Film Review: Se7en

Tim Green MCC116 Introduction to Screen Glen Stasiuk Wed 9:30 The feature film Se7en, directed by David Fincher, successfully portrays the idea of society having lost its morality. Fincher, along with the rest of the key creative crew including writer Andrew Kevin Walker, director of photography Darius Khondji, production designer Arthur Max and film editor Richard Francis-Bruce, create a world which has decayed into a dirty, dark and immoral place. As with most films themes, this theme is strongest in the screenplay, written by Andrew Kevin Walker, with the other elements of the film building upon these foundations. It follows two detectives, William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) and David Mills (Brad Pitt), as they solve the mystery of a murderer, John Doe (Kevin Spacey), who kills according to the seven deadly sins. The first act follows the pair working out the culprit, the second act finding John Doe, and the third act Doe himself turning himself in and leading the detectives to the final two victims. The film is quite conventional in its story-telling technique, maintaining a linear narrative (with the exception of a two-frame flashback) told through the subjective viewpoint of the two protagonists (with the exception of a single shot of Does lower-body exiting a taxi before he reveals himself). Despite this conventional structure, the story itself is quite unconventional, with the antagonist Doe achieving his goal and the protagonists Somerset and Mills failing in theirs. The films theme of an immoral society is most prominent in John Does motivations. We see a deadly sin on every street corner, in every home and we tolerate it, he says. We tolerate it because its common, its trivial. ... Well, not anymore. Im setting the example (Fincher 1995, 1:43:14). He hates to see the world having deteriorated into sin and immorality to the point that he has gone insane. Its not just Doe and his victims whom are portrayed as being immoral and sinful the police often do things that they shouldnt. Its regularly mentioned that police give confidential and private information to the media for money, and Somerset illegally uses private library information to find Doe, with Mills orchestrating a cover-up.

Fincher, along with director of photography Darius Khondji, used the cinematography to emphasize this idea of an immoral world. They use shadow to great effect in the film. Often entire faces are in shadow, and almost always less than half of a face is lit, giving the impression of a two-sided, conflicted, and slightly mysterious element to the characters. These dark areas are emphasized through the use of a silver-retention (or bleach-bypass) technique (ASC 1998, 2), which darkens blacks by retaining some or all of the silver halide crystals on the film stock which are normally removed through a bleaching process (Brown 2012, 248). This technique also de-saturates the image, which creates a dull aesthetic, and gives the impression of an unideal world. The film also uses depth of field to great effect in the film. Depth of field is the range of distances within which objects can be photographed in sharp focus (Bordwell and Thompson 2013, 174), and it is especially prominent in the scene where Detective Mills sees John Doe for the first time. The shot has a depth of field of about an inch, and we are focussed on the gun in his hand, just inches from the wide-angle lens. Does silhouetted, out of focus head and shoulders melding into the foggy background portray Doe as a mysterious man and the shot is truly spine-tingling. Fincher not only uses cinematography to great effect in the film, but, along with production designer Arthur Max, also used the production design and mise-en-scene to help present the idea of a decaying society. Almost all the set walls are painted a murky de-saturated green colour, with much of the rest of the production design also following this colour palette, giving a sense of decay and age. Graffiti artist Ernest Vales was even hired on the film, his work giving a neglected feel to the architecture in the film. Max says that this visual corrosion within the set design was designed to reflect the societal decay presented in the film (Dyer, et al. 1995), and it is very effective in achieving this effect. For the most part the rest of the production design is very grey and de-saturated, with no popping colours, providing a gloomy atmosphere. It is almost always raining very heavily it rains in the first six days of the seven day plot adding to this gloomy and dull atmosphere. Professor Richard Dyer suggests that the rain in Se7en is polluting, and something you can never

really escape from which reflects the sin and awfulness which is also impossible to escape (Dyer, et al. 1995). Like the cinematography, the mise-en-scene also portrays John Doe as a dark and mysterious character. When we first see him, he is dressed all in black, with a fedora and its shadow obscuring his face. His apartment is also painted entirely in black, with an illuminated red cross and the red darkroom giving a devilish red light to the scene. There are odd items scattered everywhere. Editor Richard Francis-Bruce also contributed to this sense of decay. This is especially evident in the climax. As Mills realises that Doe has killed his wife, the editing reflects the characters decay into the sin of wrath. The shots are generally quite long in duration, allowing us to see Mills emotions and slow realizations, but with the odd cut to a short shaky handheld shot, representing the rage of Mills in the scene. The shots remain long as Mills finds out about the baby and that Doe has won, with a single two-frame cut to Tracy, Mills wife, a shot which we dont have time to properly process, but which subconsciously places an image in our minds we have been made to remember what he is remembering, allowing us to feel his need for revenge. Se7en successfully portrays a society that has lost its sense of morality. Director David Fincher and the rest of the creative team have used their craft to present this world through characters, plot and story, cinematography and mise-en-scene. The world is presented as decayed, the characters as immoral, and John Doe, along with Detective Mills at the end of the film, are portrayed as dark and evil characters.

References
ASC. 1998. "Silver Retention." American Cinematographer Magazine, Nov: 2. http://www.theasc.com/magazine/nov98/soupdujour/pg2.htm. Bordwell, David, and Kristin Thompson. 2013. "The Shot: Cinematography." In Film Art: An Introduction, 160-217. New York, NY: McGraw Hill. Brown, Blain. 2012. Cinematography Theory and Practice: Image Making for Cinematographers and Directors. Oxford: Elseiver. Dyer, Richard, Andrew Kevin Walker, Richard Francis-Bruce, Michael De Luca, and David Fincher. 1995. Se7en Commentary: The Story. Audio Commentary. Fincher, David. 1995. Se7en. Feature Film. New Line Cinema. Khondji, Darius, Arthur Max, Richard Francis-Bruce, Richard Dyer, and David Fincher. 1995. Se7en Commentary: The Picture. Audio Commentary.