Against the Crowd Blogathon 2018: A Guest Post from Joel

Proof of a Movie God: Se7en

Dell's Pointless Lists: David Fincher Movies

Gone Girl

Morgan Freeman Week: Se7en

Morgan Freeman Week Continues...

Directed by David Fincher.

1995. Rated R, 126 minutes.

Cast:

Brad Pitt

Morgan Freeman

Gwyneth Paltrow

Kevin Spacey

R. Lee Ermey

John C. McGinley

Richard Roundtree

Daniel Zacapa

Mark Boone Junior

Hawthorne James

Richard Schiff

Reg E. Cathey

Like The Shawshank Redemption, which kicked off Morgan Freeman Week, Se7en is not only considered a classic, it's a revisit for me, as well. My first encounter with this film was during its initial theater run. I remember being fascinated all the way through, thoroughly enjoying myself. Then the finale came. My jaw hit the floor. I took a few moments to assess what I had just seen and immediately crowned it on of the best movies I've ever seen. I have watched well over a thousand movies since. Still, it remains one of my all-time favorites. I'm just glad that first viewing took place during my adult years. Had the teenage me been watching this, my head may have literally exploded as I tried to reconcile it with my Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jason Vorhees world. Piecing it all together might have proven difficult. For those of you who haven't seen it, it's not nearly as complex as I am making it seem. However, it's still light years away from the movies I usually watched, even as I entered the theater to see Se7en, mostly action and slasher flicks with some comedies mixed in.

Unlike a lot of my other faves, I didn't return to this film very often. In fact, I hardly watched it again at all. I've caught bits and pieces of it on TV a few times over the years, but I don't remember sitting down to watch it in its entirety again. Until now. It was finally time to put this movie to the test. The climactic scene was truly an indelible moment in my movie watching life. With full knowledge of the surprise awaiting me, how would it hold up? Quite well, thank you very much.

As far as plots go, Se7en has a fairly simple one. Detective William Somerset (Freeman) is a genius, but weary cop a week away from retirement. In a bucking of Hollywood law, he doesn't die once we receive this information. He does, however, have to give Det. David Mills the lay of the wasteland where they work. Mills is a young hotshot whose just moved to town with his wife Tracy (Paltrow). He worked homicide in a nicer part of the world. Strangely, he begged to be transferred here, to one of the most hellish parts of Chicago. The first case they come upon is one in which the victim appears to have eaten himself to death, upon initial inspection. A little more looking around reveals the man was forced to do this. As more facts are learned, Somerset believes this murder is only the first of what someone plans to be many more. When a second body is found, it becomes apparent the two are related and that our killer is using The Seven Deadly Sins as inspiration.

Even without the mystery it holds for first time viewers, Se7en is still a movie that draws you in. It does this by keeping not just the police a step or two behind the bad guy, but the audience, too. In a lot of films, even those that conceal its villain like this one, we get to see the crimes in progress. We have more knowledge than the hero and we know where they are going wrong. Here, all we get is the grisly aftermath. We arrive upon it with the cops and don't have any more tools than they to put this puzzle together. For someone who has seen it, this automatically makes us scout the crime scene closer than we did that first time around. We desperately look for clues we and/or the detectives may have missed that would lead to the villain more quickly. We are not just watching this film. We are studying it.

The relationship between our two heroes is also a major factor in our continuing enjoyment. At first, the men try to size each other up. It's plain to see they don't really click. Freeman's Somerset takes the far more cerebral approach to everything. It is no surprise he is divorced and still alone. He seems to have trouble dealing with us mental midgets. If there is one scene that perfectly sums up who he is, it's our first trip with him to the library. Before getting there, he hops into the back of a cab. When the driver asks where he is going, he laments "Far away from here." He is a man who despises his surroundings, but understands that this is the place where he is needed. Once arriving, he spots a group of security guards playing poker. Never mind it seems to be an excessive amount of guards for a library. It is more important that other than those guys, he is alone (it is at night), which appears to be how he likes things. It's also important to show just how different he is from other law-enforcement folk. Who goes to a library to research the possible motives of a serial killer? Regardless of his differentness, though, he is well respected. This is evidenced by the guards seemingly trying to impress him by cranking up the classical music to show off their own "culture." Their display is a reaction to the one line that most explicitly shows us Somerset's outlook on things. To them, he says "I'll never understand. All these books, a world of knowledge at your fingertips. What do you do? You play poker all night."

