David Fincher fans will get a chance to see one of his best in the coming months. His 1995 noir thriller, Se7en, is set to hit IMAX in January. Fincher’s early collaboration with Brad Pitt features the actor as David Mills, a cop new to a crime-ridden city under a perpetually overcast sky. Paired up with a jaded veteran detective, William Somerset (Morgan Freeman), the two have to stop the brutal killings of a serial killer inspired by the Seven Deadly Sins. Pitt would later star in Fincher’s cult classic film, Fight Club, only a few years later, but Se7en was one of his first critical successes and has gone on to be remembered in its own right. While the story is undoubtedly bleak, it was a masterclass in the detective genre, marking Fincher as a filmmaker to watch out for.
Category: Seven
Fincher talks us through the off-screen torture of making ‘Seven’
By any reasonable measure, David Fincher had made it by 1990. He was directing rapturous music videos for Madonna (“Express Yourself,” “Vogue”) and doing lucrative ads for top brands worldwide. The production company he co-founded, Propaganda Films, had cornered the MTV market, helping launch the careers of such future notables as Spike Jonze and Antoine Fuqua.
But there was Hollywood to conquer and Fincher, not yet 30, rushed headlong into his feature debut, one that no superfan of Ridley Scott (also a genius director of commercials) could pass up: the third movie of the “Alien” franchise. While it has since found a hardcore base of defenders, 1992’s dour, much-mussed “Alien 3,” a troubled production, was a disappointment that Fincher has largely disowned.
Inside the 2023 LACMA Gala
And then the room hushed as Pitt took the podium and began a rousing speech in honor of Fincher, who directed the actor in Seven, Fight Club, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
“Well, here’s something you never hear in a David Fincher screening: ‘That was fun. We should have brought the kids,’” he said, in his famously droll pitch. “Hi, my name is Brad Pitt, and I’m a survivor.”
Pitt, now with a shit-eating grin on his face, started offering up some of the things you hear the director say on a Fincher set.
First: “Let’s shoot this now before we all lose interest in living.”
And another: “Okay, we have the out-of-focus version. Now, let’s try it in focus.”
And last: “I want you guys to enjoy yourselves, but that’s what Saturdays and Sundays are for.”
“My life was forever altered one day in ’94 when I sat down for a coffee with David Fincher,” said Pitt. “Now, I don’t know if what we do really matters in the end. What I do think what matters is the people we hitch ourselves to and the indelible mark that they leave upon our very being.”
Fincher, a bit flustered, admitted that growing up, he always wanted to be a visual artist. And maybe he is—he conceded that a movie director might have to oversee hundreds of staff and scout places to shoot and use actors to embody their vision and hustle through meetings with backers to get funding… but artists have to do that, too, right?
“I’m pretty sure Cristo had a lot of weird meetings about locations and street closures and load times and refueling and linear acres of fabric, and somehow I always think of him as an artist,” he said.
In closing the speech, he looked to Baca and said “I’m grateful for my inclusion, and to see things standing next to Judy. I may even be mistaken for an artist.”
• x010 November 05 – Art + Film Gala – Los Angeles, CA.
BP Gallery Update
• x018 Encounters – Brad and ?.
• x003 Advertisement – De’Longhi & Le Miraval.
• x010 Babylon – Stills & Promo.
• x007 Seven – Stills & Onset.
BP Gallery Update
• x029 July 31, 2015 – LAX Airport – Los Angeles, CA.
• x001 October 30, 2003 – Avalon Club, West Hollywood, CA.
• x004 Good Weekend (’15).
• x001 Photoshoot Set 236.
• x002 Seven: on set.
• x005 June 04, 2013 – World War Z – Berlin, Germany.
Thanks also Vaska!
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