David Andrew Leo Fincher is an American film director, film producer, and music video director.
He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director for his 2008 film The Curious
Case of Benjamin Button and his 2010 film The Social Network. For The Social Network,
he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Director and the BAFTA Award for Best Direction. His
most recent film is 2011's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, an English-language adaptation
of Stieg Larsson's novel of the same name.
Early life Fincher was born on August 28, 1962 in Denver,
Colorado, the son of Claire Mae, a mental health nurse who worked in drug addiction
programs, and Howard Kelly Fincher, who was an author and worked as a bureau chief for
Life. Howard died of cancer in April 2003. When Fincher was two years old, the family
moved to San Anselmo, California. Fincher moved to Ashland, Oregon in his teens, where
he graduated from Ashland High School. Inspired by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Fincher
began making movies at age eight with an 8 mm camera. He attended the Berkeley Film Institute.
Career Early career
Fincher was employed at Korty Films where he worked on the animated Twice Upon a Time.
He was later hired by Industrial Light & Magic in 1983, where he worked on productions for
Return of the Jedi, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. In 1984, he left ILM to
direct a commercial for the American Cancer Society, that would show a fetus smoking a
cigarette. This quickly brought Fincher to the attention of producers in Los Angeles
and he was given the chance to direct the documentary The Beat of the Live Drum featuring
Rick Springfield in 1985. Though he would continue to direct spots for companies like
Revlon, Converse, Nike, Pepsi, Sony, and Levi's, Fincher soon discovered music videos and went
on to direct many promos. Propaganda Films
Set on a directing career, Fincher joined video-production company Propaganda Films
and started off directing music videos and commercials. Like Fincher, directors such
as Michael Bay, Spike Jonze, Mark Romanek, Michel Gondry, Paul Rachman, Zack Snyder,
Gore Verbinski, Alex Proyas, Antoine Fuqua and others honed their talents at Propaganda
Films before moving on to feature films. Influence
In an interview with Empire magazine in 2008, Fincher named the following films as his favorite;
Alien, All That Jazz, All the President's Men, American Graffiti, Being There, Butch
Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Cabaret, Chinatown, Citizen Kane, Days of Heaven, Dr. Strangelove,
8½, The Exorcist, The Godfather Part II, The Graduate, Jaws, Lawrence of Arabia, Mad
Max 2, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, National Lampoon's Animal House, Paper Moon, Rear Window,
Taxi Driver, The Terminator, The Year of Living Dangerously, and Zelig.
Feature films and television After directing several music videos, Fincher's
feature debut was Alien 3. While it received an Oscar nomination for special effects, the
film was not well received by critics or moviegoers. Fincher became involved with several disputes
with 20th Century Fox over script and budget issues. Director's Cut: Picturing Hollywood
in the 21st Century, he blames the producers for not putting the necessary trust in him.
He stated in an interview with The Guardian in 2009: "No one hated it more than me; to
this day, no one hates it more than me." After this, he retreated back into the world of
commercial and music video directing, including the video for the Grammy Award-winning track
"Love Is Strong" by The Rolling Stones. In 1995, Fincher directed Seven. The film,
based on a screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker, told the story of two detectives tracking
down a serial killer who bases his killings on the seven deadly sins. The film grossed
more than $100 million domestically. The chairman of New Line Cinema, Arnold Kopelson,
originally refused to allow filming of the shocking climatic scene. With the aid of Brad
Pitt, who stated that he would not be involved with the picture if its ending were changed,
Fincher was allowed to film the original scene and use it in the final cut.
After the success of Seven, Fincher went on to film The Game. The story focused on a closed-off
San Francisco businessman who receives an unusual gift from his younger brother, in
which he becomes the main player of a role-playing game that takes over his life. The film had
middling box-office returns despite being well received by critics.
Fight Club was a screen adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's novel of the same name about an
insomniac office worker who opens up a club devoted exclusively to bare knuckle fighting
for men. Featuring Edward Norton, Helena Bonham Carter, and Seven collaborator Brad Pitt,
the 1999 film was an early disappointment at the box-office and received mixed reviews.
Fight Club was panned by several critics and alienated audiences leading to its box office
failure in the United States. However, many critics and audiences later
changed their opinions and the film appeared on many "best of the year" lists and soon
developed a cult following. Entertainment Weekly, which had originally given the film
a D-, later ranked the DVD #1 on its list of 50 Essential DVDs. Exceptional sales have
since established it as a cult film. In 2006, the British magazine Total Film voted
Fight Club number four in the 100 Greatest Movies of All Time, beaten only by Jaws, Vertigo
and Goodfellas at 3, 2 and 1 respectively. In 2002, Fincher followed up with the thriller
Panic Room. The film earned over $92 million at the U.S. box office. The story follows
a single mother and her daughter as they hide in a safe room of their new house, away from
criminals bent on finding a missing fortune. Fincher acknowledged Panic Room as a more
mainstream thriller, describing the film, on the DVD's audio commentary, as "[basically]
a date movie" and a "really good B movie" about "two people trapped in a closet".
