No he's definately my man.
Evaluation
"When I began my Small Scale research, I originally decided to explore Alfred Hitchcock. However, I quickly decided to look at David Fincher instead because I am an avid fan of Fincher’s work, and I wanted to discover more about Fincher as an auteur, deconstructing the style he has developed throughout his career.
After choosing David Fincher as the focus of my presentation and developing my question, I picked the films by Fincher I wanted to use. As soon as I decided on David Fincher, I knew Se7en would be my focus film; in my opinion it encapsulates Fincher’s distinctly dark visual style, and the narrative has the key themes of Fincher’s work running through it: death, the “American nightmare,” decay as art and moral turmoil. Due to Fincher’s limited filmography, I did not have a wide range of films to choose from; however, the quality of his films and the strength of his auteur signature within them made it easy to select two other films: Fight Club and Panic Room. I already had these films on DVD, which was very useful because the special features on the DVDs gave me an insight into what Fincher wanted to create and the production process of each film from his perspective.
The Internet was a very valuable tool as it provided me with a wide range of articles and critical essays on Fincher’s career, analysing his films. However, the negative side of this was the unreliability of some of these sources; because of this I restricted my focus to established, credible websites such as http://www.empireonline.com, http://www.imdb.com and http://film.guardian.co.uk which all provided me with essential information that was beneficial in constructing my presentation as they gave me background to Fincher’s career and a critical response to his films. I also was able to post a question on the Imdb forum, to gauge a response from film fans around the world. Unfortunately, I only received a few responses of varying quality, which was less than I had hoped for.
I was surprised to find a serious lack of academic books about David Fincher and his films. I only found two books: “Dark Eye: The Films of David Fincher” by James Swallow, and “BFI Modern Classics: Seven” by Richard Dyer. Unfortunately “Dark Eye…” was unavailable which was a problem; However I was able to purchase “BFI Modern Classics: Seven,” which became one of, if not my key text, because it deconstructed and analysed all the elements of Seven, from the themes to Fincher’s cinematography, especially the look of Seven which was crucial to my investigation, and it was written by Richard Dyer, a respected academic, providing me with an academic insight into the film which was reliable and incredibly informative. I managed to find many magazine articles of varying significance: the most valuable articles came from Sight and Sound magazine, especially “The Allure of Decay” article. However, the rest were less detailed and academic, but still provided me with a critical view of Fincher.
If I were able to undertake this research again, I would definitely create a questionnaire to discover what my fellow film studies students and peers thought about David Fincher’s ability to create American nightmares, and if they believe he deserves auteur status. I think that this would have been an extremely beneficial avenue of research. Apart from a questionnaire, I was very happy with the research, and most importantly the results I discovered; I have definitely learnt more about Fincher’s early years (working at ILM) and also the recurring theme of decay as art, which I was fascinated with.
David Fincher is a rare breed: an independent artist who has flourished in the Hollywood system. His name truly belongs among the great directors: Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Howard Hawks etc. He is a true “auteur” and deserves much academic and popular acclaim. "
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Quite much from the man, isn't it? Well why not relax a bit and admire the likes of another genius, but from from the world of Art: Richard Gray.
His illustration work is impeccable, showing the ability to present sinister and in some cases disturbing scenes through a portrayal of elegant lines and beautiful colour pallets.
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