Episode 77: SEVEN

[devincf 102]

David Fincher's influential serial killer movie, SEVEN (or is SE7EN?) is up for discussion this week, and you'll be surprised to find that it's a bit contentious. Or maybe you won't be surprised - it's episode 77 after all.

[RalphVarlese 6]

Yes, this is Fincher at the top of his game. However, I do not agree with Devin about the retirement thing. A few minutes later Lethal Weapon came up and in that series Danny Glover's character was about to retire and yet, it didn't end in his death.

[DanWhitehead 6]

Firstly, please give me the contact details of Earwolf's lawyers, as I may need to sue for involuntary head injuries caused during the argument about the fucking aspirin bottles.

 

Secondly, yes, Seven belongs in the Canon, although I do feel that time has diminished it somewhat - due to its nature, it's a film that works best the first time you see it.

 

Thirdly, I've always considered Seven to be a semi-remake of The Abominable Doctor Phibes. Both feature a madman embarking on a biblical-themed murder spree, and both end with the killer using himself as the final "victim" of his own scheme. In fact, was Dr Phibes the first ever "themed killing spree" movie? It feels like it was.

[Llewellyn_Wells 47]

I like Fincher a lot and agree with Devin about his overall assessment of his work. While my favorites are ZODIAC & THE SOCIAL NETWORK, I think SEVEN is his finest film in the first half of his career. (I see his film career in two parts: Alien 3-Panic Room; Zodiac-Gone Girl).

 

Fincher blends commercial with art in a unique way; I could see Amy's points clearly, but I think that's what Fincher can do well, he can make a movie for cinephiles and general audiences a like without compromising either, for me. His style is alienating to the general audience, just like I think his approach to character and story don't alienate more sophisticated viewers.

 

Can't wait for more Fincher episodes.

[DavidThomasWatson 8]

I could swear that Somerset reads an excerpt from John Doe's journal that talks about having migraines, and the pain from having a mundane conversation on the subway with a man. I might be misremembering.

It's a Yes for me, and while I see Amy's points, it almost rang as if she doesn't like the movie because it's popular.

I've always viewed it like Alien, b-movie subject matter elevated by its director.

[JeffreyMcDonald 65]

In the box!

I've been with Amy a lot in recent weeks. They've been "soft" no's, where films didn't quite get to a level for The Canon in my opinion (as opposed to maybe Devin's personal canon). This week, a very solid case was made by Devin.

 

Re-watching this film also brought me back to the first time I saw it; but in a good way. I was simply not convinced by Amy's arguments, and was happy that I still found this film utterly compelling on multiple levels. And I don't necessarily agree that a film can "pretend to be smart". It's too similar to when i hear that people don't like a piece of art because they find it "pretentious". When people make those arguments, it always seem to me like the one criticizing the work is bringing their own baggage that they can't look past. I mean, there is pretentious art and also art that tries to maybe punch above it's weight class on an intellectual level, but I just don't think that in itself is a reason to discount something. I like some pretentious work and I dislike some pretentious work, but the pretentiousness itself is hardly ever the turn-off for myself.

[JeffreyMcDonald 65]

Oh, and the "days until retirement" was definitely a trope. The Simpsons used it several times:

http://www.simpsoncr...ists/retirement

 

Saturdays of Thunder

In the video store, Homer watches a McBain movie in which Scoie, his sidekick, is retiring in a two days. However, someone tries to kill McBain, and Scoie takes the bullets and dies.

Homer and Apu

When Homer tries to "bite back" against Apu for selling him spoiled meat, he wears an oversize novelty hat with a camera hidden inside to get some incriminating footage of the Kwik-E-Mart. But Homer ends up smashing the hat, believing there is a bee inside. Kent Brockman tells him that the hat had one day left 'til retirement.

 

Natural Born Kissers After Homer and Marge escape from the windmill on the miniature golf course, Wiggum brings in the police dog to try to find them. It takes one sniff of Homer's underwear and scarpers... Wiggum adds that he had one day left 'til retirement.

 

Homer to the Max When all the trees fall down at the protest rally, one crushes Wiggum's police car... again, it had one day left 'til retirement.

