“You are probably going to be a very successful computer person, but you’re going to go through life thinking that girls don’t like you because you’re a nerd. And I want you to know from the bottom of my heart that that is not true. It’s because you’re an asshole.”
Erica Albright’s (Rooney Mara) last words in the opening of David Fincher’s “The Social Network” fuel Mark Zuckerberg’s (Jesse Eisenberg) motivation for the rest of the film. As pointed out in this video essay, “The Social Network – Designing Dialogue,” Aaron Sorkin does with the character of Zuckerberg what every good script should do: give us character through action and then let the dialogue expand on those actions.
READ MORE: Ranked: The Films Of David Fincher
The essay is essentially a crash course in Screenwriting 101, giving examples of great screenplays that handle exposition and dialogue well (“Chinatown,” “Goodfellas,” “Reservoir Dogs,” “Pulp Fiction“), some that are too expository (“The Matrix“), and even some that tell you what you should not do when it comes to explaining character backstory to the audience (“Star Wars: Attack Of The Clones,” “The Room“). While most of the video is spent on this, it builds up to an understanding as to why “The Social Network” is one of the great contemporary screenplays, which is difficult to argue against.
Check out the video essay and let us know what you think in the comments section.
