"Zodiac": Digital and analog
Over at MCN, Larry Gross has an intriguing take on David Fincher's "Zodiac" which I saw over the weekend. (As usual, I put off reading anything about the movie until after I'd seen it, including Manohla Dargis's dead-on review.) Gross, the screenwriter of "We Don't Live Here Anymore" and "True Crime," begins with this:
"Zodiac" is an important postmodern work. It's an authentically “new” and even experimental thing attempting, to quote from Susan Sontag's essay "Against Interpretation," to put content in its place. It's very very much a film constructed on a 21st century conception of information as a non-substantive, purely relational digital phenomenon, and the fact that it was shot on video and exists immaterially as digital information is thus not a merely decorative issue but crucial to its meaning.I said something kind of similar recently about the "digital dimension" of David Lynch's "Inland Empire" that is quite different from "Zodiac":
..."Inland Empire" unfolds in a digital world (a replication of consciousness itself -- hence the title), where events really do transpire in multiple locations at the same time (or multiple times at the same place), observers are anywhere and everywhere at once, and realities are endlessly duplicable, repeatable and tweakable."Zodiac," on the other hand, impressed me as very much an analog film. Yes, it was shot on HD video (though with few of the showy CGI tricks Fincher played with in "Fight Club" and "Panic Room"), but the narrative, technique and structure of the film are inexorably linear and chronological.
The two effects shots that stand out -- following a taxi from directly above as it moves through the streets to an intersection where a murder will take place; and a time-lapse view of the construction of the Transamerica pyramid building -- both emphasize the unity of time and space, one as a measurement of the other. Scene after scene in "Zodiac" begins with a timecode that places it not only in a historical context (month, day, year) but in relationship to the previous scene ("two days later"; "three months later"). As I recall (from a single viewing, not knowing what to expect) there are no flashbacks, not even any instances of parallel action. Continuity is strictly linear: this happened, then this, then this... And the movie is just as specific about its geographical coordinates, because the precise location (and the distances between points) is just as important to establishing what happened, and who the killer is, as the exact time when the killings took place. ("Took place" -- ha! Good time/place term.)
That's because "Zodiac" is structured as a procedural, with cops and reporters and amateur sleuths attempting to piece together the identity of a serial killer, based on crime scene evidence, letters from the Zodiac, handwriting samples, encrypted messages, eyewitness accounts, and other detective work. And it's backbreaking, exhausting, manual work. It involves paper files stored in boxes that sit in some evidence room in one county police precinct or another, and there are miles to be driven between them. (There's a repeated joke about not knowing how far away someplace is and underestimating the amount of time it would take to get there and back.) The cops in various jurisdictions don't share a lot of information not just because of a sense of territoriality but because there's too much information, and no way to (digitally) distribute it via the Internet or even "tele-fax." So, seemingly insignificant oversights, errors, omissions and connections go undiscovered because they're spread all over the map, across years of investigations.
I really dig this part of Gross's piece, though:
Thus if the Zodiac unknowable, that is only because he is an emblem of the entirety of the universe. What is masterful about "Zodiac" is that every aspect of its structure plays back upon its central disturbing theme. “Knowing” the tiniest thing in the world, precisely, is depicted over and over and in each and every fresh instance, and character perspective until the very end, as fragmentary, incomplete, frustrated, frustrating.Beautiful. (And definitely groovy.)What is fascinating and so perplexingly compelling about the last three or four scenes in the film is that cognitively we are given a solution, but it is now empty of affect, reversing and upending all conventional narrative results. The Graysmith character, a cartoonist, works through with the cop played by Ruffalo, a kind of schematic of all the events we have seen over and over, handled, mishandled, misinterpreted; knowledge has become pure form, stretched out precariously as an abstract “story” across the abyss of the lives that have been swallowed up in the failure to become its content. The haunting final scene exquisitely utilizing characters we barely know and can identify, “completes” the abstract search for truth. An i.d. is judged eight on a scale of ten, ten being positive. It and the subsequent crawl gives us everything and nothing.
The last third of the movie is indeed a kind of deconstruction of the first two-thirds, as Graysmith (the Chronicle editorial cartoonist who becomes obsessed with the Zodiac case) goes back over the previous police work, and does first-hand reporting/investigating himself, to piece together pieces of the puzzle that were never found, missing, or previously didn't seem to fit. Gross makes a comparison to
David Lynch ("Zodiac" is to "Se7en" what "Inland Empire" is to "Mulholland Drive"). I think the most Lynch-like thing about "Zodiac" is that whatever narrative momentum it has is driven by mystery -- our primal need to explain. We want to put the pieces together ourselves -- even if these characters from the past were never able to. We know the identity of the Zodiac Killer was never conclusively determined; but maybe this movie will give us the information we need to solve the crime.... No, it's not likely or logical, but we can't help but crave a solution, no matter how unlikely. Just like the characters do.
