August Braddock
Through the act of contacting journalists and the police, the Zodiac Killer taunted and terrified masses of people throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Decades after his final slaying and letter, no one knows who the man that brutally murdered several individuals is — that is, no one but the killer himself. In the 2007 neo-noir film Zodiac, director David Fincher explores the panic, both public and private, that arose in the search for the unknown murderer. In many iconic noir films, one can notice an intense sense of obsession, voyeurism, and paranoia that is rooted in mass panic or fear. This fear could be due to any number of reasons, such as war, the political and/or social climate and movements of the time, the act of women entering the workforce, etcetera. These elements can also be noted in Fincher’s Zodiac, however the root of this public fear is much different. By considering the timeline of Zodiac’s active years, one can evaluate how David Fincher’s Zodiac plays on paranoia rooted in Bay Area history and how, through cinematography and the portrayal of historical events, Zodiac pushes themes of obsession, paranoia, voyeurism, and panic, making it a modern neo-noir.
The genre of neo-noir includes films that have been released in recent decades that contain elements of canonical film noir. In his text The Philosophy of Neo-Noir, author Mark T. Conard states that elements, such as “inversion of traditional values… and a kind of moral ambivalence” are present throughout iconic works of noir cinema and can also be noted in recent films (Conard, p. 1). Conard claims “the term neo-noir describes any film coming after the classic noir period and contains noir themes and the noir sensibility” and that neo-noirs “contain the same alienation, pessimism, more ambivalence, and disorientation” as classic noir cinema (Conard, p. 2). This classification of different aspects of neo-noir cinema includes elements present in David Fincher’s portrayal of the violence and panic caused by the Zodiac Killer.
The Zodiac Killer was an active serial murderer who haunted the Bay Area and Northern California throughout the 1960s and early 1970s. Like the Victorian serial killer, Jack the Ripper, the Zodiac Killer expanded the panic his slayings caused by contacting journalists and the police through letters and phone calls. In fact, some claim that the Zodiac Killer is the first serial killer since Jack the Ripper to contact the police and journalists via letter (Graysmith, p. 48).Through the act of contacting not only the police, but the public, the Zodiac Killer created panic and widespread paranoia that was not directly tied to his killings, but the possibility of killings to come.
The Zodiac Killer created mass panic not only through his actual crimes, but through his desire for public attention. His demand that three different newspapers publish his cyphers, cyphers that he claimed revealed his true identity, brought not only fear, but also a deep interest from the public (Zodiac and Graysmith). Would the killer reveal his true identity in code? In the text Zodiac, Robert Graysmith claims that he became deeply fascinated with the killer and that he “wanted to solve” what he classified as a “great mystery” largely due to the cypher “letter’s strangeness” (Graysmith, p. 48). Graysmith was not the only armchair sleuth intrigued by the killer’s code, as hundreds of ordinary citizens worked to find its hidden meaning. The cypher was eventually decoded by a middle class suburban couple, Donald Gene and Bettye June Harden (Graysmith, p. 54). While the average 21st century individual would be aware of the Zodiac Killer, his actions, and basic knowledge of what defines a serial murderer, those living in the cloud of panic caused by the killer in the 1960s and 1970s had little to no understanding of serial murder. In fact, during the Zodiac’s active years, the term “serial killer” had not even been coined — the Zodiac Killer came before classification.
Pre-dating the term “serial killer,” the Zodiac Killer is considered one of the first widely known serial killers in the United States. The Zodiac Killer pre-dated the era of the serial killer, which lasted from the mid 1970s through the 1980s (Hickey). Well known killers from the era of the serial killer include Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Richard Ramirez, Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson, and David Berkowitz (Hickey). All of these men pre-dated criminal profiling, which became widely used by the FBI and law enforcement in the 1990s. This explains why many serial murderers were able to claim so many lives before either being caught by the police or ending their killing sprees.
