Se7en - an analysis of generational gaps

Title: Se7en
Director: David Fincher
Cast: Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt, Gwyneth Paltrow
Year: 1995
MPAA: Rated R for grisly afterviews of horrific and bizarre killings, and for strong language.
Date of Review: April 27, 2007

Studying demographics and the trends influenced by popular culture throughout generations was one of the few things I enjoyed in my high school years, so when it became a full course in college I was thrilled. In watching David Fincher’s Se7en, it is apparent that he and Andrew Kevin Walker (who wrote the screenplay) share many of the same interests. The characters of William Somerset and David Mills (played by Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt) exhibit behaviourial traits which are very telling of their personalities and histories - in fact, much of Somerset’s past is told in the way he dresses, speaks and thinks, and attention must be paid to these aspects of the character in order to fully appreciate his depth and understand why he is so pessimistic.

If you listen to the commentary track on the DVD, when Somerset first appears outdoors and is talking with Mills for the first time, he puts on his hat - a fedora. Freeman remarks that “so much can be said about a man by the type of hat he wears”, and this couldn’t be more true. Somerset is a character straight out of 1940s film noir - a gumshoe, a private eye. He doesn’t have a particularly happy or fulfilling life, but he does what he does because he is good at it. In a scene towards the end of the film when Somerset and Mills are suiting up, Somerset loads his 6-shot revolver, while Mills loads a magazine into his handgun. Somerset takes the time to put on a clean shirt and tie a fresh tie around his neck, while Mills has a rack of pre-tied ties from which he picks one and simply slips it around his neck (perhaps inferring that Mills, himself, doesn’t know how to tie a tie). These may seem like very trivial occurrences, or very obvious “old cop being replaced by a new cop” cues, but as the killer says towards the end of the film, “nothing is trivial.”

The choice to show these things prominently - and some not so prominently - on-screen was a conscious one, and is far from the straight-forward “buddy cop” clichés of films like Lethal Weapon which feature similar situations with old and young police officers being paired together. Somerset represents an age past, when cops were heroes. The days when people would go to the theatre to see the latest Humphrey Bogart detective film, because at the time he was a heroic figure. But Somerset is lost in the world of the 1990s - a dark, grim place where Generation X has taken hold and the shimmering candy coating has melted off the cities, revealing the decay underneath.

Sam Spade was busy dealing with stolen artifacts and femme fatales. Philip Marlowe was hired to watch over a dying general’s daughter. Even The Dude was just trying to get his rug back, because it really held the room together. But William Somerset is assigned a case that just doesn’t fit with his own ways - acts of evil that Philip Marlowe would never even dream of. To think of these murders occurring in a film from the 1940s or 1950s is...well...unthinkable. A man is forced to eat until he passes out, at which point he is kicked so his stomach bursts. A beautiful young woman has her face cut off, is given a phone and sleeping pills, and told she can call for help and live with her newfound ugliness or kill herself. These horrendous acts of forced penance are far beyond anything that Somerset has ever imagined, but at the same time, they confirm all that he has been thinking about with regards to today’s world.

It is here that Somerset finds himself strangely sympathetic with the killer’s cause - to turn each sin against the sinner, and make people realize what horrible creatures we are and how utterly hopeless our lives and futures are. As the killer writes in one of his many notebooks, “what sick ridiculous puppets we are...not a care in the world, not knowing that we are nothing, we are not what was intended.” Of course Somerset does not condone the acts of this John Doe killer, but he does realize what he is trying to say - even the best of us are not truly “good” people. But if we are imperfect beings, can we really be expected to lead perfect lives?

It is especially interesting that, when we see John Doe for the first time, he is dressed in almost exactly the same attire as Somerset - a long, beige raincoat and fedora. Both are of the same mind about the world - that apathy will be the end of man, because we simply do not care anymore about adhering to the classic laws of the Bible. It is a new day and age where both characters feel completely out of place, and are actually trying to accomplish the same goal, but on opposite sides of the law (and obviously with greatly differing methods). Both policeman and killer are trying to better the world.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, we have Mills. A young, married man who has just moved to the city after being transferred to Somerset’s division in order to work with him and eventually take his position. He lives a much happier life than Somerset, because what Somerset recognizes as naivety, is actually just a sense of acceptance. Mills grew up as the world changed into the world it has become, and while he may not like it, he has grown to live with it, knowing that in his line of work he is at least doing his best to make a difference. Also, he doesn’t wear a hat.

The film is quite bleak, but when looked at in this way it actually becomes quite optimistic. As Somerset readies for retirement, it represents his entire generation of classic detectives hanging up their hats, so that the new cops can take over. Cops with energy and youth, and the hope and intelligence to drive them to truly change the world. To see the story of “two cops with different styles forced to work together” isn’t a rare occurrence, and at least one of these movies seems to come out every year, often falling under the buddy-cop comedy genre. But for a film to come and really say something about this huge generational gap - not only in law enforcement but in people on all walks of life - is rare.

10 / 10