Must read: David Fincher and Alien3

Trust me, FincherFanatics, you MUST READ this one: I stumbled upon an article by John H. Richardson from 1991 about a then 27 year-old first-timer by the name of David Fincher, helming the doomed production of ALIEN3. -- Absolutely incredible. Very insightful!

For everyone who always knew "Alien3" was a total nightmare but never knew quite why, this article will fill in a lot of blanks: It's a first-hand account of the madness this film went through, beginning with endless fights over the scripts, the mingle for creative control, a budget falling apart by the minute and the waste of two directors before bringing aboard hot-shot first-timer David Fincher.

What I love about this article is that it reveals that Fincher didn't turn into this "perfectionistic monster" everybody describes him as DUE to the Alien3 experience ... he already was perfectionistic and uncompromising when he worked on that movie!

The way his style of working is described (shooting tirelessly for hours just to end up with the perfect shot), and the comments he makes himself about what kind of movie he wants to create -- both of these could be applied to ZODIAC by the word.

As only David Fincher can put it best:

"I’m not making this movie for 50 million people. I’m making it for 8 people, my friends, people who know the cameras and lighting." -- That works out to a budget of just over $6 million per friend.

Gotta love the Finch!

The article is very long and spans over several forum-entries, so make sure you scroll down and read all of it. I'm so confident you will like this ... :-) ... but let me know anyway!

Enjoy:
Mother From Another Planet, 1991

5 comments:

  1. I haven't read it yet I feel like I am about to eat a really fancy meal. so I am already thanking you.

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  2. A shoe salesman!

    Fantastic read. Thanks for the link. It's funny, I'm a member of this forum and I have never seen this post.

    Thanks again.

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  3. Wow that article was great. Coupled with the documentary on the Alien Quadrilogy box set you've got a lot of info on what went on behind the scenes with that movie. I never thought the Alien 3 mess created the perfectionist in Fincher. You could see that perfectionist in practice already with his early music videos. But as he says in his book, it taught him to never go forward without a finished script and until he knew he'd be able to put his vision up their on the screen the way he saw it.

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  4. David Fincher has got a book? what is the title?

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  5. There is a book about Fincher in which he comments quite a bit. It's call Dark Eye and it's written by James Swallow.

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