My Favorite Scene: The Social Network

Every scene of David Fincher’s The Social Network is memorable for its own specific reasons. The Larry Summers sequence, for example, contains what I consider to be the best four consecutive minutes of writing that Aaron Sorkin has ever done. It also features Armie Hammer’s best acting in the film, and a delicious cameo from veteran hardass Douglas Urbanski. I’ve commonly regarded that scene as my favorite in the film, but after watching the entire movie last night, I realized that while that sequence contains great writing and strong acting, the Facemash scene is pure fucking cinema at its finest.

After being dumped for being a douche to his girlfriend, Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) goes back to his dorm, opens up his LiveJournal blog, grabs a Brand X beer from the fridge, and gets to work. (Side note: It always baffles me when a studio as large as Columbia, and a director as revered as David Fincher, resorts to using nameless product brands in films. The way this beer is “used” in The Social Network is perfectly legal. What would the brand’s lawsuit stipulate, anyway? That their brand was defamed because the film showed that underage college kids drink their beer?).

Okay, sorry, back to the scene. Mark sits down (notice the stealthy “8:13 PM” timestamp as he slams his beer on the desk – love it), and lets it rip: “Erica Albright’s a bitch.” So begins his nasty tirade damning his recent ex. Jump cut to 9:48 PM and this poor bastard is still blogging about how much he hates Erica. He needs something to take his mind off her. Easy enough. He’s buzzed, pissed, motivated. He just needs an idea.

Mark’s roommate, Billy, comes home and gives Mark the idea of putting pictures of their dormmates next to farm animals, and have people vote on who’s hotter. Notice the ingenious sound design of his brief exchange. A weaker director would have Billy’s voice take over the soundtrack so that he could clearly describe his idea. Instead, we stay in Mark’s head, with Billy audibly drowned out by Mark’s own thought process (via Eisenberg’s narration).

Then... yeah, it’s on. The movie cuts to my favorite cue from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ Oscar-winning score, bumping the opening bars of “In Motion” while panning down the aisle of a bus. A bus filled with girls drunk and stoned, made-up and eager. What follows is one of the best, most exciting montages I’ve ever seen.

The film cuts between Mark hacking into dorm websites and writing code for the site that will soon become Facemash (which displays pictures of two different Harvard girls and asks users to vote who is hotter), and the first party of the fall semester at a Harvard frat house. We watch as young women are herded into the frat house like cattle, their chests raised and their expectations met. Mark hacks, a girl swallows a tab of ecstasy. More hacking, more stripping. 

Now, perhaps the most obvious pleasure of this sequence is how Fincher, Sorkin, Eisenberg and editors Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall (who also won Oscars for their work here) are able to make a hacking session so goddamn entertaining. I don’t have the slightest clue what Mark is talking about during this sequence, but I always watch in transfixed amazement. Again, this is pure cinema.

The sequence goes on for minutes, eventually changing tracks and introducing a new key player, Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), who gives Mark the algorithm that allows Facemash to function properly. The montage kicks back in: cutting between the sloppy party, to Harvard students using Facemash, to Mark and Co. watching the Facemash traffic in real time.

By far my favorite shot from this sequence - the lighting, the way the girl timidly covers herself. It’s perfect.

Admittedly, I’ve always viewed this scene in a sensory manner. Because it looks and sounds so good, my brain goes into sensory overload. Adrenaline pumps, my jaw drops, I smile. It wasn’t until scrutinizing the scene for this post that I found a new meaning in the sequence. Sure, there’s the obvious parallel that Mark is creating something meant to mock the very people who attend the kind of frat party we’re watching, but I feel it’s deeper than that. Fincher is asking the audience to sit in judgment of these characters, but because Fincher is such a non-judgmental director, this presents a strange dichotomy for us. A judgmental director would, perhaps, show a girl at the party being date raped, thereby creating obvious villains of the frat boys. Or, similarly, show Mark and his friends cheering and howling at his nasty remarks about Erica.  But Fincher doesn’t make it easy for us to love or hate anyone in this sequence. Instead, we’re subtly asked to choose which situation is worse (or better...). And while I don’t think the creation of Facemash is an inherently evil act (though Mark’s blog comments about Erica certainly are), I do think Mark deserves to be reprimanded for it. But what’s worse: the creation of a site that asks people to judge women based on looks (a business model that thousands of current websites are based off of), or a frat party in which women are encouraged to disrobe and feed on free booze and drugs, all with the understanding that the more they participate, the more they are “in”?

Me? Hell, I don’t have an answer, and I’m not sure Fincher does either. He just has a lens. Which is entirely the point.