Elvis Mitchell
October 24, 2023
Netflix: Behind the Streams
Director David Fincher, Editor Kirk Baxter, Writer Andrew Kevin Walker, Sound Designer Ren Klyce, and Director of Photography Erik Messerschmidt, discuss their film The Killer with moderator Elvis Mitchell at The Academy Museum in Los Angeles.
Watch the conversation with subtitles in French, Spanish, and Italian.
Watch The Killer on Netflix
Froilan Fuentes
Jim Hemphill
November 9, 2023
West Coast POPCast (YouTube)
The Egyptian Theatre re-opened in Hollywood with a special screening of The Killer, followed by a Q&A with Director David Fincher and Sound Designer Ren Klyce hosted by Jim Hemphill.
Audrey Odori
Frédéric Bonnaud, Director of the Cinémathèque française
Anaïs Duchet, Interpreter
October 14, 2023
Cinémathèque Française
The Cinémathèque Française (French Cinematheque) hosted a David Fincher Retrospective from October 13 to 22, 2023, in Paris (France).
Supported by Netflix, Patron of the Cinémathèque, it opened with a preview screening of The Killer followed by a Q&A with Director David Fincher, and Director of Photography Erik Messerschmidt, ASC.
The next day, a screening of Zodiac was followed by a discussion with the director about the film and his career, “David Fincher par David Fincher, une leçon de cinéma” (“David Fincher by David Fincher, a lesson in cinema”).
Frédéric Bonnaud, Director of the Cinémathèque française
Anaïs Duchet, Interpreter
October 13, 2023
Cinémathèque Française
The Cinémathèque Française (French Cinematheque) hosted a David Fincher Retrospective from October 13 to 22, 2023, in Paris (France).
Supported by Netflix, Patron of the Cinémathèque, it opened with a preview screening of The Killer followed by a Q&A with Director David Fincher, and Director of Photography Erik Messerschmidt, ASC.
The next day, a screening of Zodiac was followed by a discussion with the director about the film and his career.
Erik Messerschmidt talks about his approach to very different but equally excellent new films: “The Killer” and “Ferrari.”
Jim Hemphill
December 28, 2023
IndieWire
David Fincher‘s “The Killer” and Michael Mann‘s “Ferrari” are two of the most visually sophisticated films of the fall season, though their approaches are as different as those two directors’ sensibilities. “The Killer” is icy and deglamorized where “Ferrari” is smoking hot and visceral; Fincher puts his character under a microscope for the audience to study like a microbe, while Mann wants the audience in the driver’s seat with his passionate and committed characters. What the two films have in common is an attention to light, color, and framing as expressive tools that is exceptional in its precision; few movies in recent memory have guided the viewer’s eye in such an intentional and affecting manner. That’s because of something else these movies share: cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt.
Just seven years ago, Messerschmidt was a respected gaffer on series like “Mad Men” and “Bones.” That changed when, on the set of “Gone Girl,” Fincher recognized Messerschmidt’s taste and talent; he promoted the gaffer to director of photography on his Netflix series “Mindhunter,” which led to Messerschmidt’s collaboration with Fincher on “Mank.” Messerschmidt’s shimmering black-and-white photography on that movie earned him some well-deserved attention — and an Academy Award for his first cinematography credit on a feature film.
Unsurprisingly, Fincher returned to Messerschmidt when the time came to make “The Killer,” though the director of photography says the initial conversations were quite different. “It was unique because we didn’t really talk about the way the movie was meant to look at all,” Messerschmidt told IndieWire. “We talked about pace and structure and how he wanted to handle the voiceover and structure the scenes. We talked about the movie much more abstractly than when we were talking about ‘Mank.’ The palette and aesthetic came much later in the process.”
