David Fincher: Mind Games is the definitive critical and visual survey of the Academy Award– and Golden Globe–nominated works of director David Fincher. From feature films Alien 3, Se7en, The Game, Fight Club, Panic Room, Zodiac, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Social Network, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Gone Girl, and Mank through his MTV clips for Madonna and the Rolling Stones and the Netflix series House of Cards and Mindhunter, each chapter weaves production history with original critical analysis, as well as with behind the scenes photography, still-frames, and original illustrations from Little White Lies' international team of artists and graphic designers. Mind Games also features interviews with Fincher's frequent collaborators, including Jeff Cronenweth, Angus Wall, Laray Mayfield, Holt McCallany, Howard Shore and Erik Messerschmidt. Grouping Fincher's work around themes of procedure, imprisonment, paranoia, prestige and relationship dynamics, Mind Games is styled as an investigation into a filmmaker obsessed with investigation, and the design will shift to echo case files within a larger psychological profile.

David Fincher (b. 1962) did not go to film school and hates being defined as an auteur. He prefers to see himself as a craftsman, dutifully going about the art and business of making film. Trouble is, it's hard to be self-effacing when you are the director responsible for Se7en, Fight Club, and The Social Network. Along with Quentin Tarantino, Fincher is the most accomplished of the Generation X filmmakers to emerge in the early 1990s. This collection of interviews highlights Fincher's unwavering commitment to his craft as he evolved from an entrepreneurial music video director (Fincher helped Madonna become the undisputed queen of MTV) into an enterprising feature filmmaker. Fincher landed his first Hollywood blockbuster at twenty-seven with Alien3, but that film, handicapped by cost overruns and corporate mismanagement, taught Fincher that he needed absolute control over his work. Once he had it, with Se7en, he achieved instant box-office success and critical acclaim, as well as a close partnership with Brad Pitt that led to the cult favorite Fight Club. Fincher became circumspect in the 2000s after Panic Room, shooting ads and biding his time until Zodiac, when he returned to his mantra that “entertainment has to come hand in hand with a little bit of medicine. Some people go to the movies to be reminded that everything's okay. I don't make those kinds of movies. That, to me, is a lie. Everything's not okay.” Zodiac reinvigorated Fincher, inspiring a string of films—The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Social Network, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo—that enthralled audiences and garnered his films dozens of Oscar nominations.

This is a concise and informative guide to the work of this innovative director. Produced with the director's full involvement, the book features new, in-depth interviews with David Fincher by author James Swallow.

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.

The Story, An Interwoven Gospel is the complete story of the life of Jesus Christ as written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The format, however, is truly unique in several ways. The contents are 100 percent scripture, with no author commentaries or storytelling. On the back cover, Mr. Fincher makes it clear that he has only woven the scriptures together, and that God is the author. The Story is chronologically ordered beginning with the birth of Jesus and ending with His ascension to Heaven. The most unique feature is the text itself. A different color is used for the writings of each of the four Gospels, and then woven together to form a complete, smooth-flowing story. The reader is easily able to identify the contributions and perspectives of each writer. Parallel and harmony Gospels provide an excellent side-by-side comparison, but they are not in story form. The Story, An Interwoven Gospel is a wonderful, easy, and enjoyable way to learn about, study, and/or teach the life of Jesus Christ.

An illustrated mid-career monograph exploring the 30-year creative journey of the 8-time Academy Award–nominated writer and director Paul Thomas Anderson has been described as "one of American film's modern masters" and "the foremost filmmaking talent of his generation." Anderson's ï¬?lms have received 25 Academy Award nominations, and he has worked closely with many of the most accomplished actors of our time, including Lesley Ann Manville, Julianne Moore, Daniel Day-Lewis, Joaquin Phoenix, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. In Paul Thomas Anderson: Masterworks, Anderson’s entire career—from Hard Eight (1996), Boogie Nights (1997), Magnolia (1999), Punch Drunk Love (2002), There Will Be Blood (2007), The Master (2012), Inherent Vice (2014), and Phantom Thread (2017) to his music videos for Radiohead to his early short ï¬?lms—is examined in illustrated detail for the ï¬?rst time. Anderson’s influences, his style, and the recurring themes of alienation, reinvention, ambition, and destiny that course through his movies are analyzed and supplemented by ï¬?rsthand interviews with Anderson’s closest collaborators—including producer JoAnne Sellar, actor Vicky Krieps, and composer Jonny Greenwood—and illuminated by ï¬?lm stills, archival photos, original illustrations, and an appropriately psychedelic design aesthetic. Masterworks is a tribute to the dreamers, drifters, and evil dentists who populate his world.

Collected interviews with the British filmmaker of classics such as Blade Runner, Alien, and Gladiator