Dark Eye: The Films of David Fincher

by James Swallow

David Fincher is young, talented, and something of an outsider, with a dark cinematic vision from the serial-killer drama Seven to the urban gothic thriller Panic Room . In Dark Eye , written with Fincher’s full involvement and featuring in-depth interviews, journalist James Swallow presents a complete survey of the director’s work. He begins with Fincher’s early career at special-effects house Industrial Light & Magic, where he worked on films like Return of the Jedi and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom . He then looks at each of the director’s major films, including his most recent release, Zodiac . Rounding out the book is a reference section and website listing.

Genres: Nonfiction, Film

192 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2003

About the author

James Swallow is a New York Times, Sunday Times and Amazon #1 bestselling author and scriptwriter, a BAFTA nominee, former journalist and the award-winning writer of over sixty-five books, along with scripts for video games, comics, radio and television.

DARK HORIZON, his latest stand-alone thriller, is out now from Mountain Leopard Press, and the 10th Anniversary Edition of NOMAD, the 1st novel in the action-packed Marc Dane series, is published by Bonnier and JAB Books.

Along with thrillers, his writing includes, the Sundowners steampunk Westerns and fiction from the worlds of Star Trek, Tom Clancy, 24, Warhammer 40000, Doctor Who, Deus Ex, Stargate, 2000AD and many more.

For information on new releases & more, sign up to the Readers’ Club here: www.bit.ly/JamesSwallow

Visit James's website at http://www.jswallow.com/ for more, including ROUGH AIR, a free eBook novella in the Marc Dane series.

You can also follow James on Bluesky at @jmswallow.bsky.social, Twitter at @jmswallow, Mastodon at @jmswallow@mstdn.social and jmswallow.tumblr.com at Tumblr.

Reviews

[Monty]

poorly written and full of superfluous insights from the author. read only for the extensive quotations from fincher.

[Jake Harris]

Could’ve used a copy editor, but overall it’s very insightful. Especially the “Alien 3” chapter.

[Patrick]

David Fincher is the director of the amazing end-of-the-millenium dytopian trilogy that includes "Seven," "The Game," and "Fight Club." This book goes through each of his movies, detailing sections separated into Synopsis, Development, Production, Cuts and Changes, and Aftermath. Although I do love these movies, the book was much better than I was hoping for. The writer (who is British, which I found surprising) did such a great job making minutiae seem fascinating, and providing anecdotes and quotes from those involved, that I ended up reading the chapters on "Alien 3" and "Panic Room," even though I was planning on skipping them (the book was written prior to "Zodiac," which I also wasn't that keen on.) Maybe the most interesting parts for me were explanations of different things that were NOT in the movies, scenes that were cut out, motivations that were changed, total overhauls of characters, etc. Here are a couple good Fincher quotes from the introduction:

"A friend of mine used to say, there's a pervert on every block, there's always one person in every neighborhood who's kind of questionable. I'm looking for that one pervert story."

"What is it that makes your style? It's the things you fuck up as much as the things that you do well, so half your style is stupid mistakes that you consistently make."

[Carlos Marin]

David Fincher has established himself as an visionary filmmaker. From his earlier films; Seven and The Game, to his later films; Zodiac and The Social Network. The director has produced some of the greatest features to grace the silver screen. Author James Swallow's book "Dark Eye" mainly, focuses on Mr. Fincher's approach to directing his films. The novel provides a brief summary of the director's first 6 movies; from Alien 3 to Panic Room. The book also provides some insight into the pre-and-post production of a film, the actual filming of the movie, and the film's final arrival into theaters. Mr. Swallow's book gives some useful information on film-making and the added addition of production photos should keep any film aficionado interested. If your a film fan, a Fincher fan, or a James Swallow fan, you can't go work picking up this book.

[Christopher]

This is a very good book on film director David Fincher's work and methods up to "Panic Room" (released in 2002). Swallow has done his homework, and uses interviews with Fincher, himself, as well as with the cast and crew from his movies, commercials and music videos. When he offers an analysis of his own, it is usually a measured one, informed by the history. In other words, this is not a work of film criticism, but rather a (very strong) work of behind-the-scenes film research. The one major weakness of the text is that Swallow never returned to it afterwards, and that it only covers the first 5 of Fincher's features (and the final chapter of speculation about the future is outdated and therefore useless). What about the next 5? The book is well overdue for a new edition.

[Josh]

David Fincher is my favourite film director, so naturally this book was a perfect insight into his films spanning from his first feature, up until 2002's Panic Room. The book goes into great detail on the production, plot, cuts and changes and aftermath of each film, featuring pieces of interview from Fincher himself.
Dark Eye is a book for film fans, not necessarily Fincher fans, but that of course helps. A good, thorough, productive read.

[Taras Matiyash]

Great source of information about first five movies of David Fincher ("Alien3", "Seven", "The Game", "Fight Club" and "Panic Room"). Everything, what you need (or want) to know, can be found herein: the plot, the script's development, the process of shooting, thoughts of the actors and so on.
If you are a fan of Fincher, this book is definitively a must-have.

[Noah]

This is a great and very informative look on David Fincher's first five or so films. For anyone who's a fan of his early work it's well worth the read.

[Scott]

A fascinating look at the origins of one of the best filmmakers of our time.