Culture Club: The Social Network

Branded “a work of fiction” by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, The Social Network was destined to spark debate regardless of its box office success.

In Friday’s Arts & Books review Anthony Quinn found the film to his liking, enjoying the film’s cinematic qualities but suggesting it could have delved further into Facebook’s erosion of personal privacy.

“The film is an absorbing and persuasive dramatisation of what might have happened during a frenetic period of recent media history, but I must confess it’s not the film I thought, or rather hoped, it would be. At their first meeting, Sean Parker tells Mark and Eduardo that “private behaviour is a relic of time gone by”, which issue seems to me far more intriguing than the claims and counter-claims over the authorship of Facebook. The erosion of privacy is a hugely disturbing phenomenon for which social networking sites continue to be a conspicuous facilitator. Facebook now has half a billion users worldwide, but who wants a world of “friends” where actual friendship plays no part? Do the consequences of this not strike the film-makers as dramatically sinister? “

Jonathan Romney, in yesterday’s paper, managed to go one step further in his praise of the film, comparing it to Citizen Kane;

“As told by Fincher and Sorkin, this is not just the story of a lonely boy for whom success and chronic inadequacy go hand in hand – it’s a tragedy as resonant as Citizen Kane.
Right at the end, Zuckerberg, alone in a lawyer’s office, adds his old girlfriend Erica as a Facebook friend: immensely poignant, this is his own Rosebud moment.”

What did you think of The Social Network? Leave your comments below and the best will appear in Thursday’s copy of The Independent.

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• jonny1982

  I think that Anthony Quinn missed the point a little. The film wasn’t focusing on the claims and counter-claims. If anything this was merely the setting, or even the MacGuffin.The film is as Romney puts it, a tragedy. Its focus is the incredible irony that the man who created social networking as we now know it, had absolutely no social graces. He began as a broken man with only one friend, who goes on to create a network of 500 million people, yet still finds himself alone in a room, surrounded by walls and no one to call his own.It’s a magnificent film and easily the best of the year so far.

• McCoy89

  Needed more rowing.
  I watched avidly to see the Exeter University team who played the stunt doubles in the Henley scene – the film was great, I saw my boyfried on the big screen – but sadly they forgot to mention the hard working crews who raced down the Thames. Bigest disappointment of the year.

• McCoy89

  Needed more rowing.
  I watched avidly to see the Exeter University team who played the stunt doubles in the Henley scene – the film was great, I saw my boyfried on the big screen – but sadly they forgot to mention the hard working crews who raced down the Thames. Bigest disappointment of the year.

• McCoy89

  Needs more rowing.
  As a member of Exeter University Rowing Club I watched avidly to see the crew go racing past on the big screen in the Henley sequence. The film was good, I will admit. Nice to see something at the heart of the lots of peoples everyday life. And I saw my boyfried whizz across the screen – great! But unfortunatly the producers missed the whole crew off the cast list.
  Biggest disappoiontment of the year.

• McCoy89

  Needs more rowing.
  As a member of Exeter University Rowing Club, I watched avidly to see the Henley crew in the “biggest film of the year”. The film was good, I will admit. Nice to see something how something central to so many people’s everyday lives is formed and effects the individuals. And I got to see my boyfriend in the Harvard boat as it whizzed over the finish line. But unfortunately the whole stunt crews were missed off the credits.
  Biggest disappointment of the year.

• McCoy89

  Needs more rowing.

  As a member of Exeter University Rowing Club, I watched avidly to see the Henley crew in the “biggest film of the year”. The film was good, I will admit. Nice to see something how something central to so many people’s everyday lives is formed and effects the individuals. And I got to see my boyfriend in the Harvard boat as it whizzed over the finish line. But unfortunately the whole of the stunt crews were missed off the credits.
  Biggest disappointment of the year.

• http://twitter.com/jottadotcom jotta

  A mix of legal and high school drama, The Social Network did not disappoint jottadotcom

  http://www.jotta.com/jotta/design/home/article/v2-design-articles/1146/the-social-network

• http://twitter.com/jottadotcom jotta

  A mix of legal and high school drama, The Social Network did not disappoint jottadotcom…

  http://www.jotta.com/jotta/design/home/article/v2-design-articles/1146/the-social-network