The Social Network movie review

The social network is a movie released in 2010 by Roger Ebert. It is entails a young boy Mark Zuckerberg who never gave up in anything he decided to do. As is portrayed in the movie, Mark was a smart brilliant boy who created Facebook and became a billionaire at early age. He had previously created Facemask which was a campus website where men could like and meet girls of their choice. As the fame of Facebook grows, Mark makes endless efforts to introduce it in different universities. He is however involved in court cases with his partners who were Winklevoss twins regarding each person’s share in Facebook. This movie is among the most adored movies and has won Roger many awards including the Oscar (Can, 2014). This paper is a basic review of the movie.

To begin with, the movie’s cinematography relation with global field culture shall be discussed. Firstly, during the start of the movie, Mark is busy drinking in with his girlfriend Rooney Mara where he explains the significance of being a member of the prestigious clubs in Campus claiming that they were exclusive. This is a cinematic technique to expose the kind of life campus students and lovers live while in campus. They are portrayed as drunkards though not all with those from rich families forming special groups which mark was a member of. This is a culture practiced in almost all universities as Mark later introduces the network to other major universities. On the other hand, Mara’s opposition to joining of the club is a cinematic technique to show that life is not all about class and humble people still exist in the society. Her eyes can show the courage she has in supporting her idea.

This main objective of this movie was to describe the cofounder and Facebook chief executive officer, Mark Zuckerberg as a conceited person who traits his classmates and friends to get power, sex and money. The movie is based on a book “The accidental Billionaires” written by Ben Mezrich. In addition, the movie shows how Mark Zuckerberg betrayed Eduardo Saverin, a Harvard student, out of a huge amount of Facebook store. It also gives a story of how Mark resolved an early difficult at Facebook, the problem that could possibly have stopped the company from becoming the current worldwide social network. The story is tracked down from people who were comprised in the launching year of Facebook. This movie includes sources adjacent to Facebook, and documents observed in other sources. The main motive of producer of this movie is to show how Mark, the co-founder of Facebook applied dirty tricks to achieve whatever he wanted. This is evident as the movie present communication between early Facebook colleagues and Mark through instant messages and unpublished emails (Mezrich, 2010).

It was in October 2003, Mark who was a student in Harvard University has the idea to make a website to rate the desirability of female undergraduates who were in the same university after his lover Erica Albright breaks up with him. Mark hacks into the databases of numerous residence halls, names of female students and downloads pictures according to the algorithm he is given by his best friend Eduardo. This website interrupts the Harvard’s computer network and Mark is penalized for six months of academic audition, and he becomes belittled among most of female community in Harvard University (Mezrich, 2010). Nonetheless, the popularity of Mark’s website and the point that he generated it in a single night, makes twins Tyler and Cameron to have interest on him. Moreover the members of rowing team in this university together with their business partner Diva are also interested on this issue. This lead to Mark being employed in the company of Winklevoss twins, working as the computer operator of their website by the name Harvard Connection.

Later, Mark meets his friend Eduardo and inform him of his idea about an online social networking website which was called “the Facebook” in Harvard University. Mark adds that this website will help numerous people in Harvard University to share social and personal information with a strong security. His friend agrees to help him and he is assisted with fees which can aid him to begin the website. When the website is through, they connect it with the connections of Eduardo and it rapidly becomes prevalent all over the student organization (Wasserman and Faust,2008). This makes the Narendar and Winklevoss twins to be certain of that Mark stole their idea while concurrently applying their website. When the dispute become too serious, Cameron and Diva decide to prosecute Mark for theft of intellectual property. However, Tyler attempts to convince them not to go to court but instead settle the matter as gentlemen of Harvard University.

Meanwhile, this website becomes so popular and these two friends become familiar in the Harvard University community. They are even invited by girls in the bars and they have fun since they are considered as “Facebook boys”. Marks learn that his ex-girlfriend was not aware of this website since she was not a member in Harvard University. He now plans to expand the site to other neighboring institutions and by 2004; the site had gained popularity in numerous institutions of Northeastern United States. Narendra and Winklevoss twins become irritated and annoyed by seeing how the idea they considered theirs have advanced. Tyler prosecutes Mark of violating the code of conduct in Harvard University but president Larry summers concludes that no displinary action can be acted on the founders and the websites itself (Wasserman and Faust, 2008).

