Friday, July 24, 2020

10:00 AM | The Film Meme No. 90

[90th of 100]. Everything you want to know about Facebook is there in the very first scene we see in David Fincher's 2010 examination of the legal [and moral] tumult of that social network's founding. As written by scribe Aaron Sorkin, the films opens with Mark Zuckerberg on a date in a bar clearly populated with college types. He is with a girl named Erica Albright, a fictional addition to the story, and they make an attempt at conversation over the din. They have been going out for a while, but which does not at all help in stringing together conversation where each understands perfectly the other: in the stew of topics that includes the IQ of the Chinese, SATs, rowing crew, final clubs, among others, they demonstrate the very essence of communicating in Facebook -- which is that it is a landmine of misunderstanding. The scene begs transcribing:

MARK: Did you know there are more people with genius IQs living in China than there are people of any kind living in the United States?

ERICA: That can't be true.

MARK: It is true.

ERICA: What would account for that?

MARK: Well first of all, a lot of people live in China. But here's my question: How do you distinguish yourself in a population of people who all got 1600 on their SAT's?

ERICA: I didn't know they take SAT's in China.

MARK: I wasn't talking about China anymore, I was talking about here.

ERICA: You got 1600?

MARK: You can sing in an a Capella group.

ERICA: Does that mean that you actually got nothing wrong?

MARK: Or you row crew or you invent a 25 dollar PC.

ERICA: Or you get into a final club.

MARK: Or you get into a final club, exactly.

ERICA: I like guys who row crew.

MARK: [Beat] Well I can't do that. And yes, it means I got nothing wrong on the test.

ERICA: Have you ever tried?

MARK: I'm trying now.

ERICA: To row crew?

MARK: To get into a final club. To row crew? No. Are you, like -- whatever -- crazy?

ERICA: Sometimes, Mark-seriously-YOU say two things at once and I'm not sure which one we're talking about.

MARK: But you've seen guys who row crew, right?

ERICA: No.

MARK: Okay, well.. they're bigger than me. They're world-class athletes. And a second ago you said you like guys who row crew so I assumed you'd met one.

ERICA: I guess I meant I liked the idea of it. The way a girl likes cowboys.

MARK: The Phoenix is good.

ERICA: This is a new topic?

MARK: It's the same topic.

ERICA: We're still talking about the finals clubs?

MARK: Would you rather talk about something else?

ERICA: It's just that since the beginning of the conversation about finals clubs I think I may have had a birthday.

When I watched this scene in the autumn of 2010 in San Francisco, it just felt like electric banter that I've come to expect from the dialogue master who has written the screenplays for A Few Good Men, The American President, The West Wing, Moneyball, The Newsroom, and Steve Jobs. To watch a film written by Aaron Sorkin is to witness characters wading through words, the best of them encapsulating vivid characterization in the process. I'd only been on Facebook for about three years when I saw this film; for those of us who migrated to it after the disappointments of Friendster and MySpace, we felt very much like evangelists for the newly ascendant social network, telling everyone they must -- they absolutely must -- sign up. [I sigh in regret now.] In 2010, to watch a film of Facebook's founding was more than just enticement, it felt like beholding the origin story of a beloved platform. The critics were similarly enthused, and it must have been the best-reviewed film of the year [which later on culminated to the shock of The King's Speech winning Best Picture over it]. So we watched it in that vein, and while we learned of the shenanigans and betrayals behind its establishment, what was absorbed was allure of the platform. It would take six more years, in 2016, to discover that a platform we considered a benign and beloved connection tool with friends, acquaintances, and family would turn out to be not just a capitalist monster in possession of our data, but one that embraces the preponderance of fake news and fascist propaganda in the name of profit. The film was prescient. We turn back to Fincher and Sorkin's work no longer just a chronicle of a tech revolution, but also distinctively as a warning we never deigned to heed. What's the film?

For the introduction to this meme, read here.

Labels: current events, film, life, social media

[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich

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