Pitt's David is much more the cop we're used to seeing, nearer the every man for us to identify with. He shares our frustration with both the case and with the things his partner does that appear almost completely dissimilar to police work as he knows it. He is also not afraid to cut corners. Occasionally, it's to keep up with the old man. We see this in his acquiring of the Cliff Notes version of the texts that Somerset painstakingly researched. Other times, it is a way to cover his tracks after making a rash decision. However, what really endears him to us is that he's hilarious. I'd forgotten how funny he is. He isn't doing slapstick and pratfalls. He just makes us laugh by his delivery of some sharp dialogue and his reactions to the situations in which he finds himself. And given the fact he's married, his wife also plays an important role. In one of Gwyneth Paltrow's best performances, she gives us a woman distraught and conflicted by her choice to support her man's career choices and where it has taken them. The matter seems to be destroying her even as she seeks, in her own way, to protect her husband.

As good as its actors are, the real star of Se7en is director David Fincher. He packs every frame with symbolism and/or mystery. The library scene I described earlier is just one of many examples. Another involving Freeman is when he destroys the metronome by his bed. The case he is working is about rules, yet it's creating chaos all around him. This is a man who thrives on order. What's more orderly than a metronome? As far as mystery goes, Fincher reveals our killer at precisely the right time, but we still feel lost. We don't see his endgame. Us repeat watchers don't see a way we could have seen his endgame. Then, there are those amazingly unsettling visuals. Each corpse is a true depiction of someone dying by the sin of which they've been deemed guilty. It's a remarkable feat by a remarkable film maker.

I could go on praising this movie forever. From the time it starts, I am intrigued by it. I am trying to crack its code. More accurately, I'm trying to see where I should have been able to crack it before, and failing. I am also enjoying the fantastic acting taking place across the board. And I haven't even mentioned the person who is causing all the fuss. Because of that person, Freeman's scholarly approach, Pitt's levity, and top notch story telling, to name a few things, we always have a marvelous movie watching experience. Yes, even if we already know what's in the box.

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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

Directed by David Fincher.

2011. Rated R, 158 minutes.
Cast:
Rooney Mara
Daniel Craig
Christopher Plummer

Stellan Skarsgard
Robin Wright
Yarick von Wageningen
Joely Richardson
Geraldine James
Donald Sumpter
Julian Sands
Ulf Friberg
Alan Dale

Lisbeth Salander (Mara) isn’t your typical girl. She generally doesn’t like people and they generally don’t like her. She works for a company tthat does extensive background checks and is only used on “interesting” cases. In other words, she’s a very talented computer hacker. Despite being an adult, she’s also a ward of the state whom we’ll see jump through some very interesting hoops to get control of her own affairs. Oh, almost forgot, she has a tattoo of a dragon on her back.

Back to Lisbeth’s job as a hacker. That’s her entry point into the main plot. She’s been keeping close tabs on Mikael Blomkvist (Craig). He’s a disgraced journalist, having just been successfully sued for libel by a very powerful and high profile businessman. Lisbeth was hired by another rich and powerful guy, Henrik Vanger (Plummer). After being satisfied with what she’s found, Vanger hires Mikael to solve a mystery. Over 40 years ago, Henrik’s niece Harriet disappeared. Even though this happened on the secluded island the entire Vanger family lives on, she was never found and no one has ever been held responsible. Henrik believes someone in the family is her killer. Mikael takes on the project, but obviously can’t make any promises on such a cold case. Eventually, he decides he needs some help and hires Lisbeth, himself.

Truthfully, it takes a while for our two main characters to actually meet one another. Until then, each is embroiled in their own fascinating drama filled with twists and turns. Mikael’s whodunit progresses not unlike many others, but it’s still well done and maintains suspense. Lisbeth’s life saga is brutal, yet compelling. The warning here is that there are some difficult scenes to sit through. After they meet, the twists keep coming and our intrigue is piqued.

In the two lead roles, both Mara and Craig perform excellently. Mara’s Lisbeth appears fragile but is really calloused from the many blows life has dealt, and keeps dealing her. She doesn’t believe in self-pity, only penance. She takes the philosophy of “an eye for an eye” to a whole new level. On the other hand, Craig plays Mikael as the complete opposite of James Bond whom most of us will think of when he first shows up on the screen. Mikael’s a cerebral and emotional guy that’s not used to being in physical danger. Like Bond, women seem drawn to him but it has nothing to do with machismo or suaveness like it does for the super agent. Mikael also doesn’t seem to deal with pain, too well. He’s pretty much the inverse of not only Bond, but also of Lisbeth. Mikael has a tough looking exterior with a soft middle. She’s far more action hero than he.

