Director Report Card: David Fincher (2007)

7. Zodiac

In the year of our lord 2021, true crime is a national obsession. Extremely popular podcast, high-profile Netflix documentaries, and hundreds of Youtube channels focus on real crimes, unsolved and otherwise. What was once the obsession of a small group of devoted fanatics is now water-cooler talk all over the country. This is part of the world that “Zodiac” helped birth. A film adaptation of Robert Graysmith's non-fiction books spent years in development hell. David Fincher was the screenwriters' first choice to direct. Fincher, it turned out, was a Zodiac obsessive himself, having been a kid during the killer's original reign of terror. The film, which finally hit theater screens in 2007, would spurn discussion, debate, and earn a hardcore fan-following of its own.

In summer of 1969, in Vallejo, California, an unknown assailant shoots a young man and his date in their parked car, killing the girl. A month afterwards, the San Francisco Chronicle receives letters from the killer, who demands his encrypted words be published or he'll kill again. He calls himself Zodiac and he does kill again. Several more murders, usually accompanied by taunting letters and codes, follow over the next few years. The city is gripped in fear by the mysterious murderer. San Francisco police inspector Dave Toschi is on the case, frustrated by the lack of leads and conflicting evidence. Chronicle writer Paul Avery writes extensively on Zodiac, eventually becoming a target himself. Chronicle cartoonist Robert Graysmith becomes obsessed with the case, working for decades on solving it himself. All the while, the Zodiac Killer remains elusive.

It's not surprising to find out that David Fincher, from a young age, was fascinated with the Zodiac Killer. You can see parallels in his films with the real-life murderer. A clever killer staying one step ahead of the police, taunting them and drawing them into a complex game, was clearly an influence on "Seven." You can see shades of Zodiac's cypher-making and some unseen master plan in the conspiracies of "The Game" and "Fight Club." Yet those are fictional characters and the Zodiac was real. Fincher's film never gives us any insight into the killer's mind beyond what the actual facts of the case present. If the Zodiac was a genius or just lucky, a master planner or just insane enough to be totally unpredictable, the movie doesn't know. Instead, the killer in "Zodiac" represents something much more frightening than fictional serial killers or conspirators with inescapable plans: The unpredictable, chaotic forces of the universe that can claim a life at any minute. 

“Zodiac” is a murder-mystery, ultimately, without an answer. This is a foregone conclusion because, if you know nothing else about the Zodiac Killer, you know that he was never caught. While the film does eventually come to a conclusion about who it thinks Zodiac probably was, it's more about why people are so driven to unmask this killer. Of the film's three main characters, each has their own reason for wanting to solve the mystery. Paul Avery is a journalist, yet he's also a self-promoter. When the Zodiac takes a specific interest in him, he sees it as a professional rivalry he's eager to resolve. When that doesn't happen, when no resolution comes, Avery falls into self-loathing and drug abuse.

Dave Toschi, meanwhile, is a cop. Whether he sees the world in terms of right or wrong, the film never really says. Nevertheless, he sees it as his job to make sense of why these things happen. To find answers, if not justice. When told to relax and go to the movies, he sees "Dirty Harry." Whose villain was, of course, inspired by Zodiac. He has to leave the theater because the movie simply reminds him that, in real life, they don't always catch the bad guy. It frustrates him because he knows too well that this is true. Yet he's still driven to catch the perp, to make sense of the violence he sees every day. 

This theme is most apparent in Robert Graysmith's story line. He's a humble cartoonist, a single dad trying to take care of his son. When he first sees the Zodiac cypher, he's transfixed. He immediately works to solve it, trying to find patterns in the seemingly meaningless symbols. He borrows books from the library on code-breaking and criminal psychology. As the case grows cold, he rehashes facts and evidence. It's all more cyphers Robert is searching through, desperately trying to find meaning in. Sometimes, he grasps at straws, believing there might be two killers or spending months on a dead-end lead. He's desperate to find meaning in the pile of clues and hints that all revolve around the senseless murders of innocent people. 

"Zodiac's" pitch-perfect tag line is "There's more than one way to lose your life to a killer." Robert becomes obsessed with the Zodiac. That obsession ruins his first date with the woman who somehow becomes his wife anyway. Eventually, their marriage falls apart because Robert's fixation is endangering her and the kids. Yet "Zodiac" draws you, the viewer, into this search too that you can't really fault Robert for being so obsessed. Fincher's film unfolds like an investigation itself. We are presented with every clue and new factoid as it's uncovered. We follow Robert down the dead-ends as he discovers them. "Zodiac" makes you obsessed with the Zodiac too, via a brilliant script that pulls you in completely. You are dragged along on this mystery, even though you know it has no answer. 

Something else "Zodiac" is really good at is showing the passage of time. Dates appear on-screen throughout, always establishing where and when we are. The period details are vivid, all the sideburns and high-waisted pants and ugly wallpaper you associate with the seventies right in the open. The case remains open for years, more time passing, which the film finds several clever ways to depict. A year subsiding is displayed by showing the famous TransAmerica Pyramid being assembled in the span of a single scene. Later, the passage of four years is depicted through a collage of historical sound bites and music over a black screen. "Zodiac" manages to condense the entire last fourth of the decade into two whole minutes. 

