Stories without endings

I would say, if the script is a character study of Ivin, then it ought to be directed by Billy Ray. Breach was such a great film, and more than any of the three books I have read on Hanssen including SPY, the film made me meet the person. And if its a procedural, then none other than Fincher.
Zodiac had one of the best endings of last year, and that moment when Graysmith looks at Allen and realises is a great one. I wonder if anybody else thought it was the best film of last year, an ambitious epic that got conned by the studio come awards season. The film had a threefold ending. But the best part about them is the structure, because Zodiac is a film which passes the Ebert test, if one could call it that - it is exactly about itself. As a film, it could be likened to a non-fiction read, crossed with a fiction complete with a prologue and an epilogue. And the epilogue, as in most cases for a reader, provides satisfaction and resolution.

It's great to bring Zodiac up in this discussion, because if you take a quick look on rottentomatoes.com (I know, it's not the best authority), specifically at the "top critics" tab at Zodiac's page, you'll notice something interesting. Nearly every critic's response to the movie has to do with it's ending (or at least the last hour of the film). If they like it, it was because the ending was brilliant, and if they didn't like it, it was because the ending was slow and meandering. This small sampling leads me to believe that there are two types of moviegoers. 1. the type that wants everything wrapped up neatly when they leave the theater. and 2. the type that can handle ambiguity as an ending.

Personally, to answer your question, Satish, I thought Zodiac was the best movie of last year, easily. Rarely do I have the desire to watch something over and over, but Zodiac puts me in awe at how well Fincher gets this ton of information in front of the viewer, and still manages to make it sensible. I don't know if I can think of another movie that so perfectly nails epistemology.

Zodiac's ending is obviously intentional, but I wonder sometimes if writers of certain movies just simply didn't know how to end the movie.

Nathan, you raise quite an interesting question, i.e. if writers of certain movies don't know how to end the movie.
Interesting for two reasons - one, it is the ending of another Fincher film that has always felt hollow to me. As if the film has no idea what it is about. And two, I just wrote about it.
Kindly bear with me, as I would beg to quote from my blog verbatim and save myself the typing. And that includes HTML tags too.

It follows:

        You truly are incorruptible aren't you? You won't kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness…
                                - The Joker, The Dark Knight

        There have been quite a lot of people fretting over The Dark Knight leading the IMDb Top 250 pack, as if that list is the Holy Grail of the greatest works in cinema. As a matter of fact, it is far from it. And I wouldn’t want to discuss anything on that, except for saying that the film that heads it currently is one that knows itself completely and that understands itself and the world that inhabits it thoroughly. But sitting not far from it, at no. 34 is a film that is considered by many to be a modern classic, a masterpiece not only as a thriller but as a telling comment on human psychology and a profound critique of the urban world. I’m talking of David Fincher’s technical tour de force Se7en, and I think it is criminal for us to rate it higher than Taxi Driver on any list, a film that it borrows from liberally. The Scorsese masterpiece currently is sitting pretty at No. 37.
        Se7en is a harrowing thriller, and there’re no two ways about it. Its bleak panorama is gut-wrenching and the film is a little experience in its own right. But there has been one thing that has always bothered me about the film – does Se7en really understand itself, or is just an ‘artistic’ exercise making pretentious jabs at profundity. As Roger Ebert’s all-encompassing quote on cinema goes – A great film is not about what it is about, but how it is about it. Se7en sure is about a serial killer wreaking havoc based on the seven sins, but is it really about the seven sins? Does it really understand the seven sins, or for that matter any of the books – from The Canterbury Tales to Dante’s Inferno? Or is it just another of those sensational thrillers masquerading as art?
        Much of what a film has to say lies in the way it chooses to end itself. A great film almost invariably has an ending that is not only worthy of the film that has preceded it, but elevates it to an almost different frame altogether.

The Ending:

        Consider the ending of Se7en, the way it ends, the note it ends on, and our primary reaction to it. John Doe, the serial killer, or Joe as I would prefer to call him, surrenders himself to detectives Mills and Somerset ready to confess his murder of all the murders he has committed. But only on one condition, and that is to escort the detectives to a prearranged destination. The three go in there, where a courier is delivered to them. Mills opens it and finds his wife’s severed head inside. As Joe admits that he has been guilty of Envy, having been envious of Mills family life, and that he was the one who murdered her, Mills is filled with Wrath. In that rage he kills Joe thus completing the masterpiece of sins that Joe designed. To show to the world sins beget sins.

