Leonard Zelig

David Fincher will present Mindhunter at the BFI London Film Festival

1. LFF Connects Special Presentation: Mindhunter. Episodes One and Two

David Fincher returns to television with a Zodiac-style police procedural, based on the men who first coined the phrase ‘serial killer’.

BFI London Film Festival
Tuesday 10 October 2017 18:15
BFI Southbank, NFT1

Tickets: Sold Out!

CREDITS
Dir: David Fincher
Exec Prod: David Fincher, Josh Donen, Charlize Theron, Ceán Chaffin
With Jonathan Groff, Holt McCallany, Anna Torv, Hannah Gross
USA, 2017
Total running time: 107min
UK Distribution: Netflix

Son of Sam is on the cover of TIME Magazine, Talking Heads’ ‘Psycho Killer’ is on the airwaves and FBI Agent Holden Ford is troubled. Policing used to be a matter of establishing the three basics; motive, means, opportunity. But it’s the late-1970s and politically unstable times can produce chaos. A new breed of killers have emerged whose motives are ambiguous. Holden’s (Jonathan Groff) hunger for innovation leads him to Bill Tench (Holt McCallany), a seasoned if skeptical agent of the Behavioral Science Unit. Together they tour regional police stations, like a pair of criminal psychology-totin’ Bible salesmen, preaching Freud to officers whose approaches are resolutely Old Testament. Their cross-country motel-safari soon gives them a glimpse into the depths of the violent and sexually depraved crime that cops are ill-equipped to deal with. A new method is called for, but it will bring them unsettlingly close to murderous minds. David Fincher returns to episodic drama, with this sharply scripted Zodiac-style procedural, based on the men who first coined the phrase ‘serial killer’. As the opening two episodes show us, this is invigorating, witty and meticulous storytelling, from the typography to the impeccable music cues. Crime drama at its most addictive. Kate Taylor

Thanks to Joe Frady

UPDATE:

These members of the filmmaking team are expected to attend the festival:

David Fincher, Director; Jonathan Groff, Cast; Holt McCallanay, Cast

2. LFF Connects: David Fincher

The internationally acclaimed director and creative force behind the new Netflix drama MINDHUNTER talks about his work.

BFI London Film Festival
Tuesday 10 October 2017 21:00
BFI Southbank, NFT1

Tickets: Sold Out!

Director David Fincher, whose films Zodiac and Se7en explored the psychology of serial killers, presents another probing look into the psyche of some of America’s most infamous sociopaths with his upcoming Netflix series MINDHUNTER. One of the most revered filmmakers of a generation, Fincher began his career making pop promos with some of the world’s most influential artists, from Madonna to Michael Jackson. He has also directed a series of iconic ad campaigns for major international brands. As a feature filmmaker he has few peers, with a back catalogue including Fight Club, The Social Network, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. MINDHUNTER marks Fincher’s return to the small screen after overseeing House of Cards for Netflix. We’re delighted to welcome Fincher to the BFI London Film Festival to discuss MINDHUNTER in the context of his career and the recent boom in long-form episodic drama.

UPDATE:

Doing this on-stage Q&A with Fincher, so if you've got any questions then email him and I'm sure he'll ask me. https://t.co/J4avaDqfGs

— Nev Pierce (@nevpierce) September 8, 2017

@FincherAnalyst update ~ í managed to get tickets to the Fincher talk & the MH screening this morning. Both sold out in 10m. First step…🙂

— Joe Frady (@JoeFrady) September 7, 2017

A Subtle ‘Fight Club’ Reference In The ‘Game Of Thrones’ Finale Proves Theon Is Back

By Ricky Derisz, writer at CREATORS.CO
August 30, 2017
Movie Pilot

The finale of Game of Thrones seventh season contained a subtle reference to one of cinema’s most iconic stories of transformation, Fight Club (1999), which proves Reek has left and Theon is back. The scene occurred during Theon’s attempt to earn the respect of his fellow ironborn by fighting Harrag, the Alpha Male of the group. The brutal fight scene was reminiscent of two key scenes in David Fincher‘s film, and while a visual reference could be purely coincidental, the thematic significance is spine-chillingly apt to Theon’s character arc.

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The Girl We Left Behind: Why It Was a Mistake Not To Finish Fincher’s Dragon Tattoo Trilogy

Posted by Donnia Harrington | Aug 30, 2017
Audiences Everywhere

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo deserved better. David Fincher’s adaptation of the popular Swedish novel ranks amongst his most undercelebrated movies. Although it was critically praised and did moderately well at the box office (oh yeah, and it landed Rooney Mara a Best Actress nomination), it somehow still wasn’t enough for the studio to decide to continue the trilogy.

