Any Zodiac experts out there?
From what I read around the time of the movie’s release, I think Arthur Leigh Allen is Greysmith’s prime suspect and the movie accurately conveyed that subjective infatuation…been meaning to learn more about this case.
Any FROM HELL (comic, not the movie) fans out there?
Yes, check out the special features on the double-disc director’s cut. They go into pretty good detail on the suspects with the real people who were involved in the case.
Ryan – I’ve been very interested in the features on the special edition. I bought the movie before the special edition was released, and now I regret it. Oh well.
I love the couple who broke the code.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiac_Killer
Nathan – buy the special edition. Fincher’s commentary is fantastic and the disc is loaded with info on the case. While the film itself leans slightly toward Allen being the killer, in real life it was never that definitive. Like you said, the movie is based on Greysmith’s book and his point of view. I think the film does a good job of showing the various sides to who might have been the killer but after watching the film you got the sense that Allen was the guy. However we really don’t know and if it were that clear, they would have got him.
A fascinating case and a great film that gets better and better every time I watch it.
Fredo – The fact that the film presents it’s information in a “yes, but maybe not” way is exactly what I appreciated about it. I worked at a coffee shop around the time of it’s release, and we were only a few blocks away from one of the Chicago police precincts. Every now and then one of the detectives would come in. I started talking to him one day about CSI and all the other police/forensic television dramas out there (which I don’t really watch), and he indicated that those shows completely mythologize detective work. A case can often depend on forensic evidence, but that evidence takes time, and the more time passes, the harder things can get. It can often take a year or more to build a case correctly, because you’d rather have all your facts straight. If you don’t, you can go into court, and lose the case, and a possibly guilty person could go free (or vice versa, depending on the case). Well, I recommended that he take a look at “Zodiac”, and tell me what he thought of it. I moved on from the coffee shop before he could get back to me. My point here is that I’ve always suspected that Fincher told a tale that reflects more accurately on criminal investigations, and the assimilation of knowledge and information. It is, at it’s deepest level, a film that asks us how we know what we know. It asks us how we compile information (not just case files, but all information), and make sense of it. The concepts explored in “Zodiac” can be applied to a wide variety of subjects, including, but not limited to, philosophy, theology, anthropology, science, and law.
Anyway, that was a long rant. All I really wanted to say is that, yeah, I should get the special edition.
“My point here is that I’ve always suspected that Fincher told a tale that reflects more accurately on criminal investigations, and the assimilation of knowledge and information. It is, at it’s deepest level, a film that asks us how we know what we know.”
I think you’re absolutely right. There is an element to the film that is about the characters involved and how this case effected their lives in terms of destroying their family and relationships, etc. But beyond that obvious which is quite obvious, is the over arching feeling that spans many years about what you are talking about – the gathering of information and the knowledge that we attain over the years. It’s endlessly fascinating and like I’ve stated before, the more I watch Zodiac the more I realize how complex and deep it really is. Ultimately it’s not about “Who was the Zodiac killer?”. If the film was about that, it would have failed because we know going into the film that that question is never answered. So for Fincher to go in this other direction and make it a more philosophical puzzle made it wholly unique and compelling.
Great film. And yet I am always bothered by the fact that the survivor of one of the shootings – I think it was the boy in the parking lot at the start – and who actually saw the killer’s face, was not called upon to look at photos until some 20 or 30 years later. It just seemed odd at the end – couldn’t he have been brought in sooner when they might have actually charged the suspect?
Fredo:
I agree that the film survives specifically because it doesn’t take as its focus the true identity of the Zodiac killer. I think the most interesting aspect of this film is how it bears on the issue of technology. I remember how, as the people bustled around at the police precinct and the newspaper office, this distinct feeling of foreignness washed over me. It had nothing to do with the movie as a period piece, but rather with the obvious datedness of these peoples’ modes of communication. I’d have to watch it again, since I haven’t seen it since it came out in theaters, but I remember Fincher paying close attention to missed connections between individuals, or how communications would break down on the technological level. One is left wondering whether such a killer could flourish in a world with cell phones, widespread internet access, and digital records.
and, in fact, staging four Zodiac murder sequences, Fincher actually has three different actors—Richmond Arquette (1st and 2nd), Bob Stephenson (3rd) and John Lacy (4th)—portray Zodiac, none of whom are the actor ( John Carroll Lynch )who played Arthur Leigh Allen. Not a lot of people I’ve talked to have noticed this—it’s a bit more difficult to see on video—but it adds a nice touch of uncertainty about Graysmith’s hypothesis regarding the killer’s identity.
Also interesting:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/19/MNGA18D3FV.DTL
(aka: the plot thickens)
I read the Greysmith books but I’ll next be reading This Is the Zodiac Speaking: Into the Mind of a Serial Killer by Michael D. Kelleher and David Van Nuys. It’s supposed to be a more analytic and to use less conjecture in its analysis. The Greysmith book was written as a novel while the Kelleher/Van Nuys book I would assume is done more as a work on criminology. I’m excited to read it. I must warn you that the Zodiac case is very addicting.
How is this film philosophical? It’s just about details. Fincher, as usual, has nothing to say about those details. He could have made a film about obsession, or even about technology, but that wasn’t what he did ultimately. he just wanted to make a police procedural type film. on that level it works, but it feels totally empty.
Philisophical? Well, on one level it’s epistemological. Fincher:
“I looked at this as a newspaper movie. My model was `All the President’s Men.’ You piece the thing together with a bit of info here, a hunch there, and you make mistakes long the way, and maybe you end up with an supportable conclusion as to the when and where and how. … And maybe, with someone like Zodiac, even he couldn’t provide an answer, I don’t know . . . at some point, even if it makes you crazy, you have to say, the story’s over. That’s the story, that’s all we have. Not every question can be answered.”
Oh, I thought this was a horoscope thread. :(
so did I, VIC.
Ben Simington:
What if the lawyer Tarbox was the killer and just made that up?
" Not every question can be answered.”
I might be a bit late here…but, yes, I’m a huge fan of From Hell (the comic), Ben.
I thought the first five minutes of ZODIAC was just masterful….
How the camera dollies alongside Vallejo suburb at twilight on the 4th of July…. while Three Dog Night’s “Easy To Be Hard” plays…. giving us a weird, slightly druggy feel to the proceedings…
Then the introduction of our first set of victims….
Beautifully filmed and played, I thought…..
It really does have a 70s feel to it. Like someone above said, it captures a world pre high tech.
La-di-da,
Whats so ironic is that the look was accomplished using the lates technology.
Nice to see that latest technology can be used not just to create another world like the fantasy Pandora, but another world that once really did exist. Rohmer did it also, in The Lady and the Duke.
Nathan M.
I’ve been a huge fan of David Fincher’s film, “Zodiac” ever since seeing it two years ago. The overwhelming amount of information and details that the film presents always seems to fascinate me. But, I’m wondering how accurate it is. My understanding is that it’s based primarily on Robert Greysmiths’s book of the same name, and I’m willing to believe that the case is more complex than the movie makes it out to be. Is Arthur Leigh Allen really the prime and only suspect? Are there other possibilities?
I’m not an expert on the Zodiac killings. Are any of you? Did any of you grow up in the Bay area, and live through this event, or hear about it while growing up?