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What you get with The Social Network is the most fascinating character study since The Conversation. The Social Network is about the creators of Facebook, specifically a young man named Mark Zuckerberg, as portrayed by Jesse Eisenberg, who's successes only amplify his guarded insecurity and social ineptitude. Many proponents and critical champions of the film have had the gaul to herald The Social Network as my generation's Citizen Kane. Well... I think that's a completely accurate statement to make. Even I agree with them. It actually is my generation's Citizen Kane. The themes and nods are all there. Hearst as Zuckerberg, right down to the sled. Refresh, refresh, refresh. The Social Network is a very touching and revealing character study about a troubled young man who will become wholly emblematic of his time and place.
"You have part of my attention - you have the minimum amount."
The film opens with a lengthy scene of dialogue between Mark and his girlfriend. What's so unique about it is that you have to listen closely because the scene is jumbled with the chatter of a murmuring pub. And you can hear the background noise louder than you would like to have it or have been used to hearing it in other films. It's almost like we're right there with them, listening in. It's hard to hear comfortably at parts but I find that decision enthralling. Director David Fincher is trying to tell us something here, he's trying to prepare his audience. He's telling them to listen up and pay attention because this movie demands it. He uses this same tool later on in the film at a night club where Mark is being taken under the wing of a character with questionable motives. Fincher says once again, listen closely. This is a scene that demands concentration. Read between the lines, Mark is. Why aren't you?
Let's talk about the star of the film, Jesse Eisenberg as Mark, for he is going to be the reason why this film will never be forgotten. Eisenberg was outstanding here, laying down the best performance in film since the '70s. Naturalistic and contained, it was an absolutely beautiful portrayal. It harked back to Al Pacino's Michael Corleone from The Godfather Part Two, it was that impressive. What Eisenberg was able to do with Mark was something very precise. He made the character a complex one. One that was guarded, calculated, methodical, and incredibly lonely. A character that can be very cold and sad and unforgivably oblivious.
The idea proposed by Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin is an interesting one, that the creator of a website designed to connect people around the world to all of their friends is not only socially off-putting but is so selfish and vengeful that he has no friends of his own. He has no support system. Eisenberg makes Mark out to be a loveless, wounded, and perpetually hurt person with quiet anger and resentment. The most perplexing aspect of Mark's character is that he is opaque and protective, resentful but there is a dying desire there as well. A want not of fortune but of impulse. I don't think Mark wants to be so cold. Then again, sometimes I think that's exactly how we wants to be perceived. He never really seems to honestly enjoy his successes. He never acts like he wants the money. He never really seems to want much more other than to be seen as someone stronger than he is. He wants to be different. Eisenberg communicates things along the lines of self-punishment and hatred with Mark. It's in his face and the quiver and shake of his voice. It's all in how a person so precise can be so uncomfortable in his own skin.
Eisenberg is a very responsive actor and the key to his performance is in his reactions. The little ticks that he does or the facial stretches that are both surprising and full of pathos. Eisenberg did something extraordinary in The Social Network. Truth be told, this was an unsurmountable performance, mammoth in poignancy and tragedy. What Eisenberg was able to communicate with his portrayal of Mark is something for the history books. If this film will be remembered for anything, I hope that it will be because of him. Such a complex delivery! I love that The Social Network is not really a film about Facebook but a complex, intimate, and puzzling character study of the touching from a distance variety. His performance is made of composites, all of which equally compounding and involved. Eisenberg's intricate approach, along with the occasional trip of haywire, is only augmented by Mark's impenetrable and inaccessible frozen heart.
Or is it even frozen? Maybe he's a kid who has a whole lot of heart but doesn't know how to use it. He had forgotten how a long time ago. Now he just is. But does he want to be? Does he yearn? In a performance that touches upon both the easily readable and the abstruse, Eisenberg molds a legendary character. A pillar of the actor's cinema. A startlingly perfect performance from an actor who has obviously mastered the craft. He got lost in Mark. I'm sure of it. This role had so many layers and it only gets more astonishing the more of them you peel back. Eisenberg was stunning here. A truly perfect and touching performance. Like I said, one of the best performances I have ever seen.
