When he took on The Social Network, director David Fincher wasn't intent on making a film about Mark Zuckerberg and the controversies surrounding the founding of Facebook; what mattered to him was the script. "Nobody came to me and said, 'Ya like Mark Zuckerberg?'" Fincher told TimeOut in 2011. "They said, 'We have a really great script, would you like to read it?'"
Impressed with Aaron Sorkin's adaptation of Ben Mezrich's book The Accidental Billionaires, Fincher accepted the project, knowing from the outset that the film was likely to displease Facebook. "By the time I got involved," Fincher said, "the producer Scott Rudin had had the last official discussions with Facebook and they had parted ways. They had a list of a dozen 'requirements' for their participation, and the first two were: it can’t take place at Harvard and you can’t call it Facebook."
Because of Facebook's limiting requirements, Rudin and Fincher went ahead without the corporation's input, deciding they were simply making "a movie about the litigation, as the depositions are all part of the public record and [they] can glean from them the drama [they] need to make [their] film." Fincher said a delegation of officials from Facebook came to see a screening of the film after it was finished, and that they were "appropriately appalled."
Although Fincher acknowledged that much of the appeal of the film is that it is based loosely on real-life figures and controversies, he said after its release that he hoped it was "about bigger things than technology." In contrast to the previous films he directed, which made notable use of silence to build suspense, The Social Network is far more dialogue-driven—a trademark of Sorkin's writing style. When asked about the fast-moving dialogue in the film's opening scene, Fincher said, "The first scene in a movie should teach the audience how to watch it. ... If I could’ve put the opening lines of dialogue over a trailer, I would’ve done that. It’s shut-the-fuck-up-time: pay attention, or you’re going to miss a lot."
Known to be a perfectionist who does extensive research into stories and actors before embarking on a project, Fincher has said that his responsibilities as a director ultimately boil down to two key things: whether he is presenting believable behavior and where he is positioning the camera. At the same time, he acknowledges that there is so much that has to be established before he can arrive at those two things: "Yes, 90 per cent of directing is getting the money and getting the right equipment there and the right people and departments to create the right feeling out of the right context." But ultimately, all of that occurs out of the audience's sight, and so viewers "only get to see what we show them ... [I]n that moment, I control everything they hear and see. I’m hoping that these elements will translate into feeling."
