Inside The Social Network

Whether or not most people knew Mark Zuckerberg’s name before all the hoopla began for David Fincher’s new film The Social Network — which opened the New York Film Festival in September and begins a commercial release on Friday, October 1 — everyone knew his claim to fame: Facebook.

After starting up the popular website in 2004 at Harvard University, Zuckerberg (played in the film by stage veteran Jesse Eisenberg) managed to parlay his computerized social network into a multi-million dollar enterprise and was well on his way to being the world’s youngest billionaire well before turning 30.

But whether he alone deserves the credit — or whether certain friends and enemies should share the glory and the money — is at the core of playwright Aaron Sorkin’s screenplay for the film (which is based on Ben Mezrich’s novelized history: Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal).

“I know even less about computers than I do about social networks,” admitted Sorkin at a recent BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) screening of the film. “I’m the guy who writes about people talking in a room.” But the subject of “truth” — which has some thematic similarities to his play The Farnsworth Invention — was one reason Sorkin was intrigued by the project. “Since there are at least three versions of the truth in our film, instead of picking one of those versions and deciding that’s the truth, or choosing which version is the sexiest, we showed all the versions. I really liked the Rashomon aspect of the story.”

Nonetheless, Sorkin admits that he didn’t have complete poetic license. “David was always scrupulous about facts when facts were known. When I wrote that early scene about Mark getting drunk and punking Erica online, I had him make himself a screwdriver. But then I was informed that he drank only a certain brand of imported German beer. The screwdriver was a more interesting visual, but since it was not the truth, we shot him drinking beer.”

The shoot was often an arduous one, added Sorkin, admitting that Fincher often asked actors for dozens upon dozens of takes for the same scene. “David is not a mad man, but he likes to tire the actors out so that there’s less of the wrong kind of acting going on,” he says. “Still, you never heard any complaints. Everyone trusted David so much that they’d wait for him to say, ‘check the gate, moving on’ when he knew he had it.”

Eisenberg said that he found Fincher’s working style liberating in many ways. “My first scene with Rooney Mara (who plays Erica) was nine pages — that’s long compared to most films — and so shooting so many takes of that scene may sound exhausting or demanding, and I guess it was, but in a wonderful way. It was only the third day of shooting and I was still trying to find Mark and it gave me an opportunity to try lots of things.”

While he’s gained fame as one of the world’s biggest pop stars, Justin Timberlake is receiving strong reviews for his work in the film as Sean Parker, the founder of Napster and Zuckerberg’s de facto business partner. “I decided to give film a go mostly because people were starting to find out that I really couldn’t sing that well,” he said with a laugh. “I always wanted to be in the movies, and now here I am saying Aaron Sorkin’s words and having David Fincher tell me how I screwed them up. Seriously, for stage shows you rehearse and rehearse for ‘one take’ so to speak, but here you have the luxury to do it over and over.”

Timberlake, who added that the irony of playing Parker wasn’t lost on him, admits he has misgivings about his character. “It was clear to me after I read the script that Sean Parker is not the hero of the film. But I think that every character in this film has to believe that his character is the hero.”

Actor Andrew Garfield had the same feelings about his character, Eduardo Saverin, one of the site’s early co-founders. “In the deposition scenes, we see Eduardo wants to rebuild the world from what he perceives as a massive betrayal by his ‘brother.’ His was a righteous crusade. It was not about money; it was ‘you broke my f—-g heart!’ and I want my heart back, I want my innocence back. So, of course, I believe in Eduardo,” he said.

“But after seeing the film for the first time, I was forced to look at what I believed to be bad behavior by Mark and Sean and realize that they feel justified, and that’s the mark of a good story. I really feel that Aaron achieved that whole Rashomon thing he was going for.”