I chose ‘The Social Network’ for my first breakdown as it is my favourite film and I am very familiar with the script and how everything links together. What I love about this film is: the way they have based it around the story of Mark Zuckerberg’s experience during and after creating Facebook and the way in which they have told the story. The story is filled with conspiracies and to fully understand what is happening you have to listen to every word that is said and then try and find the meaning in them and how it relates to the story. This is what makes it so good to analyse.
The analysis of this movie is for me to learn: the techniques used to create a movie with conspiracies, how to leave it up to the audience to come to a conclusion and how to develop a character though speech.
The dialogue technique used is essentially planting a seed. They will plant a seed of conspiracy which can only be planted in the dialogue, without little hints being placed in the dialogue there would be no conspiracies.
Storytelling
The way the story is told is very important. The Social Network is told/shown in essentially two parts: How it happened and then the litigation scene, essentially showing the past and the present. The litigation scene, is where they explain what was just shown or introduce something new, whether that be a character or a new point in the story. The litigation scene helps to separate the difference between what is an act and the truth. Since they are showing how it happened the audience needs to be able to distinguish between what was just an act at that time and what was Mark’s genuine thoughts and feelings.
The court scene also helps to develop conspiracies and characters.
It also seems that they try to keep evidence for the conspiracies even leaving it to the audience to decide. I think what is cool is that whatever conspiracy route the viewer decides to go down, it all makes logical sense as the writers have balanced both sides. However the ending gives you a bigger hint into what the real reason was.
Here are the conspiracies that are used in The Social Network:
- Was this all done so that Mark can seperate himself from the rest of his peers?
- Does Mark really not care about money?
- Is the reason behind the creation and development of Facebook because of Erica Albright?
- Was Mark really friends with Eduardo?
- Was the reason behind what Mark did to Eduardo because Eduardo was accepted into the Phoenix club?
- Did Mark take the idea from the Winklevoss twins and Divya?
- Did Mark set up Sean Parker and was Mark really his friend?
The Opening Scene – ‘Sowing The Seed’
The opening scene helps to set the foundation or primary conspiracies for the film. It also introduces Mark and shows the type of person he is. This is the scene where ‘the seed is planted’.
Image 1 – This links in with the first conspiracy of wanting to separate himself from his peers. A 1600 in an SAT is a perfect score only a small percentage of people are able to achieve in. Although Mark is one of the few people who have been able to do this, he still wants more, he wants to be able to be better than the rest. You can see this coming across in his personality with his sarcasm and the insults of people’s intelligence. He likes to feel that he is better than people. Which is the reason why this was including in the opening scene as this is where you want to set the character’s characteristics.
Image 2,4 – The idea of getting into a final club is introduced. This then relates to separating himself from people, it also relates to if Mark is really Eduardo Saverin’s friend. Mark said that his friend ‘Eduardo won’t come close to getting in’ even though he has done something which could be seen as ‘substantial’. Later when Eduardo is accepted, envy is created as Mark thinks he is better than Eduardo and isn’t happy that Eduardo was accepted and he wasn’t.
Image 3 – When they are talking about what type of people row crew, Mark’s essentially describes the basic physical appearance of the Winklevii. Erica says she likes people who row crew sarcastically but Mark doesn’t seem to catch the sarcasm and takes it seriously. This could then relate to Erica Albright being the root reason for the creation of Facebook. Since Erica leaves him, maybe his way of showing that he is superior is by doing something more substantial than the kind of people she likes.
Image 5 – Whats more substantial than creating the leading social media site? This relates to being accepted into the Phoenix but later it seems that what motivates him is being better than everyone at that club (I’ll elaborate on this topic later). This is the introduction of the idea that he built Facebook for to increase his social status.
Image 6 – This could mean he was never friends with Eduardo from the beginning and this also applies for Sean Parker. But this means that he contradicted himself earlier when he said Eduardo was his friend. It seems that what the writers want is to create an element of confusion and for the audience, and for them to create their own decision on what the reason for all of this is, quite similar to the whole inception thing of ‘Did he get out or is it still inside of a dream’, there is a balanced argument for each side.
Creation of FaceMash
Image 7 – Right after Erica leaves him, Mark runs home and in rage writes angry blog posts about Erica and then creates ‘FaceMash’. I find this to be a clever use of Erica’s character. Not only was Erica, the angry blog posts and FaceMash real but it relates well to the story. Erica is the reason Mark created FaceMash and FaceMash later helps him to create Facebook, not only that but when he encounters Erica later it encourages him to expand Facebook more, showing Erica to be the fuel.
This is an example of how planting the seed works, start with the idea and then expand.
Image 8 – This was essentially showing the success of the site which can be argued was due to Erica. This can then be put in comparisons to Facebook.
Harvard-Connection & Alpha Epsilon Pi
Image 9 – Mark becomes interested in what they have to say because they ‘row crew’, once again relating to Erica Albright. There is a lengthening when Mark says ‘I’ve’ almost sounding like he has a plan and has seen a opportunity. In his mind i’m guessing he thinks if he is able to show that he is better than these guys, he’ll be able to show Erica what she is missing out or even just catch her attention.
Image 10 – Relates to the money conspiracy however shows that Mark doesn’t really care about money. This creates conflict in the audience’s mind later in the story, as Mark finds out Facebook is worth a billion dollars and then you see a change in the way he treats his friends making the audience believe it is to do with money. But you are left with the question of, if he wanted money why didn’t he except the offer from Microsoft for his app?
