Great Actor/Director Collaborations #1 David Fincher and Brad Pitt

Lying awake last night and thinking about all the things I'd like to blog about and worrying that I Love That Film has no running features, I kept thinking about all the great actor/director collaborations there have been in cinematic history. I say history, but actually I was thinking mostly about modern ones. So hopefully this is going to turn into a semi-regular feature.

My thoughts immediately turned to David Fincher and Brad Pitt who have made three films together: Seven, Fight Club and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.


"They're like brothers - opposite in the way they act, but they understand each other the way families do." Taraji Henson (Bowles, 2008)

Brad Pitt gained international recognition as a sex symbol for his supporting role in Thelma and Louise in 1991. Pitt went on to secure his reputation as a handsome leading man with larger parts in A River Runs Through It and Legends of the Fall.  However his appetite for edgier roles was clear from his early work as a psychopath in Kalifornia, and his cameo in True Romance as a couch potato stoner.


On the other hand, David Fincher began his directing career in commercials and music videos. He moved on to feature films with an extremely brave debut- directing the third film in the Alien franchise. Afterwards, Fincher continued on his course of dark, challenging films by choosing to direct a disturbing serial killer film.  Pitt was on the look out for new, darker material; a film that would subvert what audiences were expecting from a Hollywood movie ‘starring Brad Pitt’

Seven (1995)

Brad Pitt plays a young, cocky and short-fused detective, David Mills.  He is newly transferred to a crime-infested, permanently rain-soaked, unidentified city to be partnered with Morgan Freeman’s older, wiser detective, William Somerset. After reading the script and being offered the part, Pitt ‘immediately signed on, with one caveat: The studio could not change the film's final scene… “They tried all kinds of things to change our minds," Pitt says. "We wouldn't budge. David isn't afraid to use an ending that works, even if it isn't the one you want’ (Bowles,2008).  This created a bond between actor and director.  

Fight Club (1999)

Fight Club is the story of an unnamed protagonist (Edward Norton) who creates an alter-ego for himself.  This imaginary friend is Tyler Durden and is played by Brad Pitt with a shaved head and part of his teeth missing.  In Tyler’s own words, he is “All the ways you wish you could be… I look like you wanna look, I fuck like you wanna fuck, I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I am free in all the ways that you are not.”  Producer Art Linson said studio executives expected “Seven in another costume” (Swallow, 2003, p.121) but got something quite different.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)


The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is the life story of the titular character played by Pitt.  Born with the appearance of an old man and looking younger and younger as he grows older, it is argued that ‘both director and star would have to wade into unfamiliar waters. Pitt would have to get ugly, Fincher happy’ (Bowles, 2008).  

Will there be more collaborations? 


‘Paramount Pictures has acquired graphic novel "The Killer" and will develop it as a directing vehicle for David Fincher… produced by Brad Pitt's Plan B Entertainment and Alexandra Milchan’ (Fleming, 2007).  This was reported some time ago and has yet to come to fruition.  However, there is also Fertig; ‘based on the biography of middle-aged American civil engineer-turned-World War II guerrilla fighter Wendell Fertig who with a small team of Americans refused under orders to surrender and led thousands of Filipinos in a seemingly hopeless war against the Japanese.’ (Holmes, 2008)  Fincher believes Pitt would be perfect and would sign up for the project when the script is right. 

What is your favourite collaboration of Fincher and Pitt? Seven and Fight Club are, to me, the pinnacles of both Fincher and Pitt's careers to date.

Parts of this post were already printed in an article in Media Magazine back in April 2011. 

Next up in this feature: Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese

The Relationship between Film Producers and Audiences: Part 1

There is a two way flow of information between producers of films and the audiences that they target.  Producers gain feedback from audiences about their films through audience research.  This is often done through test screenings but increasingly through internet research to see the responses of bloggers and opinion makers to early marketing and news surrounding the films.  On the other hand producers use a huge range of marketing techniques to deliver information about films to their target audience and beyond.

 Audience Research

Test Screenings are the most common form of audience research used by Hollywood and the film industry as a whole.  Often long in advance of the release of a film, a small audience will be invited to a secret preview.  Effects may not be completed, the soundtrack may be temporary and the film will sometimes have barely left the edit suite before it is screened to a few people to gain feedback from the audience.  Questionnaires or focus groups are used after the film and the audience asked to participate.  The audience will be responsible for giving the filmmakers feedback on what does and doesn’t work and the responses could lead to drastic changes in the film or the marketing strategy before it is finally released.  

Silent film star Harold Lloyd and producer Hal Roach are considered to be the pioneers of test screenings.  The pair would take early cuts of films to a theatre to gauge audience response. Directors (and stars) in the early days of the Hollywood studio system were contracted to work on films the studio wanted them to and almost certainly had no say over the final cut of the films. In the case of Should Sailors Marry? (1925), the ‘director/writer Jess Robbins washed his hands of the picture’ (Sinnott, 2005) after test screenings produced negative responses.  Producer Hal Roach got a replacement director in to re-shoot some scenes and the film was salvaged.

