| Seven | |
|---|---|
Theatrical poster |
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| Directed by | David Fincher |
| Produced by | Arnold Kopelson Phyllis Carlyle |
| Written by | Andrew Kevin Walker |
| Starring | Morgan Freeman Brad Pitt Gwyneth Paltrow Kevin Spacey R. Lee Ermey |
| Music by | Howard Shore |
| Cinematography | Darius Khondji |
| Editing by | Richard Francis-Bruce |
| Distributed by | New Line Cinema |
| Release date(s) | September 22, 1995 |
| Running time | 127 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $30,000,000 |
| Gross revenue | $327,311,859 |
Seven (also marketed as SE7EN) is an American 1995 Academy Award, BAFTA nominated crime film directed by David Fincher and written by Andrew Kevin Walker. The story follows two detectives, one retiring (Morgan Freeman) and one his replacement (Brad Pitt), jointly investigating a series of ritualistic murders inspired by the seven deadly sins.
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In an unidentified city of constant rain and urban decay, Detective William Somerset is preparing to retire and leave the horrors of the city. Before he does he is partnered with Detective David Mills, a cocky, young and short-tempered cop from a small town. The two investigate the murder of a highly obese man who was fed spaghetti until his stomach burst from a kick. Somerset investigates the murder while Mills is given the murder case of Defense Attorney Elliot "Eli" Gould, with GREED written in Gould's blood on the floor. Soon after, Somerset finds GLUTTONY written behind the obese man's fridge and theorizes that a serial killer is basing his crimes on the Seven Deadly Sins, with five more to go.
To give Mills and Somerset a chance to get along, Mills' wife, Tracy (Gwyneth Paltrow) invites Somerset over for dinner. After Tracy goes to bed, Mills and Somerset examine case evidence from the two scenes. They find a picture of Gould's wife with blood painted around the eyes. The Detectives have a distraught Mrs. Gould look at the pictures in a safe house and she notices an abstract painting that is upside down. Brushing powder on the wall behind the painting, Somerset finds fingerprints outlining the words "Help Me."
After running the fingerprints through AFIS, the prints are traced a day later to a pedophile named Victor, who escaped conviction for the rape of a minor due to the efforts of his lawyer: Eli Gould, the GREED victim. SWAT and the detectives raid his apartment to find Victor to be the SLOTH victim, having been bound to his bed for a year exactly, as evidenced by pictures at the scene; one taken every day from the day he is discovered. Remarkably, he is still alive but suffering from severe physical and mental deterioration. His hand was cut off to leave the prints. After asking to interrogate Victor in the hospital, the doctor says that his "brain is mush" and that his death is imminent anyway.
That evening, Tracy calls Somerset and requests that he meet with her. The next morning, Somerset meets Tracy in a diner where she tells him how miserable she is in "the city". At Somerset's urging, Tracy reveals the truth of her request to meet: she is pregnant, afraid of raising a child where they now live and afraid of telling her husband, David.
Later that day, and using a contact in the FBI, Somerset gets a library list of people who have borrowed books related to the Seven Deadly Sins. The list leads the detectives to a man named John Doe, whose apartment they visit soon after. Doe, his face hidden, sees them as he comes home and pulls out a gun. After a long chase, Doe hits Mills with a tire iron, keeps him subdued at gunpoint, but lets him live and suddenly flees. While examining Doe's apartment (after bribing a resident to claim she called the detectives about Doe) they find notebooks of his thoughts, trophies of the crimes and a picture of Mills fighting off Doe, who, at the time, was posing as a press photographer. They also find a photo of a young woman, a prostitute, who they believe may be the next victim. A receipt leads them to a S&M leather shop where Doe placed an order for a sexual device. The girl is soon found dead in a room with LUST written on the door. Also found in the room is a visibly shaken man forced by Doe at gunpoint to wear and use the device, a strap-on dildo with a blade attachment, to rape and kill the girl.
The next morning a model is found dead with PRIDE written on the crime scene. Doe cut off her nose ("to spite her face") and gave her the choice of suicide by sleeping pills or calling for help and living scarred. As the detectives return to the police headquarters, Doe walks up to them, his hands bloody (from periodically removing his fingerprints, the Pride victim, and a third unidentified source) and gives himself up. He talks to his lawyer and agrees that if he can take Somerset and Mills to two more bodies, he will confess to the murders. Wanting a confession, the detectives agree.
As the three travel to the desert outskirts of the city, Doe explains his rationale behind the murders as a way of showing people what the world is, as well as punishing the wicked. He goes on to say he will be remembered and admired for what he has done, while the disgusted Mills is driven to rage and screams at Doe while Somerset remains calmly worried.
Once they reach the outskirts, a van appears and Somerset stops it. The driver claims someone paid him $500 to deliver a box at this place and time. As Somerset opens the box, he recoils in horror from what he sees inside. As he screams to Mills and instructs him not to listen to Doe, Doe admits to Mills that he admires Mills' life, to the point of growing jealous of his wife and the love they share. He states that he tried to "play husband" with Tracy that day but it didn't work out and he took a souvenir instead: "her pretty head". It was Doe's plan that Mills kill him, as he was guilty of ENVY. He also reveals to Mills that Tracy was pregnant. Mills, despite the pleading of Somerset, is too shocked into tears by his wife's death and the knowledge that she was pregnant and empties his gun into Doe. Mills, by killing Doe in vengeance, comes to embody the sin of WRATH, thus making Doe win.
After a catatonic Mills is taken away, Somerset is asked where he'll be, and he responds "Around, I'll be around", suggesting he will not go through with his retirement after all. The film ends with the sun setting over the desert, with Somerset commenting, "Ernest Hemingway once wrote the world is a fine place and worth fighting for. I agree with the second part."
