Zodiac

How this film uses it

Graysmith pieces the Zodiac case back together from newspaper archives, police files and interviews held decades after the crimes. Fincher keeps you at exactly Graysmith's level of knowledge. The film knows no more than he does, and neither do you. That is the point. The film is built around how far the investigation can go and where it has to stop.

Where to see it

Graysmith's research sequences. The cartoonist sits surrounded by letters and files. His reasoning builds toward a conclusion the film can't confirm, either legally or with evidence.

How this film uses it

Graysmith's obsession with the Zodiac case costs him his marriage, his friendships and years of his life. Fincher builds the film so that the obsession itself is the subject. You see its cost, how irrational it is and how it refuses to accept the case as unsolvable. That is, the mystery of the film is Graysmith's need for certainty. The killer's identity comes second.

Where to see it

Graysmith's confrontation with his wife about the case files. You see what the obsession costs him at home. The real subject of the film turns out to be the compulsion.

How this film uses it

Fincher and editor Angus Wall cut the middle stretch of the investigation as one long montage of paranoia. You see handwriting comparisons, solved ciphers and suspects who only lead to more suspects. The editing makes you feel a pattern forming. At the same time, it weakens your trust in any single link.

Where to see it

The parallel investigation sequences. Graysmith, Toschi and Armstrong each put together different pieces of the same puzzle. The montage suggests the pieces are about to meet, and in the end the film never lets them.

How this film uses it

In the final act, knowledge itself falls apart in slow motion. Graysmith is sure who the killer is, but that certainty can't be confirmed in law or by evidence. Nobody is hiding the truth. It simply can't be reached. Fincher's film is about what it costs to chase certainty in a world that won't give it to you.

Where to see it

Graysmith's face-to-face meeting with Arthur Leigh Allen at the hardware store. It looks like a moment of certainty, and the film qualifies it straight away. The collapse comes when the film refuses to give you a reveal.

How this film uses it

Fincher and cinematographer Harris Savides show San Francisco in the late 1960s and 1970s with a mundane, slightly muted look. Their references were the photographs of William Eggleston and Stephen Shore and real police photos. Because of that, the period feels lived in.

Where to see it

The late-1960s opening sequences. The image looks like photographs taken in that era. You read the period in the quality of the light as well as in the period details.