The director John Carpenter believes best marries artistry and technology: “He’s got a great eye”
During an interview with the New York Film Academy in 2016, John Carpenter was asked if he still watched new films or had an eye on any new directors. At that point, Carpenter was in his later life, hadn’t directed a movie in six years, and had long been open about his complicated relationship with Hollywood moviemaking. Fascinatingly, he admitted that he barely watches anything that isn’t sent to him by way of an Academy screener – except for the work of one director, a master of combining art and technology, whose new movies he will always seek out.
For the past decade, Carpenter has mostly left Hollywood in his rearview mirror, aside from the odd scoring gig when a movie requires his particular atmosphere of synth-based dread. Naturally, though, because he directed a handful of the most beloved horror and action movies ever made and is one of the most influential directors to the current generation of filmmakers, people are always interested in his thoughts on the industry.
As a rule, Carpenter rarely says anything nice about anything going on in modern Hollywood. However, this is why it was pretty darn meaningful when he was asked about new directors in 2016 and answered, “I like David Fincher a lot. I think he’s really good. He’s got a great eye.”
Now, as for whether Fincher – a director whose first feature film was released in 1992 – could still count as a “new” director in 2016 is debatable, but Carpenter’s praise for the Se7en director was still pretty telling. To be the only director a legend like Carpenter actively seeks out instead of simply watching what the Academy sends him is quite the compliment. “I’ll always watch David Fincher’s stuff, man,” Carpenter revealed. “I just think he’s a great director.”
What is it about Fincher’s work that Carpenter responds to so strongly, though? Well, as he explained during an appearance on the Halloweenies podcast, it’s Fincher’s perfect melding of technology and artistry that speaks to him. “I think one of the best directors nowadays is David Fincher,” Carpenter reiterated. “I love the way he approaches the technology and telling his stories.”
Carpenter specifically cited the groundbreaking special effects work and “cinematic techniques” Fincher employed in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button as an example of how modern technological developments can be married to old-fashioned storytelling in a purely emotional manner. “He used certain techniques in his last film, which is basically a character piece,” Carpenter marvelled. “That’s just really interesting work.”
Ultimately, Carpenter feels Fincher is the perfect example of that all-too-rare breed: a tech guy who is also a true artist. “He’s an example of somebody who has mastery of the technological aspects of filmmaking and also has an artistry,” the legendary director concluded.
Perhaps Carpenter sees a kindred spirit in Fincher, albeit one who has always had an easier time with critics. You see, in his own time, critics often dismissed Carpenter’s movies as mere showcases for gruesome special effects, with little artistry involved. Obviously, we know this is nonsense, but it was clear from movies like The Thing that Carpenter was trying to marry technology and artistry in much the same way as Fincher did decades later.
In closing, to give an idea of how highly Carpenter rates the Zodiac auteur, Horror News once asked him to name his favourite filmmakers. He gave them only three names: “Howard Hawks, Luis Buñuel, David Fincher.”