Our Reaction, and what it means:

        Joe succeeds in his masterplan. Joe was disgusted by what mankind had turned itself into with its sinful existence. What Joe intended to achieve, by his serial killings, was to turn each sin against the sinner. And he did. Consider Mills wife as collateral damage, but every sin gets its punishment, and not necessarily in death. The film ends on a bleak note, with Somerset quoting Hemingway. Joe comes out a genius, a strange cross between Professor Hannibal Lecter and Jack the Ripper. A man of immense intellect who is talking sense about the world (and it reflects in the bleak outlook of Somerset). In a way, Somerset and Joe reflect Sheriff Tom Bell and Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men, and it wouldn’t be a far stretch to liken Mills to Llewlyn Moss. Joe feels very much like the reaper himself, a mythical killer the depths of whom couldn’t be measured. And we end up being in awe of him.

Is Our Reaction to the Film what it is supposed to be?

        Not even in a million years. And that is where this supposed psychological thriller fails miserably, and exposes its shallowness and its lack of understanding of the psychology behind the seven sins. And to realize that, there isn’t a need to run and grab a copy of the Canterbury Tales. The evidence is all there, right in front of us. And if you haven’t managed to garb it, do read the quote above from The Dark Knight for it encompasses what Se7en doesn’t grasp. The word is self-righteousness.
        The important question here is – what sin is Joe really guilty of? Is he really guilty of Wrath? Or is he guilty of some other sin, which he is unaware of?
        Let us first look at the seven sins – Gluttony, Sloth, Wrath, Pride, Lust, Envy and Greed. Now, if you closely look at some of these sins, most notably Pride, they could be argued as virtues. Pride is a sentiment which one derives from one’s own high self-esteem, a highly positive opinion of one self. That is where the ambiguity of it lay – and that is what so profoundly captures the essence of Batman. Hence, self-righteousness. We’ll need to come back to it later.
vNow, consider the predicament of our serial killer Joe here. He is a man who considers himself, and this is in his own clichéd words, the ‘chosen one’ to carry out the ‘work’. He reads books from the library that deal primarily with the medieval concept of sins, apparently for inspiration. There’s utter contempt in Joe’s tone as he speaks about the sinners and how he turned each of their sins against them. He takes pleasure in his masterpiece too, and there’s great pride in the way he foresees how utterly stunned the world would be at the nature of his work. He feels the urge within himself to cleanse the world. To hit it with a sledgehammer because it doesn’t listen when you tap its shoulder with a sledgehammer.
        What do we got?
        No, as a matter of fact, it isn’t someone with the intellect of a Joker or a Hannibal Lecter. What we actually have is a pathetic individual who doesn’t even understand what he’s doing, or doesn’t even understand it. He has contempt, he feels himself the chosen one, and that by definition is a case of self-righteousness, and hence pride. You could call it arrogance too. That one is God, and one is worthy enough to mete out justice, and judge someone for their sins. And hence Joe, or John Doe, is guilty of pride. It is this pride, his high self esteem reveling in his own fixation of his virtuous self, that has driven him to kill these people. And he doesn’t even realize that. Much like the film.

        Pride is the greatest sin of all. Just think like a sociopath and you would realize what drives you there in the first place. Here is what Wikipedia offers for Pride under the subject of Seven Deadly Sins –
                "In almost every list Pride is considered the original and most                 serious of the seven deadly sins, and indeed the ultimate source from                 which the others arise. It is identified as a desire to be more important                 or attractive than others, failing to give compliments to others though                 they may be deserving of them, and excessive love of self (especially                 holding self out of proper position toward God). Dante's definition                 was "love of self perverted to hatred and contempt for one's neighbor."

        The way I see it, Joe is a sorry person. He is stupid and he doesn’t understand a word of the books he has read. He has illusions of grandeur soaked in the bloodbath of his victims and the success of his masterplan, but much like Travis Bickle, he is a simple and normal psycho. That is it, cut and dried. No more, no less.
        The film doesn’t highlight that facet, because it isn’t aware. So what we get in the end is a know-it-all Hannibal Lecter, a super-smart fiend. We actually never get to know the sorry Joe, the lonely Joe, the pathetic and tragic Joe.

