David Fincher's serial killer chat 'em up MINDHUNTER

xp holden reflects the nature of knowledge in general - to understand a killer one has to identify with them inevitably. his pursuit of this (forbidden) knowledge at least serves an altruistic purpose (to aid in the capture and prevention of future sks) but what is my/the audience's excuse?

well, just to start with, it seems that a false belief would be that the audience is in a position to get understanding by watching, as if seeing an entertaining documentary; i think fincher probably rejects that, wisely, as many filmmakers would

also, the conventional procedural reward would be a renewed sense of security (perpetually threatened but perhaps never really given the fixity of formulas), and another false belief would seem to be that understanding and plot-level apprehension coincide. even in many sk stories they partially deny that belief for the sake of theme or effect, say a killer is apprehended but remains horrifically alien or inscrutable or just won't explain themselves. but the coordination between understanding and the effective action of law enforcement in their protective function is a deep-seated conviction, or wish. so if we go back to your 'forbidden' gloss here, looking for something the audience does/indulges to be excused, i would look for some kind of wishful thinking about securing 'safety' through knowledge. what's forbidden for them is not knowing the evil man, but transgressing the seemingly safe bounds of the ordinary and what it 'knows'. idk.

if there's something to the latter then it probably hooks up with fincher's general pattern of relation to his audiences, which (i couldn't say how this ultimately sorts out) readily invites interpretations of being too shallowly edgy to be really substantial. if that is not the case then the substance would lie in some kind of reversal of expectation about just what is supposed to be edgy or non-edgy in ordinary existence. (anthony edwards in zodiac, tench here—their relations to family in contrast to ruffalo/rdj and holden/the doc.)

^^ “Fincher has a knack for presenting and pacing seemingly dull events in such an involving manner, with such reassuring procedural inevitability, that I am now spending 12 hours in a single month thinking about weird creepy stuff serial killers did, instead of approximately 45 minutes twice a year skimming Wikipedia entries like a normal person”

(I’ve actually noticed watching this that I dislike when things happen. There really is this odd Fincher effect where everything sweeps neatly along a certain process and it feels annoyingly disruptive when something new intrudes on that. And yes, last night, amid that sweep, I did find myself thinking: I read the Wikipedia entry for Dean Corll years ago and wasn’t that a large enough share of my life to spend thinking about him?)

maybe why the tench son storyline doesn't really work for me - too literally "bringing the sk home" (and i keep remembering how the kid got into the case photos last season) xp

xp yes, that's good; i think it might have to do with why zodiac has to be so long.

it seems to be regarded as very costly for tv-makers to have characters that can genuinely have moments of unlikeability, probably one of the few minor novelties of the post-prestige era. betty draper a big one. holden often threatening here to ruin the mood with his annoyances.

xp my impression early on was that they were setting tench jr. up to be an early on-the-spectrum storyline, bc ~tv~, but even after the events of s2 i now think that perhaps he is a big misdirect, perhaps rather inelegant. tench needs something within the family zone of the narrative to make for shaky covert stuff that must be shielded from public view, so bam. perhaps the audience lust for autism characters is just being exploited; easy to get 80s sk-related folx thinking this kid is gonna be killing cats soon, send tench spiralling, etc.

but the opposition between him and his wife in the state-mandated oversight portion is interesting; 'she is not your friend' yet dutifully participating in the process, as opposed to his wife's more understandable bridling at it.

he was going along with it more because he accepts that their son isn't necessarily blameless in the whole thing, while his wife was in denial

one of the less elegantly integrated themes (perhaps because it’s so clearly forefront in everyone’s mind) is the “nature or nurture” thing which Manson underlines.

definitely the most surprising thing I learned in my post-watch wiki trawl

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Bateson

Paul Bateson (born August 24, 1940) is an American former radiographer and convicted murderer. He appeared as a radiological technologist in a scene from the 1973 horror film The Exorcist, which was inspired when the film's director, William Friedkin, watched him perform a cerebral angiography the previous year. The scene, with a considerable amount of blood onscreen, was, for many viewers, the film's most disturbing scene;[1] medical professionals have praised it for its realism.[2][3]