It is widely agreed upon that a serial killer is an individual who has killed three or more people over a particular span of time. Unlike mass killers, who kill a large number in a short period of time, often in one spree, serial killers, such as the Zodiac Killer, kill a number of people over an extended period. In his text, Serial Murderers and Their Victims, Eric W. Hickey states that serial killers “may continue to kill for weeks, months, and often years before they are found and stopped — if they are found at all” (Hickey, p. 9). Furthermore, Annalee Newitz, author of Pretend We’re Dead: Capitalist Monsters in American Pop Culture, states “serial killings are characterized by their relative randomness and a lack of any personal connection between the killer and his or her victim” and “serial killer stories are preoccupied with realism” (Newitz, pp. 14-15). In modern representations of the serial killer in mass media, such as cinema, realism is often amplified in order to make an implausible narrative, as any narrative that involves the random killing of any number of individuals feels unnatural to many viewers, feel more real (Newitz). Realism is amplified in order to show the audience that these moments, or the reconstruction of moments, are ones of actuality – it is not just murder presented on the big screen, it is murder that had or could have occurred.
David Fincher’s 2007 film, Zodiac should be seen as a modern documentary-styled neo-noir while also being a period piece of Northern California in the 1960s and 1970s. Zodiac captures the search for the killer, seen through author Robert Graysmith’s armchair sleuth investigation and the legitimate police investigation handled by David Toschi (Zodiac). When preparing to make the film, Fincher upheld the desire for exact detail, which lead him to spend months interviewing numerous witnesses and reviewing case files (Fincher). The portrayal of killings committed by the Zodiac Killer and the investigations that followed make up David Fincher’s Zodiac. With the help of screenwriter James Vanderbilt, the film presents fact in case where fact and myth have been intertwined for decades.
Cinematic portrayals of criminals and their crimes are bountiful, yet there is something about Zodiac that sets it apart. Newitz states “…portraits of serial killers in pop culture treat their subjects as real-life monsters, and as a result many of these stories are based in fact or have a pseudo-documentary feel to them” (Newitz, p. 15). This can be noted that the overall experience of Zodiac, despite being a cinematic account on the acts of the Zodiac Killer and the investigations that followed, has a documentary feel to it. This feeling is amplified through the film’s use of title cards that present the viewer with the specific time and place of pivotal moments in the Zodiac Killer’s active years and the investigation that sought to capture him (Zodiac). These title cards also make the film feel as if it is a work of literary detective fiction, as many detective novels begin with time, place, and location in order to set the scene. The unknown killer throughout the film is portrayed as a real-life monster, one that remains hidden. His unknown identity adds to this monstrous feeling of paranoia. Who is Zodiac? He could be anyone.
The unknown identity of the villain is seen throughout film noir. Throughout iconic noir films from the 1930s through 1950s, there are numerous occasions in which the main character does not know the identity of the person they are chasing until the conclusion of the film. In Otto Preminger’s 1944 film Laura, Detective Mark McPherson must search for the individual who killed Diane Redfern, a model thought to be Laura Hunt (Laura). While McPherson is interacting with suspects throughout the film, all seem suspicious and could be the killer. Neither the audience nor characters within the film know who the killer is until the final moments of the film, where Waldo Lydecker attempts once more to kill the woman he believed he had created (Laura). The unknown identity of the villain is also seen in the film D.O.A, directed by Rudolph Maté in 1949. Protagonist Frank Bigelow, poisoned by an unknown assailant, must find his killer before he dies (D.O.A). Bigelow’s search for his own killer leads him to find that a man he had never personally met has taken his life in order to keep paperwork relating to the sale of a poisonous chemical a secret (D.O.A). Like Bigelow, the audience does not get to see the previously hidden face of his killer until the final moments of the film. The unknown villain and the act of seeking him out is crucial to film noir and it is through the investigation that the audience sees their protagonist be something other than ordinary.
The unknown identity of the Zodiac Killer is present throughout Fincher’s film. Because there is no set conclusion, the audience is left to wonder who the killer is. While the film presents Arthur Leigh Allen, played by John Carroll Lynch, as the prime suspect, the case ultimately remains open (Zodiac). In fact, Allen has been ruled out as a suspect for the killings due to DNA evidence collected at the site of the San Francisco taxicab killing (Frederick). The film presents this information in the final credits, leaving the once sure viewer conflicted (Zodiac). The film’s representation of Allen makes it seem that it is certain he was the killer, but then the audience is told he could not be. Because the viewer is not presented with the killer’s true identity, they are left in a state of pure paranoia and horror, much like the state of those reacting to the Zodiac’s phone calls to local television stations and letters published in local newspapers during his reign of terror.
