A Case Study on David Fincher

David Fincher:

The link below is a video called 'David Fincher: a film title retrospective' this features a mixture of 9 films directed by Fincher. Including:

• Alien3 (1992)
• Se7en (1995)
• The Game (1997)
• Fight Club (1999)
• Panic Room (2002)
• Zodiac (2007)
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
• The Social Network (2010)
• The Girl With a Dragon Tattoo (2011)

http://vimeo.com/44890024

 1. Outline how Fincher approaches the creation of an opening title sequence for a film.
Fincher likes to use the name of the movie to create the opening title sequence. For example with the film The Game the first couple of credits which are titled: Polygram Filmed Entertainment Presents, A Propaganda Film Production, THE GAME all move on to the next slide by breaking the slide away with puzzle pieces this abides the name of the movie THE GAME and makes the viewer more interested. The title sequence then goes on to an old home video with the score (by Howard Shore) occuring a simple piano playing. The film starts off with a modern edge to the movie and then goes on to a memory. The contrast between them is that the game is the present time (the modern edge) and it may have something connected to the young boy and his father who frequantly pop up.
Reading the interview on http://www.artofthetitle.com Fincher had a lot of ideas himself for the title sequence on SE7EN but realised that none of them were as good as the ones, director Kyle Cooper had given him. Cooper gave Fincher ideas and Fincher was inspired by Cooper's previous creations and this is what they both came up with:

2. Deconstruct the opening of Fincher's film SE7EN (as shown above). Key words Denotation/connotation.

DENOTATION:

• The messy writing of the credits could be a denotation that the person the hands belong to are either very messy in their work or psychologically they are very messed up.
• The title SE7EN flashes and then disorientates this could be the denotation of the film being a psychologically disorientating film.

CONNOTATION:

• Flaking skin off fingers with a knife and then the high piched screech in the music could be a connotation of a woman screaming.
• The tea bag could be connoting blood as it leaks from the body just like the tea leaks from the bag.
• Dirty hands on clean paper connotes paedophilia-the cleanliness of the paper connotes an innocent young body and the dirty hand connotes the dirty mind of the paedophile or the dirty things that is going to happen to the body.

3. What kind of story world is signposted in the opening of  the film SE7EN?

I believe that the type of story world that is trying to be signposted in the opening of the film SE7EN is a psychological thriller/Horror. That includes a lot of murders because the books that are filmed during the opening have got pictures of dead, grey hands that are bent in the fingers and look slightly broken. Pictures of a man's head half shaven, pictures of naked babies, colouring in a man's face with a perminent marker, etc.
I think the "murderer" likes to document their victims. Or perhaps this isn't the murderer but a man that has had a family member murdered and is documenting all the other murders that could help lead him to the real murderer.