If you tell me that someone is making a movie about Facebook, I'd probably shake my head, lower my face and nestle it despairingly into my palm. But that, of course, is before you tell me that the movie is written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher. In the following video from MakingOf.com, Sorkin talks about him accepting the project.
"If you ask me why did I say yes, I'm not sure I can give you a clear answer," Sorkin said. "But it's the fastest I've ever said yes to anything."
Obviously, Sorkin is someone way more perceptive than me to see the potential immediately. It took me a while, but now that I feel confident of the project thanks to the talents involved, which also include Kevin Spacey as a producer, it's easier to scrub past the obvious jokes ("It's a movie about couples breaking up because his status says 'It's complicated' LOL!") and unearth the enormous potential for something both riveting and insightful here.
The Social Network, as the movie is being called, will tell the story of Mark Zuckerberg, the guy who made billions of dollars overnight by creating this whole Facebook doohickey. That seems to be the key in how Fincher and Sorkin will tackle this—pretty much a story about a kid whose life suddenly skyrockets, with a courtroom drama angle to boot. It's natural for anyone to think that's where the potential is, with the whole founding of the site and all—but how interesting is that, really? The true story of a Harvard frat boy who becomes a success story before he can even legally drink by creating a vanity website? Even with the legal dispute, it seems too banal and self-absorbed of a premise. Might as well be about the kid who invented beer pong (though I don't think that guy ended up rich, but you get the drift).
The truth is, as vain and as shallow social networking sites often make its users, those sites are the leading communication tool in today's world. Facebook alone has a remarkable wealth of stories to tell, because it's not the platform that matters, it's the fact that it's used by millions of people everyday for different levels of socializing. There, the process of communication is actually visible—better still, in multimedia format. This is a platform that allows images, videos and various interactive elements to document and share life events, relationships and, yes, even business. On second thought, forget documenting and sharing; in many cases, Facebook dictates. It adds an extra venue in managing romantic relationships; it changes the connection between bosses and employees; it exposes bigots; heck, for some people, it's a legitimate proof of existence, as if anonymity from a social network also excludes you from the human race.
For the people behind the website, isn't that an amazing power to have over society? And wouldn't it be surreal to have that big of an effect on human culture? That's way more interesting than a dispute over who came up with what.
To make a movie about Facebook and truly represent it as what it is, is to essentially make a movie about human behavior and cultural function on a global scale. You know, a social network. Doesn't that sound right up Sorkin's alley? I mean, this is the guy who made sports heavily political, the government endearingly ordinary, and TV execs heartrendingly noble. That's some serious set of eyes for contemporary lore we're talking about.
Maybe the film turns out to be just another rise-to-fame story, but for now?
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