While the gender politics behind David Fincher’s much-anticipated Gone Girl adaptation may be muddled, the “dark lord of cinema”‘s direction is as crystalline and precise as ever. Tony Zhou, in his latest Every Frame A Painting, examines how Fincher manages to make even the most expository exchanges cinematic by using framing to relate character dynamics. He also takes a close look at Fincher’s faithfulness to the tripod, sparing use of close-ups, and almost inhuman camera movements. It’s a must watch for anyone who values the abilities of visual language.

Behind the scenes of David Fincher’s new Gap ad campaign, the logistics of growing the beef industry in Kazakhstan, a look at illegal logging in Indonesia and more in this week’s links round-up: • Yesterday the Gap released four new ads directed by David Fincher. Mashable’s Todd Wasserman has the videos and quotes from Gap Global CMO Seth Farbman on Fincher’s typically exacting work process. One spot had the actors running 50 to 60 times up a set of stairs (the audition included ten minutes of running). Fincher lived up to his end of the bargain by creating “a new […]

David Fincher’s second consecutive stab at a blockbuster book adaptation, Gone Girl, seems likely to pop up on the festival circuit (i.e., Toronto) before its October 3 release. In the interim, we have a newer, longer trailer, that relays the brooding tone of his previous procedurals The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and Se7en, with Ben Affleck’s antihero, Nick Dunne, front and center. Having only made it through the first few chapters of Gillian Flynn’s bestseller, it will be interesting to see how Flynn (who penned the script) and Fincher incorporate the dueling first-person perspectives of Nick and his missing wife Amy (Rosamund Pike), beyond what appears […]

Within David Fincher’s filmography, Zodiac has always struck me as something special, if not anachronistic, for its handling of the police procedural genre. Perhaps it’s because, despite legions of so-called confessors, its true-life case was never closed. Appropriately, the film seems less concerned with tidy plotting than the psychosis — personal, collective and social — such a lingering mystery can create. Still, for all the film’s meta-textual aspirations, Fincher is, at heart, a narrative filmmaker and does relate the necessary details with a compendium of insert shots. They are all spliced together here in this supercut from Josh Forrest.

David Fincher directed this beautiful Calvin Klein commercial starring his Girl with a Dragon Tattoo muse, Rooney Mara. Karen O. provides Mara’s interior soundtrack as the actress moves from subway to concert hall. At Movie City News, Ray Pride gives the spot a loving meditation: The glimmering of inconsequence… Angles on cafe to compare with Girl With The Dragon Tattoo; Rooney Mara walking same cadence as cyclist in zebra crossing; sugar crystals in coffee instead of Godardian cream; cuttingly crisp and creased white blouse under fitted form of lightest black leather blouson of highest odor; taffeta dress knee-length as girl-kick […]

In what is easily the most informative internet message board thread I’ve ever come across, “birth – Harris Savides,” which was started on Cinematography.com by a young man you may have heard of named Jody Lipes on November 1, 2004, the conversation turns around midway through to the aggressive underexposure used by Savides on Birth (pictured above). One of the forum’s members, who claimed to have worked on Birth, explained that Savides underexposed the film two stops, and then pulled it two additional stops, netting a total underexposure of four stops – which seems to have sent the head of […]

IFP has partnered with online auction-house Charity Buzz for their annual Gotham Awards silent auction. Between now and December 7th, you can go here to bid on a variety of film-related items, including one-on-one consultations with industry leaders Ted Hope (Double Hope Films), Sheila Nevins (HBO) and Paul Schnee (Barden / Schnee Casting), as well as a visit to the set of the 3rd season of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire. Also up for auction are tickets to the world premiere of David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Or, if you’re looking for something a bit more indie-centric, you can […]

Both a Cannes sensation and a hit television miniseries in France, Olivier Assayas’s Carlos, an incisive and exciting look at left-wing mercenary Ilich Ramírez Sánchez and the political culture that sustained him, now comes Stateside.

Jamie Stuart has made available the complete video interviews excerpted for his short film NYFF 48, which we premiered here at Filmmaker. (If you haven’t watched Jamie’s Kubrick and Bruce Connor-inspired piece of apocalyptic film journalism, please turn up the speakers, turn down the lights, and click here.) After viewing then check out the full interviews by clicking over to Jamie’s site. Here’s Olivier Assayas (pictured). David Fincher. Clint Eastwood and Matt Damon. Joe Dante.

Jamie Stuart’s NYFF 48 is the latest in his annual cinematic trips to the New York Film Festival, “a 13-minute impressionistic juxtaposition of modern film’s evolution and man’s progress.” Turn your lights out, crank your speakers and watch. With appearances by David Fincher, Clint Eastwood, Olivier Assayas, Joe Dante, Charles Ferguson, Frederick Wiseman, and others. The 720p file can be downloaded here. Visit Jamie at Mutiny Company.