodiac’s case.
Fincher has spoken about not wishing to aggrandize the Zodiac’s killings, but instead choose to focus on the victims and the effects the murders had upon those investigating them as well as the wider population of San Francisco. As such, Fincher chose to focus on the development of the case from the Zodiac’s first claimed murder on July 4th, 1969, with the attack and murder of Darlene Ferrin as she spent time with her boyfriend Mike Mageau in a local lover’s lane. Mageau survived his injuries (and was able to identify chief suspect Arthur Leigh Allen as the attacker from a photo identity parade decades later), but Ferrin died, afterwards the Zodiac chillingly phoned the attack in himself, and thus began a nightmare which terrified and intrigued San Francisco and America in equal measure.
From this point on this film could so easily have become a formulaic crime procedural, and no doubt a pretty good one; however, Zodiac goes in a different direction, with Fincher making this a film about obsession; the Zodiac – as with a number of serial killers – has a narcissistic obsession with his killings and the infamous notoriety they provide him with; for everyone else, the obsession is discovering and capturing the perpetrator. The latter obsession becomes the narrative of this film, with the principal protagonist and amateur investigator – San Francisco Chronicle cartoonist, Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) – becoming consumed by the obsessive need to solve the case.
What follows is a trip across the decades as Graysmith carries out his own thorough amateur investigation, beginning with cracking the Zodiac’s cryptic ciphers and coded messages to the press, before starting to look into the background of the case, poring over case details and generally becoming a pestering nuisance to the detectives charged with solving the case, none more so than chief investigator, Dave Toschi (played with astute observation by Mark Ruffalo). During this same period, the effects of this singular focus begin to impact on those closest to him, as he begins to isolate himself from his wife and young family. This single-minded ambition to reveal the killer’s identity even risks placing his family directly in the Zodiac’s crosshairs.
The atmosphere of growing uncertainty and tension as Graysmith unravels ever more about the killings sees Fincher returning to thematic elements established in some of his previous films, with the most obvious comparison of investigator vs. narcissistic murderer to be drawn with Seven. The atmosphere of growing urgency, uncomfortably dark psychology, all managed with subtle tempo changes as the respective films progress to their climax, show a director operating confidently within his oeuvre. Zodiac is a film that Fincher couldn’t have made as well without first having directed Seven, it offered a training ground and a platform for Fincher to widen his scope and take on such intriguing stories.
Fincher’s films are atmospheric, he draws his audiences in – willingly or otherwise – and creates environments which are both unsettling and yet engrossing. Fincher’s ability to create tension, delicately and deliberately unfurling his stories with the considered awareness of all the minutiae that constitutes each individual film is what creates the depth and intrigue integral to make his films work. His talent for dealing with complex themes and criminal psychology made the Zodiac killings an interesting and big topic for Fincher to take on, and Zodiac was probably one of his most challenging productions, certainly at the stage of his career that he was at in the early 2000s. The story of the Zodiac killer had notoriety, and was firmly entrenched in America’s collective psyche, there are numerous theories about it, books have been written, other films have even taken on the subject matter, and so, creating something new out of the existing folklore that this case had developed was a fascinating and difficult challenge. In some ways this was just an adaptation of Robert Graysmith’s memoirs of the same name, but rather than working wholly from Graysmith’s text, he also took his own analytical view on the historical evidence and witness statements to produce a more amalgamated imagining and interpretation of the events. Zodiac is on one hand partly fiction and dramatic license, and on the other hand a semi-biographical re-working of Graysmith’s experiences.
Getting Graysmith himself involved as a consultant on the film allowed Fincher to really enter into the mind of his protagonist, and the film is duly enriched by its ability to tap directly into Graysmith’s memory and experiences from the investigation, instead of working just from the source text. This film can almost be viewed as an investigative documentary such is the importance of Graysmith’s experiences, but it can also sit comfortably alongside more traditional crime and detective narratives, and its unique blend of traditional crime film mixed with investigative journalism and conspiracy thinking, allow it to be spoken of in the same breath as well-respected films as wide-ranging as Chinatown and JFK.
