A Meditation on Se7en

SPOILERS AHEAD!

A few weeks ago, I bought Se7en on Blu-ray and finally got around to watching it recently. Relaxing on my couch, I thoroughly enjoyed myself as it is one of my favorite movies and I hadn't seen it in years. The experience also made me deeply miss going to the cinema. If memory serves, I first saw this film at the Orpheum here in Madison and I dearly hope to be able to see it on the big screen again because it was quite the experience. It created such an atmosphere in a darkened theater with the music building tension and the wonderful cinematography drew me in.

The plot follows Detectives Somerset (Morgan Freeman) and Mills (Brad Pitt) as they hunt down a serial killer whose work punishes individuals guilty of (theoretically) committing one of the Seven Deadly Sins. It takes place over seven days – Somerset's final week on the job before his retirement. The Blu-ray afforded me the opportunity to view the film's original opening which I'd long known about but had never seen. It shows Somerset as he looks over a dilapidated farmhouse. While looking at a wall, he cuts out a section of the wallpaper with a flower on it before heading out to chat with the real estate agent who awaits outside. The agent remarks that it's a fixer upper and Somerset replies that he has no problem with that. He has a funny look on is face because it's all so "normal".

Somerset is the grizzled veteran while Mills is the impetuous and impatient half of the duo. Mills has moved to the big city specifically to take the detective job that Somerset is relinquishing. He is moving from upstate with his wife, Tracy, who is played by Gwyneth Paltrow. It's interesting that the city is never identified or given a name. Everything is "metro". At one point we see a population sign that has no name but indicates that the city's population is 8,300,000.

Although the theatrical cut is missing the sequence where Somerset buys the farm, the film still sets up a rural/small city vs urban/big city dichotomy. He is weighed down with Weltschmerz and is seeking escape. Cynicism has become his primary defense mechanism having lost faith in humanity. "I just don't think I can continue to live in a place that embraces and nurtures apathy as if it was virtue," he says at one point. Somerset views the city as hell and he is that sign saying "Abandon hope all ye who enter here". It's raining in many of the exterior scenes but, no matter how much it rains, the apathy and urban decay are never washed away.

The adage Magna civitas, magna solitudo surely applies to the metropolis of the film. Although we are shown Somerset interacting with acquaintances such as the guards at the library, we never see him with family or friends. We hear about a former girlfriend, but she is in the distant past. At home he is alone. In one scene Somerset notes that women are instructed to yell "Fire!" instead of "Help!" because people are so indifferent to the plight of others. The landlord of the building where the sloth victim was found was completely oblivious to a tenant being tortured in one of the apartments for a full year. The rent was paid on time so who cares?

Mills, on the other hand, has come to the big city to do good. He even explicitly tells Somerset that he cares and he chides his short-timer of a partner for bemoaning that people don't care yet has lapsed into apathy himself. "This is all fucked up, it’s a fucking mess. Let’s all go live in a fucking log cabin," he mocks.

And so the two detectives, one jaded, the other idealistic, navigate a big city full of crime and decay as they try to apprehend John Doe, a sadistic killer exacting God's vengeance on those whom he feels have committed grave sins.

Se7en is a great noir with an engulfing murder mystery at its core. It also presents a drama to us one of the oldest human conflicts, the young vs. the old. But, beyond these things, I think Se7en is mainly about evil. I'm honestly not sure that it draws many conclusions about it, though. Or perhaps I just need to ponder the film further.

Notice how neither the city, the place that nurtures evil (and apathy too), nor the killer, whom we know only as "John Doe", have firm identities. On the other hand, Doe's victims have names just as do the cops who enforce the law and promote some formulation of the good. Is evil in some way generic or banal while good is something of a rarity whose practitioners deserve notice?

Maybe.

Or maybe not.

