David Fincher’s Zodiac (2007), written by producer James Vanderbilt and adapted from the true crime works of Robert Graysmith, remains one of the most respected films of the early twenty-first century. As the second film featuring a serial killer (and the first based on fact) by Fincher, Zodiac remains a standout in a varied but stylistically unified career. While connected to this genre, the film also hybridizes the policier genre and the investigative reporter film. And yet, scholarship has largely ignored the film.
This collection is the first book-length work of criticism dedicated to the film. Section One focuses on early influences, while the second section analyzes the film’s unique treatment of narrative. The book closes with a section focusing on game theory, data and hegemony, the Zodiac’s treatment in music, and the use of sound in cinema. By offering new avenues and continuing a few established ones, this book will interest scholars of cinema and true crime along with fans and enthusiasts in these areas.
Matthew Sorrento teaches film studies at Rutgers University-Camden. David Ryan is academic director and faculty chair of the Master of Arts of Professional Communication program at the University of San Francisco.
Foreword: Zodiac, the American Murderer, and the End of Reason By Christopher Sharrett Introduction: The Future of the "Last Serial Killer Movie" By Matthew Sorrento SECTION ONE: BEFORE FINCHER 1: Framing the "Mass" Killer: Horror and Spatiality in Peter Bogdanovichs Targets (1968) By Matthew Sorrento 2: Fear and Exploiting in the Age of Aquarius: Early Representations of the Zodiac Killer in 1970s Film and Television By Christopher Weedman 3: Hacked to Pisces: An Interview with Tom Hanson on The Zodiac Killer (1971) By Rod Lott SECTION TWO: ZODIAC AND NARRATIVE 4: Zodiac and the Melding Criminal Minds of David Fincher By Jeremy Carr 5: Subverting the Investigator as Hero: Masculinity and Failure in David Finchers Zodiac By Theresa Rodewald 6: Performing the Zodiac: Piffle, Paradox, and Self-Promotion By Daniel R. Fredrick 7: Allegories of Obsession: David Finchers Zodiac and Edgar G. Ulmers The Black Cat (1934) By George Toles SECTION THREE: ZODIAC AND MEDIA 8: The Dantesque Desires of David Finchers Zodiac By Martin Kevorkian 9: The Zodiac Strikes a Blue Chord: Evoking Art-Horror in Music By Andrew M. Winters 10: Algorithmic Anxiety: Data Hegemony and Mediated Murder in David Finchers Zodiac By Jake Rutkowski 11: Gaming the Ripper Coast: Mapping the Radicalized Acts of the Zodiac Killer By David Ryan 12: The Killers Speak: the Sound of Violence in David Finchers Zodiac and Mindhunter (2017-2019) By Deborah L. Jaramillo
This is an important study in regards to David Fincher, Zodiac, and the true crime story upon which it is based. The collection exposes and examines the topics, and our fascination with them, in surprising ways. — Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, author of 1000 Women in Horror and The Giallo Canvas
Though arguably the most interesting serial-killer film since Hitchcocks Psycho, David Finchers Zodiac has not yet received as much high-level critical analysis as it deserves. This exciting new anthology goes a long way toward remedying the deficiency. Written from a variety of perspectives and with a wide range of concerns, this volume is especially strong in helping us to understand the film in its various cultural and historical contexts and with regard to its complex narrative strategies. — Carl Freedman, Willam A. Read Professor of English Literature at Louisiana State University and author of Versions of Crime Cinema and American Presidents and Oliver Stone