Five years after Panic Room, Fincher returned on March 2, 2007 with Zodiac, an adaptation
of Robert Graysmith's books about the hunt for the Zodiac Killer that starred Jake Gyllenhaal,
Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey, Jr., Anthony Edwards, and Brian Cox. The first of Fincher's
films to be shot digitally, the majority of the film was recorded on a Thompson Viper
Film Stream Camera. However, high-speed film cameras were used for the Blue Rock Springs
and Presidio Heights murder scenes for the slow-motion shots. It was originally to be
released in the fall of 2006 but was pushed back after Fincher refused to cut 20 minutes
off the film. Zodiac was one of the best-reviewed films
of that year, with only two other 2007 films appearing on more top-10 lists. However, the
film struggled at the box office in the U.S., earning only $33 million, but did well overseas
with a foreign gross of $51.7 million. Worldwide, Zodiac was a decent success. Despite an aggressive
campaign by the studio, expectations surrounding Robert Downey, Jr.'s supporting performance,
Fincher's direction and Vanderbilt's adapted script, the film did not earn a single Academy
Award nomination. A story about life and death, The Curious
Case of Benjamin Button is an adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story of the
same name. The film was Fincher's third with Brad Pitt. The film started shooting in November
2006 in New Orleans, before moving on to the Virgin Islands, Montreal, and L.A. Both Zodiac
and this film are co-productions of Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. The budget for the
film was estimated at $150 million, partly due to the CGI effects used to reverse the
aging in Pitt's character. The film is the first PG-13 film directed by Fincher. It received
13 nominations at the 81st Academy Awards, including Fincher's first nomination for Best
Director. It won three Academy Awards for Best Art Direction, Best Makeup, and Best
Visual Effects. Fincher directed the 2010 film The Social
Network, about the legal battles of Mark Zuckerberg and the founding of Facebook. The film features
an Oscar-winning screenplay by Aaron Sorkin, adapted from the book The Accidental Billionaires.
Featuring a young cast ensemble, the film was produced by Scott Rudin, Kevin Spacey
and Michael DeLuca. Filming started in October 2009 and was released a year later, to critical
acclaim. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross created the Oscar-winning soundtrack for the film.
Fincher had long been a fan of Reznor's work in Nine Inch Nails, even putting a remix of
"Closer" in the beginning of Seven and directing the music video for "Only". The film went
on to win many awards, including four Golden Globes, three BAFTAs, and three Academy Awards
for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Film Editing.
Fincher directed the American version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which was based
on the book by Stieg Larsson, with a script written by Steven Zaillian. The film was shot
in Sweden, with Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander, Daniel Craig as Mikael Blomkvist, Robin Wright
as Erika Berger, Stellan Skarsgård as Martin Vanger and Christopher Plummer as Henrik Vanger.
The film was released on December 21, 2011. Dragon Tattoo writer Steve Zaillian is in
the early stage of scripting The Girl Who Played with Fire, which Fincher has the option
to direct. While he has not yet committed to the project, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker
has admitted that he would prefer to shoot both the second and third Millennium book
adaptations back-to-back, for both practical and artistic purposes. Trent Reznor and Atticus
Ross composed the soundtrack for the film. It received five Academy Award nominations
at the 84th Academy Awards including: Best Actress for Rooney Mara, Best Cinematography,
Best Sound, Best Sound Mixing and won one award for Best Film Editing.
Fincher is executive producer of the Netflix television series House of Cards; he also
directed the first two episodes. The series has received critical acclaim, receiving nine
Primetime Emmy nominations, including Outstanding Drama Series and Fincher for Outstanding Directing
for a Drama Series for the first episode, which he won.
On January 22, 2013, Fincher was reported to be in talks to direct the adaptation of
the Gillian Flynn novel Gone Girl, a report that was later confirmed on July 11 of the
same year with the casting of Ben Affleck in the lead role. Production began in September
2013. It was later given a release date of October 3, 2014.
Filmography Films
Music videos As a music video director, Fincher has won
two Grammy Awards for Best Music Video, for his work in "Love Is Strong" by The Rolling
Stones and "Suit & Tie" by Justin Timberlake and Jay-Z, and three MTV Video Music Awards
for Best Direction, being one of the most awarded directors in the category, alongside
Spike Jonze. His video for Don Henley's "The End of the Innocence" won Henley the MTV Video
Music Award for Best Male Video in 1990. He also earned back-to-back MTV Video Music Awards
for Best Direction in 1989 for "Express Yourself" and in 1990 for "Vogue". In 1990, he earned
three of the four available nominations in the Best Direction category.
Video games Halo 4 "Scanned" launch trailer
Reception Critical reception
Box office References
Further reading Waxman, Sharon, ed.. Rebels on the Backlot:
Six Maverick Directors and How They Conquered the Hollywood Studio System. HarperEntertainment.
External links David Fincher at the Internet Movie Database
David Fincher at AllMovie David Fincher at Rotten Tomatoes
David Fincher at MVDbase.com Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical
Database Interviews
David Fincher interview with Paul Guyot of www.dvdtalk.com
David Fincher interview with Gavin Smith of edward-norton.org
Esquire magazine interview with Fincher IndieLondon interview with Fincher
David Fincher Didn't Want To Make 'Another Serial-Killer Movie' ... Until Zodiac Came
Along – Part 1 interview with MTV David Fincher Discusses Reunion With Brad
Pitt, Possible Fight Club Musical – Part 2 interview with MTV
CHUD: Exclusive Interview: David Fincher LA Weekly – David Fincher discusses Zodiac's
rising star