        And that is why I say, Se7en doesn’t even know what it is talking about. What makes its sin all the more dreadful is that it is a terribly effective film. It hits all the right buttons as far as the mechanics of a thriller go, but its pretensions and illusions at profundity are as shallow as they can ever be. Its ending is too superficial, too sensational, too entertaining, too satisfactory (Ebert, in his review here, called its ending satisfying, but not worthy of the film before). And we end up getting all the wrong messages, not because we have misinterpreted it, but because the film itself has no clue.

To Nathan: "The film doesn’t highlight that facet, because it isn’t aware. So what we get in the end is a know-it-all Hannibal Lecter, a super-smart fiend. We actually never get to know the sorry Joe, the lonely Joe, the pathetic and tragic Joe."

Seven is my all-time favorite film, and I loved reading your post. You picked up on many intricacies of the story that even major fans of the film tend to neglect. I think we have different opinions of how the film intends to portray John Doe. The points that you're identifying as the film's key weakness, is in my opinion one of the film's greatest strengths. John Doe is NOT a genius. Quite frankly, John Doe is full of crap. He always was. He does not understand sin and he certainly does not understand people. (Somerset is also full of crap, which he learns only at the end.) In my reading of the story, the film is acutely, acutely, acutely aware of this fact.

Consider the following quotes:

William Somerset: If we catch John Doe and he turns out to be the devil, I mean if he's Satan himself, that might live up to our expectations, but he's not the devil. He's just a man.

This quote is one of the most important lines in the whole movie. Seven was heavily influenced by Dante's Inferno, which in turn influenced Heart of Darkness, which in turn influenced Apocalypse Now, which is another major influence on Seven. The major flaw in each of those works lies in the ending. Kurtz (and Dante's Satan) never live up to the expectations that have been built up around them. Kurtz spits out a bunch of false profundities, and his psychological portrait is more stylish than substantive. Those works attempt to make a grand statement about the nature of evil, and fall flat in the ending. Seven proposes a much different look at the subject. There is no such thing as absolute evil in Seven. John Doe is JUST A MAN, with a very flawed outlook on the world.

Here's another, seemingly throwaway line, that highlights this notion:

David Mills: F'in' Dante... poetry-writing f***ot! Piece of s**t, motherf'er!

Andrew Kevin Walker does not have a very high opinion of Dante's work. In a sense, Doe is Dante in this world. Doe is the personification of every self-righteous religious zealot whoever wlaked the face of the earth. Dante, although he was a skilled poet, shared much of the same worldview as Doe. When writing the Inferno, he took perverse, sadistic pleasure in punishing other people, just as Doe did.

Here's another seemingly throwaway exchange that reveals a great deal about how the story views Doe.

William Somerset: This guy's methodical, exacting, and worst of all, patient.
David Mills: He's a nut-bag! Just because the f***er's got a library card doesn't make him Yoda!

Seven does a great job of playing with the stereotypical mentor-protégé relationships of other films. In many ways, it’s a reversal of the typical learning process. Somerset (and Doe) is very smart in many ways, and he often sounds very wise. Mills does not sound very smart, but he actually imparts a great deal of wisdom onto Somerset. In this scene, Mills disrespects Doe a great deal. His gut emotional reaction to Doe’s actions (which is that he’s full of crap) is actually more insightful than Somerset’s words of respect for him. Doe is a hypocrite, a phony, and Mills knows it instinctively. Somerset has tried to suppress his emotions for so long that he no longer knows how to channel them into positive outcomes.

To Nathan: "The film doesn’t highlight that facet, because it isn’t aware. So what we get in the end is a know-it-all Hannibal Lecter, a super-smart fiend. We actually never get to know the sorry Joe, the lonely Joe, the pathetic and tragic Joe."

Seven is my all-time favorite film, and I loved reading your post. You picked up on many intricacies of the story that even major fans of the film tend to neglect. I think we have different opinions of how the film intends to portray John Doe. The points that you're identifying as the film's key weakness, is in my opinion one of the film's greatest strengths. John Doe is NOT a genius. Quite frankly, John Doe is full of crap. He always was. He does not understand sin and he certainly does not understand people. (Somerset is also full of crap, which he learns only at the end.) In my reading of the story, the film is acutely, acutely, acutely aware of this fact.

