+director%27s+cut+blu-ray+cover.jpg)
Paramount (USA)
2.35:1 1080p
162 minutes
Audio: Dolby TrueHD 5.1 English
Subtitles: Optional English, English SDH, French, Spanish
Extras: audio commentary by David Fincher; audio commentary by Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., Brad Fischer, James Vanderbilt, and James Ellroy;
Zodiac Deciphered (HD); The Visual Effects of
Zodiac (HD); Previsualization; theatrical trailer (HD); This Is the Zodiac Speaking (HD); Prime Suspect: His Name Was Arthur Leigh Allen (HD)
Released: 27 January 2009
slim double Blu-ray case
Note: Zodiac: Director’s Cut
is only about four to five minutes longer than the theatrical version. Therefore, it is not a substantially different experience. The most-noticeable change is the addition of a minute-long black screen with music cues that indicate the passage of four years. While I admire the artistic reasoning for this decision, I think that it hurts the movie as only people who are really into music will understand what’s happening. The other changes involve minor scene extensions and a minor dialogue deletion. Fans will want this edition for the numerous extras, but if you’ve seen the theatrical version, then you’ve basically seen this one.Director David Fincher made his mark on Hollywood with 1995’s
Se7en, a grim thriller about a serial killer. Fincher used a very dark, muted palette for
Se7en (and
Alien3), and he continued to hone black-on-black cinematography with
The Game,
Fight Club, and
Panic Room to the point where, while everything looked stylish, I sometimes couldn’t see what was happening. Mercifully, Fincher reined in his predilection for the “no lighting at all” scheme with 2007’s
Zodiac.
Zodiac returns to the serial-killer territory mined by
Se7en, though this one is based on a real-life murderer who terrorized the San Francisco Bay Area during the 1960s and 1970s. The movie’s first half follows at least seven policemen and newspaper employees as they attempt to track down the Zodiac, whose killings are not necessarily bizarre but whose letters to area newspapers create an appreciable sense of panic among the public. As the leads grow cold, fewer and fewer people continue to track the Zodiac until only one--cartoonist Robert Graysmith (played by Jake Gyllenhaal)--begins writing a book about the entire ordeal. Graysmith gets closer to discovering the Zodiac’s real identity than anyone else, but since he’s not a law-enforcement officer, his options are limited.
The biggest surprise for me was the way that Fincher shot and edited
Zodiac as if it had been made during the 1960s/1970s, beginning with the use of vintage studio logos from Paramount and Warner. Most shots last for several seconds (approaching 10) rather than less than 2, thereby distinguishing the movie from the jackhammer experiences that you get with most studio productions today. Colors are muted the way that film stock from 30-40 years ago would be (much like how
Munich emulated the feel of a 1970s’ thriller).
Some set pieces demonstrate Fincher’s genuine skill as a moviemaker. In one sequence, Graysmith visits the home of a man who plays the organ in a movie theatre that plays silent films. This sequence becomes genuinely terrifying as Graysmith slowly concludes that the organist may actually be the Zodiac. I watched most of the movie reclined comfortably on sitting pillows, but as this sequence unfolded, I sat up straight prepared to jump with a startle.
I really enjoyed the leisurely pacing, which allows viewers to become familiar with the interior psychology of the many lead characters. In fact, this is the first American movie in a long time that made me feel as if I inhabited the mise-en-scene along with the people on the screen. I felt the same frustrations and tensions on display.
Unfortunately, the movie is also very, very long. A lot of scenes are meant to show us how futile the investigative work was. However, we don’t need to be reminded every five minutes that the policemen and the journalists only have dead ends on their hands. In this instance, the pacing and the length are two separate matters. The leisurely pacing is welcome, but the length is not. Its length is
Zodiac’s greatest weakness, and the running time really hurts the movie. What could’ve been a return to form for David Fincher feels like a rough cut.
Video:While muted, the 2.35:1 1080p image is not as oppressively dark as
Fight Club or
Panic Room. This is a very clean transfer, though it’s a bit soft in some places. The warm amber lighting in some of the settings probably contributed to the softness. Also, Fincher shot the movie to resemble a 1960s/1970s picture, so the sharpness is probably intentional.
Nevertheless, I want to point out that a flyover of the Port of San Francisco at the beginning of the movie looks like a CGI creation. It looks fake and terrible. Even if the moviemakers actually flew over the Port of San Francisco, the shot still looks like fake, terrible, plastic CGI nonsense.
Audio:This Blu-ray release sports a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 English track upgrade over the HD DVD’s DD+ 5.1 English track, though due to the dialogue-heavy nature of mix, the differences (if any) are minimal. This is mostly a quiet audio experience, though the few gunshots in the movie are loudly effective. The movie features several jaunty music cues, though these are spread across the front rather than to the rears. Indeed, for the most part, the rears are rather quiet.
The creative team must’ve paid a great deal of attention the sound design (par for the course with Fincher). The opening studio logos are accompanied by snaps, cracks, and pops, mirroring the condition of the footage.
Extras:Disc 1 offers two audio commentaries, one with David Fincher flying solo and one with various people who worked on the movie as well as novelist James Ellroy, the author of
The Black Dahlia and
L.A. Confidential.
The extras on Disc 2 are split into two categories: “The Film” and “The Facts”.
“The Film”:“
Zodiac Deciphered” is an hour-long, eight-part examination of the production, including numerous behind-the-scenes footage of rehearsals and actual shooting.
“The Visual Effects of
Zodiac” reveal how even a quiet, low-key drama like this one can require the use of complicated CGI.
“Previsualization” is a collection of three before-and-after clips showing how computer animatics were used to plan shooting and editing.
Finally, you get the theatrical trailer.
“The Facts”:“This is the Zodiac Speaking” is a four-part feature-length documentary about the real-life events that inspired the movie.
“Prime Suspect: His Name Was Arthur Leigh Allen” is a forty-two minute featurette comprised of interviews with people who knew the case and Arthur Leigh Allen well enough to consider him to be the Zodiac.
--Miscellaneous--The theatrical cut is available only on DVD in the United States.
+blu-ray.jpg)
.jpg)
+blu-ray+cover.jpg)
+director%27s+cut+blu-ray+cover.jpg)
+blu-ray+cover.jpg)
+dvd+cover.jpg)
