Trent Reznor – Page 2 – The Fincher Analyst

‘The Killer’ filmmakers David Fincher, Andrew Kevin Walker on paring down the dialogue and being inspired by Don Siegel

David Fincher, Erik Messerschmidt, Michael Fassbender (Monaris / Netflix)

The Killer sees David Fincher deliver a lean, efficient and darkly funny hitman tale. Screen talks to the filmmaker and screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker about bringing a French graphic novel to the screen.

Mark Salisbury (Ex-Twitter)
December 20,2023
ScreenDaily

“Obviously, I’m drawn to nihilism,” says a grinning David Fincher, director of Se7en, Fight Club and Gone Girl, when asked why he wanted to adapt French graphic novel series The Killer into a film. “But I wanted to make a fucking Don Siegel movie. I wanted to make a Michael Winner movie. I’m so tired of slogging through characters you create to deliver some idea of backstory. What’s the greatest backstory in the history of motion pictures? ‘What were you doing in Chinatown, Jake?’ ‘As little as possible.’ It explains everything in one line.

“I love it when you can distil motivation down to these incredibly brief and simple evocations,” he continues. “I’m tired of two-hour 45-minute movies, and two-hour 30-minute movies. I’m tired of making them. I’m joking, but does it warrant it? Then I started thinking about Get Carter, Charley Varrick. Movies where it just is what it is.”

This was back in 2007, when the graphic novel series — written by Alexis ‘Matz’ Nolent and illustrated by Luc Jacamon, and first published in 1998 — was being developed into a film by Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment and Paramount. Fincher was intrigued, but was directing Pitt in The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, so was not ready to commit. “It wasn’t like you were going, ‘This has to be seen.’ It was more of a way to explore some things I was interested in — the broadest brushstrokes of backstory and this idea of intercepted thought. Why is it we assume when we hear a character’s thoughts that it’s the truth? I don’t know people who aren’t lying to themselves.”

Fincher approached Se7en screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker, who had done uncredited rewrites on Fight Club and The Game as well as work on several unmade Fincher projects — among them The Girl Who Played With Fire, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, an adaptation of Arthur C Clarke’s Rendezvous With Rama and a remake of The Reincarnation Of Peter Proud — to see if he was interested in adapting The Killer. But Walker was not, according to Fincher. “He didn’t want to touch it then.”

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From The Frame: David Fincher, What Often Goes Unnoticed

November 30, 2023
From the Frame

David Fincher’s films have often been analyzed for their visual style – the exacting cinematography, precise editing, muted color palette, and meticulous construction of the frame. But with the release of The Killer, people are starting to take note of another aspect – his evocative use of SOUND. However, you can’t really discuss the sonic landscape of a Fincher film without talking about his longest creative collaborator – sound designer Ren Klyce. From Se7en to The Killer, and every project in between, Klyce’s mixes have provided a crucial aural backdrop, frequently blurring the line between sound and music. They both build a textural ambience that sets the tone of the film while also allowing us to access the subjectivity of the characters on screen. So let’s explore how a David Fincher film sounds.

CHAPTERS:

0:00: Intro
1:33: Se7en & Ren Klyce
2:43: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
5:01: Zodiac & Musique Concrète
8:15: Role as Re-recording Mixer
10:33: Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross
11:43: The Social Network & Expressionistic Sound

SOURCES:

David Fincher and “The Killer” Crew Break Down The Brute vs The Killer Fight Scene

December 9, 2023
Netflix: Behind the Streams

Director David Fincher, Editor Kirk Baxter, Sound Designer Ren Klyce, Cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt, and Stunt Coordinator Dave Macomber break down the fight sequence between The Brute and The Killer in The Killer.

The Killer is now playing on Netflix

Behind the Making of The Killer

Gina McIntyre
December 6, 2023
Netflix Queue

For his muscular new thriller, David Fincher worked with many of his closest collaborators to develop inventive approaches to the film’s cinematography, with Erik Messerschmidt ASC, editing, with Kirk Baxter ACE, sound, with Ren Klyce, and score, with Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross.

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Kirk Baxter on Editing David Fincher’s The Killer

Kirk Baxter and David Fincher enjoying some downtime at Miraval Studios.

Iain Blair
December 6, 2023
postPerspective

David Fincher’s The Killer is a violent thriller starring Michael Fassbender as an unnamed hitman whose carefully constructed life begins to fall apart after a botched hit. Despite his mantra to always remain detached and methodical in his work, he lets it become personal after assassins brutally attack his girlfriend, and soon he finds himself hunting those who now threaten him.

The Netflix film reunites Fincher with Kirk Baxter, the Australian editor who has worked on all of Fincher’s films since The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and who won Oscars for his work on The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

I spoke with Baxter about the challenges and workflow

How did you collaborate with Fincher on this one?

I try not to weigh David down with too many background questions. I keep myself very reactionary to what is being sent, and David, I think by design, isolates me a bit that way. I’ll read the script and have an idea of what’s coming, and then I simply react to what he’s shot and see if it deviates from the script due to the physicality of capturing things.

