Thriller - Se7en

Se7en

Director: David Fincher, (1995)

As part of my research, I have looked at more of the opening sequence of thrillers. We looked at Seven, within lesson time, (sometimes styled as Se7en) starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, as well as Kevin Spacey who was also in The Usual Suspects. The film is about the seven deadly sins and seven murders connected to them.

In the opening sequence, mainly extreme close-ups are used. They shows images of a notebook filled with writing as well as pictures, possibly of victims. There is also an extreme close-up where the man doing the writing is also cutting off his fingers prints, and later a shot is shown of the fingers with bandages on.

The music used within the opening sequence features heavy beats, possibly drums. It also seems to have a lot of techno sounds and other sounds, which seem a lot like a record being scratched. This add to the mystery and to the suspense as they are uncomfortable noises to listen to. The music also builds as the opening sequence goes on. This also fits with the titles as they seem like that they are done roughly with film and sometimes look like they are scratched on. The titles do seem like they have been badly done with film and seem shaky. The font is also done so it looks like it has been drawn in, adding a good effect to it. The titles are done in block capital serif font, making it look very serious and formal.

With the mise-en-scene, the lighting is very dark, only sometimes showing light on certain things to shock the audience like showing light on a particular image. There is one image of a child which then has its eyes crossed out with a marker pen, giving the impression that they have died or something terrible has happened to them. The colours are also very dark, with very little being shown at all which gives mystery. We never see the face of the person doing this, which makes the audience question who is doing this, why and what for.

We can grasp a sense of time within the opening scene as we are shown strips of film so we can gather that it is in the 20th century and beyond. We also see an American dollar which has the 'God' in the 'In God we trust' cut out of it which is nod to the title of the film and its themes, as it is based on the seven deadly sins from the Christian religion. From this I can gather that it is set in America, because of the American dollar.

Titles:

New Line Cinema Presents

An Arnold Kopelson Production

A film by David Fincher

Main Actors:

Brad Pitt

Morgan Freeman

SE7EN

Actors:

Gwyneth Paltrow

Richard Rowntree

R. Lee Ermey

John C. McGinley

Julie Araskog

Mark Boone Junior

John Cassini

Reginald E. Cathey

Peter Crombie

Hawthorne James

Michael Massee

Leland Orser

Richard Partnow

Richard Schiff

Pamola Tyson

Casting by:

Billy Hopkins

Suzanne Smith

Kerry Borden

Music by: Howard Shore

Costume Designed by: Michael Kaplan

Edited by: Richard Francis-Bruce

Director of Photography: Darius Khondji

Co-Producers:

Stephen Brown

Nana Greenwald

Sandford Panilch

Co-Executive Producers:

Lynn Harris

Richard Saperstein

Executive Producer:

Gianni Nunnari

Dan Kolsrud

Anne Kopelson

Written by: Andrew Kevin Walker

Produced by:

Arnold Kopelson

Phyllis Carlyle

Directed by: David Fincher