New Netflix David Fincher series - Mindhunter

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by mattright, Oct 15, 2017.

  1. The second season was announced even before the 1st season aired.

    Supposedly there is a plan for 5 seasons.
     
  2. Dreadnought

    Dreadnought I'm a live wire. Look at me burn.

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    With movies based on true stories I always check the facts after the movie is over, out of curiosity. Recently I watched The Boston Strangler (1968) and enjoyed it (the split screens especially. So '60s) but upon learning the split personality interviews finale was entirely fiction I was annoyed. Knowing this series will have a second season I'm going to hold off from endeavoring to know how much fiction is involved. It's not the crimes or criminals I'm curious about but the agents. These are crimes of the highest publicity and I was already aware of them. Kemper really *ahem*...stands out. I've only been able to watch up to Ep 5 but I see who without a doubt is BTK creeping around.

    I get a kick out of how I don't know what he's going to say next. Sometimes it's surprising and funny. Credit to the actor. His dry delivery does remind me of that delivered by Philip Baker Hall as Sherwood Morrill in Zodiac.

    Dave Toschi
    : What's that?
    Sherwood Morrill: Similarities in the lowercase "r"s.
    Dave Toschi: And that?
    Sherwood Morrill: It is you waiting in the hall if you speak again. I have to concentrate.
    Dave Toschi: Sorry.
    Sherwood Morrill: "Sorry" counts as speaking.
    :biglaugh:
     
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  3. Dreadnought

    Dreadnought I'm a live wire. Look at me burn.

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    If they can maintain the quality then great but I'd be surprised if they could.
     
  4. tman53

    tman53 Vinyl is an Addiction

    Location:
    FLA
    Take it for what it is, very good entertainment. If they deliver 2 or 3 quality seasons I'll be happy. It's way better than what the networks for most part present as good TV.
     
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  5. Not sure why they wouldn’t be able to if they keep the writing and directing staff and the overall vision. There are certainly lots of stories to tell in this genre.

    A ten episode season is perfect.
     
  6. Gardo

    Gardo Audio Epistemologist

    Location:
    Virginia
    Episode 4 is where the series hit its stride for me. I finished the series last night by watching the last four episodes in a row. Outstanding. Very thoughtful and deeply troubling. The old trope of the detective whose mind resembles the criminal’s is spread among several players here in multiple contexts across interwoven plots. The show manages to be both cerebral and strongly emotional. Great stuff.
     
  7. ghostdwg

    ghostdwg Senior Member

    Location:
    New Milford, CT
    Just finished watching the first season, very impressed. The performances are excellent throughout-can't wait for season 2.
     
  8. Gretsch6136

    Gretsch6136 Forum Resident

    I just binged the entire series over the weekend. I thought it was excellent too. I've read both of John Douglas's book, Mindhunter and Journey Into Darkness quite some years ago. many of his insights and experiences are woven in Holden Ford's narrative. The development of the insights and science along with the mis-steps and opposition along the way are very much based on fact.

    I wonder whether the foot tickler will make a comeback in series 2? He's certainly experienced a good number of stressors hasn't he?
     
  9. fuzzybam

    fuzzybam Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Bakersfield, CA
    This is on my To-Watch list.
     
  10. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Holy moley, just watched the first two episodes tonight... incredible. This is one of the best shows I've seen all year, if not in the last 5-6 years. I don't always like what Fincher does, but this work is genius. Also incredible on a technical level: they perfectly reproduced the look of the mid-1970s very well. Really interesting, subtle VFX work and superb color and lighting.
     
  11. mindblanking

    mindblanking The Bourbon King

    Location:
    Baltimore, MD
    The woman who plays the lead actor's girlfriend maybe the worst actress I've ever seen on television. I mean like Matthew Weiner's son kind of bad. Other than that the show's been pretty great.
     
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  12. Rufus McDufus

    Rufus McDufus Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    Agree. This is a fabulous series. I faltered a little at first and wasn't sure where it was going but after settling into it... Some of the interviews had me mesmerised - for instance
    the one with just Ford and Brudos, where Ford was talking about the killer in the third person, and I was waiting for Brudos to slip up.
     