The general plan was that the film would be a study of process. When The Killer is in control, everything’s going to be deliberate, steady, exacting and quiet. We live in Ren Klyce’s sound design, and when things deviate from The Killer’s plan, the camera starts to shake. I start to jump-cut, the music from composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross comes into the picture, and then all of our senses start to get rocked. It was an almost Zenlike stretching of time in the setup of each story then a race through each kill. That was the overarching approach to editing the film. Then there were a thousand intricate decisions that we made along the way each day.

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Art of the Cut: “The Killer” with Kirk Baxter, ACE

Kirk Baxter and David Fincher enjoying some downtime at Miraval Studios.

Steve Hullfish, ACE
November 23, 2023
Art of the Cut (Boris FX)

Today on Art of the Cut, we’re talking with Kirk Baxter, ACE, about editing David Fincher’s latest: The Killer, which is now on Netflix.

Kirk’s been on Art of the Cut before – for Gone Girl and for Mank. He was nominated for an Oscar, a BAFTA and an ACE Eddie for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. He won an Oscar, a BAFTA and an ACE Eddie for The Social Network. He was nominated for an ACE Eddie and won an Oscar for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Was nominated for an Emmy for House of Cards. Was nominated for an ACE Eddie for Gone Girl. Was nominated for an ACE Eddie for Mindhunter. Was nominated for an ACE Eddie for Mank and won an ACE Eddie for Love, Death and Robots.

Listen to the podcast:

Apple Podcasts
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Follow Steve Hullfish, ACE, and the “Art of the Cut” podcast on Ex-Twitter. Buy his book “Art of the Cut. Conversations with Film and TV Editors” (‎Routledge, 2017).

Read the transcription of this interview:

The Killer

Kirk Baxter, ACE, director David Fincher’s long-time editor, talks about the power of believing in the process, pacing, and voiceover changes on the action-packed thriller.

Steve Hullfish, ACE
November 23, 2023
Art of the Cut (Boris FX)

The Killer: Original Score by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross

nin.com
November 10, 2023

Photo by John Crawford

The Killer Original Score by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, from the film directed by David Fincher, is available now:

Spotify
Apple Music
Amazon Music
bandcamp
TIDAL
pandora

Tracklist:

The Killer 00:47
Fuck. 05:14
The Hideout 02:20
Stick to the Plan 03:45
The Sunshine State 03:07
Consequences Are Automatic 04:57
Empathy Is Weakness 02:27
Never Hesitate 04:25
The Brute, Pt 1 01:33
The Brute, Pt 2 04:15
Intruder 04:25
The Expert 05:31
Gonna Have to Call You Back, Marvin 01:31
One of the Many 06:41
Trailer 01:26

Music written, arranged, produced, performed, programmed, and mixed by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross

Engineer: Jacob Moreno

David Fincher on filmmaking and his twisted new comedy, The Killer

As his new film gets ready to hit Netflix, the legendary director talks to Nick Chen about The Smiths, Michael Fassbender, and the similarities between directors and hitmen.

Nick Chen
November 6, 2023
Dazed

To prove the catchiness of “Unhappy Birthday” by The Smiths, David Fincher sings to me the opening refrain with a huge grin. For our conversation, the 61-year-old director of feel-bad fare like Se7en, Zodiac, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is in surprisingly good spirits. Or bad spirits, given the miserabilist nature of The Smiths.

In Fincher’s sleek, bleak thriller The Killer, his second feature for Netflix, there are 11 killer songs by The Smiths on the soundtrack. An unnamed hitman (Michael Fassbender) – simply The Killer, in the credits – calms his nerves when operating a sniper rifle by listening to “How Soon Is Now?”, the tremolo reverberating through his earphones. “That guitar shouldn’t be comforting, because it’s sinister,” says Fincher, speaking in Ham Yard Hotel during the London Film Festival. “But to me, it’s comforting. We originally had Joy Division and Siouxsie and the Banshees. [Trent] Reznor was like, ‘Every time we use The Smiths, it’s just funny.’”

After the black-and-white seriousness of Mank, Fincher has returned to the kind of big-screen, popcorn fun he delivered in Gone Girl – except it also mischievously isn’t. Adapted from a French graphic novel, The Killer is less of a John Wick-esque, gun-toting adventure and more observing an assassin do admin to bypass security measures. He shuffles through paperwork to identify home addresses, and fills in endless forms to join a victim’s gym. To remain faceless, he picks up Amazon purchases from a locker and eats at a McDonald’s that doesn’t involve entering a building. If it weren’t too meta, he’d wind down by using someone else’s password to stream Fincher’s House of Cards on Netflix.

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Venice Film Festival: “The Killer” World Premiere

September 3, 2023
Venice Film Festival (YouTube)

Press conference featuring Director of Photography Erik Messerschmidt ASC, Sound Designer Ren Klyce, Director David Fincher, and Editor Kirk Baxter ACE.

Red Carpet featuring Producer Peter Mavromates, Director of Photography Erik Messerschmidt ASC, Writer of the original “The Killer” (“Le tueur”) comic Alexis “Matz” Nolent, Editor Kirk Baxter ACE, Sound Designer Ren Klyce, Director David Fincher. The original stream has the ambient sound turned down to a minimum because it is too busy and noisy, and only barely intelligible in the close-ups.