SEVEN (1995)

This film features actors Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Spacey...

Welcome to my blog post for David Fincher's Seven !!

There are classical allusions that transpire in the film which are about the quality or use of language characteristic of written works as opposed to spoken usage and tolerance as well as the countless contrasting virtues that come into play. The film is constructed around the seven deadly sins. In a literary context it also applies to detectives Somerset and Mills who are the main figures of the film. Somerset is played by Morgan Freeman and is planning to retire in seven days while David Mills played by Brad Pitt is a younger detective more of a rookie who is very anxious to demonstrate his abilities. The plot is set in the middle of nowhere and it is uninviting and gloomy. It is raining at all times in a purgatorial city and there are no actual reference points in terms of where this truly takes place. The setting only alters at the end of the movie. It is a buddy novel or the journey of a detective that is a well established rule in literary circles.

The model novel of Don Quixote depicts a world of illusion. He is living in the past and in some imaginary world while his companion Sancho is about truth, leading things back down to existence and displays the two parts often with opposite meanings of human creation in a sense. Such as the duality of good and evil. This develops in a different manner with the two detectives in the Seven movie. Ishmael and Queequeg in Moby Dick as well as Huck and Jim in the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are tropes we witness somewhat in literary circles and are frequently created. As also seen in Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, with Gatsby and Nick Carroway in particular there is a concept that these characters reproduce and reflect things that possibly the other one goes without which supplies a significant context for us when thinking of setting foot into the world of Seven. The world is of dark sin, punishment and witnessing a serial killer function following and controlled by punishments of the Seven deadly sins. Literature takes part in an important contribution in all of this so more of the direct illusions that occur are Dante’s Divine Comedy in which Columbia University has achieved a digitalized Dante. It lays out absorbing context for the Inferno which is of primary importance for Seven because of its religious connotations. It starts with buddy/partner narratives. Dante is a character in the poem who proceeds on a journey and is accompanied by Virgil who is the epic poet of Rome. He also wrote “The Aeneid”.The Christian context is presented because Dante is a Christian poet and his journey from the Inferno (Hell) through purgatorio into paradiso is practically in a certain sense the epic journey of the Christian hero. One should delve into the darkness, make one's way through purgatory in order to arrive at God’s grace. Virgil is the guide because he is a Pagan. He did not possess the word of God to rescue his soul but Dante discerns he is the ideal guide for him to escort through the inferno. The inferno is the descent into Hell and sinners are disciplined by the essence/disposition of their sins. When the mythical beasts that come into bear at the beginning frightened him there is a dream-like status and sense of taking this journey in the midst of days. There is a dream vision that occurs in the early part of the Inferno and he will speak of what he has witnessed. There is also a sense of the struggles of the soul at the start of the Inferno. The poet character of Dante is taking a journey through the middle of his life through a dark forest which is possibly a location he has not been prepared to set foot in. This is a place of complete loss or absence of hope which is the dark night of the soul. There is doubt and soul searching involved that he experiences during his middle part of life. In section three the indication that comes up which is to Abandon all hope ye who enter here means that what you are entering into is a place where you start to witness the despairing and those who have sinned which is part of the journey of the Divine Comedy. He is about to go on this journey with Virgil to view those who have lost hope and might have lost their way who have made a mistake in God’s judgment, lost rationality and wound up in this Hell to suffer constantly in varied extents based on their wrongdoing. What is marvelous about Columbia’s text is you have the opportunity to digitally proceed through it using English translations as well as to observe the journey they take on.

Fincher’s application of “Paradise Lost” in Seven when it comes to Milton’s epic poem, is a Protestant poem written by John Milton. Dante’s comedy produces Catholic Christian sensitivity that Dante is making his way through numerous circles from Hell to Purgatory to Heaven. John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” is a retelling of Genesis. Its epic poem approaches the fortunate fall of Adam and Eve. The poem begins in media res which is defined as the midst of things. In Book 1, there has been an unbelievable combat for Heaven. Satan has waged war against God the Almighty. He has perished with ⅓ of his fellow angels and they have been banished out of Heaven. You can receive the argument of each book out of the Milton reading. The context of Book 1 speaks of the beginning, the obedience/disobedience of man but presents the context of Satan and his angels when they have descended out of Heaven, go to Hell and create Pandemonium. In book 1, The Palace of Satan and what the rebel angels are attempting to do is solve a method to reconquer Heaven which is the epic thrust of “Paradise Lost”. Satan was one of the large number of much loved angels in God’s throne but he failed to obey God because he wished to possess God’s position.

