Celebrating 10-Years of “The Social Network” - Why The 2010 Fincher Film Feels More Relevant Today
On October 1, 2010, David Fincher’s eighth feature film, “The Social Network,” was released in theaters. To celebrate the iconic film on its tenth anniversary, we are taking a look back at the widely praised film, its legacy in our current world and what has become one of the best Director/Writer collaborations between Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher.
“If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you would have invented Facebook.”
Jesse Eisenberg as the accidental billionaire Mark Zuckerberg in Fincher’s 2010 “The Social Network”
And thus summarizes the main conflict of David Fincher’s 2010 Biographical-Drama “The Social Network.” Something bizarre has taken a hold of the conversation surrounding the film in the past 10-years, people are looking back at “The Social Network” as a piece of historical fiction, rather than a movie. Even though Facebook is now sixteen years old, the story of Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, has not been erased from our memories. Zuckerberg has popped up in the political and public conversation regarding Facebook’s governing of fake advertising and bot use on its site. Now that we see what Facebook has become, people are now using the film as a sort of historical context; they re-visit the film almost like a piece of history to re-watch to find clues of how Facebook grew to be what it is today.
As I sit down to write about this historical movie-making experience, I am listening to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross iconic movie score for the film that led them to take home Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score at the Oscars that year. So, as we dive into the controversial Fincher classic, sit back, relax and fire up “Hand Covers Bruise.” We’re going back to 2010.
Jesse Eisenberg and Joseph Mazzello play Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz, Co-Founders of Facebook
When the movie was released, we were still at the infancy of social media. The social networking site had been around for about six years after its release in 2004. We were still unaware that Facebook was on its way to become one of the most powerful tech companies in the world. At the time of the movie’s release, Twitter had only been active for about four years, Instagram had not yet been founded and Tik Tok was just another Ke$ha song. When the movie debuted in the Fall of 2010, Facebook was currently valued at $25 Million and had approximately 500 Million users. Flash forward 10 years later, Facebook is currently worth $528 Billion with around 1.6 Billion users.
The films legacy is quite controversial, who would have thought that the 2010 biographical drama about the rise of Facebook would still hold up as a reference point in our current politics as conversations around Zuckerberg’s integrity and the integrity of the ads on his site have been met with political and public scrutiny. The movie is one of those rare cultural cases, where people look back at the film and perceive much about the character of Zuckerberg through a somewhat tainted reality – who is Mark Zuckerberg the person and who is Mark Zuckerberg the character?
A decade has passed since the film premiered and Zuckerberg has consistently gone on the record to refute some of the claims and portrayals that David Fincher’s 2010 Film addresses, even citing the validity of the movie in Congressional Hearings. Instead of diving into what is fact and what is fiction, we will be looking at the film through a movie review lens to find some clarity as to what topics endure after all this time.
The screenplay was written by Aaron Sorkin and was based on the novel “The Accidental Billionaires” by Ben Mezrich. However, the book had not yet been released when Sorkin penned the first draft of the screenplay. He was given a few pages and a synopsis and began writing. The script went on to the Oscars to take home Best Adapted Screenplay in 2011. The film itself centers around Mark Zuckerberg and his rise to fame, sure, but one of the main areas of focus that Sorkin highlights are the lawsuits that Zuckerberg faced upon the social networking sites’ creation. Sorkin’s script was a wildly long 300 pages that fit into a 2HR 1M run time. The fact that 300 pages fit within the 2HR film window might seem impossible, but Jessie Eisenberg as the fast-talking Zuckerberg made it happen with snappy one-liners and logs of diatribe recited at an unprecedented speed.
Rooney Mara plays Erica Albright, Zuckerberg’s girlfriend, at the beginning of the film.
After the script was created, Fincher signed on to direct and the casting began. Jesse Eisenberg’s portrayal of the glib, anti-social billionaire is by far one of the most memorable pieces of acting in the past decade. While he was nominated for his performance at the Academy Awards, he lost to Colin Firth that year for “The King’s Speech” (2010). Also joining the ranks of the ensemble was relatively unknown, at the time, Andrew Garfield playing Zuckerberg’s former best friend, Eduardo Saverin, who sued Mark for $600M after getting cut out of the Facebook’s stock in the now memorable confrontation scene at the end of the movie.
“The Social Network” essentially paints an unforgiving portrait of a young Mark Zuckerberg, a sophomore at Harvard who invents one of the longest lasting social-networking sites, “The Facebook,” as it was called then. The story jumps back and forth between present day where Mark Zuckerberg is located in a court room, suffering from two different law suit regarding the creation of the site; one from the Winklevoss Twins (Armie Hammer), who insist that Zuckerberg stole their idea, and the other from Eduardo Saverin, the billionaire’s former college best-friend.