  13. dprokopy

    dprokopy Senior Member

    Location:
    Near Seattle, WA
    "Sequence Killer, qu'est-ce que c'est?"
     
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  14. yesstiles

    yesstiles Senior Member

    This show takes place in 1979, but the set designers seem to think it's 1974.
     
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  15. dprokopy

    dprokopy Senior Member

    Location:
    Near Seattle, WA
    I would imagine that in 1979, a lot of offices still had 1974-era furnishings.
     
  16. Especially when it come to government offices....
     
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  17. yesstiles

    yesstiles Senior Member

    True, but everything about the show makes it look like it's 1974, except that it's taking place in 1979. Back then, that was a huge difference. I suspect the show's designers like the 1974-aura better as a framing for the show's visuals, rather than bright & disco 1979.
     
  18. Graham

    Graham Senior Member

    Location:
    Perth, Australia
    Exactly. And the show actually takes place in 1977-1978.
     
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  19. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Right, and I knew a lot of offices during that era that did not have any disco bling or any of that crap. Once in awhile, somebody would walk in wearing a 1970s disco polyester suit with wide lapels or something, but the cars and decor could've been anywhere in the early 1970s... even the late 1960s. They did show people using pushbutton phones, and those were (at least for me) relatively new for 1977. But they did exist. I actually had to pay an additional fee to PacBell to get a pushbutton phone in 1977, and that was in LA.
     
  20. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    And just to add to this thread: here's a 5-minute montage of some of the very subtle visual effects work that were used to transform the world of 2017 into the show's world of 1977:



    There's some really careful work there. For example, wheelchair ramp sidewalks only happened in the 1980s, so they removed those and put in regular curbs instead for the show. A lot of the visuals are absolutely seamless, particularly removing camera dolly tracks and stuff like that.
     
  21. jon9091

    jon9091 Master Of Reality

    Location:
    Midwest
    Amazing work. :thumbsup:
     
  22. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Finished watching the series and I'm bummed. <no spoilers>.

    I was disappointed that they didn't wrap up at least some of the plot threads and stories established. Basically, the first 10 episodes seem merely to establish that there was a lot of resistance to the FBI agent's theories on criminal behavior -- theories that were eventually proven to be 100% correct. Apparently, real-life FBI agent John Douglas was very pissed-off at having his supervisors come down on him for his methods in the 1970s. Eventually, this resistance went away when he started solving some major crimes, like the Wayne Williams murders in Atlanta.
     
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  23. Deesky

    Deesky Forum Resident

    That might be because Fincher said that he had 5 seasons planned out, so wrapping things up too quickly might cannibalize future narratives.
     
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  24. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    My beef is that there's way, way, way too much on the personal lives of the central characters. I wish they'd make the show more about the criminals and the crime-solving process, not about their romantic entanglements, stray cats their feeding, how much they're drinking, and so on. John Douglas (the model for the central FBI investigator) was with the bureau for 25 years and wrote a long book on his history there, and I would bet if they just stuck to that, it would be a much more interesting show and it would still take them 50 episodes to get there. Just too much folderol for me.

    I don't dispute that the scenes with the serial killers and with the FBI agents investigating crimes are superlative. My complaint is with everything else.

    I don't have a problem with how they're making all the characters flawed in interesting ways, and I think that works on a variety of levels.
     
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  25. GodShifter

    GodShifter Forum Member

    Location:
    Dallas, TX, USA
    I started watching this last night based upon reading a bit of this thread. I got through two episodes last night and, generally, enjoyed it. I thought the portrayal of Edmund Kemper was really good. I've read both John Douglas's books and one by Robert Ressler so I know what criminal profiling is and always found it very interesting. I will say that the lead character, Holden, seems a bit "off". I'm not sure what it is, but he just seems a bit oddly cast. In any event, I'm looking forward to future episodes as a former criminal justice major (my undergraduate degree in school) I've read a lot about this stuff.
     

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