Julian Mitchell, editor, media maker publishing
December 18, 2023
NAB Amplify
NAB Amplify caught up with cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt just as he was about to fly to the Camerimage film festival in Poland, where Ferrari, his first film with director Michael Mann, was in competition. “An extraordinary experience, once in a lifetime,” was his on-the-spot reaction to the question, “How was it?”
But we wanted to talk to him about The Killer, a Netflix movie with an appearance in selected theaters at very selective times. Most people would wait for the stream and live with the Internet compression artifacts for the treat of a Fincher film, this time about a man who kills for a living. Cue Michael Fassbender, with sociopathic personality traits and an attention to detail that leaves nothing to chance; some reviews suggested that this man was a depiction of Fincher himself.
If you have seen previous films or television shows from the Fincher/Messerschmidt duo, especially 2018’s Mindhunter, you would be in a comfortable place from the get-go of The Killer: An avocado-colored LUT, exquisite scene management, and meticulous coverage. “Is this all you?” the DP was asked.
“It’s a thing that David and I do together. I enjoy the process of camera direction; I view it as sort of my principal job, really. It’s thinking about the structure of the film and of each scene. Every director’s interaction in terms of coverage and camera direction is different. It’s the first thing David and I discuss: structure and pacing. It’s almost an editorial conversation in terms of what we’re going to provide Kirk [Baxter, the editor] and how each scene breaks down in terms of the pace,” he said.
Erik Messerschmidt, ASC shoots two stories about men whose business and private lives spin out of control.
Patricia Thomson
January 2024
American Cinematographer
A pair of films shot by Erik Messerschmidt, ASC premiered at the Venice International Film Festival last August, and both were collaborations with leading directors: David Fincher’s The Killer and Michael Mann’s Ferrari. Messerschmidt recently spoke with AC from Spain about his work on each production.
The Killer | A Devil of a Job
Fincher and Messerschmidt didn’t discuss the look of The Killer as much as its tempo and structure.
Adapted from a graphic-novel series, the film follows a methodical, nameless assassin (played by Michael Fassbender) whose life spirals out of control after a job goes horribly wrong in Paris. He tries to restore a sense of order by punishing those responsible.
Messerschmidt won an Academy Award for Fincher’s Mank (AC Feb.’21), and his collaborations with the director span the Netflix series Mindhunter and the feature Gone Girl — with Messerschmidt serving as gaffer for Jeff Cronenweth, ASC (AC Nov. ’14) on the latter.
“David is fastidious,” he says. “He is very prepared, but very collaborative and considerate of what it is everyone’s bringing to the project. He shares his goals for the film with you, and he shares the techniques that he wants to use in a really elegant way. So, you begin to understand quite quickly what he’s looking to achieve on a given shot, a given scene or even on a given film.
“On this film, David was particularly interested in exploring The Killer’s state of mind through the camera’s perspective,” recalls Messerschmidt. “The Killer in his natural state is very much in control of his environment — nothing surprises him, and we wanted the audience to immediately connect to his confidence.”
Read the full double feature in the January Issue of American Cinematographer
Clarence Moye
December 18, 2023
AwardsDaily
Cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt began his acclaimed collaboration with iconic director David Fincher as a gaffer on Fincher’s 2014 thriller Gone Girl. That initial introduction led to Messerschmidt lensing 16 episodes of the acclaimed Netflix crime drama Mindhunter for which he received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination. That close collaborative relationship with Fincher then morphed into Messerschmidt’s breakout moment as a celebrated cinematographer, his Oscar-winning lensing of Fincher’s 2020 Mank. His black-and-white cinematography not only echoed Gregg Toland’s Oscar-nominated work on Citizen Kane, but it also fully immersed viewers in 1940s cinema, a goal for the film that Messerschmidt shared with other Mank artisans.
Now, Messerschmidt again collaborates with Fincher on an entirely different project, Netflix’s The Killer. The film thrusts both artists into a modern day world of a hired assassin (Michael Fassbender) as he botches a hit job and travels across the world to seek retribution. Traditionally, when approaching a project of this caliber, Messerschmidt would prep a “lookbook,” a collection of photographs intended to outline visual references for multiple aspects of the filmmaking craft.
