Se7en: review and analysis
Rendering into archetypal characters akin to the simplified masked players of a
Noh drama, David Fincher's film Se7en is a moral fable about the inevitable consequences of a man's emotional and moral weaknesses. It is the story
of one man's descent into a Hell of his own making, where he becomes
the very monster he despises.
Rendering into archetypal characters akin to the simplified masked players of a
Noh drama, David Fincher's film Se7en is a moral fable about the
inevitable
consequences of a man's emotional and moral weaknesses. It is the story
of one man's descent into a Hell of his own making, where he becomes
the very monster he despises.
The serial killer John Doe (played
with quiet, reflective understatement by Kevin Spacey) has taken it
upon himself to be God's messenger on Earth - to
deliver a message
to the world about its moral degeneracy. He does this by portraying
seven victims as the embodiment of each of the Cardinal Sins -
Gluttony,
Greed, Sloth, Lust, Pride, Envy, and Wrath. John Doe's artfully
sadistic killings are not immediately apparent as his handiwork does not
appear until after fifteen minutes of elapsed film time.
Instead, the film begins with the introduction of detectives David Mills (played by Brad Pitt)
and
William Somerset (played by Morgan Freeman). The viewer is instantly
given the impression that the story is really about Mills and Somerset
rather than Doe.
Detective
William Somerset, middle-aged and on the brink of retirement, asks deep
and probing questions. Serving as the conscience of this film, he
considers
the reactions of everyone around him. During an investigation of a
crime of passion, he asks the other investigator, "Did their son see it
happen?".
The other investigator responds, "I don't know... what kind of fucking
question is that, anyway?". The other investigator quickly
establishes Somerset's tendency to ask many analytical questions: "I mean, it's always these questions with you."
As
the other investigator leaves the scene, the young, handsome detective
David Mills joins William Somerset. Mills is immediately established as
an
ambitious man who places career advancement above social bonding.
Somerset says, "Since we're just starting out, I thought we could go to
a bar... sit
and talk for awhile. After that, we'll..."
However, Mills responds: Actually, if it's all the same, I'd like to get to the precinct house a.s.a
p."
Somerset
attempts to get to know Mills and his motives for transferring to a job
in the big city, but Mills deflects Somerset's inquiry: "Look, it'd
be great by me if we didn't start right off kicking each other in the balls."
In
the scene that follows, we meet David Mills' young wife, Tracy (Gwyneth
Paltrow). This scene is one of the few in which there is sunlight. In
this
case, light shines through the window, illuminating the wife's
face, rendering her into an angelic vision in a world that is otherwise
rainy or dark. In this effective mise-en-scene, she is shown as the
only real light in David Mills' world.
Mills and his wife banter
a while before he kisses her goodbye and goes to work. This is the only
frame we see these two alone and awake simultaneously. In all future
scenes thereafter when the two are alone
together, Tracy will always
be asleep. Despite her obvious significance to Mills, Tracy has been
reduced to a symbolic wife figure with whom Mills seldom interacts.
After
the beginning of the film in which the characters of William Somerset,
David Mills and Tracy Mills are established, we are finally introduced
to
the work of the killer John Doe. The crime scene is a dark and
shabby setting with a faded and bloated victim. A grossly obese man
sits slumped-over at his table with his hands and feet tied. His face -
like four other victims we never see - lies in a plate of spaghetti. A
bucket of vomit sits beside him. The word "Gluttony" is written in
grease on the wall behind
his refrigerator. He has been forced to feed himself to death.
This is the Modus Operandi of John Doe: a death for each sin. Four more deaths will follow.
In
each case, John Doe is not the actual killer, but rather the
orchestrator of each murder; the victim is made to die by means of his
own sin.
"Greed" is a hotshot defense attorney who allowed a
pederast and drug dealer to run free on the streets; in a direct
allusion to Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice," he has been made to
carve off a pound of his own flesh. "Sloth" is the criminal himself,
lying tied to a bed for over a year been pumped full of drugs that keep
him barely alive, as well as the drugs that he was guilty of selling to
others.
"Lust" is a prostitute who is murdered by having sexual
intercourse with a man who (at gunpoint) is forced to attach a
knife-tipped instrument to his sex organ. "Pride" is a beautiful model,
whose face the killer has disfigured. "I did not kill her... she was
given a choice" is scrawled on the wall, in the killer's hand. She
chose suicide by taking sleeping pills, in favor of a life with a
mutilated face.
We never see these victims' faces. Gluttony lays
face-down in his plate of food. Greed also is slumped face-down. Sloth
is shown at an angle, with his
features degenerated beyond
recognition; he looks like a melting wax sculpture. We are shown photos
of his original appearance, but the original mugshot is only briefly
shown on the screen, and John Doe's black-and-white photos of Sloth are
blurry and unfocused. We see Lust's legs, but we never
see her face.