What is this film trying to say about my generation? Honestly, I don't really care much about that aspect of it. With the exception of the actors in participation, the rest of the filmmakers were older men who are most likely out of touch. I mean, my generation is inherently out of touch by nature so how could Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher know any better? This is not to say that Sorkin's script isn't great or that Fincher's vision wasn't coherent, fluid, and interesting to watch. I'm only saying that this film may not be the generation defining film in terms of territory and material, but it is generation defining in terms of acting and character. Eisenberg towers over his contemporaries. I've been waiting for an actor like him to come around for a very long time to kind of show the way for the others. I also hope that this film brings the character study back into popular demand. It's been a few years now since The Social Network was released and films just aren't seeming to catch on. It was a special kind of film and I guess we're not headed toward a new renaissance but at least it existed. A reminder of what the medium can accomplish. It focused on and examined a character who was not only a complicated one but one that shared a great likeness to it's coeval and modern audience. In the idea that Mark as a character is representative of my generation's cold resolve, the film is truly generation defining. It might not be the film my generation claimed but it's the one it deserved. It may not be an exact interpretation of my generation but it makes for a damn good silhouette of it.
One of my all-time favorite films.
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From the manufacturer
The Social Network
Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg
David Fincher's The Social Network chronicles the formation of Facebook and the lawsuits that subsequently followed. Written by Aaron Sorkin, whose script won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar.
The Wonders of Facebook/Buddhism/Collective Consciousness
I definitely recommend this product.ALOT has changed about Facebook, and the internet itself, since I wrote this piece. It is now outdated. The Egypt conflict happened pretty much directly after I wrote this piece. Anyway, I will repeat myself, THIS PIECE OF WRITING IS NOW OUTDATED. The world has changed profoundly even in the last 30 days."Facebook" 1/24/11by Rachel Mangieri'It all cascading into technology, the complexities of being until you must come down, you MUST come down to relax, step down to my world, tune into the colors, all every little freaking coincidence of all the people we know and love ON FACEBOOK all is happening ON FACEBOOK not "the" Facebook but Facebook, with all its problems and complaints and saying "Oh screw that Facebook movie, that's so stupid, I don't want to see that" exactly like that, I'm unable to believe the feeling distilled from this movie, "The Social Network," the movie that shifts lives that introduces you to the "Time Magazine" 2010 person of the year MARK ZUCKERBERG, the CONNECTOR the man (boy?) who connected one tenth of the world's population in seven years, the magic number, seven and three, my lucky numbers, being a Cancer (if you want to talk astrology, something I am far too involved with). Facebook, the wide open plane of offices, no cubicles, no offices, not even the creator HIMSELF has an office, the "Facebook CEO, Bitch" business card holder, the place where they hold meetings in Palo Alto, the conference room, a glass box in the midst of this huge, huge array of computers all updating posting linking chaining our soul, Mark Zuckerberg is BUDDHIST, caring, he just cares. When he and his friends were sitting around, thinking about Facebook, the connective tissue, they thought; why hasn't anyone done this before. The internet held the possibility, the capability of the connection of nearly 600 million people. Mark says, "The craziest thing to me in all this is that I can remember having these conversations with my friends when I was in college. We would just sort of take it as an assumption that the world would get to the state it is now. But, we figured, we're just college kids. Why were we the people who were most qualified to do that? I mean, that's crazy!" he goes on. As time magazine says, "We have entered the Facebook age, and Mark Zuckerberg is the man who brought us here." Mark Zuckerberg was born in 1984, the same year that the first Macintosh computer came out. This makes him 26 years old as of the beginning of 2011. Mark had a star-wars themed bar mitzvah. He is a "precocious computer programmer." Now Wikipedia bills him as "an American Computer scientist, software developer, and philanthropist best known for creating the social networking site Facebook, of which he is CEO and president.Mark Zuckerberg. The "inventor" of Facebook. Making stuff happen. Every day writing code for his creation, never giving up. He gave up a million dollar deal to sell Facebook to yahoo in "the Facebook's early days. Giving up all this money because he DOES NOT CARE ABOUT MONEY. He dropped out of Harvard University to create Facebook. He drives an Acura when he could drive a Bentley. The time article says an Acura is...the equivalent of an undershirt to him. Facebook headquarters now reside in Palo Alto, California. Dropped out of Harvard in 2004. CEO/President of Facebook, 24% shareholder in 2010. Sean Parker, the founder of Napster, owns a 7% share in the company. Seven. The magic number. Mark Zuckerberg is the world's youngest billionaire. His hometown is Dobbs Ferry, New York. New York, the center of it all. As of 2010, Mark was valued at six point nine billion dollars. THE SAME NUMBER OF PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD.'The Saturn Game
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CatsReviewed in Germany on October 27, 2013
Collector‘s Edition: Gelungenes Porträt eines genialen Außenseiters und hervorragendes Bonusmaterial
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