Critical Analysis of the Social Network Film

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Analysis of The Social Network Quiana L Peralta ENG 225 Instructor: Melanie Rodriguez January 9, 2012 Analysis of The Social Network The film The Social Network, released in 2010 (IMDb, 2010b) tells the story of Mark Zuckerberg, one of the original founders and primary developers of the popular social networking website Facebook. To the average audience, The Social Network is a behind the scenes look at the who, how, and why surrounding the creation of the enormously popular website Facebook (IMDb, 2010b), but beneath the surface it is more than just a timeline of events, more than a story of one’s life and success. The Social Network engages a variety of literary elements as well as a very creative use of cinematography, intricate dialogues and subtle use of symbolization. Based on the book The Accidental Billionaires, written by Ben Mezrich in 2009, The Social Network is a film that portrays the real life events leading up to the creation of internet mega hit Facebook (Mezrich, 2009). Aaron Sorkin took on the task of writing the films screen play (IMDb, 2012b). Sorkin, who had aspirations of being an actor, realized his passion for writing not long after graduating from Syracuse University. Originally a Playwright, Sorkin expanded into film in 1992 with A Few Good Men (IMDb, 2012a). Over the years he began to develop certain trade marks in his writing, one of them being his uncanny ability to create “Rapid quick fire exchange of tightly-scripted dialogue for characters” (IMDb, 2012a, para. 4). This was exactly the type of script needed for The Social Network to become any kind of success. The rapid speed in which Zuckerberg moves from break up to blog, from Facemash to Facebook, was only reinforced by the fast paced dialogue between Zuckerberg and the other characters (Fincher, 2010). The story begins in 2003 at Harvard University in
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