When the film premiered in 2010, Zuckerberg was quick to refute the claims made about him in the movie, stating that the only actual true portrayal was the way that he dressed. Originally when the film premiered, Fincher and Sorkin were met with rough criticisms regarding the portrayal of the Billionaire, saying that the movie was too hard on the anti-hero. However, knowing what we know now about the mammoth social networking site, maybe they weren’t.
Eisenberg as Zuckerberg in the middle of a deposition with the Winklevoss Twins.
The film went on to be nominated in four prestigious categories at the Academy Awards, nominated for Best Picture, Best Performance by an Actor in a Lead Role (Jesse Eisenberg), Best Achievement in Directing (David Fincher), Best Adapted Screenplay (Aaron Sorkin), Best Achievement in Music Written for a Motion Picture, Original Score (Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross), Best Cinematography (Jeff Cronenweth), Best Achievement in Film Editing (Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall) and finally, Best Achievement in Sound Mixing (Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick and Mark Weingarten). Ultimately the film went home that night with Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score and Best Film Editing.
As we review the current scope of Facebook in 2020, audiences have started to view Fincher’s 2010 Bio-Drama as a work of historical value, even though many liberties have been taken with the characters and the outcome of the story. With all of these layers working together, the film still holds up to critique despite the ten years that have come and gone since its release.
Fincher has been associated his obsession to detail in every frame, every movement, every piece of character dialogue. The attention to perfection is what allows him to stand out as one of the great filmmakers of our time. Fincher has famously been quoted saying the following:
“People say there are a million ways to shoot a scene, but I don’t think so.”
Fincher’s obsession and strive towards perfection is one of the many reasons that people consistently go back to re-visit his work. “The Social Network” is made to be re-visited, perhaps now more than ever.
Memorable Scenes in The Social Network
Opening Scene: “Because it’s exhausting. Dating you is like dating a stair master”
The film opens in a Harvard Pub with Mark Zuckerberg on a date with Erica Albright (Rooney Mara), a fictional girlfriend created for the movie specifically. The opening scenes illustrate the fast-talking, condescending Zuckerberg that we see throughout the film as he criticizes and interrupts his girlfriend while discussing the importance of obtaining a seat in the Final Clubs, exclusive, private membership programs for the students at Harvard. In the interaction we see Sorkin lay the framework for the film, beginning to insinuate that Zuckerberg created The Facebook for notoriety at school. The opening scene invites viewers to interpret Zuckerberg’s creation of Facebook based on the misogynistic creation of “Face Smash” which he creates after being dumped by his fictional girlfriend that inspires him to create “The Facebook.”
Mark Zuckerberg Review Board – “As for the charges, I believe I deserve some recognition from this board.”
Mark Zuckerberg’s first appearance in front of a court actually begins in college when he is brought before Harvard’s board to address the creation of his prank website “FaceMash” that he created comparing women against each other. In the scene he is addressed by the head of the board when referring to the charges brought against him saying the iconic, arrogant line “I believe I deserve some recognition from this board.” After following up on his question, saying that they don’t understand, Zuckerberg responds back with “Which Part?”
Winklevoss Trial: “Did I adequately answer your condescending question?”
During the flash back between the trials, we see that the Winklevoss Lawyer press Mark in the deposition where it is clear that he isn’t paying attention to the trust-fund, privileged Winkle-vi, as they are called in the movie, who are suing him for allegedly “stealing” their idea for the website. In the scene, the Winklevoss lawyer asks Zuckerberg is he deserves his attention. We can feel the resentment and the frustration in Zuckerberg when he blasts the Winklevoss Twins for wasting his time.
Sean Parker Dinner: “A million dollars isn’t cool, you know what’s cool? A billion dollars.”
During Zuckerberg’s first meeting with Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), a potential investor and fan of the networking site, Parker immediately recognizes the potential in Facebook and show-boats to join the team. Sean Parker had been famous in the early 2000s with his invention of Napster, a music media site that eventually was shut down due to too many lawsuits. In the dinner scene we see Parker weasel his way into the company, putting Facebook on a new pathway to success.
Eduardo and Mark Face Off – “You better lawyer up, asshole.”
Arguably the most iconic scene of the film. Eduardo is invited out to Facebook headquarters to celebrate 100 Million Subscribers. As he reviewed the paperwork, he signed a few weeks back, he realizes that Mark has screwed him out of Facebook stock, his ownership in the company decreased down to .03%. One of the best musical score overtones when Fincher flashes back and forth between the courtroom case discovering Eduardo’s position has essentially been erased from Facebook to the confrontation between Eduardo and Mark in Facebook headquarters.
What do you think of the Social Network? Be sure to let us know your memories of the film and what you took away from it in the comment section.