FOREWORD: This was an assignment for my Law class. We had to chose a film to write about from a legal theory perspective. The subheadings were a requirement!
Se7en (David Fincher, 1995)
“Long is the way, and hard, that out of
hell leads up to light” – John Milton: Paradise
Lost.
A
lawyer is found, having bled to death in his office, with the word “Greed”
written on the carpet in blood. A model is forced to choose between permanent
facial disfigurement and death by overdose with the word “Pride” written on her
wall. A drug-abuser and child molester is bound to his bed and kept alive for
exactly one year, with the word “Sloth” written above him.
Each
murder brings a twisted killer closer and closer to fulfilling his extremist
objective: a morally purified society. If this is his method of bringing
society’s true crimes to light, long and hard certainly is the way to achieving it.
Homicide Detective William Somerset (Morgan
Freeman) is one week away from his long awaited retirement from the police force.
Rookie Detective David Mills (Brad Pitt) is in his first week after naively
requesting a transfer to Somerset’s branch. Somerset is calm, level headed and
considerate, whereas Mills is emotionally driven, reckless and eager. The two
are partnered to investigate a case involving a brutally perverse killer with
unknown motives. However a theme does become evident when the killings begin
taking after each of the seven deadly sins. As the film follows the two lead
detectives, we see them dissect the psyche of their culprit, placing him on the
stand and reading into his every move. But as the film reaches its climax, the
tables begin to turn and we watch as the detectives are jerked about and
ultimately become the ones facing judgment.
Speech and Silence
Seven,
when juxtaposed with the classical Western or Revenge genre film, has many
similarities both thematically and in its structure. The standard Revenge film
follows a specific format, outlined in Dean Hitesman’s article Setting the Stage for Justice in the Revenge
Genre Film. Typically the law silences the truth holder (usually this
person is considered the hero and ultimately the avenger), which then causes
them to take matters into their own hands. Applying this to Seven, the person being silenced,
perhaps even the truth-holder, is the character John Doe (Kevin Spacey), the
sadistic serial killer. John Doe is being silenced from communicating his
beliefs by the laws in place, which, in his mind, enable and sometimes encourage
sinful behaviour. He then takes matters into his own hands through brutal acts
of violence and torture, inflicting punishment on his victims for their
respective sins in a way that the law neglects to enforce.
It’s certainly
no surprise that as an audience we always expect the hero/avenger figure to be
someone likable and easy to empathize with due to their quest for justice. So
perhaps this is why Seven is
considered a western turned on its head. John Doe is fighting for justice, a justice that many people hope for, just
not in the traditional way. He shares his feelings on this with the detectives
in one of the final scenes. When asked why he chose to take such extreme
measures he replies evenly, “Wanting people to listen, you can’t just tap them
on the shoulder anymore. You have to hit them with a sledgehammer, and then
you’ll notice you’ve got their strict attention”
Insiders and Outlaws
At
first glance, it is pretty clear who assumes the roles of the insiders and the
outlaws. Detectives Somerset and Mills have a perspective on these crimes that the
general public does not. They’ve researched the case in ways that aren’t always
legal and put themselves in the killer’s direct line of fire. By the point in
the film when they have started communicating with him, they become the
insiders. However, as do most things in this movie, the lines quickly blur.
As the culprit of heinous
crimes, John Doe is very certainly an outlaw throughout the film. However, on a
broader scale, the strict moral code that he lives by, and his determination to
make those who disrupt it pay for their wrongdoings, John Doe in a certain
light, represents a highly moralistic version of the law itself. In the film’s
climax, Detective Mills becomes blind with fury at the murder of his wife.
Counting on this all along, John Doe waits for Mills to shoot him dead, an act
of wrath, which will complete his masterpiece as the seventh and final sin.
This foresight shared by Somerset who tries desperately to intervene, puts John
Doe in the place of the Insider, while Detective Mills has been reduced to an
act of violence that ultimately unifies him and the killer.
Change
As
has already been mentioned, role reversal is a common occurrence in this film.
