AN OPEN-AND-SHUT CAS WHY DAVID FINCHER'S ZODIAC IS THE FILM OF THE YEAR BY KENT JONES

LIKE ANOTHER FILM shor in San moments of this "film that feels like being women wandering into Rivette's house of Francisco 50 years earlier, Zodiac wears trapped inside a filing cabinet," any expec- fiction in Celine and Julie, in tbat the its greatness lightly. Which is to say that tations developed by prolonged exposure action seems botb immediate and leg- neither the master of suspense in 1958 to serial-killer narratives, police-procedural endary, as if it has bappened and is bap- nor the digital-era genius oi 2007 set out melodramas, or stories of amateur detec- pening at tbe same time. Fincbet's grasp of to create "art cinema," but arrived there tives will bave been either annihilated or tbe world of bis story is so firm tbat be through a sheer immersion in their hammered into an unrecognizable shape. does the one thing filmmakers never do immediate material and respective senses The story of Zodiac, like that of Ver- with stories set in tbe past: he empties out of craft. Something in these stories tigo, is told in a very unusual tense. We the action and tbe frame, in order to con- incited an unusual depth of response begin, on tbe one band, "then"—in north- centrate on tbe essentials. from both filmmakers, among the most ern California In 1969, when Fincher him- Far from a postmodern contemplation obsessive ever to step behind a camera. self was coming of age in the Bay Area. of information retrieval in a pre-digital age, Something mysterious and intangible. But of course, it is also "now" for the tbis is a big-budget Hollywood project tbat Fincher has never made another movie characters caught in tbe momentum of has walked into greatness through the like Zodiac. Tn the past, he bas sought out pursuit. So far, so normal. But despite all door of entertainment. There is, in James stories tbat seem to have roughly aligned tbe cars and the haircuts and the music, it's Vanderbilt's script, more than a little of the with his temperament, technically and emo- difficult to call tbis a "period film," since bantering and speechifying one finds on tionally. Here, he appears to have shaped it so consistently refuses to fawn over its network TV. For instance. Bill Armstrong everv' square inch of his material, and be own re-creations. Fincher gives us just {Anthony Edwards) keeping bis partner has taken it (or let it take him) to an enough of any given setting, and tbe Dave Toscbi {Mark Ruffalo) supplied extremely fine end point. Just as Hitchcock details are always overshadowed by the witb animal crackers is the stuff of buddy did with Vertigo, be soars well past the manner in whicb the characters move and movies, but sucb moments stand out in a point of a "real movie," as currently interact witbin them. The viewer is placed field tbat has been shorn of everything defined. By the time you get to the final in roughly the same position as the beyond tbe hard labor of information-

44 I FILM COMMENT I January-February 2008 gathering and case-building, cross- imparted through amplification but conci- ground-level motion from a moving car, as hatched with the (mostly) extremely sub- sion. The acting is set to a rhythm that is suburbanites idly twirl tbeir sparklers and tle acting of real-time exhaustion and far more like life than tbe usual boom- amble across tbeir lawns. These are estab- frustration. This is a film of actions and chicka-BOOM action heat. There's a pow-^ lishing shots, but they also initiate a recur- reactions, occurrences and recurrences, erful sense in Zodiac of individual ring visual pattern, a contrast between the patterned and the random. Compared existences being lived out. God-like remove and eye-level proximity. to Zodiac, All the President's Men, a key Tbe film's many locations, from its Over this opening passage, so lovingly real- inspiration, is a parade of behaviorally bome environments to its murder sites to ized yet already so attuned to random glib cbaracter attractions bundled into a the San Francisco Chronicle office, beauty and bebavioi; Fincber lays the rever- neat suspense package. appear both highly specific and haunting. berating chords and plaintive vocals ofthe In Pakula's visually impressive film, Yet there are no time-stopping visions, as Three Dog Night version of "Easy to Be there is a series of dissolves over the heads there are in Se7en and Fight Club. Just as Hard." How the precise placement of this of Hoffman and Redford as they sift in Hitchcock's San Francisco, Fincher's particular recording over these particular through thousands of White House library portraits of places—the corner of Wash- images will play for someone who did not receipts, wbicb reiterates their needle-in-a- ington and Cherry, Lake Berryessa, a grow up in the America of the late Sixties, I haystack bewilderment. Tbe bigh angle is deserted highway outside Modesto at bave no idea. As someone who did, I can revelatory in another sense: such drudgery, night, a decrepit houseboat—are all tbe say that this song seemed to have been the substance of any real investigation, more powerful for appearing incidental. designed to drift over the airwaves from should only be viewed quickly and from a Fincher takes bis ultra-responsive eye for AM transistor radios on just such summer great height for fear of boring the audi- scale, light, and color and his careful cali- nights. Right away, Fincber gives us an ence. Witb an obsessiveness to match tbat bration of mood and sets himself the chal- extremely vivid, class-specific impression of of his heroes and an ironclad responsibility lenge of putting them at tbe service of a what it felt like to be alive in this time and to tbe truth of bis subject, and perhaps out story in which tonal and visual imposi- place, something tbat will remain impor- of sheer mischievous deligbt, Fincber offers tions are beside tbe point. tant throughout the film. the reverse, a movie that places said July 4, 1969. Vallejo, California. We're Most of tbe musical choices have the drudgery front and center. His protagonists looking at the Mare Island Causeway, same devastating tightness: the buildup to understand that payoffs don't come cheap gracefully described from above, as fire- Sly and the Family Stone's "I Wanna Take and that guns are usually found Iong after works flower and wither in a beautifully You Higher" over a spatially ingenious they've stopped smoking, and a couple of rendered night sky (one among many in Zodiac-letter montage [with its digital quick speeches aside, their frustration isn't this film). Fincher cuts to a rhyming positioning of letters and words across

