The Social Network - David Fincher (2010) - How do the different audiovisual techniques show the "robot-like" or even the dehumanized behavior of Mark Zuckerberg ?

Extract

[...] The music is punchy and gives the impression that the characters are taken in an infernal loop. Actually, the music starts both while we see a bus of girls going to the big semester party of the Phenix Club and while Mark starts hacking the IT system. This introduces a series of crosscuttings, that is to say an alternation of shots showing the party and shots showing Mark frantically typing on his keyboard. In the shots showing Mark in his room, the soundtrack can still be heard even if the sound is not as loud as in the shots showing the party, but the fact that the soundtrack and Mark's voice-over coexist is another element which emphasizes the rhythm in this first part of the extract. [...]

[...] The Social Network - David Fincher (2010) - How do the different audiovisual techniques show the "robot-like" or even the dehumanized behavior of Mark Zuckerberg? Released in October 2010 in France, The Social Network, by David Fincher, recounts the story of the now worldwide famous Mark Zuckerberg when the latter was just an unknown student at Harvard University who imagined what would quickly become the first social network in the world : Facebook. The extract we are going to comment upon takes place only a few minutes after the beginning of the film and it is interesting to note that in the previous scene, which is the very first scene of the film actually, the tone is set : Mark Zuckerberg is in a pub with his girlfriend, he is talking with a quite sustained rhythm and as his girlfriend eventually tells him that she has decided to break up, she utters two sentences which perfectly sum up the following scene we are going to analyse : « I'm not speaking in code », and « Dating you is like dating a StairMaster ». [...]

[...] Besides, in this scene, the top of the computer's screen hides Mark's chest, and is omnipresent in almost all the scenes in the extract. Many extreme close-ups on Mark's computer's screen thus puts the « computer nerd » aspect of Mark's personality into relief. Moreover, there are many shots with a very short depth of field, which are meant to direct attention to the facial expressions of Mark : he is almost always shown with his eyes stuck on the screen, and at the same time, he looks both tensed and emotionless. [...]

[...] Besides, as for Mark's ex-girlfriend, she is rather shown in long shots, contrary to Mark, in order to show her as a full human being (and not just as a character made with a head stuck on a computer instead of a human body, as it is the case for Mark). To conclude, it is obvious that from the very beginning of the film, all the movie devices are used to present Mark Zuckerberg as an emotionless geek whose heart and soul are only able to click. However great his genius might be, this is his inability to socially interact in the real life which has been put into relief in this extract. [...]

[...] As Mark's third roommate, Eduardo, leaves the party and comes back to the dormitory, the soundtrack stops, and this also coincides with the fact that Mark has succeeded in hacking the IT system of the university. He then needs Eduardo's skill in order to create an algorithm and launch his website. We see Eduardo writing the algorithm with a white felt pen on the room's window, but as the scene is shot from the outisde, the formula appears the wrong way, which stresses the fact that both Mark 's and his friend's skills are beyond understanding. [...]