Se7en: John Doe’s Organsied Chaos

There are many different types of villains in film, from action packed masterminds like the Green Goblin in Spiderman, to much more reserved and controlled criminals like Hannibal Lecter discussed in the my first blog post. In David Fincher’s underrated masterpiece Se7en we see a mixed interpretation of a villain who was surprisingly portrayed by Kevin Spacey. The film includes seven murders each one related to a different deadly sin committed by John Doe (Kevin Spacey). The seven deadly sins consist of Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy and Pride. Each murder victim is killed in such a way that they represent each of the sins. For instance we see one of the victims force fed until his stomach explodes! This is John Doe’s representation of gluttony, Fincher is clever in his approach towards each death as he does not show John Doe actually killing any of his victims creating a sense of mystery, this paralleled with Spacey’s already mystic attitude creates a dark atmosphere.

Before the release of the film we were not told that Kevin Spacey is playing the criminal, it is not until three people have been murdered and he hands himself in to the police when we see who the mastermind is behind the deadly sins examples. Taking a closer look at Spacey’s portrayal of John Doe we can see how dedicated and attached he is to the role. We do not generally associate him with a role in crime within film which is why I believe he conducts it so expertly, in order for the viewers to connect with his psyche he never reveals more than he must leaving us on countless cliff-hangers and speaking in riddles.

John Doe: People will barely be able to comprehend it, but they won’t be able to deny it.

Taking a closer look at Kevin Spacey as a villain we can see that it is his natural instinctive manor that allows him to create a sense of viciousness through organisation and to the detectives the unknown. Throughout the film we see clinical timing that allows John Doe to kill people without actually being anywhere near them. The fact that he is imprisoned by the police and people are still dying due to his actions creates a suspicion that he is not working alone, but I feel that is dedication towards his actions provide enough evidence that he is in fact alone and would not want anybody receiving recognition for his beliefs. In a blog similar to mine there is an analysis on Se7en and the writer states

‘We begin to understand him, but even worse, we begin to feel for him. Everyone has been disgusted at one point or another when a shady defence lawyer is able to get a murderer cleared of charges. When a morbidly obese person sits down next to us in a public place, we wonder how they let themselves get that way. We’re disgusted by these people.’

An Analysis – Se7en – The Sins of John Doe

I completely agree with this quote yet at the same time I feel that our sympathy towards John Doe is completely cut at the end of the film when we see detective Mills open a box to find his wife’s head inside. Not only is Mills a loveable character but he is being played by Brad Pitt whom to many is an idol and will win over any movie enthusiast. Also we just because a person is obese and have ‘let themselves get that way’ does this mean they deserve to die? John Doe is a murderer, regardless of his motives or his beliefs it does not provide him with the right to play god. Yet it is due to the fact Kevin Spacey is playing John Doe in such a manner that we can relate to him even if he is a psychotic serial killer.

In terms of the direction of the film David Fincher makes brilliant specific themes such as weather, lighting, timing and character conversations. For instance throughout the entire film it is raining in such a way that it creates a dreary atmosphere, the timing of the rain stopping is mirrored in the plot twist towards the end. Predominantly the film is shot indoors, either in run down homes, prison cells or abandoned warehouses. This ensures that even if there is light it is not a constant more of little rays which I feel represent little glimmers of hope in proving John Doe guilty.

‘David Mills: Wait, I thought all you did was kill innocent people.

John Doe: Innocent? Is that supposed to be funny? An obese man… a disgusting man who could barely stand up; a man who if you saw him on the street, you’d point him out to your friends so that they could join you in mocking him; a man, who if you saw him while you were eating, you wouldn’t be able to finish your meal. After him, I picked the lawyer and I know you both must have been secretly thanking me for that one. This is a man who dedicated his life to making money by lying with every breath that he could muster to keeping murderers and rapists on the streets!

David Mills: Murderers?