Some people connect the story to Promethius who stole fire from the Gods and was permanently punished which is a smart way to associate characters such as Herman Melville’s Ahab who would “strike the sun if it insulted him.” They had an equivalent lineage. Satan rebels against God because of the existence of his son who is Christ and his inability to accept not being on top. Satan had communicated this in his own words “Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven”. This stimulated a wide number of Romantic poets. The concept of the rebel who refuses despite the fact that he is aware to a particular extent that he will under/ in no circumstances completely or entirely triumph is the context when beginning “Paradise Lost.” It is an extremely intricate poem. The beginning parts divulge how the fallen angels manage their fallen altitude. Some would take great pleasure in ongoing eternal warfare, be lazy, make the most of it and take delight or pleasure in their spare time but there is something especially about Satan that comes out in Book 2 when the consult starts.

The central thrust of Book 2 is when Milton writes this throughout the age of discovery when much is being learned about the world, traveling to other parts of it including the United States of America which would ultimately be colonized and was theorized as the place that could be the new “Eden” which is the context to place “Paradise Lost”. The well known speech delivered by Satan in line seventeen of Book 2 sets up the journey of possibly causing physical pain or injury to God in a location that is precious to him. This is about the individual Satan stating his claim that he will grab hold of the dangerous mission which is to discover the Garden of Eden, to become the tempter, to obtain the treasured valuables of God, Adam and Eve and that he alone will do this but it is he alone who receives the advantage or profit. This is a lot about individuality, the one gaining the solitary mission, occupying all the responsibility for a fault or wrong, but also then seizing all the glory. To a certain extent, the evil John Doe frequently has this Satanic and extremely wicked sensibility to him of desiring to punish the punished, punish the sinful and also acquire in all of this enthusiastic and public praise that “Long is the road that out of hell leads up into light.” So descending into Hell is achieved without great effort; presenting few difficulties but discovering the way out of Hell is quite the opposite.

The knowledge many times shapes the characters which is crucial in how we are to grasp the relationships between Mills and Somerset even in an amusing manner. Somerset is an educated lead detective, has a more profound sense of patience and understanding as well as the comprehension of what it means to be a detective in a city whereas Mills is anxious to hurry through things, possibly cutting corners which is all in a classical context distributed by Dante and Milton.

Meghan L. Grady

THE GAME (1997)

This David Fincher film features actors Sean Penn and Michael Douglas..

Welcome to my blog post for David Fincher's "The Game "

There are places to explore and think about in particular to “The Game” that have literary reference. The site about novelist John Fowles almost makes the accusation that a lot of “The Game” was somehow plagiarized by his novel “The Magus”. The main character is Nicholas Urfe and in the movie Nicholas Van Orten played by Michael Douglas. Both lead characters are handsome, jaded, and rather miserable though they differ in age. There is a young character in “The Magus” whereas Michael Douglas’s character is more middle aged.

The people in these plots are people that are thrown into games where rules do not matter. One cannot trust what is before them. The novel was originally titled “The God Game”. Another similarity is that in the novel, the character who initiates the game in the movie is Nicholas Van Orten’s brother, Conrad played by Sean Penn. There are many coincidences to think about and consider. Classical literary allusions for this work include “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” which is referenced explicitly as well as Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” Kafka’s “The Trial” and Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol”.

Fincher said himself in interviews that part of the inspiration behind “A Christmas Carol” which was a morality play we all know quite well has become present during the holiday season. “The Wizard of Oz” does an admirable job of showing its connection to “The Game”. Dorothy wants to leave her humdrum life in Kansas and travel to some place different, visually exploited by the color and transformation when she reaches Oz and she has to face all of these interesting trials eventually to return to the life she oddly wanted to depart. “The Game” functions in quite the same way. At one point, there is a sense in the film that Van Orten wants to see who is behind the curtain, who is the wizard, who is a huxter and con artist .

He has created this scheme of allusions in “The Wizard of Oz” and is certainly not what he appears to be. This film is positioned as one that plays a lot of games with us. This is about capitalism to a certain degree. Michael Douglas is a bit of a cloistered, wealthy, middle aged figure as he says in the film that he moves money from one place to the next. It is told in San Francisco and you get visual descriptions of his isolation, aloofness and in a way that he is completely alienated from family and the world around him which is part of the draw of the book. He needs some kind of change.