Consider the following quotes:

William Somerset: If we catch John Doe and he turns out to be the devil, I mean if he's Satan himself, that might live up to our expectations, but he's not the devil. He's just a man.

This quote is one of the most important lines in the whole movie. Seven was heavily influenced by Dante's Inferno, which in turn influenced Heart of Darkness, which in turn influenced Apocalypse Now, which is another major influence on Seven. The major flaw in each of those works lies in the ending. Kurtz (and Dante's Satan) never live up to the expectations that have been built up around them. Kurtz spits out a bunch of false profundities, and his psychological portrait is more stylish than substantive. Those works attempt to make a grand statement about the nature of evil, and fall flat in the ending. Seven proposes a much different look at the subject. There is no such thing as absolute evil in Seven. John Doe is JUST A MAN, with a very flawed outlook on the world.

Here's another, seemingly throwaway line, that highlights this notion:

David Mills: F'in' Dante... poetry-writing f***ot! Piece of s**t, motherf'er!

Andrew Kevin Walker does not have a very high opinion of Dante's work. In a sense, Doe is Dante in this world. Doe is the personification of every self-righteous religious zealot whoever wlaked the face of the earth. Dante, although he was a skilled poet, shared much of the same worldview as Doe. When writing the Inferno, he took perverse, sadistic pleasure in punishing other people, just as Doe did.

Here's another seemingly throwaway exchange that reveals a great deal about how the story views Doe.

William Somerset: This guy's methodical, exacting, and worst of all, patient.
David Mills: He's a nut-bag! Just because the f***er's got a library card doesn't make him Yoda!

Seven does a great job of playing with the stereotypical mentor-protégé relationships of other films. In many ways, it’s a reversal of the typical learning process. Somerset (and Doe) is very smart in many ways, and he often sounds very wise. Mills does not sound very smart, but he actually imparts a great deal of wisdom onto Somerset. In this scene, Mills disrespects Doe a great deal. His gut emotional reaction to Doe’s actions (which is that he’s full of crap) is actually more insightful than Somerset’s words of respect for him. Doe is a hypocrite, a phony, and Mills knows it instinctively. Somerset has tried to suppress his emotions for so long that he no longer knows how to channel them into positive outcomes.

The three-way conversation in the car is one of the film’s best scenes. It exposes the very idea that you’re addressing.

David Mills: You're no messiah. You're a movie of the week. You're a f***ing t-shirt, at best.

Here’s a question for you. After the film ends, in the universe of Seven, which prophecy do you think comes true. Will Doe’s prophecy that his work will be ‘studied and followed forever’ come true, or will Mills’ prophecy that he’ll be forgotten in a month come true. I am in the camp that says that Mills was right here. Doe is just a man. He’s a man masquerading as something else, but he’s really a small, weak, and in many ways stupid man.

William Somerset: It seems to me, John, that you’ve overlooked a glaring contradiction.
John Doe: [pauses] Meaning what?
William Somerset: I’m glad you asked. If you were chosen, that is, by a higher power, and if your hand was forced, it seems strange to me that you would get such enjoyment out of it.

Somerset turns the tables here and forces Doe to look at his own internal motivations for the killings. You might as well as Dante or any religious ‘fire-and-brimstone’ zealot or fundamentalist to ponder the same question. God did not create them in his own image, but Doe (and Dante and other people like him) create a God in their own image. They feel dissatisfied with the world, and then create their own fantasy world of justice in the next world, to ‘turn each sin against the sinner’. Doe goes one step further by literally bringing that concept of hell onto earth.

Notice carefully what happens when Somerset points out these same core contradictions in Doe’s work that you did. Doe never addresses them directly. Instead, he changes the subject and asks a question to Mills. Doe cannot answer the question, so he needs to dodge it. Doe is cornered and he has no comeback, other than to accuse Mills of having the same motivations in his line of work.

In my view, the ending to the movie just about perfectly sums up the elements of the story you’ve been complaining about. For the whole movie, Somerset has been torn between the ideologies of these two mentors: Mills and Doe. For the entire movie, Doe has seemed to be omniscient and omnipotent, while Mills has seemed to be naïve and foolish. Doe actually succeeds in converting Mills over to his side.