John Doe: A woman…

David Mills: Murderers, John, like yourself?

John Doe: [interrupts] A woman… so ugly on the inside she couldn’t bear to go on living if she couldn’t be beautiful on the outside. A drug dealer, a drug dealing pederast, actually! And let’s not forget the disease-spreading whore! Only in a world this shitty could you even try to say these were innocent people and keep a straight face. But that’s the point. We see a deadly sin on every street corner, in every home, and we tolerate it. We tolerate it because it’s common, it’s trivial. We tolerate it morning, noon, and night. Well, not anymore. I’m setting the example. What I’ve done is going to be puzzled over and studied and followed… forever.’

This interaction between John Doe and detective Mills is a summary of each characters personality. John Doe is disgusted by Mills’ attempt to rile him and get him to crack, at first we think it may be working when he begins to retaliate but inevitably he does not reveal anything but his motives for killing these people. And in his description of the reasons he is doing so we realise that even that what he is doing is sick, twisted and most of all wrong he is correct that all around us there is ‘sins’ being committed and because of the society we are placed in it is accepted as normal and no rational minded person even bats an eyelid.

Paying closer attention to John Doe’s actions we find out that he sliced the ends of his fingers off in order to leave no evidence of him even being at any of the crime scenes. This is sick in itself as he could have just worn gloves to prevent this but I feel that there is another reason in doing this. It is almost a sacrifice for the sins he is about to commit, in order for him to fulfil his master plan he must first sacrifice something of his own. Also he visits each of his victims in order to care for them and ensure they do not die, the man who is found brain dead and clinging on for his life was looked after for months, forcibly keeping him alive in an unbearable state. This is just more evidence that although he is insane he had a cleverly structured plan that he has been carrying out for a long time. We finally see the extent of his master plan when he is in prison and is killing people from what seems his prison cell, he is moved to solitary confinement where we see that he has already dug a tunnel under the prison to the exact cell he is moved to meaning everything he has done up to that point has been intentional.

‘John Doe: Realize detective, the only reason that I’m here right now is that I wanted to be.

David Mills: No, no, we would have got you eventually.

John Doe: Oh really? So, what were you doing? Biding your time? Toying with me? Allowing five innocent people to die until you felt like springing your trap? Tell me, what was the indisputable evidence you were going to use on me right before I walked up to you and put my hands in the air?’

Kevin Spacey is at the tip of the acting ice berg in this film and now that I have seen it I could not imagine anybody more suitable to this role than him.

Frank Lucas Criminal or Hero?

Compared to last week’s analysis of the infamous Hannibal ‘The Cannibal’ Lector, this week we see a much different side to criminal activity and behavior through the Drug Kingpin of New York Frank Lucas whose life was portrayed in American Gangster by Ridley Scott. Throughout this film we see the rise and fall of Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) and how his success as drug lord effects his psyche, relationships and inevitably his break down. Frank Lucas began at the bottom of the chain, a driver for notorious gangster Bumpy Johnson who in the first scene of the film describes how the market has changes and provides Frank with his business plan to cut out the middle man and buy direct from the supplier.

‘Bumpy Johnson: See what I mean? Shit. I mean, what right do they have, of cutting out the suppliers? Pushing out all the middlemen. Buying direct from the manufacturer. Sony this. Toshiba that.’ 

Bumpy says this just before dying in a high end technology store, upon Bumpy’s death Frank takes it upon himself to continue Bumpy’s legacy by following his dying words and cutting out the middle man.

