David Fincher's Commentary on the Henley Royal Regatta Scene from 'Social Network'
Get a little more insight into one of the year's most talked about scenes
I featured the Henley Royal Regatta scene from The Social Network back in October and at the time mentioned I was impressed by it, but felt it was "more of a commercial break than anything else." In the comments some agreed with me, but many didn't and offered up their interpretation of the scene from a narrative and filmmaking standpoint. It made for good conversation and reinforced why we take the time to talk about films at all.
That said, having started to explore the upcoming January 11, Social Network Blu-ray release I thought you may be interested in reading David Fincher's comments on the scene from his commentary included on the first of two discs.
Check it out directly below and watch the scene again after that.
"The Henley Royal Regatta were incredibly good to us and they allowed us to actually shoot the race at Henley. I had no idea how huge the Henley Royal Regatta was. I'd only seen photographs and a lot of them are telephoto so you don't get the idea of this mile-and-a-half of grandstands and corporate sponsors. I mean, it's a huge thing and we originally thought we would shoot a bunch of inserts on the Charles [River] and then use that footage to intercut with wide shots we'd shot at Henley.
"The trick of this scene, and the thing that made it so difficult was, it's not like the fight in Rocky where it's been talked about forever and it's importance has been established and you know what it means to the Winklevosses. You get dropped into the middle of this race, and I joked with Aaron [Sorkin] about it a lot, 'How do I make people care about whether or not these guys win or lose a race that we don't know where it is, we don't know what it means?' And he was like, 'Well that's your problem.' [laughing]
"He was using it as a way of saying, 'You miss by that much.' Then to have the Winklevosses miss by that much with Mark Zuckerberg, they missed by that much with Larry Summers, they're missing by that much at Henley and it's the final straw.
"But it is a tricky thing to design a sequence around missing by that much when you literally get dropped into the middle of it. You really don't know where you are, it requires a subtitle to tell you you're now in Henley for the Henley Royal Regatta, which you probably don't know is the Super Bowl of boat racing.
"So this was one of those sequences where the only time we could shoot it was July 4, 2010. It was literally five to six weeks before we had to finish the movie. The movie had to be done so we could get it in theaters, and they were incredibly helpful to us and made it all possible.
"We'd shot the post-Henley scene where they hear about Facebook, but the actual race itself was literally a one-minute-and-forty-second slug. I think when we showed the film to the New York Film Festival, where we showed the film to a lot of long-lead press it had a card that just said, 'Incredibly involving and thrilling sequence at Henley Royal Regatta,' that was it just a black card with white type on it. So when we finally got to shoot the scene it was a mad scramble to finish it.
"One of the reasons it was done in this faux, swing and tilt– tilting lens board style was because all of the close-ups of the Winklevosses and the Dutch rowing were done in Eton on a man made lake that doesn't look anything like Henley. Doesn't have any– just has green grass, but we would shoot the close-ups of all the people and then we had to matte in still photographs that we'd shot at Henley.
"There was a team of 20-35 artists who toiled around the clock to finish that sequence so we could get it out and get the movie done. And they did a great job."
While The Social Network didn't make my list of top ten films of 2010, I still respect the filmmaking immensely, and this scene, as much as I don't think it fit into this film whatsoever, is one example of that and this bit of commentary is a good example of what the rest of this rather extensive Blu-ray includes… but more on that in a few days after I've explored the second disc. I can only assume there's more to be found and I can't wait to explore the Ruby Skye scene featurette on the second disc, that scene was filmmaking magic.
For now, here's that Henley scene again and if you want to you can pre-order the Blu-ray right here.
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I'm still bewildered that you believed Scott Pilgrim vs. The World was better than this movie… Not from a critical point of view, just a surprised one. Its great that you enjoy Scott more than Social Network, but to then consider it "filmmaking magic" and still drop it from your top 10 is adding insult to injury.