But, in the final scene, after Doe has ‘won,’ Somerset rejects Doe’s perspective on the world and adopts Mills’ humanist perspective instead. Doe was always wrong. Mills was right. He chooses to stay on the police force, to keep trying to help people even though he knows that he can’t stop the evil in the world. I think you focused on the wrong part of the Hemmingway quote. Yes, Somerset thinks that the world is not a fine place, but he DOES think that it’s still worth fighting for. John Doe has actually served as the mirror through which Somerset can discover his own flaws. Doe has taken his worldview to the extreme and exposed its contradictions. The whole story is essentially Somerset’s story, in which he was pushed to his limits and forced to decide what his stance was toward fellow human beings

In short, I think Seven knows exactly what it’s talking about, but I think it’s talking about something much different that the things that you did. Your gut reaction that Doe doesn't know what he's talking about is the correct response. The film does not endorse Doe’s philosophy any more than Fight Club endorses Tyler Durden’s philosophy. Doe and Tyler are very clever and very seductive, but they both have incomplete views of humanity. Instead, in both films, the main character comes to the realization that the Does and Tylers of the world are full of crap. Somerset rejects Doe’s work, just as you did, and he does so for good reason.

Sean: First things first, thanks for providing a counter-argument.

As a matter of fact, the three-way conversation in the car is the very sequence that made me realize the flawed and sorry nature of John Doe. To be precise, the very quote and how he evades it and instead sets his eye on Mills whom he finds a rather easy prey to be irked and psychologically manipulated. Though I wasn’t aware of Walker’s opinion on Dante.

I think I might be erring on the front when I say Se7en doesn’t have an idea what it is about. Rather, allow me to rephrase my stance.

As I pointed out in my previous comment, Se7en is one of the most effective films I have come across. Every button it presses grips us and forces us to feel exactly the way it wants us to feel. It is scary, horrifying, thrilling, intelligent (as a detective film) and bleak in equal amounts. Yes, I would admit here, I found Somerset’s views on the urban world a bit tired and forced, it nevertheless makes its point felt. And therein lay I believe its failing.

Whatever I argue is the sum total of conflict of the thoughts that the film elicited out of me.

I guess you would agree with me when I claim that John Doe comes as a genius to even many of the film’s major fans. I’m talking about the consensus here, and I have come across lists that hail him as a great villain. Not that it is bad but the text below reads sentences that could be paraphrased into one single word – genius. After having read your post, I believe the film does have an idea but to the viewer learns something markedly different.

My rephrased stance – The film does know what it is about but highlights the wrong notes.

I would have difficulty what the wrong notes were, but Somerset as a character, and especially because Freeman plays him, comes across as the usual know-it-all God. As you opine and I would agree with you here, the character might not be as wise, but he sure does come across as wisdom personified. I wonder how an actor like Gary Oldman or Brendan Gleeson might have played the character, as in making him more grounded than the lofty heights of virtue that Freeman brings to his rendition.

As for Mills, I would disagree with you here. Of course my gut reaction when Mills says – “F*** Dante” is what I believe an honest and right reaction ought to be. I mean, with the dosage of Discovery crimes we are fed with, hell we understand Mills. You don’t need Inferno in that he isn’t special; all you need is good old fashioned police procedural. But Pitt tends to bring a goofy aspect to the character. I think the character on the paper was meant to be unorganized. He gets up late, he misses reading the books, and he is assumed by his seniors to be brash. That and the blunt comments he makes, especially during the gluttony scene. What we perceive him as an individual who is easily irked, and hence doesn’t have the necessary calmness in him to put forth a line of thought that is indeed solid.

I would have loved to see a team up where the Mills character could have matched the calmness of Somerset, with the quite but raging anger what Bale brings to Bruce Wayne/Batman. I mean, his wisdom I believe ought to have been a bit more apparent. That would have made his opinion, his low opinion, of Doe and that he is a T-Shirt would have had far more gravity. I think his brashness overshadows the truth he speaks most of the time.

