Zodiac and the nature of Obsession

Let’s start by saying, that as of this moment, it’s a damn shame that NBC canceled, "Hannibal," and it is further disappointing that Amazon passed on rescuing it. It would have warmed my heart if they picked it up.

Hopefully the show will find a home.

Onto this month’s post.

Zodiac (2007), directed by David Fincher, will be the focus of this post.

It is not to be confused with, “The Zodiac (2006),” the straight to video flick made by the Bulk(e)leys, based on the same true events, and weirdly featuring Phillip Baker Hall in both films.

The wisdom of dropping the, “The,” would be repeated later, in Fincher’s The Social Network.

In the previous post about the series, HannibaI, I observed a subtle visual reference made to a decidedly unnerving scene from this very film. Perhaps a decision made by, "Hannibal’s" colorist in post production, when they realized their crime scene was also set in a bucolic, secluded, rolling field at magic hour. The scene in, "Zodiac," is very specific to a real place and event (like the rest of the movie), and hence has a very specific look.

The color scheme of the beautiful, amber rolling hills and an almost turquoise sky (Fincher likes a little green), at lake Berryessa in CA, with the sun low (the shadows are truly turquoise due to the time of day), is so unnerving because that look sits so frankly against the brutal events that take place. The scene, that of the gunpoint mugging and stabbing of a young couple, plays out in a captivatingly awkward manner, very aware of it's juxtaposition. There is a great deal of this methodology in the movie. The events are presented frankly, and as accurately as possible. Not a lot of fuss in that sense. Fincher tries to shoot as much of the movie as he can without close ups. Also no muss there. The fuss and muss comes in Fincher’s meticulous nature, which suits this tale so well. Anyone familiar with Fincher knows his tendency for many takes, and his attention to detail, or if you will, his obsessive nature. There’s the word. Obsession. It informs this whole tale.

I have followed Fincher’s films since I discovered Fight Club. I found the advertising for that film very confusing and misleading. So by the time I actually saw it, it was on VHS, blurry and tiny, but the movie jumped out at me and grabbed me by the ears. I then found the amazing DVD and treasured it. I even went to a revival screening of the film a year or so later just to see it on the big screen, scratched and worn print be damned. So by the time I had heard of Zodiac, I was anxious to see what Fincher had done with it.

If you want a real trip down memory lane, you can take a look at the video on youtube featuring him and his staff embracing the wares of the now defunct Final Cut Studio.

When the trailer for Zodiac finally popped up on the internet I was glued to my computer screen.

What struck me right away was that the very first image was an entirely CG cityscape. This man had gone over the edge. Why, why, why would you do that? You don’t work for Pixar buddy. But then the tease of the story kicked in, and I was sold. I watched the trailer two more times right away. I remembered that he was shooting almost entirely on digital cameras for the first time. Now that cityscape shot made a little more sense.

I tried to decipher which shots were film and which were digital. I had some good guesses, some of which turned out to be true.

Mostly I was hungry for this guy’s movie, the true story of the decades long search for a notorious serial killer, The Zodiac.

Knowing very little about the case, I went to the theater with two of my film school buddies, very excited, and the movie did not disappoint… until about half way through. The arch of the story seemed to die. As we left the theater, one my friends literally said, “Fuck that movie.” Admittedly I was also a little disappointed, but there was just something about it that stayed with me. I didn’t pipe up though, for I had no want to get sucked into a debate about story I ultimately didn't care to win or lose.

In the theater, with the movie projected 3 stories high on a movie screen, I must remark that I wasn’t thinking if it was shot digitally or not.

What did occur to me about the look of the movie were a few things.

The first is that, although Fincher uses a subdued palette often (he seems to love yellow and blue tones, avoid red and detest pink), the day scenes here and those in the SF Chronicle are especially crisp and clear, to the point that you indeed feel like you could reach out and touch something.

Next, although there is a fair amount of CG used, it isn’t overused, unlike PANIC ROOM where he seemed to be playing with how far he could push things in that direction. Fincher seems to have found a better balance here to serve the mood and the story.

Finally, I alluded to this in the first observation, there is a distinct lack of red throughout most of the movie.

Most of the blood you can see is almost black, or just shown very briefly. Fincher doesn’t seem to want to distract us from the human intricacies of the story with gore.

This isn’t a movie about bold colors.

Later, upon purchasing and viewing the Director’s Cut DVD, what I came to realize was that the movie and the story just can’t fit into a conventional shape. Although as humans we crave a certain shape to a story, in our lives this often times eludes us, and the movie reflects that quality.

Fincher is not a dramatist, he is a filmmaker. While the two are not mutually exclusive, they also need not be one and the same. Fincher allows every subtlety and nuance to play out as it should in his movies, especially in this one. There is a particularly chilling scene in which the investigators interview the suspect, Arthur Lee Allen.

Every gesture, inflection and reaction is perfectly rendered, to the point that it seems like you're there in the room watching.

I watched the movie again and again. I became obsessed with a movie about the nature of obsession.

After Bluray won over HD-DVD in their little tech war, I realized that I didn’t have a copy of Zodiac in the new high definition format. I went to research it online, and I found some passionate reviews.

Hi Def Digest had the following to say:

“’Zodiac' holds the honor of being the first film shot entirely in 1080p high definition with digital Thompson Viper Filmstream cameras -- the same groundbreaking cameras director Michael Mann used to film portions of 'Miami Vice' and 'Collateral.' As such, the Blu-ray edition's 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer has been minted straight from its pristine digital source, and the results are nothing less than spectacular. It's also worth noting that this domestic BD transfer appears to be virtually identical to the previously-released and reviewed HD DVD and import editions of the film.”

