Seven’s city is presented as a blighted, decaying zone of unfettered criminality and vice, echoing a reactionary view of urban problems concerning segments of the contemporary American middle class. Film scholar Amy Taubin described the city as an infection point for corruption, in which signs of violence and decay are omnipresent in its dark corners, rain, television reports, fights, screams, and children in impoverished apartments. A seven-issue comic-book series was released between September 2006 and October 2007 by Zenescope Entertainment; serving as a prequel to the film’s events of the film, the comic book focuses on Doe and the planning of his crimes. A novelization of Seven that was written by Anthony Bruno was released alongside the film in November 1995. A theatrical re-release took place exclusively in IMAX theaters for one week only beginning January 3, 2025, followed by a 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray release on January 7, 2025 for the film’s 30th anniversary.
- However, Somerset’s intellectual and philosophical inclinations isolates him, with fellow officers resenting his propensity for posing what they deem unnecessary questions.
- During its opening weekend, Seven grossed $14 million across 2,441 theaters—an average of $5,714 per theater—making it the number-one film of the weekend, ahead of the debut of Showgirls ($8.1 million), and To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything!
- Writer Andrew Kevin Walker makes a cameo appearance as a corpse Somerset investigates during the film’s opening scene; Morgan Freeman’s son Alfonso appears as a fingerprint technician; and columnist George Christy portrays the police department janitor scraping Somerset’s name from his door.
- Walker was on set throughout filming to provide suggestions or on-spec rewrites but did not give Fincher much input, believing he should adapt the script as he wanted.
- Pitt and Paltrow also developed a romantic relationship while filming Seven.an Freeman’s performance established him as a mentor-type figure archetype, which he would reprise in many later projects.
A brilliant postmodern film noir that is grim, intelligent and disturbing
Early trailers and newspaper, television, and radio advertisements focused on the seven sins, presenting Seven as an “edgy” prestige film rather than a jumpscare-style horror. The text was etched onto a black-surfaced scratchboard and visually manipulated while being transferred to film to add a smear effect combined with variants of the same text achieved by placing the text over a light box and filming them over-exposed, creating an animation-style effect. The sequence focuses on Doe writing his journal and crossing out words such as “pregnancy”, “marriage”, and other elements representing a “perfect life”, which he does not believe people deserve. This helped to establish the character and the threat he poses prior to his appearance in the film’s final act.t The sequence was set to the “Closer” remix at Fincher’s request. Following the removal of the planned opening train-ride scene with Somerset, Fincher needed a temporary title sequence to screen Seven for studio executives.s He recruited R/GA designer Kyle Cooper and his team to assemble a montage reflecting Doe’s perspective.
Seven is a 1995 American crime thriller film directed by David Fincher and written by Andrew Kevin Walker. Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. All of the pieces are in place, all of the characters are in position, and then – I think the way the story ends is too easy.
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- According to Walker, “there’s lots of evil out there, and you’re not always going to get the satisfaction of having any sort of understanding of why that is. That’s one of the things that scares people the most about serial killers”.
- For the finale, he introduced more rapid cuts to emphasize the tension as Doe’s plan is revealed, and a brief, four-frame insert of Tracy as Mills pulls the trigger to compensate for not showing the contents of the box.
- Somerset does not believe the city can be saved, intending to retire beyond its confines, and tells Mills that women are taught to yell “fire” rather than “help” because people are more likely to pay attention if they selfishly think of themselves as in danger.
- Mills is ostensibly the hero and Doe the villain, but from Doe’s perspective his victims were not innocent, drawing justification from biblical precedent.
- Fincher chose one scene in Klute in which the only illumination is the character’s flashlight, saying he disliked other films in which characters state visibility is low but the audience can clearly see the scene.
According to Walker, “there’s lots of evil out there, and you’re not always going to get the satisfaction of having any sort of understanding of why that is. That’s one of the things that scares people the most about serial killers”. He wanted to defy audience expectations, and leave them feeling “violated and exhausted” by the conclusion. In 1986, aspiring screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker moved from the suburbs of Pennsylvania to New York City, and described the culture shock of living in a city undergoing significant rises in crime and drug abuse.
Khondji said Frank’s style could be seen in Seven’s very bright exteriors and dark interiors, a visual contrast achieved by underexposing the film negative. This was intended to create a stark contrast between the countryside and the darkness of the city but there was insufficient budget to film it. Because these scenes were filmed several months later than the rest of the film, the green ground had turned brown and the ground-based scenes had to be color-corrected to match the new footage. Fincher and Pitt both refused to compromise with the studio’s request to replace the head-in-the-box ending but settled for a longer epilogue showing Mills being arrested and Somerset delivering a concluding narration, offering some humanity.q According to Fincher, the box contained a taped shot bag with a wig.
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Fincher preferred Paltrow but initial discussions suggested that if approached she would not be interested in a film with a dark tone like Seven. Robert Duvall, Gene Hackman, and Al Pacino rejected the role.k The script was further modified after Pitt’s and Freeman’s castings to better match their acting styles; Mills was made more verbose and Somerset’s dialogue was reduced, and made more precise and direct. Kopelson and studio executives continued efforts to lighten Seven’s tone and change the ending.h Fincher was resistant to any changes, and was unwilling to compromise his creative control and vision.