Image 11 – Mark says the exact same words to Eduardo that the Winklevii said to him when pitching the idea of Facebook. This gives the illusion that he copied the idea from them. This is then emphasized later on when Marks says the exact same words that Divya said in an interview he had in the Crimson.
Image 12 – This is an example of the use of the court scene to show the creation of conspiracies. The conspiracy involving Eduardo may not have been apparent to most people unless this was said, so the writers added this so the audience will understand later in the movie.
Image 13,14 – This builds on the idea of Mark stealing their idea. Evidence is provided that he was avoiding the Winklevii, it was a hard wall of evidence and the only explanation for hiding from them is that he stole their idea.
However this is then balanced when Dustin has a conversation with Mark asking about a girl which then gives Mark the idea about adding a dating aspect to Facebook. This means that Mark didn’t take the idea from the Harvard Connection which was going to be a dating site. Which once again leaves the audience to make a conclusion on the conspiracy.
Yale, Columbia…and Stanford
Image 15- This gives a feeling of Mark trying to impress Erica. He hoped that with the traction the site has built she would have heard about it and I guess feel that she has missed out or want him back. Since she acted in the opposite way in which he hoped for, he felt embarrassed and felt the need to expand Facebook.
Now what makes me feel that she is the cause for all of this is, when Mark is returning, he says nothing but ‘We have to expand’. This means that it is the only thing on his mind. I think that the reason for him wanting to expand is because he thinks that the size of Facebook right now is not big enough to impress Erica, so he thinks if its bigger it will.
Image 16 – Turns out I was right. In this scene Mark is updating everyone on his plans to expand to Yale and Columbia. The interesting part is that he asks his friend to get an article written in the BU newspaper ‘The Bridge’. If you haven’t pieced this together yet, BU is the university Erica goes to, having it in the newspaper means that Erica will notice Facebook.
Image 17 – Im guessing that the writers dont want the audience to focus to much on the Winklevii. This scenes helps to discourage the audience for looking further into it. Interestingly enough there isn’t really much more development in the Winklevii conspiracy side. This illustrates the usefulness of the showing the present.
A Billion Dollar Evaluation
Ok so this is the scene where Sean Parker is introduced. The conspiracy surrounding Sean Parker was if Mark set him up and if Mark was his friend.
Image 18 – Later when Mark moves to California, you realise it’s because he admires Sean and sees him as a friend.
Image 19 – It was brought up that someone planted a story of Eduardo committing force cannibalism and that it could be seen as legitimate grounds for termination. The interesting thing was that he had just gotten into The Phoenix, so maybe it was Mark that planted the story and panted it because he was jealous.
Image 20 – ‘Thats not what friends do’, since Mark didn’t want to tell and also defended him, its changes the audiences perception of him, making them think that Mark was his friend. But once again it creates confusion in their head because of the mystery surrounding who planted the story about the chicken. But since this is the last thing that is said they are more likely to remember this ‘good deed’ making them lean in favour of Mark genuinely being Eduardo’s friend.
Image 21 – If the audience didnt realise one of that Erica may be one of the main reasons before then they realise now. Even if they didn’t realise the writers have made sure that once they reach the end the audience will be able to piece together everything.
Image 22 – Not much to say right now but I will talk on this later.
1 Million Members
Image 23 – Mark being unable to answer the question makes you think what Eduardo is saying is right. It then makes the audience think back to if there was any evidence of this. The chicken story then pops back into their head and now it all starts to make sense, they believe it was Mark.
Image 24 – Mark answers ‘no’ to the idea of Eduardo being behind this. The use of a rapid one word reply makes it seem that he is sure. But then the audience is left with the mystery of who it could be. The audience then thinks back through the movie, questioning who it could possibly be. Only person that comes to mind is Mark. Because of the scene before this of Eduardo suspecting that Mark planted the chicken story, the audience begins to question whether it was Mark who was behind this also.
Image 25 (and revisiting 22) – Right when the scales tip in favour of Mark lying about who he is genuinely friends with, the writers balance it again. I find this to be powerful as this has no dialogue, it is all explained through the visuals.
The questioning of Mark drops while seeing this, the card shows his admiration for Sean and his legitimacy for his friendship towards people. I mean if he wasnt friends and didnt like Sean, would he have had these business cards printed? He did the thing that Sean wanted him to do, just like when he moved out to California.
Image 26 – I have no idea why this was placed here. I understand they want the audience to see this angle if they havent already but it seems to be misplaced as there was nothing afterwards to back it up. I’m guessing they want the audience to leave with the idea that it was Mark who indeed called the police on Sean.
Image 27, 28 – Once again no dialogue but the picture says it all. It relates back to image 21 of what Sean said about a girl being the core reason of successful creations. In my opinion the writers ended the show on this to show that it was the real reason behind everything. Although it could be argued that Image 28 was in fact the real reason.
Cinematography
Note that im still new to cinematography so my interpretations may be wrong but its just my opinion or what I can see.
What you tend to notice throughout the movie is the use of symmetry. Usually the use of symmetry is to show balance. In my opinion the way the story was written was in balance, they didn’t want the true meaning behind what Mark was doing to be obvious so they tried to balance it.
There is also a theme of using yellows and greens. This may be because the film is based on corruption, envy and money. Green is a colour that can be associated with money or wealth, which is arguably what Mark is in pursuit of. The yellows could represent envy, this is related to Mark being envious of Eduardo getting into The Phoenix.
The Nathan Project 