Se7en

Seven, also known as Se7en was directed by David Fincher in 1995. There are many conventions and semiotics that suggest to us the genre of the film in the opening of the film.

To start, we know it is a thriller by the soundtrack. The music is quite distorted. This gives us a sense of the films substance, where the narrative is shown to us through what we know as media students is a scary soundtrack. It starts off with a pendulum ticking. This reflects the personality of the character and makes the audience seem unsettled, due to this regularity of the ticking. The soundtrack is slow at first, with very eerie creaks and a low drum sound. The squeaky sounds give us the idea of dementia, as well as the things on screen showing this as well. The music slowly builds with drum beats and eerie sounds through out, and ends with the words “You get me closer to god!” in a distorted voice. This reflects the narrative of the film, where the murders are related to the seven deadly sins. Religion is used a lot in thrillers, as it gives the audience a sense of a higher being, far superior to them who are in control of the antagonist making them bend to the religions “rules”. The rules may not be the actual rules, but the antagonist bends them making them seem correct to them. There is a lot of digetic sound in the opening sequence, such as the yelling of people outside the window, the sirens of the police cars, the car alarms and the barking dogs. These sounds are all taken as conventions of a crime genre, and we know of them as a danger. These all contrast to the formality of the ticking of the pendulum.

The lighting in the whole title sequence is all through lamps or torches. It is very dark and is hard to see throughout the whole of it. The light always seems to focus on the important parts of the scene as well, and darkens out the rest of it. There is flashing lights throughout, which are very unsettling and makes the objects on screen seem threatening. We would think that the room the person is in is very dark, and all they have to see is a lamp, which barely works. This may work with the religion theme, of having only what you need, bare necessities.

The location of Seven is unknown from the title sequence, but it seems to be a run down town or city. We know this by the typical set of an apartment, and the yelling and sirens of a police car. You only see the sets of 2 apartments, both of the 2 main characters, where they both contrast, the messy, informal man with his wife, and the neat, formal man on his own. We do not see the setting of the antagonist, which gives us the sense of not knowing what it to come. It is also typical of a thriller to not give any valuable information on the antagonist at the beginning of it, or else it would ruin the plot. We are more scared of a thing which we don’t know much about.

There are a few props we see in this sequence, such as a bible, pen and sharpened piece of metal. These are powerful semiotics that tell us of religion and danger, which are themes in this film. It looks like a bible what the first book shaped figure that appears on screen, or it may be a diary, but either way, we do not know, and we cannot read what he writes, except the words “D 35” which appears on screen. This is unknown to us at this moment, but later on we find out is a record of one of the murder plots. The sharpened metal is used by the person to cut the skin off his fingers. This is to hide finger prints they may leave behind. It also tells us that they are sick and twisted as a person, to do it. The pendulum shows us the formality of one of the characters, which is part of his characters personality, which is a contrast to the other character. The pictures the person is cutting out are actually pictures of one of the victims of one of his murders.

The transitions are all very fast during the part with the unknown person. It starts off with a sort of establishing shot of the room. It then shows us a close up of the pendulum and then the characters glasses being placed on the bedside table beside him, then moves up following his hand, ending on the pendulum. The next shot is a slow zoom into the character who may be reflecting on the sound of the pendulum or the sound of the sounds outside. It then quickly changes to the pendulum again, then continues the zoom on the character, and then finishes zooming slowly on the pendulum. There is then lots of fast paced close ups of the unknown persons work place, with the book/diary, pen, pictures and fingers. The sequence closes on the other main character waking up next to his bed as a medium shot. There is lots of fast, almost subliminal shots of important props and signs through out the sequence, which is very chaotic.

The titles are all shown in black, contrasting to white. The text is worn down, and is very shaky. When the text Se7en is shown on screen, it is first shown really far away, and then is immediately forced closely to the screen, and shakes with distortion with rapid white lines flashing. The font is very worn down, and looks ruined.

The 2 main characters are very typical of a crime thriller, the cop who is very good at his job, and the one who is very “unsettled” where you can see that the antagonist will provoke this flaw, where as the cop which is calm, has no visible flaw. The antagonist, who is the person we are not told of in the sequence, is not shown in any way, but the music, lighting and other conventions and semiotics we see tell us he is a bad character, who is sick, and twisted.

Se7en is a thriller, but has signs and slight overlaps of the conventions of a horror. We get the sense of suspense, but we also get the visible gruesome graphics of a horror.