Analysing A Thriller: Se7en

My first task was analysing a thriller. The thriller which had been chosen for me to analyse was Seven (also written as Se7en)

The scene I shall be analysing is shown below. View it before you read the rest of this blog post if you please.


Seven Opening Sequence from Artifact on Vimeo.

A Background on Se7en

Seven was released Septmber 22nd 1995 to critical acclaim. The film was directed by David Finche and written by Andrew Kevin Walker. It's running time was 128 minutes. Se7en had a budget of $30 million and made a gross profit of $327,311,859.

Opposite is a poster used in the promotional campaign for the film.

It's main actors were Morgon Freeman and Brad Pitt who played the characters Detective William R. Somerset and Dectective David Mills. A supporting actress in the film was Gwyneth Paltrow who played Detective Mills' wife named Tracey.





In the title sequence it shows an unknown character (presumed to be the antagonist) creating a scrapbook. The character is creating the book which complies graphic images of children and what can be seen as  possible victims of the characters crimes.The images include ones of naked children with biblical writing and other extracts, in this writing certain words have been scribbled out. The nature of the images of the scrapbook gives the viewer and insight into the mind of this character. The fact that the images have the eyes scribbled out show that the victims have some sort of hold on the character as the character doesn't want to see the eyes as they can be seen as the windows to the soul which the character cannot bare to see. The character can be seen as criminal as they are shown to be shaving their fingertips off so there are no finger prints.

This sequence uses a variety of shots. In particular close ups and extreme close ups are used the most. These shots are used mainly on the scrapbook, this shows the viewer that this scrapbook holds importance in the film. The fact that the presumed antagonist's face is never shown and that their hands are only show (with no fingerprints) gives the viewer the need to know more and keeps the viewer in suspense. This suspense is paired with the fact the actor who plays the antagonist is missing from the titles. The titles are also shown as handwriting and very choppy as they appear which also gives an insight to the mind of the antagonist as not being of a very healthy mental state. Also the editing is very choppy which adds to the idea of the antagonist's mental state, also the choppiness intrigues the viewer and sets the scene for what type of film they are watching. The non-diegetic music present in this sequenced is used to create an eerie effect. This effect begins to scare and creep out the audience and make them slightly uncomfortable from the start.