Yet this is not the most notable stylistic choice Fincher makes in "Zodiac." He does not shoot most of the attack scenes like they are in a David Fincher movie. Only the killing of Paul Lee Stine, shot in the head from the backseat of his taxi cab, is depicted with the shadowy visuals and slow-motion that you associate with the director. Instead, Fincher adapts a stark and realistic approach to the attacks. The opening shooting focuses on the raw panic the victims felt in the car. The stabbing by the lake, when the Zodiac donned his infamous disguise, is depicted entirely in sunlight, playing out with a documentary-like stillness. When a young mother is abducted by the man, the camera is fixed on her terrified face in the cramped interior of the car. Often, Fincher depicts the aftermaths of the murders in far-off, distant shots, the viewer given a cold and impersonal look at the crime scene. Like a detective trying to examine all the clues. Or a disinterested god, indifferent to people's suffering. The result is a tactful, "just the facts" approach to real life deaths that also happens to be terrifying, putting the audience right in the moment of fear and dread the actual victims felt. 

The starkness of the murder scenes stands in contrast to how much of the movie is shot. "Zodiac" opens with the seventies versions of the Paramount and Warner Brothers logos. With that in mind,  the film intentionally seeks to replicate the look of the crime thrillers of the time and place the story is set. (“Bullitt” and “Dirty Harry,” the two movies that Toschi inspired, were clearly references.) This means the film's visual palette is simultaneously lush and gritty. The colors are deep and warm. The blacks are extremely dark and the San Francisco summers are awash in sunlight. Yet the interiors are also packed with detail, filling lived-in. There's danger lurking within that twilight glow.

This attention to detail, in two scenes especially, seems to reflect the characters' minds. When the police investigate Arthur Leigh Allen's trailer, they find a place bathed in orange light with squirrel's wandering around everywhere. One can't help but feel this is meant to symbolize the killer's mind, chaos and rattling cages everywhere. Yet the moment where the film travels right into the heart of darkness is when Robert enters the basement of what he, at first, assumes to be a normal person. As the scene goes on, he grows increasingly suspicious. The viewer feels that sense of dread creeping in again, this sense that our hero has stumbled into great danger. Of course, the man turns out not to be a lead. This is Robert descending into the depths of his own paranoia, seeing the Zodiac Killer in anybody with a shifty face... Yet that doesn't make it any less tense.

If we've learned nothing else from the influx of true crime books, podcasts, and documentaries in the last decade, it's that a lot of case go unsolved because of incompetence on the police's behalf. In “Zodiac,” we see that the various police departments investigating the murder often couldn't agree on details. At one point, they thought the suspect was a black man before quickly deducing he was white. Some of the districts have information and evidence that others do not. Sometimes, the press would have information that wasn't shared with the cops and vice-versa. It almost seemed like petty rivalries between the different counties kept a more thorough investigation from being done. One suspects this is how a lot of killers and criminals slip through the cracks.

“Zodiac” happen to have the benefit of casting several actors right before they became huge stars, involved with mega-franchises. Robert Graysmith is more-or-less the de-facto protagonist for most of the film. Jake Gyllenhaal plays him like an everyman, an almost stiflingly normal guy who is drawn into this great obsession almost by chance, it seems. Gyllenhaal is excellent at finding a balance between a fundamentally decent seeming man and someone driven into a frenzy by his fixation. Robert Downey Jr., as part of his public image rehabilitation that led to “Iron Man,” appears as Paul Avery. It's an ideal use of Downey's skills for acerbic dialogue and a sense of smug superiority that hints at a greater self-loathing. Mark Ruffalo, five years ahead of becoming an Avenger himself, adds an appealing edginess to Dave Toschi, Even though he's a cop determined to get at the truth, there's an off-beat uncertainty to his attitude that distinguishes Ruffalo's take on the character from a hundred other movie cops.

Fincher dots the supporting cast with a number of recognizable character actors too. Brian Cox brings an amusingly deluded quality to Melvin Belli, a doctor who seems to overvalue his own importance to this case. Chloe Sevigny, dressed up in the nerdiest clothes possible, is convincingly down-to-Earth as Graysmith's long-suffering wife. John Carroll Lynch seems utterly mundane as Arthur Leigh Allen, which makes all the hints that he might've actually been the Zodiac Killer all the more frightening. Elias Koteas and Donal Logue have small roles as various cops, bringing their particular charms and affectations to parts that otherwise would've gone by without much notice. Clea DuVall and Philip Baker Hall similarly enliven small roles that are basically just plot devices in the wider investigation. Fincher even manages to make Charles Fleischer – Roger Rabbit himself – a source of sinister intent. 

One of my favorite things about “Zodiac” is its use of music. In contrast to the realism and restraint much of the film shows, David Shire's score often goes to lurid heights. This actually works really well, making the big emotions felt in these scenes even more impactful. The movie uses a number of songs that were then heard on the radio... But none make a bigger impression than Donovan's “Hurdy Gurdy Man,” which bookends the movie. The film takes Donovan's hippy classic about a musician bringing peace and enlightenment and subverts it into something much darker. The psychedelic distortion now feels ominous. Now, it can't help but feel like the Hurdy Gurdy Man doesn't arrive with songs of love but a sinister warning. The movie has completely changed what the song means to me forever.

Much like Robert Graysmith's book, Fincher's” “Zodiac” concludes that quite a lot of evidence suggests Arthur Leigh Allen was probably the Zodiac Killer. Yet the truth is ultimately unknowable. To true crime obsessives, “Zodiac” has emerged as a favored text. It's become a beloved movie among Fincher fanatics, movie critics, and film nerds everywhere. More than just a true crime thriller, “Zodiac' is an investigation into obsession and what mysteries mean to us, while also being incredibly assembled, completely engrossing, and occasionally deeply disquieting and frightening. [Grade: A]