The Mills character could be likened to a pawn upon whose fate the balance of the game lay. I mean, he isn’t a player; he is just being manipulated on one end by Doe and on the other end, Somerset is trying to bring wisdom into him. Somerset and Doe feel like actual players, kinda like T-101 and T-1000 in Terminator2 battling over John Connor, and I feel Doe ought not to be given that lofty position of his. Look at the players in cinema – Hannibal Lector (of Manhunter too, Cox was more scary and more chilling), Joker (The Dark Knight). Within their universe, these guys wouldn’t necessarily expose contradictions. Doe does, much like Travis Bickle, and maybe that is why I feel Doe doesn’t have the right to be a player because he is merely a product of his environment. The two geniuses above, within their universe, are more than that – their environments feel like products of them.

I wouldn’t want to argue now on Joe and the ending, for if we argue against it, I believe we have to come up with something worthwhile. I for now can’t think of any.

And Jim, Sean, is it possible for me to post Sean’s comments on my blog? Kindly let me know in case it is possible and fine by both of you.

P.S.: Kurtz to me didn’t feel an underwhelming character. I have been greatly influenced by the incident he narrates at the end, where the hands are chopped off. To me, it more than any film, explains the psychological nature of modern war and why it is difficult to win one. Simply put, psychologically and with respect to motivation, a revolutionary always has the upper hand on the one who is trying to rule them.

Wow! I want to commend both Satish and Sean for their great posts.

'Seven' is my all-time favorite film as well, and both your comments have illuminated it immensely. Thanks!

Thanks for the thoughtful reply Satish. I mistakenly addressed the first post to Nathan. It was my first comment on this site, which is a great forum with some very interesting perspectives. I stumbled upon a link to the fantastic 'Three Types of Violence' article, and I'm hooked.

“My rephrased stance – The film does know what it is about but highlights the wrong notes.”

I guess it becomes a matter of stylistic preference, then. I like the way it sort of slipped those elements in there without spelling much out. Even the scene in the car was pushing the limits of ‘telling too much’. I would bet that the scene was probably much longer in earlier drafts and needed to be cut. I think they found a good balance. The story begins and ends with Somerset. In the beginning, he’s ready to quit and give up all idealism, but by the end, he promises to stick around and fight. The audience is left with a mystery at the end: why, after all of those horrible events that transpired, could Somerset possibly see a reason to continue his work? I think the answer lies in his relationship with Mills (and also, to a lesser extent, the Police Captain).

In my opinion, Somerset is the centerpiece of the story. It is his story, and Doe and Mills are the two key supporting characters who help Somerset learn about himself. In many ways, Doe and Mills are the two halves of his personality. Somerset has many surface comparisons to Doe, right down to their demeanor, acting style, and organized lifestyle. In all likelihood, though, I think Somerset began his career more like Mills, very gung-ho and emotionally-invested in everything. Mills is almost pure emotion, and he highlights both the bad aspects of it and the good aspects. Mills empathizes with the victims, takes things personally, and believes in people. Doe is of course the ultimate pessimist, who sees only the worst in people. Those two characters are the two forces at war for Somerset’s soul. In the end, he needs to find a balance between the two perspectives, and he does find it. The final scene is only a few seconds long, but every previous scene with him had been leading to that final decision of how to lead his life.

“I would have difficulty what the wrong notes were, but Somerset as a character, and especially because Freeman plays him, comes across as the usual know-it-all God.”

“What we perceive him as an individual who is easily irked, and hence doesn’t have the necessary calmness in him to put forth a line of thought that is indeed solid. “

I agree with both of these descriptions of the two characters. I do think it was an intentional choice to portray them that way. The film begins by establishing the mentor-protégé cliché. Somerset begins as the teacher, but slowly he becomes the student as well. The opening scenes highlight the contrast between their lifestyles: every detail down to their manner of dress, their speech patterns, their wives (or lack thereof), etc.

The best scene in the movie, to me, though, is the barroom conversation between Mills and Somerset. Up until that point, Mills has been the student and Somerset has been the teacher. The scene plays out the opposite way that it's supposed to happen in the movie universe. Mills wins the argument, though, and turns the tables on Somerset. Even though Mills isn’t as articulate as his partner (and he’s also drunk), he is perceptive and reveals a key insight into Somerset’s true nature. Mills walks away from the scene unchanged, goes back to his wife and tells her he loves her. Somerset is completely shaken by the revelation about himself. He can’t sleep, he smashes his metronome, and throws his switchblade at the dartboard. Somerset looks inside himself and sees that deep down, he does see the world the way Mills sees it. The story sets up expectations about a young man learning about his naiveté, but the old man learns about his own idealism instead. (There is an earlier scene involving Somerset and the Police Captain that also mirrors the dialogue, but Somerset is unaffected by the arguments at that point.)