Frank travels to Vietnam and visits one of his associates who is married to one of his cousins, he is introduced to a heroin dealer who makes kilos a day and ships to America, Frank then sets up an agreement to receive hundreds of kilos of pure heroin a week, this is cutting out the middleman and driving his profits through the roof. Frank has instant success and we begin to see exactly how the mind of a drug lord, director Ridley Scott portrays Frank as a cool, calm and collected man who is always in control of his actions but with the heat from detective Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) becoming unbearable we begin to see his mind and concentration melt, with many different outburst of anger on his enemies and even his family at some points in the film. The height of Frank’s breakdown comes when the DEA raid his family home and as a result his dog is killed, Frank is about to rush out of the home and kill the agents who done this as a rash reaction. It takes his mother to calm him down and she states

‘Mama Lucas: You don’t shoot cops. Even I know that. Eva knows it. The only one who DOESN’T seem to know is you.

Frank Lucas: [ignores her pleas as he escorts her outside] All right, Mama. I’m not going to, I promise you. I’m not going to shoot anyone.’

It seems that the more business crazy Frank becomes the more careless he is and he begins to lose his discrete manner, wearing a $50,000 coat with a $10,000 hat to match to the biggest fight in his era expecting to go unnoticed by the police.

 

Scenes like these are what lead to Frank’s downfall, bringing more and more attention to him and his family.

On the other side of the scale we have Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) who represents the good and proper side of life and the law. He, unlike many of his colleagues is a straight and in corrupt agent who stumbles across $1,000,000 of unmarked cash and turns it in, thinking he is doing the right thing. The outcome is that he is marked as an outcast and everybody believes that he has taken some money and there was more than initially stated. This only drives him harder to find the supplier of the notorious ‘Blue Magic’ heroin that is destroying the streets of New York. In a way we have the direct opposites of each other through Frank and Richie, Frank representing all that is bad and corrupt with society and Richie being the small ray of hope we have within the police force who is trying to uphold order within the society Frank is corrupting. The time frame the film is set in is the 1970’s which was renound for corruption and the peak of recreational drug use.With countless deaths caused by Frank’s new high potency heroin he does not slow down instead he thrives of how good and dangerous his product is becoming.

‘Frank Lucas: Now, I got no problem with you showin’ up in court tomorrow with your head blown in half.

Detective Richie Roberts: Get in line. That one stretches around the block too.’ 

The glamorisation of crime throughout this film promotes an incorrect lifestyle choice for any child or easily persuaded adult viewing it. Although it is based on factual information it in some ways shows that crime can be good and almost right. Frank is making around $1,000,000 a day through his Drug Empire and organised crime, anybody watching this movie could only dream of that kind of money. The directors and producers of this film and many others associated with this genre must be careful about who is able to access their film as in the wrong hands they could corrupt a lot of young minds.

I feel that there must be stronger enforcement on under age children gaining access to these films, instead of simply placing a sticker on the box, we must put in place a scheme of some kind in order to protect children from picking up the wrong ideas and following potentially dangerous lifestyles. In saying this there are some positives children could pick up from this film by watching Richie Roberts, although he is divorced and has many sexual partners he is seemingly the only good detective in this film.

What can we do to clamp down on underage children viewing this films and any associated films that promote a life of crime as being good and acceptable? Is there any possible way of doing this?

Dr Hannibal Lecter

Between Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs we can see exactly how an insane character should be portrayed to the viewer. Anthony Hopkins’ intense and heart throbbing performances ensure that each and every viewer is chewing their finger nails with anticipation. The question on whether or not he his of a stable mind is clear, his psyche is long gone and although he is an intellectual he cannot be trusted due to previous convictions of murder and cannibalism. Hopkins has received outstanding reviews on his depiction of the twisted character that is Hannibal Lecter, ‘filling the screen with expressive close-ups. No problem when you’re faced with an unblinking Hopkins’ (total film).

Red Dragon follows the stomach turning investigation surrounding Francis Dolarhyde or commonly known as the ‘Tooth Fairy’ who is given this name due to the fact he bites each of the victims he murders, he is passive towards this name and refers to himself as ‘The Great Red Dragon’ after William Blake’s Painting ‘The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun’. The fact Francis believes he is a reincarnation of the ‘Great Red Dragon’ is a testimony to his mental state and looking at this from Freud point of view we can link these issues back to his childhood. The total abandonment by his mother forces him to take solace in a different role model, unfortunately this is the painting. The image created by this scenario is that he is almost possessed and his own life is sacrificed in order to fulfil, what he feels, is necessary for the ‘Great Red Dragon’.

