1995
Character: Detective David Mills
Release Date: 22 September 1995
Directed By: David Fincher
Written By: Andrew Kevin Walker
Genre: Drama/Thriller
Tagline: Long is the way, and hard, that out of hell leads up to light
MPAA Rating: R
Produced by: New Line Cinema
Distributed by: Paramount Vantage
Budget: $30,000,000 (estimated)
Filming Dates: 12 December 1994 – 10 March 1995
Cast:
…Brad Pitt…Detective David Mills
…Morgan Freeman…Detective Lt. William Somerset
…Gwyneth Paltrow…Tracy Mills
…R. Lee Ermey…Police Captain
…Daniel Zacapa…Detective Taylor
Filming Locations:
3rd Street & Broadway, Downtown, Los Angeles, California, USA (exterior, ‘Sloth’ apartment)
Alexandria Hotel – 501 S. Spring Street, Downtown, Los Angeles, California, USA (John Doe’s apartment building)
Ambassador Hotel – 3400 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, California, USA
Los Angeles, California, USA
Mojave, California, USA
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Quality Coffee Shop – 1238 West 7th Street, Los Angeles, California, USA
Synopsis:
A film about two homicide detectives’ 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” sermonizes to Detectives Sommerset 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 Sommerset researches the Seven Deadly Sins in an effort to understand the killer’s modus operandi while green Detective Mills scoffs at his efforts to get inside the mind of a killer
Trivia & Facts:
• While filming the scene where Mills chases John Doe in the rain, Brad Pitt fell and his arm went through a car windscreen, requiring surgery. This accident was worked into the script of the film.
• The autopsy of the first killing, as originally scripted, was incorrect according to the research of makeup man Rob Bottin (who viewed a real human autopsy as part of his prep work). The scene was truncated from the original script and shows only the sewn-up corpse of Gluttony, not the actual autopsy.
• The victim tied to the bed for a year was not an animatronic model, but a very skinny actor made up to look even more corpse-like. Rob Bottin used a set of exaggerated teeth to make the head look smaller and more shrunken from malnutrition.
• Originally, Morgan Freeman drew his pistol with his finger on the trigger. Police officers that were on the set as technical advisors quickly corrected him, as that is not correct police procedure.
• Somerset’s office number, 714, is also Joe Friday’s badge number as shown in the background of the closing credits in the old TV series, “Dragnet” (1951).
• The prison jumpsuit John Doe wears at the end of the film has the words “Bardach County Jail” written on it. Elinor Bardach was the costume supervisor for this movie.
• One version of the script contained a few scenes following the final confrontation between the detectives and John Doe. In one, Somerset is recovering in the hospital after being shot by Mills, and the captain delivers a letter to him from Mills which reads, “You were right. You were right about everything.”
• The original script had a strange, dwarf-like woman as part of the forensics team, appearing in every one of the “cleanups” after a murder and hurling foul language and epithets at Somerset and Mills.
• An edited-out sequence near the beginning had Somerset looking over the country home he’s planning on moving into. He uses his switchblade to cut loose a rose on a fragment of silk wallpaper and carries it with him throughout the movie. The rose falls out of his jacket as he is taking off his gun before eating with the Mills family. (This touch was edited out, too. Both sequences are in the supplementary section of the Criterion laserdisc.) The rose is briefly visible in the opening scene, sitting atop a handkerchief on Somerset’s dresser.
• The screenplay had references to a partner Mills had when he still lived in the country, named Parsons. Parsons was shot and killed while on a bust with Mills, and consequently Mills is overprotective of Somerset in some scenes. All references to Parsons were deleted before shooting began.
• A rejected version of the credits had the same scratchy handwriting and Coil-remixed “Closer”, but used static images instead of the jumpy, blurred footage used currently. (This credit sequence is in the Criterion laserdisc supplement section.)
• Mills and William Somerset discuss the book “Of Human Bondage”, which was written by W. Somerset Maugham.
• In one scene, Mills belittles Doe as a “Movie of the Week”. When this film was shown on network television, the line was changed to “Book of the Month”. (The line has since been restored in subsequent showings on Cable television.)
• All the building numbers in the opening scene start with 7. The climactic delivery was scheduled for 7:07pm.
• New Line executives originally balked at the film’s ending, but Brad Pitt refused to make the film if the ending were changed.