Nonetheless, it is through Christy Lee, Eduardo’s girlfriend, that Eduardo and Mark meets Sean parker who had the same vision and they decide to modify the name from “The Facebook” to “Facebook”. Meanwhile, mark transferred the office of the company to California but Eduardo remains in New York. When Eduardo visits California, he is angry when he finds Parker using the office and at the same moment making decisions of Facebook. This leads to Eduardo freezing the company’s account and ending relationship with his girlfriend. After the Winklevoss twins note that the site has expanded in many institutions, they decide to sue Mark. This is the same idea to Eduardo because he had already confronted Mark in the office about the company’s share. Later, parker and other Facebook interns are arrested due to possession of cocaine in their party of celebrating one millionth members. Mark is the alleged to be the person who plans all this in order for parker and other Facebook interns to be arrested. The movie ends with Mark requesting his former girlfriend Erica to be a friend on Facebook but Erica does not reply to his request (Mezrich, 2010).

The portrayal of Zuckerberg in this film is very unethical although it is according on how he behave. This is because he continuously modulates the achievements of his best friend. Moreover, he becomes the pet of Sean Parker, the Napster-founder then he mocks and steals the intelligent Winklevoss brothers and finally deceives Eduardo by leaving him with just a small portion of the company. The social network has some impacts to the current society since we live in a society that is nervous of making a struggle (Tsvetovat and Kouznetsov, 2011). It shows that we do not want hard game mysteries that test our power of perception but the society only requires the fast keys. This is the main message which is well described by every character and critics in this movie.

However, this movie is predicted to bring much awareness to the next great generation of entrepreneurs due to the lessons it portray to the society. Since the moment it was released in 2010, the social network has motivated people to modify the universe through social media and start-ups. This is evident from the chief executive officer of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, as he stated that he has been receiving multiple messages from people appreciating on how the movie has inspired them. Moreover, this movie may inspire many people to create their own businesses and create the fictional trading society (Jenny, 1998).

The movie is interesting although it fails its superficial attempt to show the character of Mark Zuckerberg as an asshole is not well described. The fact that he treated his girlfriend abnormally does not bring this character at all. Therefore, it is difficult to conclude that the film wanted to show how ridiculous some intellectual property privileges are, though it does not show this. Generally, the movie depicts an interesting youthful fictional and at the same time it outline finite realities. Comparatively, Mark faced a lot of opposition from his friends in his friend in the process of establishing Facebook. He was even involved in various lawsuits regarding the ownership of Facebook. This is a cinematic technique to show that despite the changes in technology and innovations, there are still people who never see the need for such innovations. The school cancelled Mark’s Facebook launching party which is another cinematic technique to challenge stakeholders in any society or organization to support the ideas of their subjects no matter how childish they may be. This may be the beginning of another great discovery as Mark is seen to be discouraged after getting the news; he breaths deeply and sighs to relief him the shock.

As if that is not enough, using various cinematic techniques, the producer is seen to emphasize on the need for unity in any society. After Mark was embarrassed by his girlfriend and went back to his room, he engaged in a talk about social networking with his friends including roommate Eduardo Saverin which provided him with ideas that helped him in developing such a network. He later meets Cameron and Tyler who were from a rich family and they helped him a lot. As if that is not enough, Eduardo provided some capital to help in starting the capital. The culture of unity in any society is thus emphasized a lot in this movie. Harvard is seen as a university for the wealthy and for those kids from the wealthy families raising the issue of social classes and the activities the children from the rich families indulge in. This according to the audience is out to show that there are still some people in the society who shall inspire our opinions although they may later turn against us. We should however never give up as Mark is shown to struggle to achieve his ambition no matter the opposition.

Significantly, it is shown how Mark started the idea of a social network business with his friends and how they end up in endless court cases struggling over ownership of the company. Eduardo financed the project although the relationship between the two roommates worsens with time but later the two twins come out claiming majority shares in the company leading to many lawsuits between them. The two brothers claim that the idea of creating Facebook was stolen from them and Mark later squeezed them out of business. Mark’s girlfriend also betrayed him because after he introduced the Facebook story to her, she walks out of him disgusted. This however was of help to him as he developed the desire to create a social network after getting to his room. This is part of cinematograph to show the kind of betrayal that is in the society and that even close friends can betray us no matter how innocent we are. It also portrays that legendary ends up attracting jealousy even from close friends.

