Who would have thought after the premiere of “Alien 3” that the commercial and music video director behind the ghastly film would go on to be the king of gloss and grit and cool, the David Fincher we know and love today? While no one has really warmed to that film in the years since, we have learned that most of the awfulness can be pinned elsewhere — Fincher was, after all, essentially a hired gun. And when you consider the consistency of the films since, everything from “Se7en” to “Gone Girl,” it’s easy to see that when Fincher gets his way (the shoot-the-scene-50-times way), the product is surgical in its thoroughness, deeply individual, and deftly crafted with a unique and exhaustive vision.
Fincher got his start in the industry with Industrial Light and Magic doing photography, and this eye for the visual has helped mold his style, lending to the distinct stamp to his work the ability to look at a single frame and know for certain whose work you’re looking at. Another trait that has followed the filmmaker for two decades is the pitch-black world view of his films. While, at this point, he is probably still best known to general audiences as the mastermind behind eternal bro-flick “Fight Club,” the film just scratches the surface of what he has to offer (this writer would gladly go toe-to-toe for “Zodiac” being his best work).
READ MORE: Ranked: The Films Of David Fincher
So to remind us of all the genius that Fincher is, Vimeo user Stefano Westerline (who also brought us a supercut of Stanley Kubrick a few weeks back) has cut together another masterful compendium. Highlighting the unmatchable attention to detail, the deviance, the sexuality, and the demented, the supercut pulls from all ten of Fincher’s feature length films (though “The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button” seems to get the least attention — perhaps intentionally). Scored with tracks from Space Monkeys, Donovan, and Fincher’s current composers of choice, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, this is a thoughtful look at the director’s oeuvre so far.
Check out the new supercut and share your Fincher favorites in the comments below.
Alien 3 is far from ghastly, if you have any sense of cinema or art.