Upon the release of David Fincher‘s Gone Girl last fall, we said, “whether it is one’s physical appearance, their demeanor, or their presentation on the news, one cannot trust what they see. Moreover, the film itself continues to reveal its own deceptions, and the cinematic image itself becomes fallible, subject to issues of timing and context that obscure the truth. Fincher’s films have struggled with how our reality — be it self-imposed or not — shapes us, and in Gone Girl they shape not just the characters, but the viewers. We unwittingly become just like the masses in the film rushing to cable news day after day. Like them, we don’t even know how crooked our vision is.”
We now have a video essay that explores these shifting perspectives and realities, thanks to Jop Leuven. While it’s brief and barely runs more than a minute, it shows off the how Fincher captures different locations and events twice in the film from different points of view. Perhaps the most remarkable part is how symmetrical some of the sequences are. Check out the video essay below and dive into what we learned from Fincher’s commentary here and listen to our discussion of the film.
Gone Girl is now available on Blu-ray.