Taglines: Seven deadly sins. Seven ways to die.
A film about two homicide detectives’ (Morgan Freeman and (Brad Pitt desperate hunt for a serial killer who justifies his crimes as absolution for the world’s ignorance of the Seven Deadly Sins. The movie takes us from the tortured remains of one victim to the next as the sociopathic “John Doe” (Kevin Spacey) sermonizes to Detectives Somerset and Mills — one sin at a time.
The sin of Gluttony comes first and the murderer’s terrible capacity is graphically demonstrated in the dark and subdued tones characteristic of film noir. The seasoned and cultured but jaded Somerset researches the Seven Deadly Sins in an effort to understand the killer’s modus operandi while the bright but green and impulsive Detective Mills (Pitt) scoffs at his efforts to get inside the mind of a killer…
Seven (sometimes stylized as Se7en) is a 1995 American neo-noir crime thriller film directed by David Fincher and starring Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow, John C. McGinley, R. Lee Ermey, and Kevin Spacey. The film was based on a screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker. It tells the story of David Mills (Brad Pitt), a young detective who is partnered with the retiring William Somerset (Margan Freeman) and soon tasked with tracking down a serial killer (Kevin Spacey) who uses the seven deadly sins as tropes in his murders.
The film’s screenplay was influenced by the time Walker spent in New York City trying to make it as a writer, and approached by Fincher as a “tiny genre movie”. Principal photography took place in Los Angeles, with the last scene filmed near Lancaster, California. The film’s budget was US$33 million.
Released on September 22, 1995 by New Line Cinema, Seven went on to become the seventh-highest-grossing film of the year, grossing over $327 million worldwide. It was well received by critics, who praised the darkness and brutality of the film and its themes. The film was nominated for Best Film Editing at the 68th Academy Awards, but lost out to Apollo 13.
The sequence for Se7en did very important non-narrative things; in the original script there was a title sequence that had Morgan Freeman buying a house out in the middle of nowhere and then travelling back on a train. He was making his way back to the unnamed city from the unnamed suburban sprawl, and that’s where the title was supposed to be—”insert title sequence here”—but we didn’t have the money to do that.
We also lacked the feeling of John Doe, the villain, who just appeared 90 minutes into the movie. It was oddly problematic, you just needed a sense of what these guys were up against. Kyle Cooper, the designer of the title sequence, came to me and said, “You know, you have these amazing books that you spent tens of thousands of dollars to make for the John Doe interior props. I’d like to see them featured.”
And I said, “Well, that would be neat, but that’s kind of a 2D glimpse. Figure out a way for it to involve John Doe, to show that somewhere across town somebody is working on some really evil shit. I don’t want it to be just flipping through pages, as beautiful as they are.” So Kyle came up with a great storyboard, and then we got Angus Wall and Harris Savides—Harris to shoot it and Angus to cut it—and the rest, as they say, is internet history.
Seven – Se7en (1995)
Directed by: David Fincher
Starring: Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt, Kevin Spacey, Gwyneth Paltrow Gwyneth Paltrow, Daniel Zacapa, George Christy, Hawthorne James, John Cassini, Peter Crombie
Screenplay by: Andrew Kevin Walker,
Production Design by: Arthur Max
Cinematography by: Darius Khondji
Film Editing by: Richard Francis-Bruce
Costume Design by: Michael Kaplan
Set Decoration by: Clay A. Griffith
Art Direction by: Gary Wissner
Music by: Howard Shore
MPAA Rating: R for grisly afterviews of horrific and bizarre killings, and for strong language.
Distributed by: New Line Cinema
Release Date: September 22, 1995
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