Watching "Zodiac" I was reminded of a couple of my favorite existential detective stories: Roman Polanski's "Chinatown" (the attempt to see not only what is before your eyes but to intuit what lies beyond the limits of your vision); and (particularly at the end) Ivan Passer's "Cutter's Way," (the attempt to prove someone is "responsible," whether he is or not, because you've made up your mind so that "evidence" comes to mean anything that supports your hypothesis). Interesting that both of these films are made by Eastern European directors, for whom epistemological questions seem paramount: What is the nature and extent of knowledge? Is it ever possible to re-construct (or re-imagine) past events accurately? And even if we know something (the saltwater, the glasses), do we know what it means?
As you can probably tell, I'm pretty jazzed about "Zodiac" and I already want to see it again.
Comments
Hey Jim. I think your comments about our irrational craving for a solution are dead on.
(SPOILERS ahead)
One of the things I most admired about "Zodiac" was how it played with the audiences' need to connect the dots between all the information. Probably my favorite part of the whole film (and certainly the most suspenseful) was when Graysmith follows Vaughn into his cellar. With the introduction of only 2 new pieces of information in that scene (that Vaughn made the poster, and that he has a basement), we are suddenly convinced that he is the Zodiac. The scene is terrifying when it plays out, but harmless in retrospect. The supposed clues that Vaughn may be the Zodiac are incredibly tenuous, yet we are pulled right in to Graysmith's paranoia because of our need to connect the dots.
One more thing: I do think there was at least one flashback used in the film. In the final scene, where the man identifies Leigh's picture, Fincher cuts back to a shot of him as a teenager, so that we know who he is supposed to be.
Posted by: Dan Prestwich | March 5, 2007 06:53 PM
A friend of mine commented on our way out of the screening for Zodiac that he enjoyed the film because it turned the "whodunit" subgenre on its dead. While usually, such films are focused on how intelligent and inventive its detectives are, this was instead about how many wholes there are and were in the investigation. It is more about the failure of the system, than its success.
I wonder if Fincher and all involved aren't subconsciously channeling a Post-9/11 state of mind in which the authorities are ineffective in finding the real "bad guys", in which tragedy and terror occur and we are unable to identify its true source.
Posted by: Travis Mills | March 5, 2007 09:50 PM
Completely dug. I'm with you. This film was beyond all doubt, or meaning of the word doubt, genius.
The film it reminded me of, only because it was very much a police procedural that deconstructed the events with a very monotone feel was Kurosawa's "High and Low". Probably one of the first true procedural crime films made.
It's funny, about two thirds through I was so involved, wanting to know who it was, that I could feel my head wrap in on itself with all of the new names. Especially in the prison.
It's too bad the tracking shot in the opening wasn't the first shot of the film, or that should belong on your list.
I've already seen it twice and am stoked to see it a third. Blows me away!
Posted by: Phillip Kelly | March 6, 2007 01:42 AM
Wow, now I need to see the film again.
Coming out, I knew I liked it, and that it kept me well engaged for over two and a half hours, but beyond that I didn't feel it was anything special. I think part of that may be due to the fact that really, the only Fincher film I've seen is Fight Club (and I did not like it). Maybe I didn't know what to look for in Zodiac? Or maybe I wasn't paying attention?
Now I definitely want to revisit it, to see if I see anything else. Very interesting.
Posted by: pacheco | March 6, 2007 04:48 AM
So glad you got around to mentioning the movie Jim. When I saw the film this weekend I couldn't help but think how well this would make a great entry in your opening shots collection. We get a passanger side shot out the window of a moving car, rolling down a San Fransisco suburban street on the Fourth of July during the summer of love, 1969. We see the city at night, fireworks going off, parties in full gear, all as naive as Robert Greysmith's boyscout sleuthing. This will be one of the last times that this country felt so optimistic, so alive. Soon charcters' lives will be over (both literally and figuratively) as they spend the rest of the movie trying to gain closure on something that has gotten too big to ever really receive a happy ending.
I, too, was pretty jazzed as you put it.
Posted by: Brian | March 6, 2007 09:36 AM
Brian,
I'm not sure I agree 100% with your police work there. The opening shot is an aerial view of the city at night. The fade in kinda reminded me of the opening of Letters From Iwo Jima, but instead of simply fading in, the camera spirals around the outskirts of the city in such a way that the lights seem to flow in different directions. This shot, like the murders that follow and the labyrinthine evidence to solve it. Then you get a disturbance as the first explosions of fireworks burst in the air. The shot is disorienting and builds the sense of paranoia and intrigue for the events to come.
Did the film remind anyone else of M?
Posted by: Matt Rosen | March 7, 2007 07:55 AM
i don't think you could be more right, jim. i waited to see the movie before i commented (spoiler fears and all), but i love your comments about the film's obsession with the the passing of space and time. three shots stood out to me on a purely visual level, the two you mention (the time lapse building shot and taxi), but also the shot from above as the camera watches cars pass beneath it over a foggy golden gate (from what seems to be a fixed position). it brings to mind the poster, which is a similar shot of the bridge enveloped in fog. what a lovely image of a connective device, a structure built purely to bridge a gap, obscured from sight by thick gray mist.
