The Noir Protagonist

"In my opinion, there have only been three music video directors in the last decade who have successfully made the transition to making interesting feature films: Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze and David Fincher. [...]

Here the narrative is fixed in a progressive timeline of Zodiac activity, yet the timeline is developed through the use of three connected films.

The first is the story of a newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, that receives Zodiac's first encoded letter explaining the details of his first murders.

The second is the detective story. Here are two partnered cops rabidly attempting to track down Zodiac, much like in Se7en. Yet despite their obsession over the case, he seemingly falls through their fingers multiple times. And again, in this film, this happens from the lack of physical evidence.

The third is the noir story. Jake Gyllenhaal becomes the noir protagonist, leading the viewer back through the multiple case files that the detectives never knew about or never clued the audience in on. He becomes, as all noir protagonists do, increasingly obsessed about the resolution of the Zodiac crimes.

Noir, simply put, encompasses the genre where the protagonist is thrown into an unusual situation and must sort his way out. And the audience simply follows the protagonist through all his breakthroughs and breakdowns." -By Daniel Griffin, Staff Writer. Source: www.Nique.net