The social network

I recently watched the social network Then I watched it again and then again and then today I watched it a fourth time. I really love this film which is suprising considering my favourite films are often the ones that are far from realistic, and that is often why I love them so much because they are an escape from actual real life. But the social network is definately an exception being based on real life events. The film actually has near enough nothing to do with my opening but I really wanted to write about it.

A brief outline on what happens; an undergraduate at harvard is recognised as an incredible talented computer programmer after he casually creates a website in one night while drunk that attracts 22,000 veiwers and crashes the entire hardvard network. He is the approached by two fellow students with an idea to create a social networking site which is desirable due to its exclusivity. Mark however has a better idea and while avoiding the other two student goes of and creates the facebook with his best friend Eduardo who provides all the finances needed. It instantly becomes and incredible sucess. In result the two students with the original idea sure Mark for intellectual property theft.
Mark then meets sean, the man who founded napster and he soon becomes Marks idol but he unfortunately guides mark in to conning Eduardo who had always been the co founder of facebook out of his shares and condenses them down to just 0.03%. Eduardo then eventually sues Mark for £600 million dollars.

I think what draws you in most in the film is the character of Mark Zuckerberg. How true to life the Mark in the films character is we will never know but the main character in the films complex mind is just so intresting to watch. From the very first scene the conversation between him in his girlfriend instantly portrays him as an incredibly intelligent man whos mind is built on so much structer and form that he seems to be anylising the world from a completely unique veiw. Being a computer genuis and able to form hundreds oflines of internet coding from the top of his head it almost seems like he has a talent of breaking every scentence spoken to him down, manipulating it and throwing it back out to his advantage. I could talk about his character for hours. I think what really made Marks personality such an important part of the film is the perfectly written script. I know thats more of the english side rather than the media side but its written with so sharply with so much wit and intelligence its so perfect for the film.

As you watch on you notice no recogniseable songs in the soundtrack as it is all entirely instrumental or an orchestra which is another thing I really like about it. Althought its slightly cliche to use music verging on classical in a film about upper class students at harvard, being so subtle and each song suited so well to each scene I think it complimented the film effectively. It also created the atmosphere of something great is going to happen and the feeling of the something being so big and dominant. Which the website 'facebook' is so truthfully portrayed to be.

The actual editing and filming is again I think made to be so perfect. The film rarely has bright colourful summers day scenes and is all set during the winter with heavy shadows and rich deep colours. The story flashes between court cases in the current day and past events leading up to the court cases. Confusing at first but then everything fits so perfectly. I think this actually makes the audience really understand the characters situations in the court cases and really helps sympathise with each person. Being a real life story there is no clear begining middle and end withing the film but just a series of events. Also unlike other fictional films there is no clear sense of who is the victim or the villian. Of course Mark being the main character as you do in most films you subconsciously want him to suceed despite the arguable fact that he has actually comitted theft and conned his best friend out of millions of dollars.