'Se7en' Scene Analysis

'Se7en' Scene Analysis

David Finchers ‘Se7ven’ (1995) includes one very cleverly crafted scene, which involves Morgan Freeman’s character ‘Detective Lt. William Somerset’ opening a box and discovering what is inside.

This scene takes about 40 seconds to reveal itself, which is a generally long scene to unravel a box, but Fincher manages to prolong the wait making the scene filled with tension.

We see several Close Up Shots of the box, firstly when we see the box, the box fills the screen and is the main object telling the audience that what is inside is essential to the next part of the storyline.

The scene then continues to have a close up of William Somerset’s fingers slowly opening the box. We don’t clearly see his facial expression of opening the box until he has fully opened it up.

As he is instructed to open the box slowly and carefully, this creates an eerie and gripping atmosphere to the scene and for the audience as it becomes closer to its revelation.

The next shot is at an Eye Level Angle and whilst we know that William Somerset jumps away from the box, we hear him yelp and know that whatever he has seen has caused him some form of distress. However, we never see this, as the angle is continuously focused on the box, still not revealing to the audience what has actually been seen in the box.

The next scene is a Low Angle of William Somerset’s face; we know from his facial expression that nothing good lies in the box, which remains a mystery throughout the scene.

It is never graphically revealed to the audience what is in the box, we only know through speech from the murderer that it is in fact David Mills wife, however Fincher chose to not show this revelation in a graphic way as it still maintains a disturbing and spine-chilling tone to the scene, as we know that the audience is imagining the state of David Mills wife.