There are at least a couple of instances where cops say things which wouldn't be out of place coming from Doe. For instance, when Mills and Somerset investigate the gluttony victim, the idealist who professes to care about humanity mocks the victim. He quips that the guy's heart must be as big as a canned ham and ponders how someone that obese could fit through a doorway. Somerset replies that the guy was a shut-in using a tone that is critical of Mills, not the victim.

A SWAT team leads the way into the apartment where Theodore "Victor" Allen, drug dealer and pedophile, lives. It turns out he is one of Doe's victims too. He is the sloth guy. As Allen's gaunt, withered body lies motionless on the bed, the SWAT team leader bends over it and whispers "You got what you deserved" which brings Allen to life in one of the biggest scares of the whole film. Regardless of whether or not your moral calculus says a hideous year of torture was merited here, that line could have come straight out of Doe's mouth.

One thing that stood out in 2020 which didn't particularly do so in 1995 is Mills' use of the words "fag" and "faggot". In the film we see him get frustrated while studying The Divine Comedy for clues and he calls Dante a "poetry-writing faggot". Left on the cutting room floor but now on Blu-ray is part of the scene where Somerset has dinner with Mills and Tracy. In the sequence, that square of floral wallpaper falls out of Somerset's jacket pocket as he hangs it on the back of a chair or drapes it across the back of a couch. Tracy sees it and remarks that, if David (Mills) saw it, he'd call Somerset a fag.

Back in 1995, this may have simply been a way to get the audience to view Mills as a good ol' boy, another ploy to contrast him with Somerset. I recall seeing the word "transsexual" in the film's opening montage of Doe at work but not "homosexual". Perhaps Mills' use of "fag" and "faggot" was meant as another parallel with Doe but it could simply have been a way to describe the character.

The final potential parallel between John Doe and the police has to do with color. First we have the interrogation rooms at the police station.

The soundproofing panels are grey.(And lit from below.) The door is similarly dark as is the table. It is a gloomy scene except for Doe himself who is clad in red, the color of blood symbolizing danger and action. Now recall that there is at least one room (I think there are a few) in Doe's apartment where the walls (and ceiling?) are painted black.

This is not the best picture of the dark walls but it's the best I could find. But take my word for it. It is a dismal place.

Tangentially, we see Mills moving into Somerset's office with the elder detective relinquishing his desk to the new blood. After that scene, we never see them in that office again. I wonder if a scene explaining this was cut.

As the famous finale nears, Mills and Somerset are driving Doe out into the desert. Conversation naturally ensues with the killer explaining and justifying his actions. After noting that he picked a lawyer to die, Doe tells them "I know you both must have been secretly thanking me for that one." That line applies equally as well to the viewer. Yeah, Doe is evil and repulsive but can we cut him a little slack for having killed a pedophile?

Did good or evil win in the end? The movie doesn't tell us. A serial killer lost his life for his crimes but the idealist, the cop who cares loses his wife, unborn child, and, after exacting his own vengeance, part of his sanity. Does being good and/or defeating evil necessarily imply making a sacrifice?

Speaking of the ending, I had totally forgotten about the brief flash of Tracy's face immediately before Mills shoots Doe.

Presumably it's a flashback to her lying in bed. While a simple bit of editing, it's really effective here. Her face is in close-up while the action out in the desert has the camera looking on from quite a distance so there's a sharp contrast in shot sizes. Plus the colors in these few frames are markedly different from most of those in the rest of the film.

Se7en is a noir so it's dark and shadowy and it's also notable for cinematographer Darius Khondji's color scheme of yellows, browns, greys, and drab greens. (He had already demonstrated his skill with this kind of color palette in Delicatessen and The City of Lost Children.) The brilliance of the colors is muted or leached out altogether.

There are no Technicolor reds here. Colors aren't very saturated so the whole film has a sepulchral look to it. This helps to characterize the city as run-down and hopeless, a place where humanity dwells in despair. Contrast this shot with the one of Tracy above.

The more I think about this film, the more I want to see it on the big screen.

I bought another movie on Bu-ray along with Se7en - Annihilaton. Hopefully I'll have some thoughts on that one day.