• The “Platinum Series” DVD of Se7en by New Line is mastered from a new HDTV transfer which was made directly from the camera negative. This required that the whole film had to be re-graded digitally, applying color and contrast correction to every shot under the director’s supervision. The resulting HDTV master is now the official master of the film. The digital corrections are quite extensive in some shots as the DVD supplements demonstrate in detail.
• Charles S. Dutton has a cameo as the cop who keeps the press out of the Greed crime scene.
• Cameo: [Andrew Kevin Walker] The writer of the film appears as the first corpse.
• When Somerset is in his apartment, he can be heard listening to a radio broadcast of John McClellan, who McLellan was a Boston disc jockey (among other things) who did live Tuesday night broadcasts from the Boston club Storyville, on WHDH radio in the early 1950s. In the clip in the movie, you can hear McLellan’s voice announcing some of the members of the band at Storyville that night, including Charlie Parker with Herb Pomeroy on trumpet.
• All of John Doe’s books were real books, written for the film. They took two months to complete and cost $15,000. According to Somerset, two months is also the time it would take the police to read all the books.
• Screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker wrote the script over a two year period while working at a branch of Tower Records.
• R.E.M’s Michael Stipe was once considered for the role of John Doe.
• As preparation for his traumatic scene in the interrogation room, Leland Orser would breathe in and out very rapidly so that his body would be overly saturated with oxygen, giving him the ability to hyperventilate.
• The film was the subject of a lawsuit brought by a photographer whose work was used in the background of John Doe’s apartment. The case was decided in the filmmakers’ favor. Sandoval v. New Line Cinema Corp., 973 F.Supp. 409, 412-414 (S.D.N.Y 1997).
• In the scene where Somerset and Mills enter Mills’ apartment and are welcomed by Mills’ wife, during the second frame, on the right side there can be seen a large poster for Pyshka (1934) directed by Mikhail Romm. Andrei Tarkovsky was under Romm’s instruction in VGIK film school.
• Morgan Freeman’s son, Alfonso Freeman, played the part of a fingerprint technician.
• Denzel Washington turned down the part that went to Brad Pitt.
• When looking for the part of Victor, David Fincher stated that he wanted to find someone who was incredibly skinny, around 80 lbs. Michael Reid MacKay auditioned, and at the time weighed 85 lbs. Fincher gave him the part and jokingly told him to lose some more weight. Much to his surprise, MacKay turned up to filming having lost another 5 lbs.
• The song “6ix” from the Evan Dando album “Car, Button, Cloth” gives away the ending of the film.
• This was voted the eighth scariest film of all time by Entertainment Weekly.
• The word “fuck” and its derivatives are said a discernible 74 times throughout the movie, mostly by Brad Pitt.
• According to earlier versions of the script, the unspoken name of the police captain is Captain Lucas.
• David Cronenberg was offered a chance to direct this but he turned it down.
• The box full of photographs at the “Sloth” scene has written on the side “To the World, from Me.”
From the gallery
Quotes
John Doe: It’s more comfortable for you to label me as insane.
David Mills: It’s VERY comfortable.
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.
David Mills: Do you like what you do for a living? These things you see?
Man in Massage Parlour Booth: No, I don’t. But that’s life.
William Somerset: [to Tracy] Anyone who spends a significant amount of time with me finds me disagreeable. Just ask your husband.
David Mills: Very true. Very, very true.
David Mills: Yeah, a landlord’s dream: a paralyzed tenant with no tongue.
William Somerset: Who pays the rent on time.
William Somerset: I just don’t think I can continue to live in a place that embraces and nurtures apathy as if it was virtue.
David Mills: You’re no different. You’re no better.
William Somerset: I didn’t say I was different or better. I’m not. Hell, I sympathize; I sympathize completely. Apathy is the solution. I mean, it’s easier to lose yourself in drugs than it is to cope with life. It’s easier to steal what you want than it is to earn it. It’s easier to beat a child than it is to raise it. Hell, love costs: it takes effort and work.
David Mills: Fuckin’ Dante… poetry-writing faggot! Piece of shit, motherfucker!
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?
William Somerset: This guy’s methodical, exacting, and worst of all, patient.
David Mills: He’s a nut-bag! Just because the fucker’s got a library card doesn’t make him Yoda!
David Mills: C’mon, he’s insane. Look. Right now he’s probably dancing around in his grandma’s panties, yeah, rubbing himself in peanut butter.