The real trust in Fincher’s tale is that it's the level of deprivation and punishment which is not too far from what was witnessed in the “Seven” film. There is a sense of the sadism and the punishment the character must go through in order to purge his old self and see the world anew. In regards to “A Christmas Carol”, we can almost see Van Orten’s progress in the film similar to Ebenezer Scrooge. Scrooge is a miser. We know his character and there is a kind of quasi religious sensibility to that. He has to be revisited by the ghost of Christmas past, present and future in order to see the lacking, the mistakes he has made in his life, see the ways he has failed and that he has to change his ways in order to become a good Christian, more giving individual and that he must amend his ways.

There is an updated postmodern sensibility in the game cartoon of the synopsis for “The Trial” by Kafka which is a fascinating work of Kay who is the central character of the book is accused of a crime and faces the absurdity of almost a year of trying to figure out a bureaucratic system of not being able to get to an understanding of the truth and in a way is completely alienated from the world lives in where he cannot ascertain what is true and what is false particularly through a type of criminal system that makes no sense whatsoever to an extent. It is paradoxical, leads him in circles and ultimately Kafka-esque which leads one to believe that modern life/ modern systems are basically absurd. Kay winds up being taken away by officials a year later and killed in a quarry. It is filled with weird allegorical senses of just what is at stake in a modern sensibility. There is a sense of dreadful boredom and inability to get to the truth to understand purpose in life and feeling caught in a system that really makes no sense that cannot get anywhere. One is caught in a labyrinth of bureaucratic idiocy.

The question that lurks and perplexes people is what the message is here in “The Game” and whether or not this is an indictment of some bit of our culture. At one point, it is said that this is a movie about movies which is in a way fascinating about how much of this is about metacognition and weird allusions about what is and what is not real life. The plot is set in motion when Nicholas Van Orten gets a gift from his brother, Conrad at a very exclusive club from a company called CRS which provides “Whatever is lacking” in Conrad’s words. Van Orten is rich, extremely wealthy but a tremendously cold, isolated man. You do not feel for him. To a general extent, you do not connect with him which is odd considering the choice of Michael Douglas. “Greed is good” is what gets tacked on to his character and Fincher’s tale has an odd, strange pathway to it. There is an interesting aspect as far as thinking about a plot is to consider what “The Game” actually signifies and how much of this is seen as a real life version of the fears of the Matrix which would be made around the period of 1999.

Oftentimes, people have seen a direct parallel in a different way to “The Truman Show” which was also made around the same time period. How to ascertain when the game ends and when it does not as well as what is or is not part of the game and what the final message is. There are problems presented and difficulties encapsulated in the text of the film. There is a lot of the sense of the pulling down of this character. David Fincher said often times he distrusts experts as part of his control freak sense as a director but there is clearly a sense in this film of a character getting punished, getting his comeuppance in a different way than Scrooge who simply has to go through and look at his life, the decisions he has made and perhaps those he has let down or done wrong and harm to. There is a weird line about the surveillance regarding the blurring lines between reality.

This film made in 1997 blurs lines between how much the big brother is manipulating us and how the muck of one's reality is just that or just the essence of a game of some kind of labyrinth you are desperately trying to get out of and as an audience trying to figure out what the ultimate verdict is. This plays off of “The Wizard of Oz” “The Trial” “Alice in Wonderland” and what happens to the character as they go through their trials and tribulations about their life. We know well that Dorothy wants to return to Kansas, click her heels and go back home while Scrooge is going to be a good man , mend his miserly ways and be a better person. There is much to be said about “The Trial” in the sense that it is meaningless and leads to nowhere. We ask ourselves in the end of “The Game” what happened to Nicholas Van Orten and what the purpose was of all these tests and games he must endure. The ending is problematic.

Meghan L. Grady

FIGHT CLUB (1999)

This David Fincher film features actors Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, Helena Bonham Carter and Jared Leto.

Welcome to my blog post for David Fincher's Fight Club!