Posted by: zac | March 7, 2007 09:02 AM
While I'm a fan of the film, I don't buy Gross's digital interpretation.
"Inland Empire" (which I liked a whole lot less than "Zodiac") did much more in terms of digital aesthetic. I plan to write on this a little more in depth at some point, but to me, the visual style was the same as if Fincher had been working on film. Sure, the working process was different, but the end result looks like a traditionally shot film stripped of its tone, definition and texture. Digital movies still require storage—it's not like they just float in thin air.
Posted by: Jeremy Mathews | March 7, 2007 12:19 PM
Just a quibble, Brian: the Summer of Love is usually dated 1967, before the assassinations of King and Robert Kennedy. Your post reminded me, though, of an offhand reference in the movie to an upcoming Rolling Stones concert. I assume this is the infamous Altamont free concert which was another harbinger of the end of the 60s era of love, flowers and optimism.
Posted by: Dane Walker | March 7, 2007 02:56 PM
i agree with jeremy. shooting on hd was a technical decision by a man who enjoys employing the latest technology he can. there's no mystic connection between the narrative and the medium it was captured on (what does he conclude about the copies printed out to film?).
this goes doubly for all the deconstructionist babel gross conjures up about the film.
i believe fincher when he says he was simply trying to tell a story as simply and cleanly as possible. that's more than evident in the watching.
Posted by: christopher | March 7, 2007 06:05 PM
Jeremy & christopher: It seems to me that Gross was trying to make some (metaphorical?) connection between the medium (HD video) and the structure or storytelling strategy of "Zodiac" -- and, as I said, I don't get the parallel he's trying to make. "Zodiac" (completely unlike Lynch's movie) is an "analog" narrative -- unidirectional chronology all the way through (with the brief identifying flash Dan mentions). I'm glad you guys here are as excited about the film as I am.
Matt: That opening you describe reminds me of the overhead shot of the taxi, too -- a mapping of a particular movement through time and space within that labyrinth of San Francisco. Time and coordinates are emphasized again and again in the movie as part of the detective work, and much is made of the fact that the taxi's destination was supposed to be Washington & Cherry, but the cab was found on the next block at Maple....
Posted by: jim emerson | March 7, 2007 10:49 PM
Matt: You're correct, it wasn't the opening shot. I guess I just loved the scene so much I made myself think it was the beginning.
Dane: Also good point. Woodstock, however, was in 69, just like Altamont. In a matter of a few months two major landmarks happened in the flower era with very different results.
-Brian
Posted by: Brian | March 8, 2007 07:31 AM
This is not something discussed in the film, nor have I heard anyone else mention it, but did they ever consider the possibility that there were two men behind the Zodiac killings, and letter writing, phone calls, etc?
Posted by: Phillip Kelly | March 8, 2007 08:50 AM
SPOILER:
Another convergence of space and time: The Zodiac watch brand worn by Arthur Leigh Allen. Clocks and watches themselves represent the convergence of space and time, as does the actual Zodiac in the stars, its position indicating a time of year or epoch. But then, we must remember that symbols used to indicate time are imposed as a result of a human need to keep track of events, record them. Also, the actual labels we use for the passage of time (be they numbers, hands or vague animal or humanoid shapes) are also based on our Earthly, human perspectives.
Posted by: Mike Calia | March 11, 2007 08:55 PM
i live in Europe, where the movie just came out (June)
spoiler: why didn't any of the characters age?--i mean age, with wrinkles and some gray hair, like normal people...
Is it because they're Californians? ;-)
i really liked this movie. Woke up in the middle of the night after seeing it, found myself thinking about the scene with the stabbed couple... I wasn't able to watch the scene with the woman and the baby in the guy's car, the creepy suspense was too much...
Posted by: nubelle | June 13, 2007 03:53 AM
I finally caught "Zodiac" today on DVD, and I'd just like to say I agree with everything posted above about the film's general thesis that knowledge is fragmentary and frustrating.
One thing that hit me about the film that I was not expecting was its overall tone of sadness and regret. Something about the final scene, in particular, coupled with the lyrics and music of "Hurdy Gurdy Man", seem to encapsulate the whole history of humanity as an unending pattern of wrongdoings being passed down through the generations. The look in the man's eyes as he says, simply and defiantly, "I'm sure that's the man who shot me" is filled with an anger that really got to me...almost a "J'accuse!" toward our entire society for allowing such aberrations as a serial killer to occur and go unsolved.
Posted by: Alex Murillo | July 24, 2007 12:32 PM
Just to clear up a point--there is no flashback scene. Just before Mike Mageau walks into the room for the final interview, James LeGros' character looks at his picture in a HS yearbook, reminding the audience who Mike was as a kid.
Posted by: Liz | August 24, 2007 08:16 AM