The overwhelming feeling of panic present throughout Zodiac classifies it as neo-noir, all while being a realistic portrayal of how the Bay Area reacted to the knowledge that a serial killer was among them. In the film, this fear is seen through the televised news broadcasts and a number of characters, including Robert Graysmith, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Avery, played by Robert Downey Jr., and Inspector David Toschi, played by Mark Ruffalo. It is through these men that the audience becomes acquainted with the investigation. Through Graysmith, the audience is shown how someone who had no ties to the police could become so obsessed with a case that it not only destroyed his marriage, but also aided in the discovery of crucial information (Zodiac). By having Detective David Toschi as a supporting character, the audience is able to see how the actual police investigation was going in contrast with what Graysmith was finding on his own. By having both sets of investigations, and the myriad of other investigations occurring in relation to the Zodiac, such as those in Vallejo and Riverside, Fincher shows how the flood of information that came in the early years of the hunt for the Zodiac eventually dwindled out into practically nothing (Zodiac). When the film cuts to black and then to a timestamp that is four years after the previous scene, the viewer becomes aware that none of the leads once thought to be fruitful had worked out. The investigation has gone nowhere.
Mass panic and paranoia are crucial elements of canonical film noir and pulp fiction. Public fear represented in noir could come from a variety of different aspects of life during the 1930s through the 1950s, such as men leaving and returning from World War II or the Korean War, fear of atomic weapons after the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945, McCarthyism or the “Red Scare” that haunted the government and entertainment industries in the early twentieth century, women entering the work force due to men being deployed overseas, etcetera. Elements of mass panic and paranoia can be seen in films such as Laura, D.O.A, Kiss Me Deadly, and other landmark noir films.
Fincher presents mass panic and paranoia in Zodiac similar to that of early noir cinema, yet the cause is much different. Through the inclusion of recreations of televised interviews with a man claiming to be the Zodiac Killer, Fincher shows his audience the impact these threats and killings had on Bay Area life (Zodiac). After the letter in which Zodiac threatens to attack a school bus full of young adolescents, Graysmith is shown waiting with his young son at the bus stop and then quickly change his mind as his son begins to board (Zodiac). By removing his son from the bus and instead driving him to school himself, the character of Graysmith can be seen to represent the many worried parents of the Bay Area (Zodiac). The panic resulting from the acts of the Zodiac Killer are further represented through the investigations, both public and private, for the unknown killer.
Throughout Zodiac, David Fincher presents the ongoing investigation of the hunt for the Zodiac Killer largely through the character of Robert Graysmith. As a cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle, Graysmith is like many canonical noir leading men. He is not a private eye nor a police detective, but becomes obsessed with the Zodiac case and conducts his own investigation (Zodiac). Even years after many leads became cold, the case is still shown to be urgent to the obsessive Graysmith. In the film, Graysmith tells Toschi that he needs “to know who he is… I [Graysmith] need to stand there, I need to look him in the eye and I need to know that it’s him” (Zodiac). Graysmith’s obsession with finding answers leads him into dangerous situations and false leads, but the obsession is shown to have consumed him completely and he is unable to stop his search for the killer.
Through the film’s representation of chief investigator David Toschi, Fincher explores the actual police investigation that occurred during the Zodiac Killer’s active years. The film largely focuses on the Graysmith’s theory that Arthur Leigh Allen is the Zodiac Killer despite the police ruling him out as a suspect (Zodiac). Through the inclusion of Toschi, audiences experience the police’s information and how the case affected trained detectives. It is through Toschi that the viewer gains insight into the police investigation, crime scene analysis within San Francisco, and other aspects of legitimate investigations (Zodiac). Unlike Graysmith, Toschi is shown to be a trained professional and yet, with the resources of the San Francisco police at the time, was unable to find answers in regards to the Zodiac case.