Pitt rejected several offers from other films because he wanted to escape his typecasting as a romantic lead character in favor of something with a more “documentary feel” with urban settings and a focus on dialogue, akin to thriller films such as The Conversation (1974). His only feature film, Alien 3 (1992), had been a negative experience as the studio edited it against Fincher’s intent, leading to him disowning the project, stating “I’d rather die of colon cancer than make another movie”.e Despite this, Fincher’s agent presented him with the Seven script. In this revised script, Doe embodies the sin of envy and kills Mills before being shot dead by Somerset, while a pregnant Tracy leaves the city. Walker believed his thriller about police officers pursuing a serial killer driven by the seven deadly sins would attract attention and help begin a professional writing career.b
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Of particular focus is the Divine Comedy which depicts seven terraces of purgatory, each relating to an individual sin, and the nine circles of hell.al Professor Steve Macek interprets the unnamed city as an allegory for the hell in the Divine Comedy. Doe strategically conceals a crucial clue to his plot at the greed murder scene by turning a piece of art upside down, a detail discernible only by someone versed in art, and reflecting the city’s own upturned status. Doe creates order by filtering literature about the seven deadly sins and works by authors such as John Milton through a lens of religious fanaticism.
Filming took place over eight days, including two days filming a hand-model stand-in for Doe. Cooper regularly conferred with Wall on ideas, and spent the night before filming locating items such as fish hooks and loose hairs from his drain, which he believed would make interesting inclusions. Artist Wayne Coe storyboarded the sequence, which Harris Savides filmed and Angus Wall edited. The title sequence depicts Doe’s preparations and routines for his murderous plans, such as cutting off his fingertips, processing photographs in his bathtub, and making tea. Cooper focused on Doe’s seven casino elaborate journals, briefly glimpsed in the film, while Fincher suggested the sequence should depict Doe.
Cast
Khondji described the scene in which Mills pursues Doe as one of the most-difficult scenes to film due to its length, fast camera movements in rain, and tight, barely lit interior spaces. Khondji used Panavision Primo lenses, which offered a sharp image with good contrast, and Kodak film stocks that could capture the “gritty” interiors and deep blacks for night-time exteriors. Seven’s aesthetic was influenced by films such as All That Jazz (1979), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), and The French Connection (1971), as well as the over-the-shoulder viewpoint used in documentary television show Cops because of its implicit vulnerability. Rain often fell during filming; Fincher decided to film in rain to avoid continuity errors and because Pitt was only available for fifty-five days before he began filming 12 Monkeys (1995).
Style and set design
Mills is ostensibly the hero and Doe the villain, but from Doe’s perspective his victims were not innocent, drawing justification from biblical precedent. Professor Philippa Gates suggests that the greatest fear Doe represents is the possibility he is right, as his challenging of sinners is informed by Roman Catholic doctrine. His resigned acceptance of the envy sin after assigning wrath to Mills is, according to Goldberg, because there is no other sin for him to take and he is conscious sin will not end with his death. Doe rationalizes that everyone is guilty of sin or wishing ill on other sinners, including himself, hence his plan involves his own death.aj Goldberg suggests that Doe is the true sin of wrath, evidenced by his violent acts.
Fincher chose one scene in Klute in which the only illumination is the character’s flashlight, saying he disliked other films in which characters state visibility is low but the audience can clearly see the scene. To shape the character of the killer, Walker drew inspiration from his own experiences navigating city streets, where he witnessed crimes and sins unfolding openly. The studio’s marketing president Chris Pula called the advertising campaign for Seven risky because it had to prepare people for the film’s dark, violent content while making it a topic of discussion among potential audiences. Shore described the film’s ending as having a visceral effect on him; he incorporated his reaction into the sequence’s score, providing little accompaniment during the dialogue between Mills, Somerset, and Doe, but using it to punctuate significant moments such as Somerset opening the box.
He researched crime-scene photographs and police evidence files, observed an autopsy, and studied the effects of obesity to realize his designs. The sloth scene in particular was influenced by the work of painter Edvard Munch, drawing on the green and “claustrophobic” imagery. Believing it was important to create limitations to challenge himself, Fincher had sets built without removable walls, and the crew had to film within their confines. The final scene with Mills, Somerset, and Doe, had inconsistent lighting because the actors were always lit from behind by the sun regardless of their placement in the scene.
Its title sequence, which depicts the killer preparing for his actions in the film, is considered an important design innovation that sparked a renewed interest in title design, while the film’s twist ending has been named as one of the most shocking and unforgettable in cinematic history. (The actor playing the killer is not identified by name in the ads or opening credits, and so I will leave his identity as another of his surprises.) “Seven” is well-made in its details, and uncompromising in the way it presents the disturbing details of the crimes. Somerset intuits that the killer is using books as the inspiration for his crimes, and studies Dante, Milton and Chaucer for hints. Somerset concludes that the killer, “John Doe,” is using his crimes to preach a sermon. Soon Somerset and Mills are investigating equally inventive murders involving Greed, Sloth, Lust and the other deadly sins. It tells the story of two detectives – one ready to retire, the other at the start of his career – and their attempts to capture a perverted serial killer who is using the Seven Deadly Sins as his scenario.
“Seven” is unique in one detail of its construction; it brings the killer onscreen with half an hour to go, and gives him a speaking role. But the corpses pile up, in cold fleshy detail, as disturbingly graphic as I’ve seen in a commercial film. A break in the case comes with Somerset’s sudden hunch that the killer might have a library card.