The film’s score was composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. In an interview with TheWrap, Reznor and Ross explained that they had extensive discussions with Guadagnino regarding the score, who stated that he wanted it to be “a melancholic elegy, an unending longing. It needs to be a character in the film, a part of the landscape” and requested the use of acoustic guitars to complement the Americana visuals.
The first season of ten episodes debuted worldwide on Netflix on October 13, 2017. The second season was released by Netflix on August 16, 2019. In January 2020, Netflix announced that the potential for a third season was on indefinite hold as Fincher wanted to pursue other projects but may “revisit [the series] in the future”.
Mindhunter revolves around FBI agents Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) and Bill Tench (Holt McCallany), along with psychologist Wendy Carr (Anna Torv), who operate the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit within the Training Division at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. Together, they launched a research project to interview imprisoned serial killers to understand their psychology with the hope of applying this knowledge to solve ongoing cases.
The second season takes place between 1980 and 1981, with Ford and Tench investigating the Atlanta murders of 1979 to 1981, which included at least 28 deaths, mostly children. This is based on the real case of Wayne Williams, who was charged and convicted for the murder of two adult men but was never tried for the killing of the children and adolescents, causing mass outrage and questions over Williams’s guilt as the children’s cases went cold. The second season also features other infamous murderers, such as David Berkowitz, also known as Son of Sam, played by Oliver Cooper, William Pierce Jr. played by Michael Filipowich, Elmer Wayne Henley Jr. played by Robert Aramayo, and Charles Manson, played by Damon Harriman. (wiki)
An obscure janitor during his life, Darger is known for the posthumous discovery of his elaborate 15,145-page fantasy manuscript entitled The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, along with several hundred watercolor paintings and other drawings illustrating the story.
The film’s style is atypical of a documentary. Because there are only three known photographs of Darger, and because of his reclusive lifestyle, the film is mostly a narrated biographical account, accompanied by animated versions of events from his magnum opus, which is also surveyed in detail. Interviews with his few neighbors and other acquaintances are included.
In the last entry in his diary, he wrote: “January 1, 1971. I had a very poor nothing like Christmas. Never had a good Christmas all my life, nor a good new year, and now… I am very bitter but fortunately not revengeful, though I feel should be how I am…”