Don’t get the wrong idea. Though there is action, an action flick this is not. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is part murder mystery, part character study. It’s not only a study of Lisbeth, but of Mikael, too. A large part of this is how their relationship evolves. It’s interesting to note how, as a pair, they function in ways opposite of traditional gender roles. Seeing them interact not-so-subtly lets us know what we should expect when things get tense.

TGwtDT is an excellent movie. However, it can’t be reviewed without comparing it to the Swedish original from 2009. To be fair, director David Fincher’s American version is not a remake, even though it bears a strong resemblance to its predecessor. Both are adaptations of the Stieg Larsson novel of the same name and the first of a trilogy. Without having read it, I’ve heard that this version is slightly more faithful to the book.

I have seen the Swedish film, though. There are some differences. Some work better in this movie while others favor the original. Two main ones stick out. Lisbeth’s guardian is one of the movie’s villains. I feel this character was better done, more thoroughly evil in the Swedish movie. This makes certain events that much sweeter in their brutality. The other is multi-faceted. It starts with the various relaitionships of Mikael. This version explores them more deeply by making the editor of his magazine much more of a factor. This leads us to an ending that better sets up the sequel. Of course, this presumes the entire trilogy will be adapted as they were in Sweden. If you put a gun to my head and force me to choose which I like better, I’ll say this one by a very slim margin.

The Social Network

Directed by David Fincher.
2010. Rated PG-13, 120 minutes.
Cast:
Jesse Eisenberg
Andrew Garfield
Justin Timberlake
Armie Hammer
Brenda Song
Bryan Barter
Rooney Mara
Rashida Jones
Joseph Mazzello

“If you could’ve invented Facebook then, you would’ve invented Facebook,” Mark Zuckerberg (Eisenberg) coldly says to one of the people suing him for allegedly stealing their idea. That statement is at the heart of all matters in The Social Network.. The movie never doubts Zuckerberg’s genius. It never suggest that Facebook could ever have come into existence without him. The question becomes how much did others contribute to making his vision a reality and whether or not they should be compensated.

Technically, the entire movie takes place inside a hearing room where three sides battle back and forth with flashbacks fleshing out the proceedings. Of course, there’s Zuckerberg. Then there is his former best friend, Eduardo Saverin (Garfield) suing Mark for pretty much muscling him out of the company. Finally, there’s the Winklevoss twins (Hammer in a dual role) who claim to have come up with the idea for Facebook.

Through it all, we see Zuckerberg’s not-so-humble beginnings as a drunken young man, bitter about just being dumped, venomously blogging about his now ex-girl while simultaneously hacking into much of the school’s online network to create an instant rate-a-girl site called FaceSmash. Eventually, we arrive at the point where Facebook is a worldwide phenomenon and Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire in the world. We already know that. Many of you reading this not only have a Facebook page, but have children, parents and even grandparents that their own Facebook pages. This more about trust and what people do with it when they’ve earnied it. Trust is abused so often, we eventualyy have decide when that abuse is justified and when it is not.

TSN is also about the decade we’ve just lived through. It’s about how technology in general, and Facebook in particular, alters our world in increasingly rapid ways. It’s about how prepared or unprepared we are for those instantaneous changes. Can anyone really be prepared to go from average joe to king of all he surveys in just a few years? Strangely enough, though Zuckerberg is the focal point, the movie is not necessarily on his side. Through an excellent performance by Eisenberg he comes across as arrogant, aloof, vindictive, selfish and overly envious of others. He’s the modern day mad scientist who has succeeded in taking over the world, but found it’s not all its cracked up to be. We don’t root for him.

The person we root for is Eduardo Saverin, who put up the initial $1000 to fund the site’s development. We like him. His position seems undeniable so we sympathize with him. We desperately want Zuckerberg to come down from Mount Olympus and show gratitude to the little person that helped him get there.

This movie works because no matter how unlikeable our protagonist might be, we can see his side on a lot of things. Simultaneously, we can understand other viewpoints, as well. This keeps us locked in along with sharp dialogue in which characters rarely mince words. What also engages us is how relationships disintegrate. We’re intrigued to see if anything can be salvaged. However, the winds of sudden success has wreaked havoc on these people. Essentially, we’re watching a divorce procedure. At stake, the custody of their 500 million “kids” worldwide.