In 1979, Bateson was convicted of the murder of film industry journalist Addison Verrill and sentenced to a minimum of 20 years in prison; in 2003 he was released on parole, which ended after five years. Prior to Bateson's trial, police and prosecutors implicated him in a series of unsolved slayings of gay men in Manhattan, killings he had reportedly boasted about while in jail, bringing it up at his sentencing.[4] However, no additional charges ever were brought against him. The experience inspired Friedkin to make the 1980 film Cruising which, while based on a novel written a decade earlier, incorporated in its storyline the city's leather subculture, with which Bateson had identified.

"nature vs nurture" is the main thing the tench sub-story is doing: refusing to resolve in either direction

also i liked (and also i think it's related) when they realised that tales of manson were helpfully distractive with the professionals now invading and somewhat controlling their homelife: the shrink and the social worker both (briefly) turn from judgmental and forbidding to ppl excited to be two degrees of separation from an actual famous monster

The scene where Bill first gets briefed on BTK was like "Zodiac" in miniature. I was like, "Yes, more of this!" The fact that Fincher can make dry recitation of procedural material so tense and involving is amazing to me.

i'm sorry if i ask this in a way that is insensitive, but is holden supposed to be autistic

forgot this isn't twitter and i can't delete stuff when i immediately change my mind after posting

i hadn't imagined so, he's just supposed to be weird. i think the characterization of him meeting his girlfriend was defining, as were further interactions where he clings (not the right word) to his Fed identity: square like he seems, and not embarrassed by it, except that the appearance hides a refreshing/disturbing inclination for free thinking and mind-broadening that in his norminess he is ill-equipped to steer into mature development. thus his susceptibility to visioneering, imagining himself as a heroic innovator, etc.

the mentorship sort of relation to tench is interesting because we're slightly supposed to think that it would work out in a predictable way if not for the fact that tench is a bit too much of a throwback despite his seasoned judgment to be able to authoritatively steer this greenhorn who is eager to drown in the mad seas they are embarking onto; the kid just won't listen

tench is an established caricature cast and written and played to surprise us with subtle and more 2019 touches than that initial position would have us expect

holden is a v 2019 netflix series lead, cast and written and played much more through the lens we would maybe expect from this show if it was being made in the 80s

like...hes clearly on spectrum, its just a handwavey cliche pre-rainman 'weirdo' with a technical gift and no people skills.

whether this is fincher being clever, or how the actors/characters turned out, or an understanding that developed with the writers reacting over time....or i made it up...who knows

everyone keeps decribing this as a fincher project -- and obviously his name is going to be biggiest on the marquee -- but it was devised and written by joe penhall, and i believe it's ultimately his concept that fincher is realising (tho i think penhall is more of a backseat role in s2)

holden reminds me a lot too much of the lead in numb3rs (in role and affect), except he cocks more up

mindhunter is better than numb3rs obviously, everything is

everyone keeps decribing this as a fincher project -- and obviously his name is going to be biggiest on the marquee -- but it was devised and written by joe penhall, and i believe it's ultimately his concept that fincher is realising (tho i think penhall is more of a backseat role in s2)

I mean yeah, but Fincher's style and tone are so specific to his body of work that it can't help but seem like it's in conversation with stuff like Zodiac. It's a very specific aesthetic and it greatly informs how we interpret the narrative! It's very easy for me to imagine the same scripts redone in the style of Criminal Minds or whatever and just being background watching at best.

ok fair, i haven't seen zodiac -- i just feel some of the cloudiness of intent we're identifying (by disagreeing!) may be the consequence of this being a collective project in a way that a kneejerk auteurism is muffling?

