Uhh.... Is it fifteen years ago? I'm confused.
Ebert and the ending to "Seven" (SPOILERS galore)
- Thread starter Gaith
- Start date
I don't strongly disagree with anything you wrote; like Ebert, I found the ending satisfactory if not necessarily perfect. But...
And again, none of your (mostly) correct points/observations would be changed if Mills had killed himself also.
Factually incorrect, I'm afraid. Doe's victims committed religious, not civic, crimes (the prostitute aside), and Paltrow was totally innocent so far as we know, apart from contemplating an abortion, which Doe had no knowledge of. He says so himself: his sin is envy, making himself as bad as his victims. Mills killed in the heat of passion, in a state of temporary insanity. From a Catholic position, there may not be much difference, but...
Well, he was still in shock, and understandably so. But, be honest: do you think the character Mills would ever regret killing Doe? I very much doubt it. Somerset would indeed have preferred to see Doe proved wrong/locked up, thereby aiding his own peace of mind, but I think that Mills would actually take comfort in his action during his recovery. Unlike Somerset, he's not a philosopher, he's more of a righteous cowboy, and I don't think the confrontation would have changed that.
And again, none of your (mostly) correct points/observations would be changed if Mills had killed himself also.
Eh, he gets Alan Shore for an attorney, pleads temporary insanity and that he killed a serial killer in the heat-of-passion, gets 10 years in mid-security prison in special confinment because he's cop and he ends up, more or less, okay.
^ yeah, there's no way Mills would do time for this. Extreme emotional disturbance would clear him.
That's my whole point and the poetic part about it. By having Freeman kill Doe, Doe loses. He doesn't get what he wants.
Uh.. the movie would lose its impact if Doe loses.
Even more to the point, you don't realize what the last two murders were, particularly the last one, until after it happens. You realize only after Mills shoots that "wrath" was truly being depicted in that act.
Your suggestion (no offense) would castrate the film
Even more to the point, you don't realize what the last two murders were, particularly the last one, until after it happens. You realize only after Mills shoots that "wrath" was truly being depicted in that act.
Your suggestion (no offense) would castrate the film
Doe gets to kill six people, including a beautiful woman who makes him horny, completely fulfilling his real drives. Then he gets to commit suicide by cop. By lex talionis, he's ahead by five. Whether it's Somerset or Mills, doesn't much matter. The movie ends downbeat when Doe wins. The thing is, that Somerset killing Doe is coldblooded and falsifies Somerset, who may be depressive but isn't actually coldblooded.
I haven't seen the movie for a while but I don't think the mechanics favored Somerset shooting anyone. On reflection, the real problem is Somerset's assumption it was a choice between Doe's death or Mills' death. That's a no brainer, of course, Doe goes down. I'm pretty sure that breaking police procedure to try to take down Mills by shooting him in the leg was an option if Somerset was actually in a position to shoot anyone.
I haven't seen the movie for a while but I don't think the mechanics favored Somerset shooting anyone. On reflection, the real problem is Somerset's assumption it was a choice between Doe's death or Mills' death. That's a no brainer, of course, Doe goes down. I'm pretty sure that breaking police procedure to try to take down Mills by shooting him in the leg was an option if Somerset was actually in a position to shoot anyone.
Actually you should realize what Doe's plan is when you find out Paltrow's head is in the box. It's pretty obvious at that point. I really don't see how the movie loses it's impact if Doe loses. It's poetic justice. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.
I'll be the odd-man-out here and somewhat agree with Ebert.
I think the ending violated the rules that Doe had set up when he killed a probably innocent person (wife) and a definitely innocent person (the baby).
At that point, he deserved to lose because he had broken the rules of his own game.
I'm not exactly sure how I would've ended it. Maybe he lost and they are dragging him back to the car and they drag him over a rattle snake. A nice serpent bite would've been lovely biblical symbolism while he writhed in pain and died on the way back to town.
I think the ending violated the rules that Doe had set up when he killed a probably innocent person (wife) and a definitely innocent person (the baby).
At that point, he deserved to lose because he had broken the rules of his own game.
I'm not exactly sure how I would've ended it. Maybe he lost and they are dragging him back to the car and they drag him over a rattle snake. A nice serpent bite would've been lovely biblical symbolism while he writhed in pain and died on the way back to town.
Sorry! My mistake. I thought that this was a Star Trek board - you know, that franchise launched in 1966, which produced most of its content to date before 1997? Apologies, Rear Admiral, won't happen again. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going out to torch my Complete Works of Shakespeare in the backyard, because that book's centuries old, and who has time for that s#!t?
@ mostly_nameless: Ebert was saying it was too much of a feel-good ending, and under no circumstances would he therefore advocate Doe "losing."
Hmm. No, I can't agree with this. What's more, I think our disagreement is rooted in a deeper ethical disagreement.
Mills committed murder. What he did wasn't even voluntary manslaughter. While Mills was certainly subjected to extreme provocation, for his act to qualify as voluntary manslaughter, he would have had to carry it out "on impulse and without reflection."
But in the final moments of the film, we can clearly see him struggling with himself, raising his gun, lowering it again--and finally making the decision to kill Doe. That was murder, pure and simple.