January-February2008 I FILM COMMENT I 45 FlNALCUTt2OO7

three-dimensional space, it's even more fisbing trips and Sunday afternoon foot- movies have been devoted to rogue cops exciting than Fight Club's ingenious Ikea cat- ball, all in two quick scenes and about 40 and private eyes getting around the law, alogue descriptions); the incantatory open- words. Clea DuVall as Linda del Buono, the better to get to the next action scene. ing of Marvin Gaye's "Inner City Blues" giving ber hundredth jailhouse interview to Tbis is finally not a movie about a ser- over another digital tour-de-force, the fast- the latest Zodiac specialist, her smile bitter, ial killer, but about the real-life exhaustion motion building of the TransAmerica Tower; loose, and haphazardly insinuating, ber of trying to catch one—tbe monumental and Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man," intelligence blunted by tbe tortuous daily difficulty of sifting tbrougb evidence and finally given its creepy due by being married routines of a prison stretcb—again, the building cases, the equally monumental to tbe first murder in a deserted lovers' lane screen time is minimal but tbe impression disappointment of seeing your favorite sus- and reprised over the final credit roll. is lasting, and it's more than a question of pect disqualified, the effort expended to go The murder scenes are quite unlike any- "good aaors." Fincher's complete control back to tbe drawing board. It's a movie thing else in tbe film. We are placed very, and inside-out understanding of bis mater- about getting sucked into tbe vortex of very dose to Mike Mageau and Darlene ial allows bim to make a movie of large- obsession, as tbe expanding distance in Ferrin in their cai; Bryan Hartnell and scale excitements generated by small-scale time from the actual event makes an Cecilia Shepard at the lake, and Kathleen events and activities. His well-known abstraction out of the investigation itself Johns on Highway 13, and freakish details attention to detail rivals Visconti's, but it and turns the case into an urban legend— are foregrounded—Mageau's thick lips, moves in multiple directions at once—an or in tbis case, fodder for a Nixon-era cop Ferrin's lipsticked mouth over a mass of agile, creative, and logistical mind at work movie ("So much for due process," says a braces, tbe starched Republican cleanliness in the age of digital workflow. quietly disgusted Toschi at the premiere of of HartneU and Shepard against the eerily Zodiac's most perfectly realized scene Dirty Harry). In Zodiac, the weight of time pristine landscape around Lake Berryessa. takes place in the film's one solidly indus- presses in from all direaions—the duration Tbeir faces partly obscured by sbadow or trial setting. The investigating officers, of the actual case, tbe crystalline represen- angled into an insea-like oddness, tbese sit- Toschi, Armstrong, and Mulanax, are led tation of a world gone by as it migbt bave ting targets are not exactly deprived of tbeir to a penned-off lunchroom in a factory. filmed itself, and most of all via the quietly hiimanity but they are objectified, made Their key suspect, Arthur Leigh Allen (John authoritative acting. into objects of contemplation, perhaps Carroll Lynch), shuffles into tbe room. The The best performance is the least echoing the removed viewpoint of the scene is reasonably well-written, but it's assuming. Robert Downey Jr. as tbe flam- Zodiac himself. In an striking move, perfectly acted, paced, and spatially orga- boyant Paul Avery is tbe kind of acting Fincher gives us the aftermaths of tbe nized. Tbe excitement is in the sense of that gets recognized, and