[TonyBlanco 8]

So who's got the scoop on Civil War and it's connection to Se7en? I didn't really get it.

[CMQuinn 2]

Huge fucking yes and a cop dying with a few days left before retirement is a thing, they even do it in Last Action Hero.

[j_scanlon 59]

I'm totally on the fence on this one so I can't wait to listen. I think it's one of the best thrillers ever but not sure about films in general. I'm especially on the fence because I think it is at best only Fincher's third best film (after Zodiac and The Social Network).

[TonyBlanco 8]

To Live and Die in LA plays the last day before retirement super straight.

[Cronopio 127]

I think one of the more remarkable things about SEVEN is that you have a director and his collaborators working on a screenplay that is beneath their talents, but they are never condescending to the material. Quite the opposite, they embrace the B-Movie schlock and go all in, fully committed. You never get the sense that anybody here feels like they're slumming it and they achieve a film that rises above the script and achieves some kind of cinematic purity. Regardless of whether the scenes are logical, or have a deeper meaning, as a viewer you are always in the moment, emotionally and physically, the textures are tangible and the revulsion is visceral.

 

For me, Fincher's greatest contribution may be the pacing, achieved in camera and through editing, especially in the last ten minutes of the film where it becomes excruciating. His work here reminds me of Fritz Lang and the way he also elevated B-Movie scripts into works of art through the force of his craft. (And I bet M is an influence on SEVEN)

 

The visuals always get a lot of credit in this film, and rightly so, but the sound design, which didn't get mentioned in the episode because we were discussing aspirin bottles, goes a long way in creating the atmosphere and a sense of the life of the city. I read that the sound designer wrote scenes, hired actors, recorded their voices, and then took those recordings and played them in real locations and re-recorded them to create the conversations of the neighbors in the back-ground. I remember watching this in the movie theater and feeling like I was really in that city, because of the sound work.

 

Without fully disagreeing with Amy about the superficiality of the screenplay, this is an easy yes for me.

[HoldenMartinson 221]

First off, this is a clear yea.

 

Second, I feel like Amy's arguments could be applied to Fight Club, and I would agree pretty strongly.

 

Third, there's a great Every Frame a Painting, called "And the Other Way Is Wrong," which is all about how David Fincher uses his camera. Definitely worth a watch.

 

Fourth, that was Goodfellas levels of tense, which is fine, but damn. Can't wait for the commentary.

[PatrickGaertner 17]

I was super on the fence about this one going into the episode. I used to love this movie when I was a teenager, and this viewing I was really feeling how tarnished the movie feels now that culture has appropriated so much of it's style. It feels kind of hokey now, which is absurd, but so much of it's bite and shock have been taken and used by so many people that it felt hackneyed, when it's just foundational. Devin's arguments and the historical context have pushed me over the line, although I'm going to say it's a soft yes.

 

And man am I glad to hear an episode where they seem at each other's throats. We've had a lot of agreement lately. Although I really want to hear an episode that Amy is stumping for and that Devin can't stand, we haven't had one of those in a while.

[DanWhitehead 6]

So who's got the scoop on Civil War and it's connection to Se7en? I didn't really get it.

 

SPOILER WARNING FOR CIVIL WAR!!!!

 

 

NO, REALLY!!!!

 

 

Zemo's plan is basically the same as John Doe's, but with Tony Stark as Mills and video footage of Stark's parents being murdered instead of Gwyneth's head in a box.

[TonyBlanco 8]

they could have had gwyneth's head in a box here too and it still could have fit.

[EricScott 12]

Canon? YES...

 

Gah, this was one tough listen. Apparently because Amy was on her way to Cannes she thought she had to adopt French pretension? A few quick thoughts that came to me while listening to this podcast:

 

1. There is no such thing as "empty style" in a film.

2. Amy is right that the movie is a little overrated, but Devin is right in that popular reaction shouldn't play much if any role in evaluating the movie for The Canon.

3. Everything seems pretty well thought out in Se7en to me including the aspirin bottles in the apartment that both Devin and Amy prattled on and on about. Everything "John Doe" does is a calculated expression of his nihilism--score one for Devin!

