See It Again: David Fincher’s ZODIAC
David Fincher is one of our preeminent directors. He burst upon the scene in 1995 with Se7en, a crime thriller that’s known for its extremely dark subject matter and brutal scene selection and cinematography. That’s not his first film, but it’s the one that cemented him in the minds of critics and film buffs as a talent to watch. Over the years he’s given us many excellent films and other forms of entertainment, including developing Netflix’s House of Cards and Mindhunter (a series that follows the inception of the behavioral crimes unit in the FBI and serves as a nice companion to the film I’m about to write about).
Mindhunter and House of Cards are Netflix originals, and currently, you can watch his film, ZODIAC on Netflix as well. ZODIAC was released in 2007 to mixed praise. It’s a long, sprawling film, and despite being about the infamous Zodiac Killer who terrorized Northern California down to the Bay Area. Its loosely based upon the true crime novel of the same name by Robert Graysmith. Graysmith is one of three main characters that Fincher moves around like chess pieces as the film progresses.
Many film critics and fans saw previews of the film in 2007 and assumed (incorrectly) that this would be a return to Fincher’s thriller mode of film making, his earlier works like Se7en, or The Game, or even Panic Room. But what we got instead was infinitely better, though by design and necessity, much harder to access. Fincher was not focused on the killer or the killings, so much as the men who attempted for decades to catch the killer. Men who threw away careers, lives, and families, for the sake of a killer who had slipped into obscurity before ever being caught and who’s identity today remains a mystery, though Graysmith would argue that he did, in fact, uncover that identity at some point.
The film follows Robert Graysmith, Paul Avery, and Dave Toschi as they struggle to put together the puzzle pieces left by the killer and unmask him. Note, these are all people who actually existed, and while the film is a dramatization, one gets the feeling that many of these dramas touch upon the real life drama that was working it’s way out in the 70’s as these men investigated and then obsessed about the Zodiac killer. Avery is a crime beat reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, and is played by the most flamboyant of character actors in this film, Mr. Robert Downey, Jr. Graysmith is a cartoonist at the self-same paper, and is played with a childlike innocence in the early parts of the film by Jake Gyllenhaal. Gyllenhaal likely does the heaviest lifting in the film as his character goes from a peripheral role to the main (and much more obsessed role) as the film progresses. Downey starts strong and then fades as his character relies more and more on alcohol to deal with the stresses of the situation and more importantly of his own obsession. The alcohol works to some degree, but with deadly results, as the film informs us at the end that he dies at age 66, the implication presented being that substance abuse played a heavy role in that death. The last character, Detective Dave Toschi is played by Mark Ruffalo and presents what I would consider to be the most interesting character study in the film.
Detective Toschi is the role model upon which the characters of Bullitt (played by Steve McQueen) and Harry Callahan (of Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry fame) were based. In the first case, the mannerisms adopted (and exaggerated) by McQueen were his own, and in the second the first Dirty Harry film leans heavily into the Zodiac murders for inspiration, including the character of Toschi. What’s fascinating about this from a film perspective, is that while the characters based upon Toschi were passionate, larger than life, vaguely irresponsible characters, Fincher and company choose to swing the opposite way with Ruffalo’s portrayal. There are hints of the passionate cop in his scenes, but by and large he remains a stalwart character. He’s the only one of the three whose fall from grace is both incomplete and seemingly not of his own design. In other words, he plays the straight guy to Gyllenhaal and Avery’s foils.
The film is a masterpiece of character study and the study of obsession within the context of law enforcement and crime. The characters of Avery and Graysmith can not shake their obsessions and as the film progresses, they lose more and more of themselves to it. Avery is implied to lose his job and his health do the unhealthy obsession with the Zodiac. Graysmith, his job, wife, and children. Though the film suggests he’s reconciled with the children at least some time after the events of the film.
Does the film present any actual answers to the Zodiac identity?
Maybe. But to the degree that it may, it’s largely irrelevant, as the real story is what happens when someone stops being reasonable and gives in to the persuasive voice of obsession.
If you’ve got a eye for excellent acting and find yourself intrigued by what you’ve read today, head over to your Netflix account and check out ZODIAC. It remains my favorite David Fincher film and I believe his most complete film to date. For a little extra ZODIAC theme and tone after the film, look up Fincher’s Netflix series Mindhunter, which takes all of the themes of this film and presents them in longform to a, dare I say, more successful result, which says a lot considering my own high praise of Zodiac.