not to slight his attacks, in wbicb tbe (mate) survivors sit In expeaation, carefully muted but running work or tbe extraordinary refinement of a state of dazed awe, as if they'd returned like an electrical current among three cops Ruffalo, Lyncb, and Koteas, but Anthony fi-om alien abductions. The victims are who tbink tbey've finally hit the investiga- Edwards's brilliant performance in a unwitting catalysts, allowing a story that's tive jackpot. The quandrangular conversa- "thankless" role Is at the heart of Zodiac. much bigger tban them to begin. Yet during tion, the crisscrossing pathways of glances, His Bill Armstrong is all business all the such moments, there's a strong sense of reactions, and counter-reactions, every urge time, whether he's making sure bis partner murder as a tear in the social fabric, an to emote tamped back down into blank- is well-fed or coordinating a murder inves- event both traumatizing and inexplicable. faced concentration, accumulates in detail tigation across three states. Despite tbe fact Zodiac Is not exactly tbe decentered film and peaks witb Lynch's deadpan reading of tbat he's been tempered by age, Edwards's tbat some admirers have claimed it to be— the line, "I'm not the Zodiac, and if 1 was I Kewpie-doll features, saucer eyes, puckisb it is not the big-budget equivalent of I'm certainly wouldn't tell you." Fincher ends mouth, and pleasantly nasal voice are Not There. It is, however, a movie in whicb tbe scene with a mirror reversal of its begin- largely unchanged from bis Top Gun days. absolutely everyone counts, from the always ning, a lateral tracking movement away Which gives the beavily experienced Arm- terrific Elias Koteas as Sgt. Jack Mulanax to from the cops behind the grating, under- strong a nice bint of innocence preserved. the small army of Samaritans wbo come to scored by a near-subliminal rbythmic Edwards's discipline here matches tbat of the aid of tbe survivors and the cops. Who- pounding in the industrial distance. his direaor. No jumping at hidden emo- ever is on screen, Fincber is responsive to Cat-and-mouse games between inves- tions, no "eloquent silences." Ever>T:hing is their shape, affect, posture, voice, the precise tigators and favorite suspects are nothing imparted through action, and there's a manner in wbich their character relates to new, but what's notable here is the fine- strong intimation of willpower, of psyching tbe immediate environment. Jobn Terry as tuning. The cops aren't studying Allen's up for every occasion after reflexively dis- Cbarles Theriot, the publisber of tbe Chrort- personality but the array of possible evi- placing all disappointment and frustration. icle—elegant, stiff-backed, immaculately dence he's laying out as he speaks. There's Tbat's wby his final scene, in whicb be sud- dressed, suggesting an entire worid of late- no giveaway of abnormality (heyond a denly tells Toschi that he's asked for a trans- Sixties California aristocracy beyond the faintly unpleasant prissiness), no Lecter- fen, packs such a punch: this is a guy wbo frame in a minute or less of screen time. isb mind-melding. The drama of tbe scene wants to unburden bimself of the colossal James Le Gros as Vallejo detective Geoi^e is in the intensity of studying, surveying, effort required to be a good cop. Bawart—beefy, tanned, and brimming with sizing up witbin tbe limits of tbe law. If Edwards is Zodiac's greatest success confidence, inferring a whole other world a Fincber and Vanderbilt's thoroughness in (and biggest surprise), its one failure few rungs down the economic ladder, of this area is a reminder of bow many belongs to Jake Gyllenhaal. His acting