However sometimes it can be the director who wants test screenings and invites feedback from audiences.  Billy Wilder screened an early cut of his classic Sunset Boulevard (1950) for an audience and was told by a woman in attendance that "I never saw such a pile of shit in all my life" (Hennigan, 2003).  After attending this test screening, he chopped the opening and closing scenes due to the audience’s responses.

Test screenings can be responsible for a huge range of changes made to a film from a complete re-shooting of the ending all the way down to just a title change.  For example the title of the Bond film Licence to Kill (1989) ‘was initially… Licence Revoked, but this was changed after test screenings revealed that US crowds associated the term with driving’ (Radford, 2008).

Many films have had drastic changes made to them at huge costs.  Little Shop of Horrors (1986) was test screened in front of an audience of families and as a result had a completely new ending created.  Seven (1995), David Fincher’s bleak serial killer masterpiece, ends with (SPOILER!) the hero’s wife’s severed head delivered to the hero in a box.  The film shows the graphic, gory aftermath of several severely sickening slayings and was tested in front of an audience told they would be seeing the new Brad Pitt/Morgan Freeman movie.  ‘At the time Freeman was best known for being in Driving Miss Daisy and Pitt for Legends of the Fall.  As a result ‘one older woman who walked out halfway through the movie said, "Whoever made this piece of filth should be shot"...directly to David Fincher’ (http://www.everything2.org/index.pl?node_id=1316247).  Fortunately Pitt and Fincher fought for the depressing ending and the studio kept it intact, resulting in the film becoming a classic of the crime genre.  

Bleak, uncertain or open endings are often the casualties of test screenings.  Blade Runner (1982), Fatal Attraction (1987) and Australia (2008) all had different endings to those originally scribbled by the writers and shot by the directors. Monahan (2008) argues the studio executives require directors to shoot new endings so that filmgoers will be left ‘with a collective smile on their faces and therefore, so the logic goes, render the film more lucrative.’

Some films have benefited greatly from test screenings including Paranormal Activity (2007).  The footage from audience test screenings was used in the trailer to show how people were reacting to the film. See below.

Some critics are fearful that test screenings are damaging as they can lead to piracy and leaks. Others are concerned about the demographic that are targeted by the major studios.  ‘‘’Typical'' American moviegoers get to tell the Hollywood bigs how to improve their products before they're released. Test-audience members are often white males, 16 to 32 years old, who are recruited in L.A. suburbs, usually from colleges and shopping malls’ (Vaughn, 1991).  As this demographic is considered to be the biggest cinema-going audience, studios pay more attention to what young white males have to say.  Therefore films aimed at different ethnicities, gender and age groups may be affected by the desire to appeal to the widest audience with the most disposable income.  

Monahan puts his criticisms most bluntly; ‘First, test-audiences are essentially filmmaking-by-committee, and as everyone knows, no committee has ever made anything entirely worthwhile in the history of creation.  Second, when you really think about it, it's the bleakest endings that stick most powerfully in the mind’ (Monahan, 2008).  

So, is it fair that audiences and profit-hungry executives get the final say after filmmakers shed blood, sweat and tears creating the films?  Just remember if you get into a test screening; the power to change the movies could be in your hands.  

An extended version of this article first appeared in MediaMagazine.

Part 2 on Marketing coming soon.

References

Hennigan, 2003 

Monahan, 2008 

Radford, 2008 

Sinnott, 2005 

Vaughn, 1991 

Other

What do you think of test screenings?   Necessary evil, sensible, fair, terrible, cruel and unusual?

I Love That Blog Post #13

Here is a selection of some of the great stuff I have been reading around the blogosphere recently.  I hope you will drop by and give them a look sometime!

The Droid You’re Looking For has the goods on the real life scumbag that Scorsese’s next film is all about http://tdylf.com/2012/09/12/who-is-jordan-belfort-and-why-is-martin-scorsese-making-a-movie-about-him/

Check out Impassioned Cinema’s must-see Video of the Week: Alma.  Stick with it for a brilliant ending!  http://www.impassionedcinema.com/votw-alma/

Fogs takes a detailed look back at one of my all-time favourites and a film everyone should see: Titanic http://fogsmoviereviews.com/2012/09/17/movies-that-everyone-should-see-titanic/

The Droid You’re Looking for has the twenty signs that you’re a movie geek http://tdylf.com/2012/09/26/twenty-signs-that-youre-a-movie-geek/

On Page and Screen has an excellent review of the American Psycho book http://eclecticbooksandmovies.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/book-review-american-psycho-by-patrick.html

Behind the Couch has a great piece on surely the gayest horror film ever: A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge http://watchinghorrorfilmsfrombehindthecouch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/a-nightmare-on-elm-street-part-2.html

Fogs takes a look at another movie that everyone should see: Seven http://fogsmoviereviews.com/2012/10/01/movies-that-everyone-should-see-se7en/

Useful tips from My Filmviews on how to increase traffic and comments on your blog http://myfilmviews.com/2012/10/05/blogging-tips-to-increase-traffic-and-comments/