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Film & TVFeature
6November 2023
TextNick Chen
Share


Michael Fassbender in The Killer (Film Still)Courtesy Netflix


DAVID FINCHER ON FILMMAKING AND HIS TWISTED NEW COMEDY, THE KILLER

Film & TVFeature


AS HIS NEW FILM GETS READY TO HIT NETFLIX, THE LEGENDARY DIRECTOR TALKS TO NICK
CHEN ABOUT THE SMITHS, MICHAEL FASSBENDER, AND THE SIMILARITIES BETWEEN
DIRECTORS AND HITMEN

6November 2023
TextNick Chen
The Killer11


To prove the catchiness of “Unhappy Birthday” by The Smiths, David Fincher sings
to me the opening refrain with a huge grin. For our conversation, the
61-year-old director of feel-bad fare like Se7en, Zodiac, and The Girl with the
Dragon Tattoo is in surprisingly good spirits. Or bad spirits, given the
miserabilist nature of The Smiths.

In Fincher’s sleek, bleak thriller The Killer, his second feature for Netflix,
there are 11 killer songs by The Smiths on the soundtrack. An unnamed hitman
(Michael Fassbender) – simply The Killer, in the credits – calms his nerves when
operating a sniper rifle by listening to “How Soon Is Now?”, the tremolo
reverberating through his earphones. “That guitar shouldn’t be comforting,
because it’s sinister,” says Fincher, speaking in Ham Yard Hotel during the
London Film Festival. “But to me, it’s comforting. We originally had Joy
Division and Siouxsie and the Banshees. [Trent] Reznor was like, ‘Every time we
use The Smiths, it’s just funny.’”

After the black-and-white seriousness of Mank, Fincher has returned to the kind
of big-screen, popcorn fun he delivered in Gone Girl – except it also
mischievously isn’t. Adapted from a French graphic novel, The Killer is less of
a John Wick-esque, gun-toting adventure and more observing an assassin do admin
to bypass security measures. He shuffles through paperwork to identify home
addresses, and fills in endless forms to join a victim’s gym. To remain
faceless, he picks up Amazon purchases from a locker and eats at a McDonald’s
that doesn’t involve entering a building. If it weren’t too meta, he’d wind down
by using someone else’s password to stream Fincher’s House of Cards on Netflix.

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The Killer’s routine collapses, though, when he mistakenly shoots the wrong
person. Up to then, a droll voiceover narrates each frame as if he’s a lifestyle
guru for hitmen: “Only fight the battle you’re paid to fight.” Running off, his
narration is gradually replaced by Reznor and Atticus Ross’s ominous score. “The
first 16 minutes are putting the camera inside his orbital
socket,” Fincher explains. “It’s regal in terms of over-the-shoulders and POVs.
The camera is staid and gliding. When he misses, it gets handheld to show his
wall is crumbling. Part of his wall is his measured movement through space, but
it’s also his mantra. Certain lines no longer apply.”

Even though he’s never had an official screenwriting credit, Fincher is one of
the filmmakers most commonly regarded today as an auteur. His precise,
meaningful camera movements are instantly recognisable, whether it’s a tracking
shot through a coffee maker in Panic Room or the music video for Madonna’s
“Vogue”, and he punches up all his scripts anyway: a behind-the-scenes
documentary on The Social Network reveals footage of the three
weeks Fincher spent dissecting the dialogue with Aaron Sorkin, the latter
routinely being rewritten.

Fincher also has fun toying with movie language. For instance, when The Killer
initially shoots the wrong person, it’s preceded by “How Soon Is Now?” blasting
at full volume to indicate when we’re in his headspace, or via tinny sound
bleeding from his earphones to suggest the opposite. One moment, we’re in the
mind of a world-class assassin; the next, we’re observing a loner who’s sleeping
in an abandoned WeWork office in Paris as the window is opposite his target’s
hotel. By switching back and forth every few seconds, it unnerves the viewer
who’s used to film soundtracks playing at a consistent volume, and it conveys
the hitman’s loss of concentration. “The song interrupts, lyrically, what’s
going on,” adds Fincher. “‘I am human and I need to be loved.’ You better be
conscious of what image that’s occurring over.”



