Movie expectations are a dangerous bag. We savor anticipation, but envisioning a positive experience before you’ve actually had the experience can warp perception and lead to anti-climax: the proverbial let down.
Hype is another form of expectation, one that is projected from external sources. And how many times have we heard the phrase: “It just doesn’t live up to the hype.” We get suckered by marketing and take solace in acerbic criticism. We love to hate the let down.
I went to my local video store a couple of weeks ago on a mission. It was time, I decided, to watch The Social Network, the much acclaimed film by director David Fincher (Seven, Fight Club) about the founding of Facebook.
Rarely do my trips to Super-A Video feel like such an event. First of all, Columbia Pictures has gone all out on a gorgeous, deluxe box for this film. I felt like I was in a record store again, holding in my hands, for the first time, a new album I had been waiting for. Some of you will remember what that was like…
On the cover, a host of superlatives from the likes of The New York Times, New Yorker, and Rolling Stone Magazine. “Stupendous!” “Exhilarating!” “Absolutely emblematic of its time and place!” The list of ecstatic declamations was exhilarating in itself. But it also made me nervous. Will it live up to the hype[rbole]?
So this was my Friday night. I dimmed the lights and sank into my couch, prepared for what was, in the educated opinion of many, a defining cinematic event. This is my substitute for romance, I guess. And in this case: no anticlimax.
The film starts at a blistering pace with a scene of two people sitting relatively still. The momentum is in the dialogue, in the intellectual animation of two brains on fire. I watched the movie again on Saturday, this time with a friend, and he was literally on the edge of his seat, concentrating to following the rapid-fire repartee which is the opening salvo of Fincher’s film. And then he said, “Wow. What a way to start a movie.” Certainly makes you pay attention.
Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men, TV’s The West Wing), who is known for his dense, tightly scripted approach to writing, has already won the Golden Globe for this piece of work and the Oscar seems likely. But don’t let my description of the opening scene scare you off. The Social Network is not an exhausting experience. It chronicles a moment of great creative outpouring in the lives of brilliant people who think very quickly, and it finds a way to carry you along, and in, to the tale of their accomplishments and relationships.
The DVD extras illuminate what can happen when a great director, writer and actors work collaboratively on a project like this, providing a rare glimpse into the artistic process of an incredible team. Fincher (Golden Globe, Best Director), comes off as an affable perfectionist, admired in spite of the fact that he will do 99 takes of a scene—ie: that electric opening. And the newly feted Jesse Eisenberg, with a host of Best Actor nominations for his role as principle Facebook architect Mark Zuckerberg, seems almost as smart as the genius he portrays.
The other star of this film is Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ original soundtrack. At times haunting, at times propulsive, these long-time musical partners (Nine Inch Nails) have created a techno film score that will make your home theatre sing. Never obtrusive, always complimentary, it adds tone and depth, feeling and movement to this film. And it is cool. This is important. Zuckerberg knew that, with Facebook, he was on to something cool. He also knew that there is no more precious commodity—aside from sex—when it comes to marketing to young adults.
The Social Network, too, is that rare constellation of co-factors: it is a document, and example, of pop-culture that is blisteringly smart, sophisticated, exciting, funny, sexy, and cool. It is also a work of art, and for all of these reasons it is, truly, an emblem and anthem of our time. For the Silo, Chris Dowber.