And while he was clearly under great emotional duress, I didn't see any evidence of the "absolute alienation of reason" that constitutes legal insanity.
You seem to be arguing that a murderer cannot be murdered; or that it doesn't matter whether a murderer is executed by the state, as a public act, or murdered as an act of private vengeance; or at the very least, that it wasn't wrong for Mills to murder Doe, because of what Doe had done. So long as Doe got what he deserved, it doesn't matter how he got it.
I can't agree with any of those propositions, which seem to be rooted in a sort of ethical consequentialism that I personally abhor.
For one thing, I think it's clear that a murderer can be murdered. The fact that they've committed murder doesn't give other people a license to just do whatever they want to them. And I think it matters very much whether someone is executed publicly, or murdered privately. None of us has the right to wage that kind of private war against another, so long as we agree to live in society, and abide by its rules.
Finally, I think that, as a police officer, Mills deserved even more blame for what he did than a private citizen would. The police are supposed to set an example for the rest of us: and as Chaucer said, "If gold rust, what shall iron do?"
My brother is a corporal in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. When he joined the Force, he took an oath to uphold the law, under all circumstances. So in my eyes, Mills was not just a murderer, but an oathbreaker as well. He was doubly degraded.
And as someone who subscribes to virtue ethics--what Hume called an "ethics of personal merit"--that is just about the worst moral failure and defeat I can imagine.
I can understand what Mills did. I might even forgive him for doing it, under the circumstances. But I can't excuse it, or say it wasn't wrong, or that it doesn't matter. It was wrong, and it does matter.
Finally, on the issue of suicide: I think that, dramatically, that would have been gratuitous and anticlimactic. The central conflict in Seven was the conflict between the detectives and the killer: when Mills shot Doe, that conflict was resolved. The most important subsidiary conflict--Mills vs himself--was also resolved: Mills was destroyed by his tragic flaw.
I think the reason you want Mills to have committed suicide, or something, is because of the deeper ethical disagreement I mentioned above: you don't see his actions as personally degrading, the way I do.
Of course not. If Doe were to by some miracle be acquitted by a jury, and Mills were to track him down and murder him, that'd be premeditated murder, no question.
Well, a defense lawyer would certainly argue temporary insanity, and the very definition of "absolute alienation of reason" is "great emotional duress". According to the first definition I could find:
So, as a juror, I'd probably go for "manslaughter", but given the choice between "guilty of first-degree murder" and "not guilty", provided the judge approved consideration of temporary insanity, I'd go "not guilty". Now, as noted above, Mills would get a pardon anyway, which I'd probably endorse, though he should certainly never be a cop again.
Agreed. I think our core difference rests on whether or not he was temporarily insane. "Premeditated" first-degree murder, as I understand it, does not mean "decided one moment, and acted the very next." It means "decided one moment, and then drove to/the next day/paid someone else to/etc."
Well, I'm not 100% sold on my own idea either. But I don't see Mills as "destroyed" by his own tragic flaw. For one thing, he wasn't Catholic, and didn't accept Doe's assessment of the vileness of humanity in the first place, so he'd see Doe's death as, at worst, two totally different and wildly unequal wrongs making for settled justice, and therefore forgive himself. Doe and Somerset may be basically agreed about humanity's rottenness, but I don't think Mills would agree even in time. Yes, he'd be traumatized by grief, not regret, but he'd recover. I think that's what Ebert meant by "too easy". Seven is a noir film, and noirs don't end happily. Neither does Seven, of course, but Ebert's saying that the setup would have justified an even bleaker ending.
Basically, the only way I see Mills as truly and lastingly losing faith in humanity is by shooting himself in the same fit of passion by which he killed Doe. And it might've been a stretch; I freely admit that.
Hope you don't still think that I'm deeply morally corrupt.
Hope you don't still think that I'm deeply morally corrupt.
I'll let it go this time. I'm still not persuaded, but it has been an interesting discussion.
People enjoying a conversation about a well respected film?
Sorry, what's the statute of limitations on that around here?
I remember going to see Se7en on opening night. Brad Pitt was kinda' starting to blow up, but he wasn't super huge Mr. biggest movie star ever just yet. He was still considered kind of a pretty boy and an indie darling. So the movie wasn't super hyped or expected to be a big deal. David Fincher wasn't known to general audiences, or even many film buffs, but I was familiar with him because of his commercials and videos and for Alien 3. This was before the resurgence of shock cinema or torture porn or fucked up psychological thrillers. Se7en was really the movie that brought all that back. Without Se7en, there would be no Saw series or torture porn or movies like Kiss The Girls. This was a movie that people had no idea the darkness they were in for.
So there I am opening night. The Sloth scene comes along. At it's climax, one woman gets up from her seat and runs out of the theatre gagging with her hand to her mouth and another couple get up and leave. None of them returned.
It was one of the best experiences I've ever had in a cinema, and one of the more truly affecting experiences of my cinema watching life. Se7en burrowed under your skin and laid eggs.
So there I am opening night. The Sloth scene comes along. At it's climax, one woman gets up from her seat and runs out of the theatre gagging with her hand to her mouth and another couple get up and leave. None of them returned.
It was one of the best experiences I've ever had in a cinema, and one of the more truly affecting experiences of my cinema watching life. Se7en burrowed under your skin and laid eggs.