Another of the key strengths is Fincher’s increasing power to attract the biggest names in acting to work with him on his projects, and Zodiac is no different. The casting in this film took the approach that physical resemblance to their true life counterparts was of less importance, but instead actors were hired for their ability to present an idea, an essence of each character; of the casting of Robert Downey Jr as journalist Paul Avery, Fincher stated that, “he couldn’t look less like Paul Avery” however, he was ideal casting for the arrogant swagger and cocksure attitude required. It’s the key casting of Jake Gyllenhaal in the lead role however, that is so integral to the success of this film, there are few better current actors out there who can so comfortably play the kind of obsessed and neurotic characters that he does. From Donnie Darko to his recent role as Louis Bloom in Nightcrawler, Gyllenhaal plays the intelligent, socially awkward yet driven characters with a unique energy and focused intensity, inhabiting them right up to their blurred edges, where morality and reason begin to blur into obsessions.
Gyllenhaal’s Graysmith is full of a nervous and anxious energy, he almost trembles in excitement at the prospect of solving the case, so much so that any ideas or awareness of the horrible crimes he’s taken on investigating and the potentially unstable and dangerous “monster” who he’s pursuing begin to fade away into insignificance. All he can see are the cold facts and the details on a page, and they cease to mean anything more than that; the brutal crimes become just a minor part of his wider obsession, with his obsessive mental state epitomised in his statement, “I just need to look at him (Zodiac) in the eyes and know, know that it’s him.” Any hunt for justice or retribution disappears in Graysmith as the film progresses, replaced instead with a compulsive need to “know”, just knowing he was right, that he’s figured everything out becomes his ultimate obsession, one which almost tragically costs him the better part of 30 years of his life. His ambition sees him unwittingly volunteer himself as another victim of the Zodiac, so much does he sacrifice of his energy and life into understanding and unravelling the Zodiac’s complex and tangled mind and motivations.
Ultimately, this is a film with a theory, it has settled on its favourite suspect, it isn’t an uninformed opinion of course, in fact, it is arguably the most probable suspect, Arthur Leigh Allen. Following Graysmith’s extensive research into the cases, Arthur Leigh Allen becomes the most likely suspect (means, motive and opportunity) and as mentioned was even identified from an assortment of photographs by his earliest surviving victim, Mike Mageau; however, Allen died before he was able to face direct questioning, and so although a very likely suspect, he was never able to face trial and due process, and so officially, the debate remains open. Zodiac though, has made its mind up based on the considered evaluation of the facts, essentially stating Allen’s guilt when Gyllenhaal’s Graysmith gets his ultimate wish, ending the film looking into the eyes of Allen – now working in a hardware store – and sharing the knowing glance that had consumed him for so long.
This is a film that crosses decades and yet keeps us in its present at all times, always fully immersed in its recreation of time and place. The settings and cinematography are complimented by a lovingly observed wardrobe and attention to detail all carried along by its intelligent pop culture soundtrack, moving us seamlessly across time on a tour through one of American crime history’s most shocking and intriguing cases. With such an astute director at the helm of this project, a director acutely aware of the importance of recreating the fine details of the case and in particular the crime scenes, Zodiac carries a tone of an authentic crime investigation and places us firmly in the middle of the confusion and fear; however, combined with Fincher’s established ability to create unsettling atmospheres and his engaging storytelling, a richness and heart is added to the painstakingly observed factual elements of this story.
Whilst it would feel slightly morbid to claim the subject matter of this film, and the way the story is told, is entertaining, it is a fascinating watch which encourages its audience to enter into the investigation and engage with the characters and evidence. Much as with his earlier films Seven and The Game, the audience is encouraged to play investigator, and alongside the protagonists attempt to figure out the events that are unfolding. Zodiac is a film which carries a maturity developed in Fincher’s earlier crime and mystery thriller films. Here we have a director reaching his peak, becoming increasingly comfortable telling important and complex stories, but perhaps still most competent and comfortable dealing with darker criminal psychologies.
Through The 4th Wall 