The evolving crisis of masculinity in David Fincher’s Mank, Fight Club, and The Social Network
What’s common between the following: a film memoir of the Old Hollywood and one particular screenwriter drinking his way to his grave; a thriller about a man who tries to overcome his insomnia by unconsciously wreaking havoc throughout the continent; and a biographical drama built around the development of what is now one of the most influential social media platforms? It is David Fincher who directed all of them. Although he is not the only bridge between these movies, his story comes first.
David Fincher is an American director born in 1962 who established himself as one by working on commercials and music videos. In 1990, he was hired to direct the third movie of the Alien trilogy, Alien 3 (1992). Despite the disappointment of his work on that movie, he went on to direct Se7en (1995), The Game (1997), and the rest of his eight feature films. He is famous for his many takes, the shot stabilization technique he pioneers, and the use of CGI in post-production.
He is meticulous about every frame, camera movement, and actor’s performance, and that’s why he often does dozens of takes making him difficult to work with. In his opinion, he is not a perfectionist, “There’s just a difference between mediocre and acceptable.” Some onlookers might not agree. Brad Pitt, who has worked with him on three movies, shares that Fincher can detect any little trouble during shooting and looks as if it hurts him physically.
“There are definitely times when I can be confrontational if I see someone slacking. People go through rough patches all the time. I do. So I try to be compassionate about it. But. It’s Four. Hundred. Thousand. Dollars. A day. And we might not get a chance to come back and do it again.”
He wants every component of a scene to align perfectly to tell the story and for that to happen before the ninth shot is unlikely in his opinion.
The shot stabilization technique helps him correct even the slightest imperfection in camera movement. He shoots in approximately 20% bigger frames than he needs for the final picture, so he can have more freedom to work with the ready material. Yet, that does not stop him from enforcing the philosophy of “the camera moves with the actor”: when the actor leans, adjusts, stops, the camera follows both the same direction and the same speed. That enhances a scene visually but also creates space for the viewer to feel closer to the characters. In terms of post-production, the use of CGI effects might have made him looser on-set. With its help, he can touch up flaws and create his distinguished camera movements through floors, kettles, and behind refrigerators.
Surprisingly, David Fincher claims to dread directing. From an early age, he started drawing, acting, and creating, but he could never realize the image in his mind as precisely as he wanted to. So, in a way, directing satisfied this desire of his to “get that idea in your head out.” When asked about his choice of scripts, he responds that his drive is to make movies that he wants to see. In an interview with Gavi Smith, he shares:
“A friend of mine used to say there’s a pervert on every block, there’s always one person in every neighborhood who’s kind of questionable. You’re looking for that one pervert story.”
He has managed to do just that. His most famous movie characters are people driven by so much discontent for their life and surroundings that they become psychotic or fanatical. Although the gender, context, era, and story line are entirely different, the main characters in all movies are united by their dissatisfaction. Their environment has imposed on them some requirements perceived as limitations. Consequently, their need to cope evolves into a full-blown obsession or radical decision-making.
In Se7en, we can witness how resentment toward people can turn into a psychopath’s work of art in the face of John Doe (Kevin Spacey), but we can also follow the personal drama of Detective Mills (Brad Pitt) and his wife (Gwyneth Paltrow). In Zodiac (2007), we are presented with the outlier cartoonist (Jake Gyllenhaal) whose main goal in life becomes to identify a serial killer, losing his family and job on the way. Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike), the protagonist in Gone Girl (2014), is a woman whose failing marriage drives her to extreme lengths to make her husband (Ben Affleck) pay for his disinterest in amending it. The list of dissatisfied and obsessed characters can go on and on but that is not the point. The whole filmography of Fincher is impressive but I want to focus on just three films with a common, more specific theme. The three main male characters in Mank (2020), Fight Club (1999), and The Social Network (2010), are men undergoing some personal crisis. All of them have their characteristics, hopes, and dreams, context. Also, all of them need to adjust to the societal ideal of what masculinity means.
