Sorry, “Mindhunter” fans: David Fincher doesn’t think Netflix will ever give the show, “House Of Cards,” or his two films for the streamer physical media releases.
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In a new interview with Collider, the director of “The Killer” and “Mank” said he doubts Netflix would consider releasing his work with the company on home video. “That’s very sweet, but I don’t know,” he said when asked about the possibility. “I like physical media, but I really like on-demand. I mean, I love liner notes, and I kind of prefer laser discs to anything just because I’m old and I remember what LPs used to be like. I do like the act of holding them. But I can’t imagine there’s any interest in the business plan from Netflix to make packaged goods out of the stuff that I’ve made for them because their whole thing is that mainline that connects your eyeballs to their servers. So, yeah, I doubt it.”
Fincher also alluded that despite his nostalgia for various home video formats, he has issues with their ever-changing technical aspects, like data compression. “I think if you realized how much data compression is going on — at some point, there’ll be an up-res version of 4K where they’ll be able to — I mean, we have HDR now, but bit depth is only going to increase more,” he continued. “I don’t know that film could handle 24-bit color depth.”
There’s also the issue of remastering older movies with contemporary technology for home video, which Fincher thinks compromises his original vision of how he wants a film of his to look. “You know, DVD, I loved it just because I loved the idea of a whole movie on one side of a disc, but in terms of archiving and in terms of it being the document of cinema, it leaves a lot to be desired,” he explained. For instance, a CGI effect that looked seamless on a movie screen in 2000 may look worse in a 4k remaster.
“Sometimes I do feel 4K is too sharp” Fincher continued. “It’s funny, when we were remastering “Panic Room,” one of the things that we had to decide six months into the process was we’re not going to be able to go with the enhancement du jour because we had a lot of visual effects that were done in very early 8-bit CG, and you just don’t have the detail. And especially if it’s HDR, you’re seeing so much.”
When Fincher remasters an earlier film, he wants to utilize the best technology available while maintaining its visual essence from when it was made. That means, for instance, using AI technology to clean up certain shots in his upcoming “Se7en” 4k remaster, but in a way that preserves his original intention. “Everything in cinema is a compromise,” Fincher explained, “and all this stuff is reflective, looking at it in terms of, ‘What was the intention back then? How do you capture that without turning it into a new experience?’ You want it to kind of be beholden to its period.”
And if Fincher achieves that in a remaster, he feels he’s being true to film history. “Movies, like clothes, are a byproduct of their time, and you have to kind of be respectful of that,” he continued.
Fincher’s 4k restoration of “Se7en” hits select theaters today, followed by its 4k UHD home video release on January 7.
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