For me, the scene really works exactly the way it should, and that moment of clarity becomes the ultimate reason why Somerset makes his final decision. Mills, of course, is unbalanced and has all sorts of flaws and weaknesses on his own, but he does possess a certain amount of wisdom. Mills’ perspective on the world, grounded in emotion rather than thought, is not without its merits.

“Look at the players in cinema – Hannibal Lector (of Manhunter too, Cox was more scary and more chilling), Joker (The Dark Knight). Within their universe, these guys wouldn’t necessarily expose contradictions. Doe does, much like Travis Bickle, and maybe that is why I feel Doe doesn’t have the right to be a player because he is merely a product of his environment.”

I think that’s a fair description of the differences between the characters. The real question, though, is: is one type of villain any better than the other? Doe is essentially a weak man with delusions of grandeur. He completes his ‘masterpiece,’ both because he enjoys inflicting punishment and it is the only way he can devise to be remembered. Someone like Lecter is a more idealized figure, almost a force of nature. Doe’s actions reveal to us his core weaknesses, while Lecter’s actions usually highlight his strengths. Doe is a different type of villain, certainly, but I don’t know if he’s necessarily any worse than the others. He works very well in his own way, which is a very flawed one.

Religion and fiction have transformed evil into an abstract force. I admire Seven for sticking through with its conviction that the root of all evil is always ‘just a man’. Doe throws a lot of things at the audience and the ; he tries as hard as he can to appear as ‘more than just a man,’ but in the end he isn’t. He puts on quite a show, and even fools many audience members, but in the end, he is just a man. (I also think that the Joker succeeded on that level, as Batman did expose his selfish psychological motivations in the final scene.)

By the way, let me know if you want me to repost my comments on your blog. You have my permission to post them there. Also, if you’re a fan of the TV show Lost, feel free to check out my blog on the link.

How about the ending of Birth? I know you did a whole post on the movie a couple years back, but I saw it again a few months ago with two other people who hadn't seen it, and was intrigued that both of them were certain the boy was Anna's Sean. Was the movie intended to be open-ended? Roger seems to think so in his review, but as he says neither explanation can fit with all the movie's clues. But it sure makes a difference as to what he's smiling about at the end.

re: The Dark Knight:

Did you and that kid watch the same movie I did? It ended where it should've, and all its themes were satisfied -- a verdict had been rendered on Gotham's soul, which showed it to be flawed but salvageable. (The one we deserve but not the one we need, etc.) You may have found the themes and issues fragmented, but I found them satisfyingly ambiguous -- these are big issues these folks are wrestling with, fundamental questions about what we consider civilization to be. Giving easy answers would be a cop-out.

My friends and I are completely stumped as to where they'd go after this -- or whether there's a need to. The characters seem to have played on the largest possible canvas for their story, so where do you go from there? As Manohla Dargis noted, Batman Begins was a film with personal psychological aim, and TDK moved that fight out of Bruce Wayne's head and into Gotham. It was like id, ego, and superego raging on the streets, flipping trucks and blowing up hospitals. A step back into the personal -- that is, a movie focused entirely on Batman -- would feel like a thematic step backwards, and thus redundant.

Ken, I agree - and actually I liked The Dark Knight a lot more than Batman Begins because it headed in the direction of myth (which is where all superheroes seem to be heading) rather than drama, where it would be compromised by all the narrative short-cuts and cliches and anti-realist baggage that most superhero films carry.