But with The Killer, Fincher and Messerschmidt approached things differently.
“In the past when I’ve worked with [Fincher], I have sent him lookbooks, we’ll have references, or we’ll start with paintings or photography or other movies. We didn’t do that on this movie. We talked about pacing and timing and scene structure and point of view,” Messerschmidt shared. “The aesthetics of the look of the movie ended up being born through the process of exploration and scouting and location selection. Even though the movie is stylistic, it all comes from a place of realism, and that was always the intent.”
To follow The Killer on his world-wide journey, Fincher segments the film into chapters. Not only does this structure echo the graphic novel roots of the story (the film is based on the French comic by Alexis “Matz” Nolent and Luc Jacamon), but it also sets the tone within the larger world of its edgy, pulp fiction ancestors. Given that structure, Messerschmidt faced unique lensing challenges as The Killer moves from chapter to chapter.
Reflective thriller continues DP’s collaborative relationship with director David Fincher.
Robert Goldrich
December 15, 2023
Shoot
The two latest feature films lensed by Erik Messerschmidt, ASC have him once again in the awards season conversation–director Michael Mann’s Ferrari (Neon) which will debut in U.S. theaters on Dec. 25, and David Fincher’s The Killer (Netflix), which has been already released theatrically and is now streaming on Netflix.
This installment of The Road To Oscar will focus on The Killer, which continues a longstanding collaborative relationship between the cinematographer and Fincher. Messerschmidt is no stranger to Academy Award banter, having won a Best Cinematography Oscar in 2021 for Fincher’s Mank. The film also garnered ASC and BSC Award wins for Messerschmidt.
Fincher has played a prominent role in Messerschmidt’s career. It all started back when Messerschmidt served as a gaffer for cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth, ASC, most notably on the Fincher-directed Gone Girl. During the course of that movie, Fincher had Messerschmidt do some promotional still work for Gone Girl and the two struck up a rapport. This eventually led to Messerschmidt becoming the DP on Fincher’s Mindhunter, the thriller series centered on an FBI agent’s quest to track down serial killers in the late 1970s. Messerschmidt in 2020 wound up garnering his first career Emmy nomination for his lensing of Mindhunter. He shot the lion’s share of Mindhunter episodes; the series represented his first major TV gig as his DP endeavors prior to that were primarily in commercials and other short-form fare. Fincher then further expanded Messerschmidt’s reach–first into the feature realm with Mank and then The Killer.
Matt Donnelly
December 14, 2023
Variety
SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for David Fincher’s “The Killer,” now streaming on Netflix.
The next few months will be stacked with conversations about the year’s best film performances, but we’d be remiss to let 2023 go dark without mentioning one of its most exciting turns: Kerry O’Malley in David Fincher’s “The Killer.”
A veteran working actress who has appeared on “1923,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and in features like the “Annabelle” franchise, O’Malley more than held her own alongside Michael Fassbender and Tilda Swinton in the unexpectedly funny tale of a contract killer gone haywire.
O’Malley stars as Dolores, an average-seeming New Orleans woman who serves as dutiful assistant to a lawyer (Charles Parnell), who also happens to dole out high-paid hit orders on the rich and powerful. Fassbender, a protégé of Parnell’s, has been betrayed and seeks revenge — but must first tangle with Dolores, who confuses his own sense of vigilante justice with her pragmatism and air of innocence.
O’Malley’s sequence in the film makes for some of the most riveting character work we’ve seen from Fincher as of late. Dolores is a woman fully aware of how she earns her living, yet appeals to a broader sense of empathy in the viewer (and her own potential murderer). In a chat with Variety, O’Malley discusses auditioning virtually with Fincher, working with Fassbender and the “banality of evil.”
The Fincher Analyst 