“It only takes a few scenes to send your jaw careening to the floor. Detail is extraordinary -- every sheet of paper and every letter of newspaper text is crystal clear. Skin and clothing look incredibly sharp, with textures retaining an eerie realism that makes you feel as if you could reach out and touch anything on the screen. The entire film creates a convincing picture-window effect unlike any other transfer I've seen. To top it all off, contrast is dead on, black levels are perfect, and there isn't a lick of source noise or artifacting to be found.

I did catch a few instances of faint banding, but it didn't detract from the otherwise perfect transfer. Spend some time with 'Zodiac: Director's Cut' and you'll find that it has one of the most remarkable and natural transfers on the market today. Kudos to Paramount and Fincher for delivering such an amazing technical achievement."

Bluray.com had this to say:

“Paramount delivers Zodiac to Blu-ray with a gorgeous 1080p, 2.35:1-framed transfer. The transfer is simply incredible. It is often difficult not to become dumbfounded by the clarity, depth, and precision of the image. Video noise is minimal. Detail is impeccable, natural, and honest. Check out an exterior scene in chapter four as Zodiac robs, ties, and stabs a couple on a lakeside. Every last inch of the frame is breathtaking in every facet: detail, from individual blades of grass to tree bark, remain impressively clear in both foreground and background locales; colors jump off the screen with remarkable vibrancy; and the depth of field is highly impressive. Dimly lit interior shots are excellent, featuring a warm color scheme and retaining a high quality look with a depth and breadth that surpass most high definition content currently on the market. Blacks are perfectly dark and inky. Darker scenes, a nighttime shot featuring a car on city streets as seen from overhead, for example, reveals fine attention to detail on the pavement, which could barely look better if the viewer were looking out a window. Zodiac looks as good as the movie plays, and is a reference-quality Blu-ray disc.”

I hadn’t realized that the format of the camera was exactly 1920 by 1080 pixels, just like an HD television. That struck me as real commitment to a digital format that was projected 2 or 3 stories high. I was overjoyed to read such wonderful things though, and so I tried to buy it as soon as I could. The damn thing had already gone out of print though, and some copies were going for $150.00. With some patience I found a copy for a reasonable price, put out by Warner Brothers. I loaded it into my Samsung Bluray player that I had purchased carefully before I even bought my HDTV. The movie started with a beautiful set of ‘70s era Paramount and Warner Brothers logos displayed on my 53 inch flat screen. Then that wonderfully eerie tracking shot from inside a car in a suburban neighborhood graced the pixels.

But WHAT THE FUCK WAS THIS?!

I froze it and I stared.

I reversed it. I played it again.

The goddamned shot was FILLED WITH VIDEO NOISE and VERTICAL BANDING.

I read the reviews again.

I looked at the images again.

So it turns out that these reviews are just off base. Plain and simple. They do not make mention of anything anywhere near this amount of noise or artifacting. I saw a very clear amount of noise and banding in the form of what I can only guess is the video capture device. Since this is not a film transfer then that device is not a Telecine, so it must be the camera’s video chip itself. An exception should be pointed out in the scene to which Bluray.com refers, “a nighttime shot featuring a car on city streets as seen from overhead.” This appears to entirely CG, much like the cityscape in the trailer, so the blacks indeed have an inky and beautiful quality. It should be said that none of this has to do with the quality of the compression used. That is a seperate picture issue that is definitely handled well here.

I've now realized through repeated observation in multiple media, that reviewers can be not only WRONG, but factually inaccurate and unobservant.

I find this frustarting as someone who was taught to respect proffesional adults.

Sadly the world is filled with uninformed opinions, no matter how much money is involved. People need to take their jobs more seriously, despite the industry.

It is worth noting here, from seeing his body of work, that Fincher very clearly desires a clean, high quality look. This is in contrast to Michael Mann, mentioned in the HiDef Digest review. Mann embraces the grain/noise of the digital cameras in night scenes in part to see the detail of the sky and surrounding environment (this was way before any high dynamic range cameras came out). Some people find this plain ugly. I do not. I dislike the blurry motion side effects that it creates, but it’s a trade off, for a specific look. Fincher is not interested in this look, so what’s with the image noise?

I continued down the rabbit hole. I stood inches from my TV, watching the image noise. In order to quell my ridiculous mind I decided to find another Bluray copy of the movie. I saw that a new bluray was now in print. This one looked identical in every way to the copy I already had. It was hard to tell, but there was a difference. Warner Brothers was issuing it instead of Paramount. This made sense considering that both of their logos were on the front of the movie, indicating that they had split the deal. The disc arrived quickly and I played it on my HD television the second I was able. Indeed, everything looked identical. Same achievements, same problems. I just felt it was a strange coincidence that these 2 versions would be identical. I thought maybe I had been hornswaggled by some shyster on the Internet, trying to pawn off the same previous version on me. Upon close inspection it turns out that the discs in fact are identical, but that there are some very minute differences in the packaging from Warner Brothers.

I have included pictures if u care to obsess with me.

The first difference is the one that seals the deal. There is a tiny WB logo on the back in the upper right corner where there was none before.

And the other very minute difference, that only someone like myself would bother looking at, is the fact that all the corners of the insert are pointed. The previous Paramount version has tiny round corners. The plastic cases are slightly different as well.

The two do indeed have the same, identical transfer on the disc itself, with the same picture problems.

So at least I had some sense that I wasn't crazy.

Fincher had gambled, shooting with digital cameras, and achieved something great. Still, despite the meticulous nature of a guy like Fincher, flaws will show through. I’m sure it drove him nuts at the time. Perhaps some day I will be able to actually look at one of the camera bodies he used. In the end, evidence lined up, and I could quell my thoughts, even if it didn’t give me all the answers.

That seems a lot like a captivating, but unconventional end to a story I know.

Will Tordella.