Actually, I just blogged about this, so let me humbly quote myself:

"Despite feints towards gritty realism, The Dark Knight fundamentally accepts the tenets of the superhero genre. It is serious, but not in pretentious, unbefitting ways (like its precursor) - it doesn't try very hard to situate Wayne or Batman in 'reality,' or overplay its personal, psychological factors (Joker's supposedly deep-seated motivation whimsically changes depending on whoever it is he's about to mutilate). Rather, it is serious about the conventions and implications of the kind of world it is conveying. By staying true to the rules of the comic book, it elevates itself to a higher level, I would say the level of myth. I am engaged and fascinated by the ideas and the tensions within ancient epic poetry, even when I find reading the Odyssey or the Iliad to be a bit of a drag, or to be unsatisfying in conventional dramatic terms. The Dark Knight recognizes that it's not drama or depth the comic-book superheroes are reaching towards, but a mythic scope and amplification. It is not as easy to attain the level of myth on film, what with the specificity and documentary aspect of the medium; when you are focusing on themes and ideas at the expense of the characters embodying and articulating them, it often seems like something's being left out. But this movie makes a game of it and is really fascinating to mull over afterwards."

http://thedancingimage.blogspot.com/2008/08/dark-knight-revisited.html

Speaking of SE7EN:
How did John Doe (DOE) have the courier appear at exactly the right moment to have Somerset (Not Mills as stated above) see the severed head of Mills wife and then know that Somerset would not be able to prevent Mills from killing him? Did he make a phone call before they left the station? Werent they watching him at all time? Why did Somerset even open the box at all? What was the rush? they could have waited until back up arrived or a bomb sqaud at least right?
Also why didnt Somerset just shoot Mills first since he was about to commit a murder right in front of him? He could have wounded him and still get the bad guy.

Poisonskin: Probably for the same reason that Andy Dufresne's cell was the one nearest to the wall.

[SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN 'THE DARK KNIGHT' (IF THAT'S POSSIBLE)]

I was quite stricken by how little of "The Dark Knight" existed merely to set up a sequel. Look back on other franchises like "Spider-Man" and there are scenes that serve no real purpose in the story at hand. They're just there to tease conflicts that will exist in the future. By contrast, "The Dark Knight" follows through on all its characters in an extremely satisfying way. A number of people at the theater where I saw the film didn't expect Dent to actually do anything as Two Face—they would have been satisfied just to see him set up to cause trouble in the next film.

By actually creating a full arc for Dent that fit in with the the themes of his film, Nolan really went beyond what was expected of him. Sure, the movie ends with Batman himself in a bad position with the community, but he was already an outlaw. I don't think this series of films will ever make him beloved by the people (except maybe if/when he dies).

I'm very happy I stumbled upon this blog!

I'm gonna keep it short and sweet this time.

Yes, the anthrax case would make a fascinating flick. Indeed could be a great character study. Like Breach. Or even perhaps, dare I say... something along the lines of Perfume?

Recent films such as Children of Men, There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men, and especially Zodiac are at once open ended and end accordingly to their story and world.
With the somewhat exception of CoM, these are quintessential American films that share a lot with their 70s brethren - All The President's Men, The Parallax View, Three Days of the Condor etc. etc.
And TDK is the popular entertainment bro of these for sure.
They reflect the world we live in, real or imagined, or rather assumed.

And yes, for me, Zodiac was my favorite film of last year...actually it was a three way tie between that and Ratatouille and The Mist.

I here you Jeremy, a big part of why Batman Begins/Dark Knight were much more satisfying films for me was because of handling of exposition and actual follow through, nothing annoys me more than watching a movie only to learn that nothing will really happen until the sequel (the first X-men movie is a CLASSIC offender here)

Its possiable for an ending to be open ended and dramatically satisfying

As fun as Iron man was to watch , it handled much of the transformation of Stark to Iron-man as something to be gotten through on the road to the final robot fight and many characters and sub-plots turn up only to service the sequel. I've talked to some people who didn't care for the last 30 minutes of Dark Knight and liked Iron Man more. But dear god, if Iron-man was 25 minutes longer, had a more interesting climax than the robot fight and followed up on more stuff it would have been an 11 out of 10.

movies like There will be blood, and No Country for old men or a completely different ball park.

No Country's ending was anticlimatic...but that was an artistic choice in keeping with the themes off the movie, the world is a chaotic place that happens to not exist in 3 act structure...even though alot is left up the viewers imagination and the hero/villian get no final show down, the ending of the movie does a masterful job of summing up what it was all about, much more fitting than a shoot out

I don't need to write an essay on why I loved those other movies too. They all do a great job of bringing things to a close through unconvential means

One of my favorite movies ever "Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind" was a love story that doesn't bother to give to the slightist sliver of hope the couple is still together at the end, but it still made its point