The fabricated closeness of Graysmith, Avery, and Toschi created by the film helps the audience understand how many people participated in the hunt for the Zodiac Killer. The film’s presentation of the alliance formed between Graysmith and Toschi eight years after the Lake Berryessa murder is instrumental in the audience’s acknowledgement that these men are no longer hunting for the killer due to a sense of justice, but because neither are able to let it go (Zodiac). The futile attempts at justice for the victims and survivors of the Zodiac Killer is like that of early film noir, as both Graysmith and Toschi are both ultimately left unsatisfied as the case remains open.
In early film noir, many epochal films present futile attempts at justice. Famously, Howard Hawks 1946 film The Big Sleep, based on Raymond Chandler’s 1939 novel, addresses the idea of attempting justice in an unjust world (The Big Sleep). Philip Marlowe, a chivalric knight-like private detective living in crime ridden Los Angeles, is forced to consider if revealing the truth of Rusty Regan’s death to General Sternwood would be the morally correct thing to do. Through the act of not telling General Sternwood of Regan’s murder and the fact that his own daughter was his killer, Marlowe abandons justice in order to make life slightly more bearable for the sickly general (The Big Sleep). While Marlowe is a man of honor, he is shown to be aware of the harm this news would have on the general. Because of this, justice is not enacted and a killer ultimately walks free.
In the case of Zodiac, David Fincher took historical moments and crafted them into a noir landscape. The killing of Cecilia Ann Shepard, played by Pell James, and attempted murder of Bryan Hartnell, played by Patrick Scott Lewis, at Lake Berryessa on September 27th, 1969 is originally presented as the two young college students enjoying a picnic on the grassy hills surrounding the lake (Zodiac). However, tension rises as Shepard sees a man hiding in the distance. What follows is pure horror — horror that happened in actuality. Zodiac, wearing a black flat topped hood, what Graysmith’s text claims “resembled some executioner from the Middle Ages,” approached the two, tied them up, told them he was simply going to rob them, and then stabbed them both repeatedly with a “blade that was about three-quarters of an inch wide and eleven to twelve inches long…” (Graysmith, pp. 66-69). The stabbing ends and the masked killer walks away, but does not leave the picturesque lake until he has marked the pair’s car with the dates of his previous murders, leaving the note “Vallejo 12-20-68 7-4-69 Sept. 27-69-6:30 by knife” (Zodiac and Graysmith, pg. 77). In many canonical film noirs, moments of attack would be heard, not seen, but this is not a canonical noir.
Fincher presents the Lake Berryessa stabbing without music and in painfully long shots. Fincher and cinematographer Harris Savides do not begin with brutality, but slowly lead up to it — the viewer sees the two forced to tie each other up, observes them try to reason with the masked man, and then witnesses Hartnell and Shepard repeatedly stabbed (Zodiac). Furthering the agony of this sequence, Fincher not only shows the face of the individual being attacked, but the fear-ridden reaction of the other as they witness the attack occur. Tight close ups on the faces of both Shepard and Hartnell add a horrific intimacy to the scene. There is no way for the audience to escape the violence being presented; like both Shepard and Hartnell, the audience is an unintentional voyeur, as they must witness the violence that is occurring.
Fincher’s cinematography and camera movement further amplifies the intimacy and emotion within the Lake Berryessa scene. Seen in his more recent films, Fincher has used stationary shots only when movement is not occurring on screen – his camera moves with the movement of his actors. Because of this, camera movement feels more personal. The audience moves with whoever is on screen. Whether one is subconsciously or consciously aware of this movement, the audience feels as if they too are in the situation they are viewing. This can be noted in the Lake Berryessa scene and aids in one’s understanding of the intense emotional and voyeuristic nature of the sequence (Zodiac). The audience moves with the Zodiac Killer as he presents his gun and then again as he attacks the pair with his knife. When the camera is not following Zodiac, it moves with the screams and looks of horror on the faces of both Shepard and Hartnell (Zodiac). The audience feels as if they were there on the grassy hill, witnessing or even being a part of a brutal attack. It is made to feel as if one is watching something they should not be. By having the camera in lock step with the actors on screen, their behavior and movements are amplified.
