The Social Network

The Social Network (David Fincher, 2010) is not only a film about who is the real founder of Facebook, but also an elaborate portrait of Mark Zuckerberg.

First scene: A normal conversation between a young couple. Really? Mark is always challenging Erica, and it can be seen in editing. The shots are really short in order to let the spectator know how Erica is feeling: surprised, stunned, she does not even have time to think a correct answer.


The story takes place when Mark has been sued twice, and his portrait is made by flashbacks. They are used in order to show both defendant and claimant version, and they last most of the film. We are not given only a version but all of them, and we can put in everyone's place.


When this film opened I rode about the similarity this portrait has to the one done in Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941), where a journalist tries to find an acceptable explanation or answer to Jedediah Leland's mysterious life.
 In The Social Network, we get the answer in the very beginning of the film: Erica (Rooney Mara) brokes up with Mark (Jesse Eisenberg), and he is so angry he decides to take revenge on her. 
The beginning and the end in Citizen Kane are connected, and so they are in The Social Network. Mark's "reason" (Erica) is still present in his life years later, when he adds her as a friend in Facebook.