Come anticipate David Fincher's "Zodiac"

its genre is the procedural

Yeah, but w/ journalists instead of cops. If you allow a broad definition, with some context & character stuff that isn't related to the case at hand.

that's not really a genre, is it?

i don't think with stuff developed outside studio development departs by name-directors that 'genre' is that useful a category. sure in a way this is a "procedural detective film," but it's not in a genre in the way films were under the studio system, when they were done on a factory basis.

(this isn't to privilege fincher's MO, over, say, the system that produced the noir genre in the 1940s; i'm just saying.)

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It's interesting that the movie that contenderizer is describing sounds virtually nothing like the one I watched.

Are you saying that the film wasn't about a character being consumed by an investigation, or that it didn't attempt to provide a solution to its own puzzle (killer's identity)?

Maybe. Not sure I'd agree about as much as 50%

I guess part of what makes it great to me is how it manages to investigate or even "deconstruct" (sorry) itself and its genre without sacrificing any pleasure. Its an extremely satisfying film.

Xposts

the movie that contenderizer is describing sounds virtually nothing like the one I watched

-- Alex

But, yeah, I get that a lot.

Ryan: How does it deconstruct the genre? How is it anything but what it seems on the surface?

I posted a bunch of stuff upthread about the movie's many references to media/film and the attendant distortions involved, which is really the primary focus of the movie (with the "message" being perhaps something like the harder you look for the truth the more you obscure it ... or something). There's a link that explores the same ideas upthread as well that was very illuminating in this respect. This movie is about obsession, and about how obsession is ultimately blinding and self-destructive.

and no the movie does not "solve" the killer's identity in any meaningful way. its no coincidence that the film appears to condemn a character that it explicitly states is innocent (the "this movie is based on actual case files" canard at the beginning, the text at the end about DNA evidence exoneration, etc.)

I would try to defend that statement but I'm typing on my phone here! Hopefully I can later...but I wouldn't be surprised if someone beat me to it.

The title and the code motifs are especially interesting I think for fancy ass readings of the movie

i love that the killer is played by different actors in each murder scene.

I think you're overstating the film's concluding text, Shakey. All that's said is that DNA could not match Allen to the letters. He was by no means exonerated by the DNA evidence. And I think the film comes very close to fingering him. Emotionally, at least, it gives our hero a moment where he can "look the killer the eye" and know that he knows. Which, given the realities of the case, is by far the most upbeat, standard-heroic conclusion possible.

I just didn't see the distortion-by-media angle as being explored in an interesting way by the film. Distortion by looking to hard for something that might not, in fact, be there, maybe. As far as revisionist detection goes, I think this pales next to OG 70s stuff like "The Conversation" and "Night Moves".

"I think you're overstating the film's concluding text, Shakey. All that's said is that DNA could not match Allen to the letters. He was by no means exonerated by the DNA evidence."

It's pretty far from slam dunk. Plus the ID itself is so suspect, so incredible seeming. Far from being conclusive OHMIGOD he did it, it's more OHMIGOD what an endless wild goose chase.

Fair enough. I don't want to beat this to death. It just left me a bit cold.

there are numerous other things in the film pointing to Allen's innocence - lack of match with the handwriting sample, etc.

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I'll watch it again at some point. Too many people have insisted to me that it's better than I think. And maybe I'll come around.

shakey has inside knowledge

the film says he's "guilty" because Graysmith WANTS him so badly to be guilty - at the same time the film contains a number of elements implicitly stating that the film is not trustworthy (three different actors in the killing scenes, the note at the beginning and then the confession that the "actual case files" were destroyed, the constantly shifting evidence, etc.)

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And I think the film comes very close to fingering him. Emotionally, at least, it gives our hero a moment where he can "look the killer the eye" and know that he knows.

haha i interpreted this totally differently!!

the scene in the basement is key, i think. as least as far as gyllenhaal's character goes.

^^^yes

that scene bothered me at first - because it seems so non-germane to the rest of the case - but then that's part of the point; its given this really creepy trad-horror-movie-surprise-reveal staging but then... nothing comes of it. Guy is just a harmless film buff. Graysmith is a totally paranoid obsessive who sees clues everywhere.

I get that. I could see that the movie was setting itself up as a gray-area exploration of our need to find solutions to unanswerable questions. And Graysmith hardly seemed entirely reliable. That's why I was so bugged by what I saw as the fairly straightforward solution offered at the conclusion. I'm not saying it was unambiguous, mind, but I though it was presented as something we might find at least 2/3 convincing. Not strong enought to hold up in court, but good enough to serve in the absence of verifiable truth.

Like I said, though, I need to watch it again.

That is, I accept that I may be wrong about this.

ive only seen it once but i will say that i didnt interpret the "fingering" scene as at all conclusive or final

there was fingering in this movie? talk about subtext!

sorry:(

<i>Not strong enought to hold up in court, but good enough to serve in the absence of verifiable truth.</i>

i think is IS what the movie is about..ie, the distinction between metaphysical certainty and we can indeed "know" (and what is problematic about our knowledge).

That Graysmith's moment at the end can be interpreted as either a transcendent confirmation of his suspicions or as the desperate grasping of an obsessive is to the film's credit...and what I like is that it suggests that these two things are not mutually exclusive...and may even depend upon each other!

this is basically the problem of modernity...how does one obtain certainty in situation that only permits probabilities? how do you reconcile this with any sense of justice?

that is, i dont quite accept that Graysmith is simply a delusional obsessive. there is, as the film puts it, about an 80% chance he is right...what you do with that figure is precisely the point.

I agree that the uncertainty generated by the film is the key thing

Ryan OTM. That's exactly how I saw the conclusion. And the 80% figure is key. I honestly don't think you ever do much better than that. Not with regard to the really difficult questions, anyway. So I didn't see this film's conclusion as particularly ambiguous.

boring pointless movie. looked nice though

today I was (yet again) pondering this movie and was struck by its thematic similarities to Alan Moore's "From Hell" - the serial killer thriving on attention, the collective panic, the essential unknowability of evil, that kind of thing.

ar0ng

^^

^

shakey--excellent! i was just about to start reading that.

one of the big differences is that with Moore its no mystery who the Ripper really is - the reader knows the killer's identity right off the bat. HOWEVER, there's an added ironic parallel to Zodiac in that Moore also very clearly says (somewhere in the appendices, I think) that he does not actually believe his fictionalized version of the Ripper's identity and motives is the truth. Moore's "Dance of the Gull-Catchers" epilogue super-relevant here as it traces all the various attempts to identify the Ripper anad how convoluted and impossible to untangle the whole thing became.

also am0n's not entirely wrong - this movie looked fantastic

and twat

;)

graysmith's book is good though. i'm probably too familiar with it to get anything worthwhile out of the movie

bet it won't be as good as the zodiac killer

-- am0n (am0n), Monday, November 20, 2006 8:28 PM (1 year ago)

^ i wuz RITE

is that movie ref'd in Zodiac...? I know Bullitt and Dirty Harry are

no but it gets mention in the book

Good call on From Hell and Zodiac parallels. There's also the occult and symbolist similarities to both murderers' MOs.

the director's edit dvd is still unavailable in the uk :(

Director's cut doesn't add much, really -- one scene of detectives outlining evidence to get a search warrant, and one with a black screen for about four (!) minutes while the passage of time is denoted via a radio/musical montage.

dude, your dvd is defective. the passage of time wasn't a blank screen, it was a scene of the zodiac dancing to the music in his sinister lair.

in silhouette of course