Fincher’s intentional lack of score during the attack on Lake Berryessa makes it one of extreme realism. Because there is no score to this scene, the audience hears the knife as it penetrates flesh (Zodiac). Instead of music, the viewer hears Shepard’s blood curdling screams and Hartnell’s moans. Fincher places the viewer as an eye-witness forced to experience a moment of extreme brutality and trauma. This portrayal of violence is one that many viewers found shocking upon the film’s release.
Certain aspects of Fincher’s presentation of violence within the scene at Lake Berryessa line up with that of canonical film noir. While he does show the cruelty and gore of what actually happened to Shepard and Hartnell, he primarily focuses on their faces (Zodiac). The tight close up on Shepard’s face as she watches Zodiac pull his knife from his belt or the extreme close up on Hartnell’s face as he is first stabbed in the back is something one might see in an earlier noir (Zodiac). In fact, the viewer does not see the knife penetrate flesh until the Zodiac Killer ended his attack on Hartnell and began to repeatedly stab Shepard in the stomach (Zodiac). Every moment of the attack up until this moment is auditory, not visual, like many of the scenes of violence within earlier noir films.
In canonical film noir, censorship laws prohibited the presentation of graphic violence such as that seen in Fincher’s 2007 film. However, scenes of violence do occur throughout early noir cinema. One might witness a femme fatale shoot the anti-hero leading man, as seen in Jacques Turner’s 1947 film, Out of the Past, or hear of violence from a psychotic henchman, as seen in Rudolph Maté’s 1949 film D.O.A, but graphic violence in its actuality rarely appears on screen. Scenes such as the torture of Berga Torn in Robert Aldrich’s 1955 film Kiss Me Deadly are incredibly graphic, but do not actually show anything (Kiss Me Deadly). Instead of being shown brutality, the viewer is forced to listen to the screams of a woman being tortured. By not showing the torture that was occurring and instead making it auditory, Aldrich forced his viewer to imagine what the two gangsters were doing to the young woman. What were they doing that caused such blood curdling screams? The viewer is forced by the filmmakers to wonder what acts of torture were being conducted on Berga Torn as they watch her lower legs violently thrash about in pain. Because of this, the viewer’s own imagination is used against them in order to imagine the worst possible scenario, making the viewer complicit in the act of violence laid out in front of them.
Throughout his career as a film director, David Fincher has not been afraid to use graphic violence as a tool to shock his audience and to present particular information. His films, including Se7en, Fight Club, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Gone Girl, and television series, such as House of Cards and Mindhunter, all include incredibly realistic and haunting portrayals of physical brutality (Fincher). Despite his inclusion of violence throughout his cinematic career, no amount of violence portrayed equals that of what is presented in Zodiac. Yes, scenes from his other films are haunting and shocking, but they are all purely fiction. The brutality in his other films did not occur in reality; the violence seen throughout Fincher’s other cinematic works was created by different writers and then translated to the screen. In Zodiac however, the violence presented has a tie to the real world. David Fincher meticulously re-created the crimes of the Zodiac Killer and presented them in the way in which they are known to have occurred (Fincher). Because the crimes and different investigations shown by Fincher have a basis in truth, Fincher’s presentation of the Zodiac Killer is one in which the audience is already aware of the film’s conclusion – the killer remains free. However, the investigation that ensues is one that closely tied to that of detective fiction, a genre in which answers evade the reader until the last possible moment, if they even surface at all.
The realistic nature of Zodiac ties it to that of detective fiction and the genre of true crime.Director David Fincher has revealed a lifelong interest in pulp fiction and has stated that this interest, as well as being raised in the Bay Area during Zodiac’s active years, influenced the creation of Zodiac (Fincher). In classic pulp fiction, crimes and the pursuit of the criminal are often the central plot of the novel. This pursuit is often layered with overwhelming feelings of obsession, paranoia, and voyeurism. The crime and investigation feel real, and sometimes they were based on real investigations. One can look to James M. Cain’s 1943 novel Double Indemnity on how pulp novelists took from real crimes, in this case murder, to inspire their stories. By using real acts of violence as inspiration for his novels, Cain breached the gap between reality and fiction.
