ZODIAC …and how it relates to you and the world around you. Includes info on
the actors .... Of the four, Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) was the wild card.
Visual Review Everything you need to know about
ZODIAC …and how it relates to you and the world around you. Includes info on the actors, director, with news, reviews, and photos.
visual review by david bruce visualhollywood.com
SHORT SYNOPSIS
Movies Contain the Essence of Being Human
It is the ultimate cold case. The rampage of a madman who has never been caught; the elusive cipher slayer who gripped the nation in fear, America’s very own Jack the Ripper. He publicly claimed 13 victims, then more, two dozen more. Police pinned him with seven, five dead. The true body count may never be known. One thing is certain: That count includes the living.
KEY ACTORS
Robert Graysmith JAKE GYLLENHAAL
The Cinematic Arts Have the Power to Transform
Paul Avery ROBERT DOWNEY JR.
Dave Toschi MARK RUFFALO
Our Artists Are Our Liberators
KEY TALENT
DAVID FINCHER (Director) made his feature film debut in 1992 with “Alien 3.” In 1995, he directed “Se7en,” also about tracking down a serial killer.
DAVID SHIRE (Composer) winner of an Academy Award, a Grammy, multiple Emmy and Tony nominations, is one of the most prolific and honored composers of film, television, theater and recordings.
JAMES VANDERBILT (Screenwriter/ Producer) optioned the rights to Robert Graysmith’s Zodiac and wrote the screenplay adaptation on spec – a gamble that paid off with only three produced scripts to his credit.
ARTIST HIGHLIGHT
Y N G I V E S Ë O CHL ) e i n a (Mel
Known in the mid to late nineties for her status as a fashion impresario and "it girl," with over a dozen art house films to her credit, Chloe Sevigny also stands out as one of the most prominent queens of contemporary independent cinema. Originally hailing from Darien, Connecticut, Sevigny attributes weekend trips into nearby New York City in her teens as an important early saving grace from her super rich and stuffy hometown. It was on one such trip at the age of eighteen, that Sevigny was spotted on the street by a fashion editor for Sassy magazine. And so began her career…
Actors are Liberators in Masquerade
ARTIST HIGHLIGHT Gyllenhaal's first notable film appearances was in 2001's cult hit Donnie Darko, in which he played a troubled teenager. In the 2004 blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow, he portrayed a student caught in a cataclysmic global cooling event. He played against type as an angry Marine in Jarhead (2005) and, that same year, he won critical acclaim as a "gay cowboy" in the controversial, but highly lauded, film Brokeback Mountain. Gyllenhaal has taken an activist role in supporting political and social causes, promoting environmental causes and the American Civil Liberties Union. Actors help us: laugh, be happy, cry, get angry, and even think. Can there be any better gifts?
JAKE GYLL ENHA (Robe AL rt Gra ysmit h)
ARTIST HIGHLIGHT
Filmmakers are Revolutionaries Unaware
Inspired by the film, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, he began making movies at the age of eight with an 8 mm camera. Filmmaking seemed the perfect outlet for a kid who could spend all day drawing and loved to make sculptures, take pictures and tape-record. Fincher eschewed the film school route, getting a job loading cameras and doing other hands-on work for John Korty's Korty Films. He next got a job at Industrial Light and Magic in 1980 with his first screen credit being for Return of the Jedi, and stayed until 1984.
R E H C IN F ) D I r o V DA Direct (
Fincher directed big-budget music videos for artists such as Madonna, Jody Watley, Rick Springfield, Steve Winwood, George Michael, Aerosmith, Paula Abdul, the Rolling Stones, Nine Inch Nails, etc. Like a number of other music video directors, he then moved into film.
EXTENDED SYNOPSIS
Stories are Transforming
Based on the true story of a serial killer who terrified the San Francisco Bay Area and taunted authorities in four jurisdictions with his ciphers and letters for decades. Hunting down the hunter would become an obsession for four men, an obsession that would turn them into ghosts of their former selves, their lives built and destroyed by the killer’s endless trail of clues.
EXTENDED SYNOPSIS
Inspector Dave Toschi (Ruffalo) Ruffalo meets with newspaper cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Gyllenhaal) Gyllenhaal
All Kids are Born Artistic What is Natural is Essential
Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.)
Of the four, Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) was the wild card. A shy editorial cartoonist, Graysmith didn’t have the cache and expertise of his seasoned and cynical colleague Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.), the San Francisco Chronicle’s star crime reporter. He didn’t have Avery’s connections with San Francisco Police Department’s celebrated and ambitious Homicide Inspector Dave Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and his lowkey, meticulous partner Inspector William Armstrong (Anthony Edwards). What he did have was a crucial insight no one anticipated. It first appeared Aug. 1, 1969.
EXTENDED SYNOPSIS
Stories Embody the Essence of Being Human
A crudely written Letter to the Editor arrived in the day’s pile of mail. One of three penned to the Chronicle, the San Francisco Examiner and the Vallejo Times-Herald, its contents brought the newsrooms to a standstill. “Dear Editor, This is the murderer…” of David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen, and of Darlene Ferrin and the attempted murder of Mike Mageau. He didn’t call them by name, but he gave a laundry list of details only the police could know.
