MUHAMMAD ABDULLAH

NCA-FTV-469-2021

EDITING - I

ESSAY ON SE7EN

The visual paradigm constructed by Darius Kohndji in his cinematic masterpiece

‘Se7ven’ taps lightly in the realm of advanced cinematography techniques and rather encircles

around the visual stimulation induced by the claustrophobic shot compositions adding to the

spectator’s sense of reality, a framework of a highly complicated world with complex characters

and eternal discoveries.

Contrary to the glorified format of crime thrillers that involves grandeur in terms of

action sequences and extra-long shots, David Fincher instructed the use of tight frames

throughout all the vital sequences of the film such as the last one to incite the inquisitive

response among the viewers. The film manages to grasp the audience’s attention due to its

extensive close-up shots leave the audience longing for the next frame so they can get to know

the world better. These tight frames induce an unsettling sense of curiosity in the hearts of the

viewer which makes them question the motivations behind the emotional expressions of the

characters that delve them deeper into the story. The cinematographer stuck with the traditional

convention of using low-angle shots to assert the dominance of the character and high angle

shots to portray the minimality and vulnerability in the scene. The best use of shot sizes is used

in the opening sequence of the film where the film follows a cohesive progression of extremely

close frames of different elements associated with a crime scene that establishes the atmosphere

of the film. These frames also inform the audience about the mysterious nature of the story that is
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about to unravel. The director also employed a famous dreaming technique in which the subject

is brought into context through different props and objects present in the scene. The subject is

framed in such a way that there is a barrier between the audience and the character which to

some extent induces the sense of calmness in the cinema as a delusion of protection is created.

This technique was used to frame subjects through doors, car windows, grating panels, and small

enclosed spaces. The film does not involve a lot of establishing shots and mostly tighter frames

are employed throughout.

Se7en employs basic editing techniques except for the opening sequence where double

exposure shots have been utilized to show John Doe’s preparation but Richard Francis-Bruce

manipulated these techniques with such craft that they play a vital role in setting the overall

atmospheric tonality of the film. Apart from the limitations imposed by the genre itself, the film

majorly relies on the frequency and the intensity of the cuts to set the pace of the sequence.

Points where the story is approaching a cold-burn flavor, the cuts are slow, elaborate, and

adhesive relative to the fast-paced cutting that is apparent in the opening and the last sequence.

The rhythm throughout the film is effectively monitored with the help of transitions and

cutaways. In the sequence where David Mills is having flashbacks about his wife, the cutaways

are paced with such efficacy that they represent the internal state of Mill’s mind while at the

same time staying synchronous with the viewer’s exposition. Assessing under the scope of six

rules of editing proposed by Walter Murch, the film swiftly makes use of cutting on emotion

especially in the last scene where the emphasis through editing has been triangulated in such a

manner that it appreciates the character of David Mills who is going through a major breakdown

but at the same time manages to stitch the emotions of other characters seamlessly. Most of the

cuts in the sequences are solely designed to enhance the narrative exposition. Although, the
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aesthetic sense of editing is still preserved throughout the film, at no point does a cut amplifies

the beauty or the grandeur of the atmosphere without pushing the narrative forward. Even the

montages used in the film, especially when David Mills and William Somerset used to visit the

crime scenes are stitched together in a fashion that does not only aim to show the progression of

time but also the crucial beats in the story. The hypnotic camera movement in Fincher’s cinema

when pairs with the eye trace technique allow Fincher an easy possession of the viewer’s sensory

receptions. Fincher makes a statement out of moving the camera at the same speed and intensity

as the subject and this godlike sync allows viewers to inhibit the art form the way it would’ve felt

in reality. The characters in the movie seem so aware of their space that it enhances the realism

in the scene. The scenes shot in the police station covering the interaction between police officers

and officers with their furniture sets a brilliant example of physical awareness that must present

itself in every scene. Whenever the characters interact with something strange or unfamiliar, the

learning curve is very explicitly portrayed. It seems as if the character belongs in the part of the

frame that they are being portrayed in. Every small move executed by any of the characters adds

to the depth of the narrative and generally enhances the viewer’s experience when they perceive

those movements as something very appropriate and natural. The physical space is very carefully

utilized especially in the crime scenes where John Doe properly sets up everything with such

delicacy that even the slightest of the peak could expose the entire conflict.

The film delivers a highly complicated narrative by amalgamating the basic editing and

visualizing techniques with such delicacy that the boundary between the fiction and the real

appears blurred.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Kopelson, Arnold, Stephen Brown, Nana Greenwald, Sanford Panitch, Lynn Harris,
Richard Saperstein, Gianni Nunnari, et al. Se7en. United States: A New Line Cinema
release, 1995.
2. Murch, Walter, and Francis Ford Coppola. 2001. In the blink of an eye: a perspective on
film editing.