Building a Facebook profile

The movie that’s likely on the top of everyone’s Facebook News Feed right now may be the movie that Facebook doesn’t want you to see.

“The Social Network,” from director David Fincher (“Se7en,” “Zodiac”), chronicles the tumultuous rise of Facebook, the seemingly most lasting social network out there.

Starring Jesse Eisenberg as founder Mark Zuckerberg, Justin Timberlake and Andrew Garfield, and written by Aaron Sorkin (“The West Wing”), the film opens Friday.

amNewYork spoke with Fincher and Sorkin at a news conference on the day of the film’s world premiere at the New York Film Festival.

What made you overcome your distaste for the electronic communications world to make this movie? Aaron Sorkin: My feelings about the Internet are irrelevant to anybody’s enjoyment of the movie. What made me overcome them was I didn’t think it was a movie about Facebook. I thought it was a movie that has themes as old as storytelling itself.

Do you use Facebook? AS: I put up a Facebook page the day that I signed up for the movie. I didn’t have one before. I didn’t know much about Facebook. I’d heard of it the way I’ve heard of a carburetor. … I kept it up during research, writing, photography and then took it down.
David Fincher: I’ve seen it, over someone’s shoulder.

What do you make of Zuckerberg’s negative reaction to the project? AS: We aggressively courted Mark’s participation in the film. Mark would end up doing exactly what I would have done, which is declined. … We did give them the script and their notes largely had to do with hacking [terminology]. If Mark is going through an uncomfortable moment, that doesn’t give me any joy at all.  

FIVE OTHER WEBSITES THAT DESERVE A FILM
1. Friendster.com — It could be a mystery about what happened to this archaic social-networking site. Seriously, who still uses it?
2. Priceline.com — We’ll make no bones about it, we just want to see a movie of William Shatner in silly situations.
3. Pets.com — This could be a faux documentary with the hand puppet as the focus.
4. Wikipedia.com —  Think “Rashomon,” where the history of the website is presented, and then someone goes into the history and re-edits it to the way that person remembers it.
5. amNY.com — This (self-serving) feel-good movie (and sly teaser to our website) could be a story of a ragtag group of journalists putting together a free newspaper, competing against the big dogs of journalism.   (Scott A. Rosenberg)