The primary influence for the film's screenplay came from Andrew Kevin Walker's time spent in New York City while trying to make it as a screenwriter. "I didn't like my time in New York, but it's true that if I hadn't lived there I probably wouldn't have written Seven."[1] While writing the screenplay, he envisioned actor William Hurt as Somerset and named the character after his favorite author, W. Somerset Maugham.[1]
During pre-production, Al Pacino was considered for the Somerset role but decided to do City Hall. Jeremiah Chechik was attached to direct at one point.[1] After the frustrating experience of making Alien 3, director David Fincher did not read a script for a year and a half. He said, "I thought I'd rather die of colon cancer than do another movie".[2]Fincher eventually agreed to direct because he was drawn to the script, which he found to be a "connect-the-dots movie that delivers about inhumanity. It's psychologically violent. It implies so much, not about why you did but how you did it".[2]
Fincher approached making Seven like a "tiny genre movie, the kind of movie Friedkin might have made after The Exorcist." He worked with cinematographer Darius Khondji and adopted a simple approach to the camerawork, which was influenced by the television show Cops, "how the camera is in the backseat peering over people's shoulder".[2] Fincher allowed Walker on the set while filming for on-the-set rewrites.[1] According to the director, "Seven is the first time I got to carry through certain things about the camera - and about what movies are or can be".[2]
The urban streets filled with crowded, noisy denizens while an oppressive rain always seems to fall without respite was an integral part of the film, as Fincher wanted to show a city that was "dirty, violent, polluted, often depressing. Visually and stylistically, that's how we wanted to portray this world. Everything needed to be as authentic and raw as possible."
To this end, Fincher turned to production designer Arthur Max to create a dismal world that often eerily mirrors its inhabitants. "We created a setting that reflects the moral decay of the people in it," says Max. "Everything is falling apart, and nothing is working properly." The film's brooding, dark look was also created through a unique chemical process called bleach bypass, whereby the silver in the film stock was re-bonded which in turn deepened the dark, shadowy images in the film and increased its overall tonal quality.
An early version of the script features a completely different ending in which Doe's visiting and killing Tracy does not occur. Instead there is a final confrontation between Doe, Mills and Somerset. Doe kills Mills, and in his rage, Somerset acts out the sin of wrath, taking brutal vengeance upon Doe. Somerset shoots Doe not to kill, but rather to inflict maximum pain, shooting Doe in each arm and each leg. As Doe writhes in agony, Somerset sets Doe ablaze and lets him burn alive.
In this version of the script the ending suggests that Somerset will not retire after all. Instead, the now-widowed Tracy moves away to have her baby and try to find the kind of life to which Somerset had envisioned himself retiring. He symbolically passes what had been his vision of his future on to her.
The special edition of the DVD makes clear that other endings were considered. An unfilmed alternate ending features Somerset shooting John Doe in an act of self-sacrifice to save Mills. When Mills yells "What are you doing?" Somerset says, "I'm retiring."
On the DVD commentary, Fincher states that once the desired resolution to the Doe/Mills/Somerset confrontation was settled upon, the film was then to end immediately after Mills shot Doe— the final camera shots being the scene of the crime seen from the helicopter. Nevertheless, in the end the additional scene was added with Mills being driven off and Somerset indicating that he would not retire yet.
Seven was released on September 22, 1995 in 2,441 theaters where it grossed USD $13.9 million on its opening weekend. It went on to gross $100.1 million in North America and $227.1 million in the rest of the world for a total of $327.3 million.[3]
The film was generally well-received by critics and currently has an 84% rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Gary Arnold, in the Washington Times, praised the cast: "The film's ace in the hole is the personal appeal generated by Mr. Freeman as the mature, cerebral cop and Mr. Pitt as the young, headstrong cop. Not that the contrast is inspired or believable in itself. What gets to you is the prowess of the co-stars as they fill out sketchy character profiles".[4] Sheila Johnston, in her review for The Independent, praised Freeman's performance: "the film belongs to Freeman and his quiet, carefully detailed portrayal of the jaded older man who learns not to give up the fight".[5] In his review for Sight and Sound, John Wrathall wrote, "Seven has the scariest ending since George Sluizer's original The Vanishing...and stands as the most complex and disturbing entry in the serial killer genre since Manhunter".[6]
New Line Cinema re-released Seven in Westwood, California on Christmas Day and in New York City on December 29, 1996 in attempt to generate Academy Award nominations for Freeman, Pitt, Fincher, and Walker.[7]
Walker received a BAFTA Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. Film editor Richard Francis-Bruce was nominated for an Academy Award for Film Editing, and Director of Photography Darius Khondji's extensive use of bleach bypass film processing has since been noted as a major influence on contemporary cinematographic technique, especially in the late 1990s.[8] The film was given an MTV Movie Award as best movie.
For the DVD release, Seven was remastered and presented in the widescreen format, preserving the 2.40:1 aspect ratio of its original theatrical exhibition. Audio options include Dolby EX 5.1, DTS ES Discrete 6.1, and Stereo Surround Sound.
The Seven DVD features four newly recorded, feature-length audio commentaries featuring the stars and other key contributors to the film, who talk about their experiences making Seven.
This DVD is also compatible with DVD-ROM drives. Disc One features a printable screenplay with links to the film.
In 2006, comic book publisher Zenescope Entertainment began a seven-issue miniseries, each issue focusing on one of Doe's victims before they were killed; e.g. the first issue, SE7EN: Gluttony, focuses on the "fat man".[9]
The opening credit music is a spliced sample of an uncredited remix of the Nine Inch Nails song "Closer", available as "Closer (Precursor)" on the "Closer" single. The song during the end credits is David Bowie's song "The Hearts Filthy Lesson", found on the Outside album. The film's original score is by Howard Shore.
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