I'm not sure why I can't enjoy the filmmaking more than the film. Such as the scene above, good scene, good filmmaking, not right for this film. Just a point of view is all.
Yeah I know, I get it. I didn't make it clear, but Social Network is my favorite film of the year. I loved it on so many levels. The disappointment stems from that…
Its like when I loved (500) Days of Summer and yet you didn't like it that much but you then said you loved the Writing, the Directing, the Camerawork, the Performances, the Editing, the EVERYTHING except the final movie in itself.
Same thing happening here… you like the movie, love how it was made, but don't think the movie is a big deal in general.
Personally I think the scene was very fitting for the movie. I remember thinking after my first viewing how I loved the emphasis he put on the Henley sequence as it was to be the boiling of the Winklevosses. I'm curious to know the reason you don't think its right for this film?
Seriously, if you don't understand how this scene fits into the film then no wonder you're underwhelmed by TSN. Not showing this scene completely undermines the impact of the Twins' lawsuit. It would also rob their later deposition scenes of much of their irony. It's also a good jumping point between acts. It's also a very entertaining scene, because it highlights their loss of self-worth, entitlement, and purpose in light of Zuckerberg's achievement and success. And it's funny. And it's wonderfully shot and edited.
Man, I can't believe you don't get this scene. Maybe you should try a new profession?
Wow joel.. that's mean. You have to remember that critics are humans that have their own opinions and preferences.
but Brad, come on… it's obvious that the race is a symbolism. an artistic epitome of the race between the twins with Mark. Easy as that.
or if u still can't see that, just take it as a statement that the twins are two men with series of unfortunate events. hehe
Scott Pilgrim is the most overrated movie this year. Great filmmaking, but terrible acting along with a boring narrative.
Agreed..it was a mess, a good-looking mess, but a mess nonetheless..plus any movie which targets such a niche audience & completely alienates the rest should not be in any one's top ten list for the year…but then, to each his own…
That's a bit of a baffling statement. Just because a film is for a niche audience doesn't mean that people cannot enjoy it enough for it to be in a top 10 list.
I thought that Scott Pilgrim was pretty entertaining, with it's major flaw being that there were too many 'evil exs' and it started dragging towards the end of the second act. But it's still in my top 20 of the year.
Just me, or does that scene really not have the same impact when removed from the rest of the film? I remember thinking it was incredible when I first saw the movie, but here it's just…cool.
It got by me at the theater that the close ups were handled at a different lake with completely different backgrounds. That's what took all of the flame time. The fact it slipped by means a successful effect sequence, but here's my question: In the first cut-away to the scorekeeper, up on the rack with the cards showing their positions, the background behind her is sliding from left to right, but the second time we see her the background is fixed. That makes sense. Is the first one an inside joke or something? In some ways it's impossible… Any wisdom on this?
Looking at the sequence again, it appears to be a ship with people moving behind the scorekeeper in the first insert, while there's a stationary background the second time around (grandstands and trees, at a greater distance behind the scorekeeper than the passing ship).
While it's still a bit challenging to get a solid grasp on the geography of everything on the river, some of the wide shots reveal that there are structures standing out in the middle of the river (the finish line, for instance, where again you have a ship moving behind the white structure). Presumably, this is the case for the scorekeeper.
I have to agree with you, Tim, about the fine execution of the effects of this sequence…nothing rang false for me either.
Honestly, if you've taken high school English at some point, you should have gotten the symbolism of the race. "he knows, or apparently you don't, that getting there first, is everything" "i'm a competitive racer, div, you don't need to school me in the importance of getting there first" it's a central theme throughout the entire movie.
It's not just that. The point I took from the tilt-shift photography is that this was a microcosm, a tiny replica, of everything the Winklevossi had been going through with Zuckerberg. Fincher might describe Henley as the Super Bowl of boat racing, but it barely registers with anyone outside of that circle. Henley might mean a lot to the Winklevossi, but to anyone else, not much.