After fleeing Paris and asking WWJWBD (What Would John Wilkes Booth Do?), The
Killer returns to his home in the Dominican Republic, only to find that his
partner has been hospitalised – payback for the botched job. His subsequent
revenge involves tracking down those who wronged him. One of them is The Expert,
a hitwoman played by Tilda Swinton. “He’s got to meet the Ghost of Christmas Has
Yet to Come,” says Fincher. “A samurai meets the other samurai on the road. You
need someone who fell to Earth. Someone who’s not normal. If you have a problem
with a character, call Tilda.”

Even if there’s an ultra-violent, head-smashing brawl between The Killer and The
Brute (Sala Baker) that ends amidst explosions, the most memorable set-piece is
Swinton and Fassbender drinking whiskey in a public restaurant. Beneath the
table, The Killer points a gun in her direction. As in The Social
Network, Fincher proves he can shoot conversations like action sequences.
“That’s a fucking nine-page scene where they’re not going anywhere, and she’s
not going to try and run. She’s accepted her fate.” In the scene, Swinton has 99
per cent of the dialogue. “It’s so funny! People are expecting Pacino and De
Niro [in Heat]. It’s just one guy sitting there, taking it all in.”

I comment on the incongruity of Fassbender, a natural movie star, depicting
someone who blends into the background. “Really?” says Fincher, raising an
eyebrow. “I don’t know. He’s strangely approachable.” He cites Fassbender
in Prometheus. “That’s a role he’s not asked to do much of anything, but you can
tell he’s invested in it. I felt we needed that, even if I knew that for 80 days
I would be going, ‘Less. Less. Even less.’”


The Killer (Film Still)Courtesy Netflix

The script was written by Andrew Kevin Walker, who penned Se7en and did
uncredited rewrites on Fight Club, The Game, and other Fincher films. By
chance, Fincher has recently been working on a 4K remaster of Se7en. He chuckles
when I ask if it was a moment for reflection. “Unfortunately, I’ve not learned
anything about myself.” Even in conjunction with The Killer? He thinks. “I
realised a lot of my shooting overscale, and oversampling 8K, and doing
stabilisation or repositioning within a centre-cut aspect ratio – that was a
reaction to problems I had on Se7en in terms of framing.”

He explains that 8K allows him to erase large portions of the image. “A lot of
camera operators are taught that when someone drops their chin, they’re supposed
to account for that.” He mimics going up and down with a camera. “I’m never
going to shoot that type of close-up. I don’t believe in it. It makes me aware
psychologically that there’s a camera operator. If somebody moves, and the
camera goes over there, I go, ‘What’s with that guy?’” He’s not a fan of shaky
cameras, then? “It’s this coat-of-interior-house-paint idea of ‘look, it’s
verité’. It’s never worked for me.”

Evidently, Fincher has firm ideas of what a “David Fincher movie” should look
like, and The Killer also happens to be about a white, male perfectionist who,
with his telescopic equipment, takes aim to capture that one perfect shot. When
time is up and I’m packing up my belongings, I blurt out my observation that he
appears to have directed a film about filmmaking.

“Look, the notion of a sniper is that you have to have a pre-ordained knowledge
of what you want to accomplish,” says Fincher. “It relies on a lot of
specialised technology. The stakes are high. You get one shot at it. Yeah, in
respect, it’s probably…” He sighs. “It’s a little dime-store psychology.”
Heading to the door, I admit I saved it for the end as I was too embarrassed to
mention it earlier. “OK,” he says, laughing. “Now you can slink out!”

The Killer is out in select cinemas now, and will stream on Netflix from
November 10

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Film & TVFeatureDavid FincherMichael FassbenderTrent ReznorTilda Swinton


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The Killer (Film Still)Courtesy Netflix