Although I was drawn to analyze the crisis of masculinity in the scope of the Hollywood portrayal of men, I realized it is too narrow. Mank, although shot in 2020, is based in the decade right after the Great Depression of the 20th century. Fight Club was released on the verge of the new millennia, as corporations and consumerism were starting to dominate. Lastly, The Social Network’s story is situated right before the big recession of 2008 when digital technologies became the norm. These characters belong to different decades and social strata. Exploring their crisis of masculinity from a standardized angle would do them no justice. Requirements and ideals were changing with the times and needs of society and maybe that ambivalence of a man’s worth and image is to blame for the crisis of masculinity of David Fincher’s characters.
To begin with, Mank is a biopic that focuses on Herman Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) during his writing of the script of Citizen Kane (1941). Another script is worth mentioning here, too. Mank’s script is based on one of the drafts of Fincher’s late father, Jack Fincher. He was the person who awakened his son’s curiosity toward film. Besides, this was a film he had wanted to work on for as long as he had directed. Ironically, The Netflix production company, a new, digital, movie streaming platform, gave him all the creative freedom to make a movie about the Golden Age of Hollywood and the studio system era.
The movie takes place in Hollywood, and the main timeline is placed at the beginning of the 40s. There is also plenty of retrospection, through flashbacks that take us almost a decade back, following the events after the Great Depression. These flashes from the past show us that Mank used to be a well-respected name, a part of the Hollywood elite. The most important asset of a man in these circles was the magnitude of his power and wealth. And although Mank had none, he was admirably witty and outgoing and managed to get himself a place at the big table. Or at least that is what he thought. Mank was one of the closest acquaintances of William Hearst (Charles Dance), a businessman, politician, and newspaper tycoon. Therefore, he often attended parties and dinners with other influential people such as Louis Mayer (Arliss Howard) and Irving Thalberg (Ferdinand Kingsley), the men behind MGM Studios.
Although these people were not supposed to go out of their way to create political propaganda, they still did. Orchestrated by Hearst, the MGM studios created a massive disinformation campaign in favor of one of the candidates for governor of California. When Mank learned about that, he turned his fury into an idea. Yet, he failed to realize that however superb he is as a screenwriter, his influence is only perceived. Once his script, full of characters based on all the people he wanted to denounce, came out, his alleged position declined. He was just the organ grinder’s monkey, a tool in the hands of the paramount figures, who was supposed to do as they say to keep his place.
Contrary to expectations, Mank refused to support causes he was not invested in and as a result, lost most of his connections. He was known for his gambling and drinking problems, yet, it is unsure when and why they began. It can be speculated, though, that Mank was trying to deal with his inner discomfort because he was just a pawn in the hands of people he considered close. After these elections and his exile from the high society of the Holywood motion picture industry, he started fighting for recognition but his addictions became more prominent, too. Throughout the movie and for the rest of his life, he struggled to keep sober until he eventually passed away. His crisis consisted of his inability to position himself among the powerful and wealthy men of Holywood. He failed to attain lasting glory and influence. Additionally, he was abstinent as a father and a husband, meaning he fulfilled none of his conventional roles as a man in his society.
In Fight Club, the time, place, and characters are different, yet, the motive of dissatisfaction carries along. The story takes place in Wilmington, Delaware, at the end of the twentieth century, precisely when consumerism has started to take the world by storm. It is almost like a new world religion where every animal and piece of nature, including humans, are objectified and commodified. Everything is treated as it is dispensable and infinite without the simple realization that we live in a world with limited resources. In this society, men, who were often required to be physically strong and brave throughout the history of people are no longer the norm. In the present, we have them be “hunters in a society of shopping” as said by David Fincher.
These men’s corporate jobs are mildly put dissatisfying to them. They are emasculating. Men have been forced to measure their value, not in terms of their mutual mission, goals, and accomplishments but in their ability to participate in the consumerist culture. The unnamed narrator (Edward Norton) is one of those men, stuck at a corporate job he despises. As a result of his job and the exasperation it brings, he suffers from insomnia. On one of his work trips, he meets Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) who is everything a man wants to be: free, strong, and independent. They later team up and create an underground group of other unsatisfied men to fight each other and feel men again. These men who are no longer facing any challenges are trying to form their own. The blood baths and aggressive demonstrations of disobedience are their ways of doing that. They are once again trying to find a common enemy: their society, hence each other.
