Thursday, 25 September 2008

Intro To Se7en

The intro credits scene to the film “Se7en” is the only time we get to see through the eyes of the killer. As well as creating the perfect environment to place credits, it also lets us see quite how complex the plot is going to be, drawing the viewer in. The tension created from viewing the creation of the plan is never quite worked off, too, as we never get a good look at the killer while in the creation process, adding to the numerous questions the viewer tends to have at the end of the film.
Every single shot in this scene is an extreme close up. We see books, photos, news articles, all in sharp focus, but never for very long, or that can be related to. This scene is to build interest far more than tension. Although both come hand in hand, we want to find out more about the man, find out why his fingers are bandaged, why he wants to cut out words from dollar bills. Currently, we are not afraid of him, human nature makes us inquisitive. To help build interest, long, moving shadows are constantly cast across the screen, double vision adds to the confusion. Nothing is still for very long. There is rarely a shot on screen for more than a second; frames, practically subliminal, shoot up for a fraction and are gone. A black screen separates many of the shots, while names of the actors in an untidy scrawl jitter nervously. Nothing is in order, the book we see at the very beginning is shown from the same angle again at 1.33. Every shot is littered with noise, while dots flash up in some, furiously drawn lines scratch across the screen, gone before you can blink. Noise is definitely the right term, the entire scene is visually noisy, echoing the real sound - scratchy, sharp overtones on top of wet, droning ambience – it is very unnerving, exactly how the director wants you to feel in the presence of the killer. The colour scheme echoes all of these points. Generally revolving around a rusty brown colour, (a colour associated with decay and dirt), the dominant colour in a scene will often suddenly change, bathing the entire screen with a powerful blood red, or upping the contrast often to make the foreground pitch black, making it seem dark and mysterious. The film also shows off the bleach bypass effect, an effect used most the way through the film to make everything seem dirty and wrong, all the happy colours drained out of the screen, a metaphor for the city, its people, and the moral to the film. “The end of innocence and the darkness of man's heart” is a quote from “Lord of the Flies”, although this nihilistic film even questions whether the innocence really ever existed at all.

The one thing we do know though, is that this film is going to be very, very interesting.


1 comment:

Tom Kail said...

Well, Wikipedia claims that NIN are an "industrial group", something I have never heard before, but in context, it does make a lot of sense – the intro is very mechanical and industrial, and in a way, holds a beat for the video. This also ties in to the printed font, although the mechanical theme isn't really carried through to the rest of the film, although that could be because this is the only part of the film where Doe is the main character, as he was shown to be incredibly precise and emotionless, much like a machine. The sounds themselves are also very mechanical, although warped in editing, you can make out the sound of typing on a typewriter, as well as what I take to be 'computer noises'. There is also the point that the sounds could be interpreted in the same was as the video in terms of focus – the long echoes of the bass notes I view as out of focus, whereas the clearer, harsh overtones sound very in focus, tying in to what I said about the use of focus in the video.
At the end, a voice says “You take me closer to God” (or something along those lines), which also fits in to the plot of the story, John Doe claiming to be under God's instructions, although I'm not quite sure why it refers to Doe and another person, “You take me”, unless it is referring to the audience, which ties in to what Doe says about how his crimes will never be forgotten, or, although less likely, him talking to himself, if you believe that he is not under instructions at all, just completely crazy.
Of Nine Inch Nails, I only have “Ghosts 1”, “Hurt” and “The Star Wars Imperial March”, so my judgement on the group is a very linear one, but all the songs show very mechanical roots, even, maybe even especially, the latter, featuring. A music video I once saw in a live version of “Hurt” showed images in the background, and I remember seeing a photo of the Hiroshima bomb and of Cockroaches, both images a rusty red colour, which has the connotations of blood and dirt, so the ideas of NIN fit in perfectly with Se7en, in the metaphor of the rotted city and in a lot of the mise-en-scene used throughout the film.

(I seem to be the only person in on the internet with the Imperial March by NIN, possibly because I am the only one with the Star Wars soundtrack. It is good though.)