And, of course, Pride's face is wrapped in bandages. In all cases, the
victims are never shown via an eyeline camera angle: we are
distanced
from the victims, and removed from identification with them. When the
victims are laying face-up, they are always shown from a high angle. In
all but two cases (Greed and Sloth), the victims are
not named. In
each case, we never see the face of the victim. We never actually see
the victims in the process of being murdered - we only see the
results.
The
story shows dehumanization of victims by stereotyping. Gluttony is
always called "the fat man"; he is never referred to by name. By being
deprived
of a life, a voice, a name and a face, the victim is reduced to a
symbol, stripped of humanity. We never get to know the victims or are
ever
given any reason to develop sympathy for them. The victim has been made one with the sin that he or she represents.
The sixth and seventh sins to be embodied are, respectively, Envy and Wrath.
When
John Doe reveals his coveting of David Mills' "simple life", he shows
that he himself is the embodiment of the sin of Envy forcing David Mills
himself
to become Wrath. Mills takes vengeance by shooting Doe in the head,
rather than allow the legal authorities to deal with him. Like all of
the
other Sins before him, Mills has now been reduced to a symbol to
be manipulated in the plot, becoming the embodiment of Wrath. What will
come of him? Who will punish him, if all of the Sins are being punished
for what they represent?
Mills is an ambitious man who tends to
neglect personal relationships. As we see in the scene where he first
meets Somerset, he elects to go to the station instead of sharing a
drink with Somerset. We also see little
relationship between him and
his wife - she reveals her pregnancy to his partner Somerset, not to
him. His coming upon her in her sleep, and her frequent efforts to try
reaching him at work shows that he has chosen his career ambitions over
family life.
Further, Mills is at several points characterized
as a judgmental man. When he sees the bloated body of Gluttony, he
responds, "This guy's heart's got to be roughly the size of a canned
ham. If this isn't a coronary, I don't know what is." He proceeds to
tell the story of a man who framed his own suicide to look like a
murder, so that the family could collect his life insurance. Mills is
implying that because this man is fat, he could only be responsible for
his own demise. In another scene, a frustrated Mills refers to John Doe
as a "goddamn, poetry-writing, faggot motherfucker." There is a certain
inevitability to the direction in which Mills is going, as we see him
drift straight into the web which John Doe has spun for him.
"Se7en"
is a morality fable of a selfish man's descent into a Hell of his own
making. That man is not John Doe. That man is David Mills.
Noh drama, David Fincher's film Se7en is a moral fable about the inevitable consequences of a man's emotional and moral weaknesses. It is the story
of one man's descent into a Hell of his own making, where he becomes
the very monster he despises.
Rendering into archetypal characters akin to the simplified masked players of a
Noh drama, David Fincher's film Se7en is a moral fable about the
inevitable
consequences of a man's emotional and moral weaknesses. It is the story
of one man's descent into a Hell of his own making, where he becomes
the very monster he despises.
The serial killer John Doe (played
with quiet, reflective understatement by Kevin Spacey) has taken it
upon himself to be God's messenger on Earth - to
deliver a message
to the world about its moral degeneracy. He does this by portraying
seven victims as the embodiment of each of the Cardinal Sins -
Gluttony,
Greed, Sloth, Lust, Pride, Envy, and Wrath. John Doe's artfully
sadistic killings are not immediately apparent as his handiwork does not
appear until after fifteen minutes of elapsed film time.
Instead, the film begins with the introduction of detectives David Mills (played by Brad Pitt)
and
William Somerset (played by Morgan Freeman). The viewer is instantly
given the impression that the story is really about Mills and Somerset
rather than Doe.
Detective
William Somerset, middle-aged and on the brink of retirement, asks deep
and probing questions. Serving as the conscience of this film, he
considers
the reactions of everyone around him. During an investigation of a
crime of passion, he asks the other investigator, "Did their son see it
happen?".
The other investigator responds, "I don't know... what kind of fucking
question is that, anyway?". The other investigator quickly
establishes Somerset's tendency to ask many analytical questions: "I mean, it's always these questions with you."
As
the other investigator leaves the scene, the young, handsome detective
David Mills joins William Somerset. Mills is immediately established as
an
ambitious man who places career advancement above social bonding.
Somerset says, "Since we're just starting out, I thought we could go to
a bar... sit
and talk for awhile. After that, we'll..."
However, Mills responds: Actually, if it's all the same, I'd like to get to the precinct house a.s.a
p."
Somerset
attempts to get to know Mills and his motives for transferring to a job
in the big city, but Mills deflects Somerset's inquiry: "Look, it'd
be great by me if we didn't start right off kicking each other in the balls."