The protagonist in Fight Club is another male character who cannot align his wants and needs with those of his society. He wants to be involved in situations when he can show strength and courage. Instead, he is expected to work a monotone job, earn money and spend them on possessions that end up possessing him. The ever-changing mold of what a man should be has shifted once again providing men with no space and no choice to change accordingly.
Talking about change, The Social Network is a movie that depicts accurately the turbulent progression of a man’s image. In Fight Club, the characters who are the embodiment of the desired masculinity are extremely physically advanced, muscular, with their bodies twisting and sweating and showing in the majority of shots. In The Social Network, the Winklevoss twins (Armie Hammer), the characters who resemble Tyler Durden, the truly masculine male, are no longer on the winning side. Instead, the character of Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), who is physically weak but mentally advanced is the one to triumph. Here, we finally meet a male character who is able and willing to successfully turn their internal turmoil into something productive and work in harmony with the imposed standard. Yet, he ends up unfulfilled, too.
Although the movie was released in 2010, the part of the story of interest happens a few years prior, right before the recession of 2008. The so-called “man-cession” was a time when the conventional requirements for a reliable man shifted even more in favor of a man’s character. As the New York Times reported in early 2009, more than 80% of the suffering jobs were those of blue-collar workers from predominantly male industries such as manufacturing and construction. The fourth industrial revolution practically arriving required mentally strong men. Men who could use their brain power under pressure, remain focused and creative to benefit their society. Mark Zuckerberg is that person: ambitious, purposeful, and stops before nothing to reach his goal. His motive to be as brilliant as he is, is exposed in the opening scene: “How do you distinguish yourself in a population of people who all got 1600 on their SATs?”
His hunger for recognition leads him to create one of the most famous social networks the world has seen. Yet, after he has achieved what he’d set his mind to and has complied with what society expected of him, he is still yearning for more. On the way, he has lost all of his empathy and close relationships. As it turns out, even the man who did precisely what he needed to do, was still left dissatisfied. Although he fit the criteria for what a man should be, it didn’t make much difference for the level of his comfort and self-acceptance in the end.
To conclude, different times certainly require different men. All three men in the faces of the characters of Mank, the narrator of Fight Club, and Mark Zuckerberg lived in wholly dissimilar societies with absolutely contrasting ideas of a man’s value and purpose. And regardless of their conformity or deviance before these norms, they still didn’t manage to find solace. No harmony between their internal and external worlds was attained. Maybe the conclusion we can make from these stories is that no matter what a man does, he will never overcome his crisis within. Or maybe this ongoing dissatisfaction is not characteristic of man and their masculinity but intrinsic to all people and their sense of self. For a fact, everybody is free to interpret these characters as they wish. The true mastery of David Fincher at portraying them is exactly that. He made us see what he wanted us to see but how we read it is entirely up to us.
Works cited:
Clark, J. “Faludi, Fight Club, and Phallic Masculinity: Exploring the Emasculating Economics of Patriarchy.” The Journal of Men’s Studies, vol. 11, no. 1, 2002, pp. 65–76., doi:10.3149/jms.1101.65.
“David Fincher.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 22 Apr. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Fincher.
Fincher , David, director. The Social Network . Columbia Pictures , 2010.
Fincher, David, director. Fight Club. 20th Century Fox, 1999.
Fincher, David, director. Mank. Netflix Inc. , 2020.
Schreiber, Michele. “Tiny Life: Technology and Masculinity in the Films of David Fincher.” Journal of Film and Video, vol. 68, no. 1, 2016, pp. 3–18., doi:10.5406/jfilmvideo.68.1.0003.
Smith , Gavin, and David Fincher . “INSIDE OUT: Gavin Smith Goes One-on-One with David Fincher.” Film Comment , vol. 35, no. 5, Sept. 1999, pp. 58–68.
Weiner, Jonah. “David Fincher’s Impossible Eye.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 19 Nov. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/11/19/magazine/david-fincher-mank-interview.html.