4. Both Amy and Devin seemed to miss the fact that Se7en is a horror movie more than it is a thriller or a police drama and John Doe is the monster in the "forest" (the forest is The City). If you treat Se7en like a horror movie some of the "inconsistencies" in plotting and characterization actually make more sense in context.

[Louisjab 50]

Soft yes. I like it enough, but I can see why people would think it's an empty shell.

 

Biggest surprise: Amy thinking that Mills is the dumbest character she has seen in a while because he doesn't know of Paradise Lost and can't pronounce Marquis de Sade? We live in completely different circles.

 

I had to agree with Devin on this point too: the movie plays with a lot of cliches, and it brings hope before twisting them around. There is some hope in the movie because we bring it. We've seen movies like that before. They will figure the bad guy's M.O. and they will rush and stop him before he can finish his plan. Mills will learn form Somerset's wisdom and he will end up a better detective for it. The movies doesn't give out that many clues about this but we expect it anyway because that how detective movies work. If you rewatch the movies knowing the end and with a darker point of view, it doesn't look like a detective movie, it looks like a tragedy. Two poor men following a trail of breadcrumbs right in the ravine, and picking pace along the way thinking they're going to find a treasure.

 

We think it's a detective story because the movie is cut like a detective story. We follow them all the time, we learn about the clues as they do and we try to solve it as they are. But it's more of an horror story, except that in an horror movie we would see everything form John Doe point of view and Mills and Somerset would simply be the two bumbling detectives falling in the trap the killer planned for them.

[PatHines 3]

So... Scorsese had to set up that Henry Hill can cook and now that Fincher dropped the ball because John Doe needs Aspirin for some God-knows-what reason.

 

All I can say is thank God we actually saw Charles Foster Kane actually using that sled in Citizen Kane.

[JoshuaBlumenthal 6]

Even if you hate this movie, it deserves to be in the Canon. It feels like a foundational work that held up a mirror to a culture we didn't really think could exist in 1995. But, 20 years later, here we are with Donald Trump running for president and each new step forward met with banal, violent and sadistic advocacy for "taking back" the culture and "making it right" -like I imagine was the mindset John Doe started with before branching out to his Final Solution. There is no room for "soft" voting on this film. Personally, I don't really like this movie. It makes me confront ugliness in not only others but even myself. Which is precisely why it's required viewing. John Doe's tactics worked on me the first time I watched and still affect me now. Which is NOT to praise him as a hero or something to aspire to. This is simply a moral quandary inducing movie. It requires you to think though logic and process feelings.

 

Which makes it essential.

[AndyFritz 12]

I vote no.

Se7en is gross.

[RalphVarlese 6]

So who's got the scoop on Civil War and it's connection to Se7en? I didn't really get it.

 

I assume it has to do with the way the bad guy uses the predicted actions of the jerks against them. Basically orchestrating the outcome.

[RalphVarlese 6]

 

 

SPOILER WARNING FOR CIVIL WAR!!!!

 

 

NO, REALLY!!!!

 

 

Zemo's plan is basically the same as John Doe's, but with Tony Stark as Mills and video footage of Stark's parents being murdered instead of Gwyneth's head in a box.

 

How great would the ending be if Pepper Potts' head was in a box though?

[KyleMcDaniel 0]

Yes, this is a classic. I watch this film at least every other year, and Fincher is one of if not my favorite working filmmaker today.

 

Should this make it in the Canon, it would be great to have this paired against Zodiac; I believe the latter is my favorite of the two, but that would make one heckuva matchup.

Oh, and to Amy's point about Fincher not caring about characters or character development in Se7en, see Roger Ebert's Great Movie review of this film, in which he rightly argues that this is a character study disguised as a serial killer thriller.

[bohren 56]

I'm voting No because while I really like Seven it probably isn't even in my top 3 Fincher movies. But what I really want to say is that I am really sick of hearing people mispronounce "Cannes" because they are trying to sound more french. It is actually pronounced pretty much just "can", like you would say with a normal North American accent. When Devin and Amy say it in those obnoxious accents they are much closer to pronouncing the French village of "Caen" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caen)