46 FILM COMMENT I January-February 2008 Continued from page 4 ^

rubs hard against the grain of everything providing the film with what appears to than his seminal The Power of Night- good about the movie. He's fine with the be its only certainty. The images seem mares (05), the latest from British TV's straight-arrow side of Graysmith, but the suspended in time, self-reflexive, and foremost essayist is a three-part BBG idea that he's an avid reader is almost as with an overwhelmingly beautiful plas- series subtitled "What Happened to preposterous as the notion that he would ticity. They recall by turns the aesthetic our Dream of Freedom?" Ranging have either the stamina or the obsessive and narrative origins of the Lumieres across politics, philosophy, and eco- intensity of focus needed to conduct a pri- and Griffith and the avant-garde princi- nomic theory, his thesis is that "free- vate murder investigation. Imagine Zodiac ples of Warhol, ultimately tied together dom" today is conceived according to with another Graysmith—Ryan Gosling, in a fable referencing Filipino mythol- the narrow limitations of market calcu- for instance, or James McAvoy—and you'll ogy.—Manuel Ydnez Murilto lations and an ideological perspective see what I mean. However, Fincher's movie that views human beings as intrinsi- is so perfectly engineered that it can even A SHORT FILM FOR LAOS (23) cally selfish and isolated.—Chris Darke carry a babyish actor who goes slack when- ALLAN SEKULA. U.S. ever he's outside his comfort zone. A DELICATE 40-MINUTE TAPESTRY OF UNITED RED ARMY Just as Hitchcock probably didn't go impressions and observations from a KOJI WAKAMATSU. JAPAN into Vertigo looking to create a grand med- trip to Laos: the Plain of Jars; the A THREE-HOUR PORTRAIT OF AN ALL- itation on time, I think Fincher wanted to ancient capital during a festival; a OUT class-war-driven faction of make a movie "based on actual case files" knife forge; a small brick factory; Japan's ultra-left: the United Red and wound up with something much pebble sifting. Gall it an essay on what Army's emergence from the political grander. In the end, he arrives at a fine the world's made of, i.e., iron and struggles of the Sixties, its innumerable philosophical point—he's gone so deep water and fire and earth. Wryly ironic, political causes, and its long, terrible that he can't conceivably wind up any- compassionate, and unprepossessingly disintegration in the winter of 1971-2 simple.—Olaf Moller where else. As consumed as it is with fail- when 14 members died during brutal ure, Zodiac does, of course, have its terrorist actions, climaxing in a 10-day triumph, albeit a private one shared by THE SILENCE BEFORE BACH de) standoff with the police. Both under- Graysmith and Toschi. But well before '-•iKi i-'(,'RTABELLA. SPAIN standing and critical, this radically then, we're presented with a troubling THE RETURN OF PORTABELLA, AFTER A detailed, unflinching docudrama epic question. Why bother with the Zodiac? 17-year hiatus, was one of the year's also has a poetic aspect. A monu- Why care about a few unsolved murders, major film events. The Catalan master ment.—Olaf Moller when hundreds have been committed since hasn't lost his cutting-edge instincts or his in the immediate area? Why indeed? Gray- command of the enigmatic meter that THE UNPOLISHED (24) smith's answer ("Somebody has to"} seems underlies his work. His depiction of PIA MARAIS, GERMANY perfunctory. And despite his tabletop musical performance is materialist to the TN HER SLOW-BURNING AND MOVING indictment of Allen, and a permanently point of abstraction, his writing like cal- chamber piece, Marais stays close to her haunted Mageau making a positive identi- ligraphy, his treatment of space architec- 14-year-old heroine, whose longing for fication in the film's stirring final scene, tonic, and his narrative free-floating. the straight life puts her at odds with her we're left with only 80 percent certainty Transcending its subject, Johann Sebast- addict mother and ex-con father. The that Allen was the murderer. ian Bach, this film positions itself as an terrific cast and fine ensemble acting Not that we should want more after 22 essayistic meditation on art as a destruc- supply vital emotional authenticity. The years. Zodiac is one of the few films I've tive vehicle of social prejudice and an Unpolished also features one of the hall- ever seen that is, finally, at peace with incarnation of the contradictions of Euro- marks of the German New Wave: an uncertainty. Fincher the fact-based realist pean history.—Manuel Ydnez Murillo ability to make the featureless nowheres has made a movie that ends, without any of suburbia glow with heightened pretense or sentimentality, within the THE TRAP ADAM CURTIS. U.K. atmospheric intensity. Marais is a talent realm of probability, stubbornly if not NO LESS AMBITIOUS AND HOTLY TOPICAL to watch.—Chris Darke valiantly refusing to soar off one more time into the infectious dream and immediate satisfaction of 100 percent metaphysical certainty. Of course, that lingering 20 per- BEST FILMS OF 2007 READERS'POLL cent is one of the elements that makes You've heard our take on this year's crop of films. Now it's your turn to give us your top picks and Zodiac such a haunting experience. Yet for your takes on the movies of 2007. We'll print the results in our March/April issue and publish your all of its destruction, sadness, and failure, comments on our website. To enter: Send your list ofthe year's 20 best films along with your name, its ruined lives and depleted energies. address, and phone number, to [email protected], by mail to Film Comment Readers' Poll, 70 Lin- Zodiac offers something rare: a just por- coln Center Plaza. New York NY 10023, or by fax to 212*875-5636. And feel free to send in any rants, trait of communal human effort across a raves, or insights on the movies of 2007. Deadline: FEBRUARY 18, 2008. Prizes: First Prize: your believable expanse of time. It's one of the choice of Criterion Collection DVOs, up to S200 in value. Second Prize: up to S120. Third & Fourth most hopeful films I've seen in years, and prizes: up to S80.The winners, w h o will be picked by random draw, can select prizes, subject to avail- one of the most satisfying. C abiliry, from the Criterion Collection catalogue (www.criterionco.com).

January-February2008 I FILM COMMENT i 47