ok fair, i haven't seen zodiac

i was watching adventures with tip and oh

oh, here’s a tip: watch zodiac

oh yeah, I just rewatched zodiac last month because my spouse had never seen it and I think it may be my favorite fincher thing by a whole lot.

it’s a masterpiece

It very slowly worked its way into my favorite movies ever, one of the ones I instantly think of when I'm thinking, "I want to watch a movie, what do I want to watch?"

also watch numb3rs, so you don't accidentally make worrisome pronouncements like this

mindhunter is better than numb3rs obviously, everything is

never

I think Carl Franklin in particular brings a slightly different vibe in the last three eps...kind of a southern noir or cary fukunaga TD season one thing. That push in on Williams!

Also that really cool slow pan up to the cloudy silhouetted now conspiratorial APD in the last ep.

I was thinking Numbers was Murder by Numbers. Not the case.

watching numb3rs is murder by numb3rs

bcz it's bad

not good

hug3 if tru3

mindhunter is better than numb3rs obviously

i would have put money on the opposite of this being a classic mark s "i will be taking no further questions at this time" challop deeply considered and thought provoking opinion.

off his gam3

i will be taking no further cheekiness at this time

(I’ve actually noticed watching this that I dislike when things happen. There really is this odd Fincher effect where everything sweeps neatly along a certain process and it feels annoyingly disruptive when something new intrudes on that.

I really like this thought...and it explains that effect in Zodiac where the murders are felt as almost cosmically disruptive to the movie that is supposedly about them! (And aside from the extremely no thanks daylight lake berryessa murder none of them are particularly gruesome.)

one minute of jonathan being whipped for holt speaking french pic.twitter.com/lrxCYNOzVQ

— ً (@mindcunter) August 28, 2019

omg

I liked this: I guess I should watch Zodiac? It's just the cast - it's like they deliberately hired actors I can't stand.

echoing all the zodiac praise earlier itt

and yeah it's tough not to like Ruffalo, RDJ etc by contrast. of course I find McCallany immensely likeable so YMMV

Ruffallo is fine. RDJ, Gyllenhaal and Sevigny are usually passes from me. But I can’t sleep so gotta watch something...

ZODIAC RULES YOU BETTER WATCH IT

anyway I just finished s2

i like that this season showed the push & pull of the actual work of profiling, the tiring drain of it all & the hollow victories of “catching” the “killer”

the Tench kid storyline was a bit on the nose but I didn’t hate it. I love how the actor who plays Bill really wore his emotional exhaustion in every aspect of his scenes, down to his silhouette walking away from camera

next season could get interesting - in John Douglas lore, his experience on the Atlanta case made him much more aware of the victims families & changed his approach to profiling: pulling away from the pure science of the pursuit made him better at his job.

all of the actors playing the murderer’s row really turned it out. The guy playing Wayne Williams was eerily on the money; Berkowitz was perfectly pathetic; and my boy Damon Herriman knocked it out of the park as Manson - though the prosthetic makeup was a bit too noticeable, only a minor quibble. His act of sitting on top of the chair after walking in is one of the memorable details from the real interview.

loved Tench-as-audience-surrogate in that scene

what the show is trying to tell the audience is that murder, especially serial, sexually motivated homicide, is chaos. The pursuit of the “why” never evens the scales in any satisfactory way, even when the right person is caught. The hollowness of the s2 ending is important

also the air of dissatisfaction that comes from their interviews, of hearing these men say over and over how they either didnt commit the acts at all or that they didnt feel anything etc - being immersed in their chaos & trying to bring logical order to that, it really erodes a part of your soul over time - a profiler bears the weight of just how much base violence lies within a person & how many there are just out in the world.
there’s an ironic kind of helplessness in a job like that; a success means there has already been wasted lives, and often just serves to highlight how much more work is needed to apprehend similar offenders.

the whole thing is bummertown usa. that’s why the show is great, because it makes you feel that.