David Fincher: “When you give people a story without a moral, they get confused and blame the director”

2023-10-25 21:55:11

The director of legendary works such as ‘Seven’, ‘Fight Club’ and ‘Zodiac’ returns to the stage of the first with ‘The Assassin’, a ‘thriller’ about a chemically perfect professional executioner

AP/ CHRISTOPHE ENA

Updated Wednesday, October 25, 2023 – 21:55

The murderer, the last job of David Fincher (Denver, Colorado, 1962), is, above all, a tremendously moral film. Yes, it is the story of a very immoral hitman, but, above all, it reflects on the consequences of actions, on work ethics, on regret for the mistakes made and, to put it briefly, on the precision with which evil, in general, does its thing. Incidentally, the film represents the return of its author to the inalienable fascination with crime in its most brutal and evident crudeness.

From the hand of Michael Fassbender, tells the story of a hitman who is forced to try to alleviate the always tremendous effects of a fatal mistake. He receives us in Venice shortly after the film’s presentation at the Mostra. On the Lido, precisely, Fight Club premiered almost 25 years ago.

Critics received the 1999 film somewhat divided. How much does that first reaction affect you as an author? I have to correct you. It was not a divided reception. No. Everyone hated my movie. And I understand it. First they accused me of exhibiting toxic masculinity, although, honestly, I still don’t really know what that is. But I think what’s relevant is that when you ask people to identify and empathize with a character who goes without a guide, who doesn’t propose articulated solutions to her frustration and discomfort, then it gets messy. The public, in some way, always wants to be oriented, to know that things go from one state to another, from the liquid state to the gaseous state, in a regulated manner. What we see in some of my films and in Fight Club especially is frustrated characters who only find relief in the terrible ideas of another character in even worse condition. And it happens that when you give people a story without a moral, they get confused and blame the director. Now, if you ask me if the mistake was mine for not giving enough clues, I will say no. I did give the necessary clues. It doesn’t bother me that people don’t listen to me, and it doesn’t bother me that people are offended, but it’s not fair to accuse me of something I didn’t do. Does it hurt you that it’s still being talked about? No, I don’t want to discuss the past. I really do not care. I truly believe that if you give it enough time, the movie works. But I’m not the one to judge it. It’s still almost a contemporary classic. Regarding The Assassin, the reception seems different. I was wondering if the mantra the killer repeats to himself (“Keep the plan. Anticipate, don’t improvise”) is advice David Fincher repeats when he shoots himself. Otherwise, does the profession of a hitman have anything to do with that of a film director? There is something. In both cases it is a meticulous job that requires a refined technique. And it is true that when you finish a day of work, you have the feeling that there is no turning back. What done is done. In the case of a murderer, if he makes a mistake he goes to prison for life. There is a difference of degree, but there is something there and you can take the comparison as far as you want. Anyway, my impression is that filming is more like a military skirmish than committing a murder. What I do has less to do with Lee Harvey Oswald and more to do with George Patton. The killer in your movie is a completely immoral guy for obvious reasons, but at the same time he defends a very strict work ethic. Yes, and in some ways , it’s very boring, who would say that about a hitman. But I think what’s relevant both for him and for all of us is how much of what we tell ourselves and what we want to believe is true. He constantly tells himself that he should not improvise and that he should stick to a plan, but when push comes to shove he has no choice but to constantly improvise. And that’s a little bit what happens to all of us in life. We dictate rules to ourselves that we are incapable of complying with because reality makes everything much more complex and unpredictable. What Mike Tyson said about his opponent’s plans lasting as long as it takes one of his punches to knock him down, that’s what happens to all of us constantly. This is not the first time he’s talked about a murderer…From a murderer to salary, yes. Let’s say that it is not the first time that a murder presides over a film in his filmography. It has been said that with this film he returns to his essence. But I wanted to ask him about the act of killing itself. Don’t you find it curious that the Christian commandment of Thou shalt not kill occupies a very discreet position in the list of 10 between honoring parents and not committing impure acts? Wow! He hadn’t thought about it. I want to believe that for an organized religion it is a tactical decision. Anyway, I don’t want to be original. I don’t know the reasons why crimes, violence or death interest us so much. You’d have to ask Hitchcock. I imagine there’s something on our minds. If you get used to passing in front of a house at a certain time of day or night and you always see a certain thing, the moment something strange happens that does not correspond to what is usual, it is always interpreted as something morbid. We are very alert to the possibility of drama. The human being is a vampire of drama, of morbidity, of the spectacle of murder… If someone lives at the end of an alley and the lights in his house are always off, we do not think that he is an avid book reader. of Science. No, the first thing that comes to mind is that something strange is happening. As the Tom Waits song would say What’s He Building in There? (What’s going on there?) I think there is a tendency in humans to attribute sinister implications to things because it makes life more pleasant. Michael Fassbender in a moment from ‘The Killer’.

Mank, his previous film based on a script by his own father, was perhaps his most personal film, most hopeless with his own profession…All my films are desperately personal and at the same time desperately impersonal. If I think about Seven, for example, of course it was personal. I remember where I was then in my life and the things I was willing to give up to make the ending of the movie work and for the studio to accept it, and it was all a personal thing. And that is regardless of the fact that he has never been an investigator nor has he ever been to a school for police officers…My idea was to ask him about the sour vision of Hollywood that came from Mank. I think that if he had made the film when he was 30 years old he would have been incapable of looking at Hollywood in such an acidic way. And I also wouldn’t have been as honest as I think I was. But I also have no animosity toward how Hollywood cannibalizes its own. I have friends who are children of famous and incredibly famous actors, directors or producers and their relationship with the industry is different. Critics and film writers judged that I had taken out the ax against Hollywood, but all I did was tell the moral and ethical implications of dealing with people like Louis B. Mayer. If you look closely, it’s not much different than what happens with the character who hires the hitman in the last film. He’s not a mustache-twisting villain; It’s just another piece of machinery and it’s no worse than the woman he goes to to have his $8 million sent to the Cayman Islands. Seven, since you mentioned it before, is considered to be the movie that changed the world. thriller rules and House of cards is a new proposal for television. Do you feel comfortable with the label of innovator? I am a restless and curious person. We are all bodies whose cells change completely every seven years. I’m not one of those people who see a mountain and feel the need to climb it. I limit myself to looking around me and trying to locate the stories that deserve to be told. When I made The Social Network, my intention was not to inaugurate an era of stories based on startups, but it happened that after it there were three or four stories a year about the same thing. Well, there is a certain pride in being the precursor of a genre, but I never thought when I made the film that I was a pioneer of anything, I simply told a story that I thought was interesting. For me it was simply a story of friendship that reminded me of myself when I was young trying to do things without anyone’s permission. A widespread opinion among veteran filmmakers is to see everything as a threat: new technologies, platforms, Intelligence Artificial… I get the impression that it is not your case that, basically, you have tried everything. I never question what interests me because it is a fucking waste of time. What is the thought process that leads you to do or try something? Don’t know. If I thought like that, I probably wouldn’t get out of bed. My job consists of transforming the written word into images. And when I work, my only question is, “How do I make it understandable and how do I get strangers to see it in a way they may not have seen before?” And that is my responsibility. It starts and ends there…
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