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Watching the Music Videos of David Fincher

Posted by Sean W. Fallon | Aug 30, 2017
Audiences Everywhere

David Fincher has developed a very distinct style over the years as he has cemented himself as one of our most impressive technical filmmakers. Fincher has a great hold on characters and story, but he stands out because his mechanical, almost robotic, style of filmmaking is so recognisable and effective. His movies are distinguishable by a number of trademarks and signature moves. Fincher likes washed-out colours with lots of metallic blues and greys along with crushed blacks, which makes his movies seem as though they’re being projected to us on a piece of frozen metal. He also avoids handheld camera work, opting instead for a locked down camera that pans and pivots around a scene with balanced, unnatural movement, which enhances the feeling of an omniscient camera that is operating independently of a human being and not subject to control. He also enjoys locking the camera in place and filming wide, stationary shots as though we are watching the action play out on a stage at a theatre.

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New Mindhunter Clip Teases a Meeting with a Real-Life Monster

Meet Edmund Kemper.

By Phil Nobile Jr.
Aug. 29, 2017
Birth. Movies. Death.

Mindhunter is a new Netflix series executive produced by David Fincher and Charlize Theron and we can’t wait to check it out. Today we have a clip teasing protagonist Holden Ford‘s meeting with serial killer Edmund Kemper. While Ford (played by Jonathan Groff) is a fictionalized version of FBI behavioral expert John E. Douglas, Edmund Kemper (Cameron Britton) is real as hell.

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Warning: It turns out that “… and then he’s gonna have sex with your face” isn’t just a funny remark, so reader discretion is advised.

Seven: The Violence of a Cinematic Hellscape

Posted by David Shreve | Aug 29, 2017
Audiences Everywhere

There are less than 20 gunshots fired in David Fincher’s 1995 film Seven, each exchanged between David Mills and John Doe. If you don’t count Detective Somerset’s late face slap, there is only one wounding act of violence committed onscreen. It’s an oft-shared description offered by cinephiles and aspiring screenwriters and critics: Seven is, in the most basic sense, a non-violent film, even as watching it feels like a very violent viewing experience. For most of its run-time, Seven, which this week celebrates its 20th anniversary, is a noir- serial killer thriller built around already murdered corpses rather than murderous acts. Yet, this basic quantifiable description feels misleading to anyone watching or re-watching the film, anyone caught within or recently escaped from the spiraling trap of the film’s increasingly unsettling, malicious scenes.

Seven is widely credited for displaying influence from prior detective films and inspiring several films of comparable serial killer concern, but few films in either comparative line have less character violence and yet even fewer give as distinct an impression of having witnessed something truly violent.

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Gone Girl Offers Insight and Hope for Fincher’s Future

Posted by David Hart | Aug 29, 2017
Audiences Everywhere

When one of the great directors of a generation announces their next project, the film world listens. It is rare, however, for said announcement to be puzzling. Martin Scorsese is creating his treatise on faith in Silence? Of course he is. Kathryn Bigelow is making the true story of the Detroit riots? Sure, why not? Paul Thomas Anderson’s next untitled film starring Daniel Day Lewis is about a dressmaker for the Royal Family? Sounds award worthy. I could go on, but I’m sure you get the point. And then there’s David Fincher.

As most know, Fincher certainly got off to a rough start as a director. After cutting his teeth on music videos, he was tapped to direct Alien 3. The tales of his struggles on that particular film are legendary at this point, and he has basically disowned the movie and refuses to speak about it. After a three-year hiatus, he returned with Se7en. This success helped launch his career to the next level. He is now seen as one of the best directors available, easily on par with the others previously mentioned. But unlike most top directors, Fincher does not seem to always reach for the brass ring. Instead, he seems to vacillate between premier projects, like The Social Network or The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, to more eccentric choices, such as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button or Gone Girl.

Gone Girl may be Fincher’s oddest choice to date. The film, based on the best selling novel by Gillian Flynn, is nowhere near an awards contender or at least not at first glance. Any number of pseudo-negative descriptions have been used to chronicle the details of the book; trashy, over-the-top, a beach read, the list goes on and on. Given the stunning sales of Gone Girl, a film adaptation was inevitable. But to be directed by the creator of two films that arguably were the best of their respective years, in Zodiac and The Social Network? Very unlikely.

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How a Thinking Filmmaker Films Thinking: The Shot-By-Shot Slow Burn of David Fincher

Posted by Brandi Blahnik | Aug 28, 2017
Audiences Everywhere

One of the most challenging aspects of storytelling is showing a character thinking. It might sound like a straightforward task, but think about what you look like while studying. Ever watched someone complete a puzzle? It’s a quiet, meditative task marked by trial and error. In reality, there’s remarkably little head-scratching or furrowed brows. Visually, it’s rather unimpressive.

So how does a creator reveal thinking—poring over material, investigative work, head-buried-in-clues research—without absolutely boring the audience? How does a director reinvent frustration, the false lead, the maddening search, particularly over a two-hour film?

David Fincher has made a career of chronicling that very process.

Not only has Fincher produced some of the most haunting detective sequences in film—Se7en, Zodiac, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo—but you’d be unlikely to find criticism calling his films boring. He’s a master at tension-building and unapologetic about his resolutions. Perhaps this is why so many of his characters fall prey to their own obsessive madness. The unraveling of a character is something Fincher portrays with patience and deliberateness.

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