EXTENDED SYNOPSIS
Cinematic Story Telling is a Profoundly Humanizing endeavor.
Zodiac inadvertently had turned detectives Toschi and Armstrong and reporter Avery into overnight celebrities. Characters based on Toschi would prove pivotal roles launching three movie stars’ careers. Graysmith remained committed to his armchair sleuthing from the sidelines, injecting his input when Avery would allow. Zodiac was always one step ahead, covering his tracks, peppering his lettered taunts with more threats. And then they became personal.
EXTENDED SYNOPSIS
Film making is a Community Event.
Infamy would eclipse fame as Toschi fell from grace; Armstrong, frustrated moved on; Avery left the paper, crippled by his addictions. Zodiac would no longer reveal his targets. Copycats sprang up coast to coast. The key suspect was still out there. Graysmith’s moment had come. That moment would change their lives forever.
LIFE CONNECTIONS in ZODIAC Like many children who grew up in the Bay area in the early `70s, director David Fincher, then 7, was spellbound by the invisible monster known only as the Zodiac. He was the ultimate bogey man. “If you grew up there, at that time, you had this childhood fear that you kind of insinuated yourself into it. What if it was our bus? What if he showed up in our neighborhood? You create even more drama about it when you’re a kid because that is what kids do. I grew up in Marin and now I know the geography of where the crimes took place, but when you’re in grade school, children don’t think about that. They think, `He’s going to show up at our school.’” - Director David Fincher
THE IMPORTANCE OF FEAR “Fear is a question: What are you afraid of, and why? Just as the seed of health is in illness, because illness contains information, your fears are a treasure house of self-knowledge if you explore them.” --Marilyn Ferguson Art is a Liberating Force
CRITICAL OPINION of ZODIAC The movie holds you in its grip from start to finish. --David Ansen Newsweek A+ Zodiac never veers from its stoically gripping, police-blotter tone, yet it begins to take on the quality of a dream. --Owen Gleiberman Entertainment Weekly Unforgettable --Nathan Lee Village Voice Discerning auds worldwide will find deep satisfaction --Todd McCarthy Variety
FILM REVIEW by david bruce
Art is the Language of Liberation
Jake Gyllenhaal observes, “I think what is most interesting about this story is that when something like this happens there’s mass hysteria. And then it’s given to the experts. And sometimes the experts don’t have the same heart that just a kind of a regular guy like Robert Graysmith would have. They also have so much red tape to go through, all the jurisdiction. Robert, a sort of regular person off the street, doesn’t have to get a warrant for this, or permission for that.” Even though I can appreciate experts, professionals and, yes, huge organization. The truth is, however, that it is the outsider –the regular person, like Robert Graysmith - who gives us our best innovations. Too often we give our so-called “experts” more than we should. Organized business is never as innovative as the independent entrepreneur. The system did not trust Graysmith as it should and everyone lost. Bottom line: Give place to the innovator, to the regular person, to yourself, and never give your soul away.
FINDING TRUTH in ZODIAC “Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism. Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make you a far happier and more productive person.” --Dr. David M. Burns “Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It's not about money. It's about the people you have, how you're led, and how much you get it.” --Steve Jobs “Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.” --Martin Luther King Jr. Society is only as free as its arts. Art is the voice of human freedom.
TRIVIA AND NEWS
Zodiac is the first major Hollywood movie that was created without the use of either film or video tape. David Fincher decided to use the digital Thomson Viper to shoot the film. This will be the first time the camera has been used to shoot an entire film. Michael Mann's Miami Vice, as well as his previous effort, Collateral (a coproduction of Paramount and its current sister studio DreamWorks, and which also starred Mark Ruffalo), were also shot with the camera but mixed in other formats. Once shot on Viper cam the files were converted to DVCPro HD 1080i and edited in Final Cut Pro. Other digital productions like Superman Returns or Apocalypto recorded to the mildly compressing HDCAM tape format.
WHY MOVIES ARE SO IMPORTANT
To Restrict Creativity is to Restrict the very Nature of the Creator
"The meaning of life is the most urgent of questions" --Albert Camus (Existentialist thinker) thinker . In “Movies and the Meaning of Life” author Kimberly Visual Hollywood takes an existential approach Blessing points out that movies can help us reflect to life. We celebrate on five of life’s most important questions: with human freedom. We use movies and the 1) What is reality and how can I know it? arts as a means of 2) How can I find my true identity? understanding the 3) What the significance of my interactions with human condition and others? our collective relation to 4) What’s the point of my life? the world around us. 5) How ought I to live my life? The idea behind Visual Hollywood is that Movies can and must play an essential role helping us explore the meaning of our existence and our life together. No other quest is more necessary or important. Movies are powerful. Movies bring personal meaning, and can contribute to a peaceful world. Cinematic story telling can be a transforming event.
Our basic quest is: 1. To know what it means to be human in the world. 2. The pursuit of human freedom.
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