Characters begin as one thing and morph into something else completely as
circumstances change. These changes are the most prevalent in the two
detectives. Somerset is a veteran of the harsh city crime scene and spends his
entire career respecting the rules, though constantly straying from the
complacency that is common practice in the law force. The catalyst for his
change is the arrival of Detective Mills who exhibits every character trait
that Somerset does not have. Once they start working together, Somerset who is
nearly finished with the job once and for all, seems powerless to Mills’
disregard for protocol. The deeper into the case they get, the more Somerset
surrenders to the convenience of illegal activity. This begins when the two of
them enter John Doe’s home without a search warrant and, later, they pay off a
man to give them the library records under John Doe’s name.
As the
detectives stray farther and farther from what is ethically correct, they
separate themselves from the law and become both outlaws and insiders with the
perspective this gives them.
Legal Relevance
Despite how hazy the true
intentions of each character are, the three leads in the film each fall quite
neatly into different legal archetypes. Detective Somerset has seen every trick
in the book. He handles every case with the same responsibility and sage
consideration that he always has. These qualities show that Somerset is the
Wise Old Man archetype in this film. He does, however, have a compassionate
side that is often discouraged. Somerset questions the complacency that he is
encouraged to practice, constantly striving for the betterment of society. He,
more than anyone, acknowledges that not every circumstance can be made to fit
into the legal system. Somerset’s beliefs are comparable to that of a legal
Naturalist.
Detective
Mills is a different story. He is driven by his emotions and has no regard for
the processes in place, as they seem too forgiving for a criminal like John
Doe. Throughout the film he resembles the Realist, as his empathy is in direct
correlation to the crime committed. The worse the crime, the less patience he
has for formalities. He isn’t innocent in his feelings, but he is somewhat
naïve, lacking the perspective to understand what he’s fighting for. Detective
Mills is the archetypal Child. And finally, there’s John Doe. His intentions
are clear, his methods are destructive but his motivation is strong. He is
selfless in his efforts right up until the point that he must die for his
cause. Nowhere does it say that he has to be godly to be a Martyr. He strikes a
balance somewhere between Somerset and Mills in pursuits of justice. He is a
true Positivist in his beliefs. The law is the law and it makes no difference
what circumstances brought you there. This is the way that John Doe selects his
victims, unmercifully. The only difference is that he’s operating by his own
code of justice, which is considerably less forgiving.
Judgement
Judgement comes in many
forms throughout this film. From a
typical legal standpoint, it is John Doe who is being judged for his actions by
the law. Once he’s captured he is at the mercy of the law and understanding
that his scheme isn’t yet complete, there is plenty of pressure for a swift
resolution. After a particular conversation in which Mills asks him if he realizes that he’s insane, he replies
“It’s much more comfortable for you to label me as insane”. This is an example
of one kind of judgment in the film, though there is another.
John Doe’s crimes never come from a place
of simplicity. His beliefs are no longer supported by the general public, and
the law has barricaded him from preaching his sermon to the people who need to
hear it most. It is when we realize this that we realise that John Doe is the
personification of judgement in this film. He is assessing the crime and
distributing the punishment. Perhaps it’s the similarities between his
intentions and those of the law that make this film so scary. The law may not
take such extreme measures to maintain justice but at the root of its purpose
it is striving for a certain order, which reminds us again how unsettlingly
similar John Doe is to the law itself.
Does the film get the Job Done?
Seven is a deeply unsettling
portrait of a man in pursuit of a better world. Detective Somerset imagines a
place that he could be proud of but has long since lost hope in achieving such
a high ideal. Rather than reaching out to humanity, he retires from his job to
seek out a happier life, a plausible solution considering the field he’s worked
so many years in.
John Doe,
though a murderous psychopath, really isn’t that different. He’s just a man
striving for the same high ideals as Somerset. The difference between them is
that one is taking personal responsibility for his dissatisfaction and the
other is making society pay.
Because
Detective Somerset is someone that we, as an audience can relate to, it makes
it all the more horrifying when these similarities are brought to light.
Somerset, narrates at the very end of the film, saying: “Ernest Hemmingway once
wrote ‘The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for’. I agree with the
second part”.
By Matilda Davidson, 17