David Mills: I don’t think you’re quitting because you believe these things you say. I don’t. I think you want to believe them, because you’re quitting. And you want me to agree with you, and you want me to say, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re right. It’s all fucked up. It’s a fucking mess. We should all go live in a fucking log cabin.” But I won’t. I don’t agree with you. I do not. I can’t.
David Mills: You’re no messiah. You’re a movie of the week. You’re a fucking t-shirt, at best.
David Mills: I’ve been trying to figure something in my head, and maybe you can help me out, yeah? When a person is insane, as you clearly are, do you know that you’re insane? Maybe you’re just sitting around, reading “Guns and Ammo”, masturbating in your own feces, do you just stop and go, “Wow! It is amazing how fucking crazy I really am!”? Yeah. Do you guys do that?
[William Somerset looks at an object in the road]
David Mills: What do you got?
William Somerset: Dead dog.
John Doe: I didn’t do that.
David Mills: Honestly, have you ever seen anything like this?
William Somerset: No.
David Mills: Get out of the FUCKING HALL, police!
David Mills: He’s fuckin’ with us!
[Mills bends over a desk]
David Mills: See this? This is us.
William Somerset: Did the kid see it?
Detective Taylor: What?
William Somerset: The kid
Detective Taylor: What the fuck sort of question is that? You know, we’re all going to be really glad when we get rid of you, Somerset. It’s always these questions with you. “Did the kid see it?” Who gives a fuck? He’s dead, his wife killed him. Anything else has nothing to do with us.
David Mills: You’ve read my files, right? You’ve seen the things I’ve done?
William Somerset: No
William Somerset: I meant to ask you something before, when we spoke on the phone: Why here?
David Mills: I don’t follow
William Somerset: Why all the effort to get transferred? It’s the first question that popped into my head
David Mills: I guess the same reasons as you. The same reasons you had before you decided to quit, yeah?
William Somerset: Y… You just met me
David Mills: Maybe I’m not understanding the question
William Somerset: Very simple. You actually fought to get re-assigned here. I’ve just never seen it done that way before.
David Mills: Now, I wasn’t standing around guarding the taco-bell, alright? I worked homicide for five years.
William Somerset: Not here
David Mills: I understand that.
William Somerset: Well, over the next seven days, Detective, you’ll do me the favour of remembering that.
Police Captain: [to Mills] What do you think?
David Mills: I’m in.
Mark Swarr: It has to be both of you.
William Somerset: If he were to claim insanity, this conversation is admissable. The fact that he’s blackmailing us with his plea…
Mark Swarr: And my client reminds you, two more are dead. The press would have a field day if they found out the police didn’t seem too concerned about finding them… giving them a proper burial
William Somerset: If there really are two more dead.
David Mills: Why us?
Mark Swarr: He says he admires you.
David Mills: How is it working for a scumbug like this? You proud of yourself?
Police Captain: Ease back, Mills.
Mark Swarr: I’m required by law to serve my clients to the best of my ability, and to serve their best interests.
David Mills: I seem to remember us knocking on your door.
John Doe: Oh, that’s right. And I seem to remember breaking your face.
David Mills: What’s in the box?
William Somerset: We’ll just talk to him.
David Mills: Uh huh. Yeah. Excuse me, sir. Are you, by any chance, a serial killer? Okay.
William Somerset: You do the talking. Put that silver tongue of yours to work.
David Mills: Have you been talking to my wife?
[picks up the phone]
David Mills: Hello?
John Doe: I admire you. I don’t know how you found me, but imagine my surprise. I respect you law enforcement agents more everyday.
David Mills: Well, I appreciate that… John. I tell you…
John Doe: No, no, you listen, all right? I’ll be readjusting my schedule in light of today’s little… setback. I just had to call and express my admiration. Sorry I had to hurt… one of you, but I really didn’t have a choice, did I?
David Mills: Hmm.
John Doe: You will accept my apology, won’t you? I feel like saying more, but I don’t want to ruin the surprise.
[hangs up]
Photographer: I got your picture man, I got your picture!
David Mills: Oh yeah? Detective Mills, M-I-L-L-S, fuck you!
David Mills: How much money do we have left?
David Mills: [greeting his wife after coming home from work] Hey, loser.
Tracy Mills: Hi, idiot.
External Links
…Official website
…IMDB
SB Store (US)
…Seven (DVD)
…Seven (New Line Platinum Series DVD)
SB Store (UK)
…Seven (DVD)
…Seven (2-disc DVD)