Two things the author said about the novel of Fight Club were that a lot of it was inspired by a reading writer’s group he was in at Portland and often thought of Fight Club as the modern day updating of “The Great Gatsby”. When thinking about the beginning, the character Jack is living a humdrum existence as an insurance adjuster and there is a strange dark humor to all of this as he is going about creating a formula regarding whether or not his car company will do recalls. He applies this formula and as seen in the film much of it is about death , destruction and normalizing that whether or not the car company actually pays this settlement or does a recall to fix the actual problem. Then there is a nomadic existence of the airport to airport he is playing off and his single serving friends as well as the introduction of Tyler Durden who is a character, he meets on an airplane who is very different playing with this idea of how much Durden is a duplicate / mirror of the things that are lacking in Jack’s life. Marla Singer enters into this world and it is a fascinating place we stop at. There is almost nihilism in a Nietzschean way that one needs to suffer, to know the limits of one's existence as well as one of the Nietzschean quotes “that which does not kill you makes you stronger”. There is a heavy undercurrent in this film of what has been turned in the last several decades of toxic masculinity = a rebellion against what is seen as the over feminization of culture and this great enormous divide about fight club as well as its viability. One of the real major changes we are going to see is the introduction of project mayhem where fight club morphs , metastasizes into a cult/army of rebellion trying to take down corporate America, credit card companies so it is moves from the space of fight club where there is an individual sense of pushing oneself /body to the limit or beating it to know one is still alive in a sense. Great many people who seem anesthetized to life that they tend to go about the motions or are chasing their own things and we see graphically in the scene where he has the Ikea catalog that pops up visually on the screen having that sensibility of what coffee table signifies who he is. So, there is a great deal of fascination and dark play of American consumerism and in a certain way Jack’s insomnia where he is going through the emotions almost like being a zombie at work. All of these things add to the interest of the drastic break that occurs when fight club is instituted and there is a pushing as far as possible involved in the norms of polite society when people do not typically do this. They do not seek to be beaten up and find this as a way of self-realization. A lot of the things Durden says seem to have a cult sensibility about the things one owns end up owning you. The very iconic scene in the bar where fight club is hatched there is a lot of the sense where Jack says his insurance will pay for it and there is a wrestling match regarding whether this is actually himself whereas Durden’s speech is always about how these things end up taking one over and that one starts to lose a sense of themselves. It takes a harsh, very sarcastic look at self-help groups. Jack needs the release of being able to look people in the eye who are near death and speaking to them in order to feel anything as well as to be able to sleep which infringes upon Marla entering into the space. In the tragic comic scene when she attempts to steal the clothes and they are negotiating as he says he wants brain cancer. We are meant to see the dark comical satirical side to tease characters who are somewhat lost and trying to find some sense of group identity by playing pretend. As we enter into the world of Paper Street, and the dark they live in we see them making soap and trial by torture of the lie of bottoming out becomes a larger hold as project mayhem begins to take its full effect. A lot of what we see in fight club is a direct take on the late 90s, the fear of Y2k, loss of individuality and mass market consumerism which seems to be at the heart of the satire throughout fight club about people giving up on this and their jobs. It is appropriated in a world post pandemic to see these concerns of whether or not one's job identifies with who they are has been a concern clearly in this film and a rejection of what a lot of American society was putting out there in terms of advertisement, going off of societal norms but for many viewers there is a sense of whether or not this pushed it to that extreme which it was partially meant to do and it made Fincher tackle this project. There is an interesting extreme voice in Paul’s novel which was sculpted and recreated by Jim Uhls screenplay. In 2001, there was a pause moment with 9/11 actual terrorist and mayhem that was occurring in parts of NY and Washington DC in the latter part of the film the fact that there is project mayhem ( almost domestic terrorist group) unsettled many people and made them question looking at fight club as well as what it promoted/glorified. There is a great deal psychologically to consider. When looking back at the film and the doctor scene, there are quick subliminal messages that are figments of his imagination like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This is about what happens if a fantasy takes over one's reality and when one creates characters in their mind. The doppelganger effect and development of skepticism is present. The morphing of characters not talking about Tyler was a way to build clues. This movie was a reaction to the 90s period of grunge Generation X. When Brad Pitt first pitched the script, he identified with the character for Fincher. The book was published in 1996 and had its cultural effect and the film came out in 1999 where there was a lot of turmoil. People felt discontent in life and jobs. There was no great war/ angst . The film and novel are satire which are preconceived of American culture in terms of consumerism taking over America. It was a counter cultural movement. The book refers to the loss of the American Dream such as a modernized “Great Gatsby '' and what is shown was all the things he has to a degree. The car, search, and wealth are about reuniting with Daisy. It is a darker version of the American Dream and he is trying to figure out his authentic self. Jack’s life is a carbon copy of a magazine and it is meaningless. It is a substitute for something real inside. When it comes to project mayhem, the “joker” is received that disrupts the system. It sets some people off because of the domestic terrorism working in the heart of the film it sprung up. The author was not likable but knew it would be a game changer for his career. There are key changes in adaptation. The prose lulls one in= gritty realism. Chloe is a much bigger character in the film. Tyler is Jack’s alter ego. There are two different stories being told. It moves from the basement to chaos and mayhem out into the world. It also shows the horrors of the mob. Fight club made many uncomfortable because of what it suggests, which is the darker aspect of our culture. Meghan L. Grady