In direct comparison to the ‘Tooth Fairy’ Hannibal is in complete control of his emotions and thought. If anybody were to speak to him in a different environment to the psychiatric ward they might deem him a completely stable man, maybe even a clever man. Even whilst conversing with Agent Starling in ‘Silence of the Lambs’ we get a glimpse of Hannibal’s intelligence but in the end it is clearly over ruled by his psychotic mannerisms and whitty replies to questions. His intelligence can be seen whilst producing comments about the criminal at hand i.e. Buffalo Bill in Silence of the lambs, he states

‘Hannibal Lecter: Look for severe childhood disturbances associated with violence. Our Billy wasn’t born a criminal, Clarice. He was made one through years of systematic abuse. Billy hates his own identity, you see, and he thinks that makes him a transsexual. But his pathology is a thousand times more savage and more terrifying.’

This quote shows he is not brain dead. He has a clear grasp of the ideologies put forward by Sigmund Freud in that one significant moment has caused ‘Buffalo bill’ and the ‘Tooth Fairy’ in Red Dragon to become the monsters that they are in the film. Contradicting this clear and focused state of mind we see a much darker side to his intelligence.

‘Hannibal Lecter: A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.’

These two different aspects of Lecter’s portrayal create a sense of schizophrenia due to how extremely different the two sides to him are. As we all know he is declared medically insane and is kept in a high security prison. As a reward for working with the FBI he is clever in asking for a transfer and it is almost as if he is running the investigation pure and simply because he knows the criminal and can so easily delve into another psyche in order to analyse their issues and their day to day routines. We get a glimpse of this ability in Silence of the Lambs’ whilst consulting with Clarice again, it forces her to retaliate.

‘Hannibal Lecter: You know what you look like to me, with your good bag and your cheap shoes? You look like a rube. A well-scrubbed, hustling rube with a little taste. Good nutrition’s given you some length of bone, but you’re not more than one generation from poor white trash, are you, Agent Starling? And that accent you’ve tried so desperately to shed: pure West Virginia. What is your father, dear? Is he a coal miner? Does he stink of the lamp? You know how quickly the boys found you… all those tedious sticky fumblings in the back seats of cars… while you could only dream of getting out… getting anywhere… getting all the way to the FBI.’

Clarice Starling: You see a lot, Doctor. But are you strong enough to point that high-powered perception at yourself? What about it? Why don’t you – why don’t you look at yourself and write down what you see? Or maybe you’re afraid to.’

This exchange is particularly interesting to me as not only do we get a glimpse into Dr Lecter’s ability to analyse a person upon first meeting them but we also get a glimpse into how his mind works and how this may have caused him to wind up in a cell all alone.

For me Hannibal Lecter is the icon to which all other psychotic characters in films should aim for and Anthony Hopkins’ acting is so bone chillingly good that we could even believe him to suffer from a psychotic breakdown and lead a non-fictional life based on Dr Hannibal Lecter.

In relation to the effects this film may have on the stereotypical opinion surrounding psychotic patients within films, I feel it challenges the ‘norms’ that society has created. Although the film was released in 1991, it is far from dated. Hannibal is like no other character in movie history and I feel that it opens up the possibility that even though he is clearly disturbed and has many underlying issues he offers reliable information on a lot of topics due to his background as a doctor. This is unusual as in films before this date and films since have stuck to the stereotype that mentally ill characters cannot be trusted, either the corruption of their mind is due to crime or they have become useless. This can be seen in Analyse This and Analyse That which involves Robert De Niro pretending to be insane in order to escape a stretch in prison.  Watch clip