Again, Mark worked hard to establish a stable social network where people could meet and know each other without meeting. This is a cinematic technique showing that there is a great need and desire for cross-cultural interactions between different people (Wasserman and Faust,2008).

. His own friends often encouraged him to go on with the Facebook idea with some requesting him for an account. On the other hand, his first girlfriend highly opposed the Facebook idea and the social groups in existence in the university shown by how angry she became after Mark introduced the Facebook idea to her. She is used to show that in every aspect of life, there are people who try to suppress brilliant ideas no matter who raises them.

From the global film culture of the movie, it is evident that Mark was a hardworking, young man who could not be stopped by anyone no wonder how close they were to him. He initiated the Facebook idea after his girlfriend had walked away from him. He ends up being a billionaire which is cinematically used to show that hard work pays. He lives a good life and meets influential people in the world like Bill Gates from his idea.

Similarly, it is true that campus students live an immoral and totally exaggerated lives. As seen in the movie, Harvard had a social class where the students from rich families grouped themselves in groups of ten which Mark describes as exclusive. Mark was originally in a bar taking beer with his girlfriend at the start of the movie (Jenny,1998).

. Two girls later have sex in the toilet after meeting with Bill Gates exposing the immorality in our universities. In the same note, many supported Mark’s idea of creating a social network so that they could meet with different girls in the platform. The society is seen to have no issue with online dating. It is thus fair to judge that campus students are immoral and drunkards with the exceptions of a few like Mark’s first girlfriend. Sex and the drinking in the bar is used as a cinematic technique to prove the immorality in the society.

It is also correct as per my opinion to conclude that there is a need for more innovations especially in the social networks. Many Mark’s friends highly supported and used Facebook to meet new friends from their campus. Leaders and those responsible of controlling such networks should however be keen to preserve the morals and code of conduct in the society the network shall be used.

Additionally, it is clear that betrayal is rampant in the society according to the movie. Mark was betrayed by his first girlfriend the time he needed her most. His roommate also betrayed him later although Mark’s stubborn and ignorant nature also contributed to that. The twin brothers were introduced into the idea by Mark. They later sue him in a court of law claiming that he stole the Facebook idea from them. Betrayal is rampant in the current society and it is correct to conclude that it is one of the themes of the movie.

Extreme close up shots are used in the eyes of different characters especially the twin brothers and when they tried to trick Mark to have full control of the company. The shot size is also used to show the anger in Mark’s girlfriend who was upset and ended up betraying him. The same used to show Mark texting her and refreshing his inbox waiting for her response (Tsvetovat and Kouznetsov, 2011). The producer had it in mind that eyes and their movement greatly influence the character of an actor.

Facial expression is another commonly used cinematic technique used in this movie. The producer shows us how different characters behaved when they felt betrayed and during their happy moments. The eyebrows play an important role in cinematic techniques. As shown, Mark’s girlfriend is really upset even from the look and Mark also shows it as he watches her walk out of the bar.

The flashbacks and screen play at the beginning of the movie used during court hearings are used to create suspense to the audience who will definitely be anxious to know what really happened and who truly betrayed the other. The movie is made more enjoyable for the audience as it leans more on the dramatic side rather than action.

References

David L. (1960). An introduction to the Japanese new cinema. Indiana university press.(pdf)

In Can, F., In Özyer, T., & In Polat, F. (2014). State of the art applications of social network analysis.

Jenny K.K. (1998). Cinemas and popular media in transcultural East Asia. Temple University press. (pdf)

Mezrich, B. (2010). The accidental billionaires: The founding of Facebook : a tale of sex, money, genius, and betrayal. New York: Anchor Books.

Tsvetovat, M., & Kouznetsov, A. (2011). Social network analysis for startups: Finding connections on the social web. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media.

Wasserman, S., & Faust, K. (2008). Social network analysis: Methods and applications. Cambridge [u.a.: Cambridge Univ. Press.