In 1927, Ruth Snyder and Judd Gray murdered Albert Snyder in what is now known as the “dumb-bell murder case.” Ruth Snyder convinced Judd Gray, with whom she was having an affair, to aid in the killing of her husband, Albert Snyder. Ruth Snyder had taken out three insurance policies on her husband’s life, with herself as the sole beneficiary (Walsh). The largest of these payouts, totaling $45,000, had a double indemnity clause in which the payout would be doubled if her husband died as a result of an accident or crime. Inspired by this widely discussed crime and trial that followed, James M. Cain used the story for the inspiration for his most iconic novel, Double Indemnity. His text, which was published in 1936 in Liberty magazine, was later made into the 1944 film of the same name. Cain’s interest in the case and trial were, like that of Robert Graysmith in regards to the Zodiac Killer, obsessive, as he attended the trial on multiple occasions (Walsh). As a true crime reporter turned novelist, Cain, like Graysmith, used his obsession to inspire his literary works, which resulted not only in Double Indemnity, but also The Postman Always Rings Twice.
In Robert Graysmith’s true crime text, Zodiac, one familiar with pulp fiction would find that aspects of hard boiled fiction are layered throughout the work. Despite being non-fiction, Graysmith presents the mass panic, paranoia, and sense of voyeurism that the Zodiac Killer caused in the late 1960s and early 1970s in a manner that is deeply rooted in the concept of detective fiction. Furthering this, many of the details presented by Graysmith are not factual and simply untrue and were created by the author to make his own theories on who the Zodiac Killer was appear as more compelling (Frederick). Acting as a detective, cartoonist and armchair sleuth Robert Graysmith desperately searched for clues and information that would provide the identity to the unknown killer.
David Fincher’s 2007 film Zodiac must be viewed as a neo-noir period piece. Through the film’s representation of violence, paranoia, panic, obsession, and voyeurism, Zodiac illustrates how modern cinema incorporates elements of early noir cinema of the 1940s through 1950s. The inclusion of an amateur detective, Robert Graysmith, and official police investigations, seen primarily through David Toschi and his task force, represent the idea present in many early noir films of the inability of the police to enforce the law. Ultimately, Zodiac presents an honest representation of futile attempts at justice in a lawless landscape. Much like the stories presented in hard boiled fiction and noir cinema, Zodiac presents a world in which pessimism abounds. This world is the one in which the viewer lives – a world of failed heroics and obsession that is never fully satisfied.
Works Cited
Aldrich, Robert, et al. Kiss Me Deadly, 2011.
Cain, James M. Double Indemnity. First Vintage crime/Black Lizard ed., 1992.
Conard, Mark T. The Philosophy of Neo-Noir. University Press of Kentucky, 2007.
Dickos, Andrew. Street with No Name: a History of the Classic American Film Noir. University Press of Kentucky, 2002.
Fincher, David, et al. Zodiac, 2007.
Frederick, Matt. “Monster: The Zodiac Killer.” Podcast series. iHeartPodcast Network. Web. 2 April 2019.
Graysmith, Robert. Zodiac. Berkley Books, 1987.
Hare, William. Early Film Noir: Greed, Lust, and Murder Hollywood Style. McFarland, 2003.
Hawks, Howard, et al. The Big Sleep, 2005.
Hickey, Eric W. Serial Murderers and Their Victims. 2nd ed., Wadsworth Pub. Co., 1997.
Irwin, John T. Unless the Threat of Death Is behind Them: Hard-Boiled Fiction and Film Noir. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006.
Kelleher, Michael D., and David Van Nuys. “This Is the Zodiac Speaking”: into the Mind of a Serial Killer. Praeger, 2002.
Maté, Rudolph, director. D.O.A. 1949.
Phillips, Gene D. Out of the Shadows: Expanding the Canon of Classic Film Noir. Scarecrow Press, 2011.
Preminger, Otto, director. Laura. Twentieth Century Fox, 1944.
Talbot, David. Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love. Free Press, 2013.
Waller, S., and John M. Doris. Serial Killers – Philosophy for Everyone: Being and Killing. Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
Walsh, Robert. “Double Indemnity: The Real-Life Murder That Inspired a Crime Noir Classic.” Murder & Mayhem, 24 Oct. 2017, murder-mayhem.com/double-indemnity-the-real-life-murder-that-inspired-a-crime-noir-classic.
Interpretations: Journal of the Graduate Literature Association 