In
the scene that follows, we meet David Mills' young wife, Tracy (Gwyneth
Paltrow). This scene is one of the few in which there is sunlight. In
this
case, light shines through the window, illuminating the wife's
face, rendering her into an angelic vision in a world that is otherwise
rainy or dark. In this effective mise-en-scene, she is shown as the
only real light in David Mills' world.
Mills and his wife banter
a while before he kisses her goodbye and goes to work. This is the only
frame we see these two alone and awake simultaneously. In all future
scenes thereafter when the two are alone
together, Tracy will always
be asleep. Despite her obvious significance to Mills, Tracy has been
reduced to a symbolic wife figure with whom Mills seldom interacts.
After
the beginning of the film in which the characters of William Somerset,
David Mills and Tracy Mills are established, we are finally introduced
to
the work of the killer John Doe. The crime scene is a dark and
shabby setting with a faded and bloated victim. A grossly obese man
sits slumped-over at his table with his hands and feet tied. His face -
like four other victims we never see - lies in a plate of spaghetti. A
bucket of vomit sits beside him. The word "Gluttony" is written in
grease on the wall behind
his refrigerator. He has been forced to feed himself to death.
This is the Modus Operandi of John Doe: a death for each sin. Four more deaths will follow.
In
each case, John Doe is not the actual killer, but rather the
orchestrator of each murder; the victim is made to die by means of his
own sin.
"Greed" is a hotshot defense attorney who allowed a
pederast and drug dealer to run free on the streets; in a direct
allusion to Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice," he has been made to
carve off a pound of his own flesh. "Sloth" is the criminal himself,
lying tied to a bed for over a year been pumped full of drugs that keep
him barely alive, as well as the drugs that he was guilty of selling to
others.
"Lust" is a prostitute who is murdered by having sexual
intercourse with a man who (at gunpoint) is forced to attach a
knife-tipped instrument to his sex organ. "Pride" is a beautiful model,
whose face the killer has disfigured. "I did not kill her... she was
given a choice" is scrawled on the wall, in the killer's hand. She
chose suicide by taking sleeping pills, in favor of a life with a
mutilated face.
We never see these victims' faces. Gluttony lays
face-down in his plate of food. Greed also is slumped face-down. Sloth
is shown at an angle, with his
features degenerated beyond
recognition; he looks like a melting wax sculpture. We are shown photos
of his original appearance, but the original mugshot is only briefly
shown on the screen, and John Doe's black-and-white photos of Sloth are
blurry and unfocused. We see Lust's legs, but we never
see her face.
And, of course, Pride's face is wrapped in bandages. In all cases, the
victims are never shown via an eyeline camera angle: we are
distanced
from the victims, and removed from identification with them. When the
victims are laying face-up, they are always shown from a high angle. In
all but two cases (Greed and Sloth), the victims are
not named. In
each case, we never see the face of the victim. We never actually see
the victims in the process of being murdered - we only see the
results.
The
story shows dehumanization of victims by stereotyping. Gluttony is
always called "the fat man"; he is never referred to by name. By being
deprived
of a life, a voice, a name and a face, the victim is reduced to a
symbol, stripped of humanity. We never get to know the victims or are
ever
given any reason to develop sympathy for them. The victim has been made one with the sin that he or she represents.
The sixth and seventh sins to be embodied are, respectively, Envy and Wrath.
When
John Doe reveals his coveting of David Mills' "simple life", he shows
that he himself is the embodiment of the sin of Envy forcing David Mills
himself
to become Wrath. Mills takes vengeance by shooting Doe in the head,
rather than allow the legal authorities to deal with him. Like all of
the
other Sins before him, Mills has now been reduced to a symbol to
be manipulated in the plot, becoming the embodiment of Wrath. What will
come of him? Who will punish him, if all of the Sins are being punished
for what they represent?
Mills is an ambitious man who tends to
neglect personal relationships. As we see in the scene where he first
meets Somerset, he elects to go to the station instead of sharing a
drink with Somerset. We also see little
relationship between him and
his wife - she reveals her pregnancy to his partner Somerset, not to
him. His coming upon her in her sleep, and her frequent efforts to try
reaching him at work shows that he has chosen his career ambitions over
family life.
Further, Mills is at several points characterized
as a judgmental man. When he sees the bloated body of Gluttony, he
responds, "This guy's heart's got to be roughly the size of a canned
ham. If this isn't a coronary, I don't know what is." He proceeds to
tell the story of a man who framed his own suicide to look like a
murder, so that the family could collect his life insurance. Mills is
implying that because this man is fat, he could only be responsible for
his own demise. In another scene, a frustrated Mills refers to John Doe
as a "goddamn, poetry-writing, faggot motherfucker." There is a certain
inevitability to the direction in which Mills is going, as we see him
drift straight into the web which John Doe has spun for him.
"Se7en"
is a morality fable of a selfish man's descent into a Hell of his own
making. That man is not John Doe. That man is David Mills.