Rank the following neo noir thrillers

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Well, it is quite vivid, I'll give you that. Freeman is always good. Spacey is hamming it a bit, but does his part OK. Pitt, well Brad isn't the best actor in the world and he's a bit unseasoned in this one ("What's in the Baaaahhhhxxx!?!?").

It's dark, kind of pornographic in its reveling in disgusting images and ideas. It's kind of "torture porn" territory for me. If something is in the top 10 for me, it should be a really solid slice of life, or offer unique philosophical point. It should be the sort of thing where I felt like "I needed to see that." Something that leaves me a better or more complicated critter for having seen it. I dunno, Se7en doesn't teach us anything, does it? There's no real wisdom in it, it there? It's jaded and dark.

Something about it rubbed me the wrong way. I mean like gritty films like The Cell (which is also amazing in terms of imagery) and enjoy the Evil Dead movies, but Se7en felt like I was seeing disgusting stuff only for the sake of seeing disgusting stuff with the syllogistic progression form (them deadly sins) as the only driving force.

It is an important film, yes. I really do think that color palates changed massively after this film came out. The use of color in this one changes the game, I think.

I guess I should give it another look. Maybe I am just a prude.
Well, to be fair, the bolded part is how I feel about the film. And although I do think the film does have something to say in terms of the overall decay of society and its apathy, I don't think its main goal is to make any philosophical conclusions about it. Film is a diverse medium and I feel like filmmakers can go for the "deep" philosophical approach and/or the visceral one. In this case, Seven goes for the latter and IMO, succeeds perfectly.
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1 The Usual Suspects

2. Se7en

3. Memento

4. A History of Violence

5. Drive

6. Body Heat

7. No Country for Old Men

8. Nightcrawler


Haven't seen Collateral. Started Thief but didn't finish it.



Why would we want Se7en to "teach us something" as a noir? I can understand preferring films to do that sort of thing, but in the context of noir, the idea that it's going to be about hopelessness and depravity and people's flaws is built into the discussion. If it were too didactic and uplifting it wouldn't be part of this thread to begin with.

Also, I generally don't care for "torture porn" at all, but I think Se7en stops well short of that line, particularly compared to what's come after. The fact that the most upsetting act is only described, that the big reveal is forever left to our imagination, and that we're privy only to the aftermath of each scene, are all evidence of this. I know it may sound weird to say the film shows a lot of restraint, but I think it does, and that's why it's endured.



Well, to be fair, the bolded part is how I feel about the film. And although I do think the film does have something to say in terms of the overall decay of society and its apathy, I don't think its main goal is to make any philosophical conclusions about it. Film is a diverse medium and I feel like filmmakers can go for the "deep" philosophical approach and/or the visceral one. In this case, Seven goes for the latter and IMO, succeeds perfectly.
Fair enough. Film is diverse and so is viewership. For me, viscerality, disconnected from a challenging or ennobling message/perspective, is what makes it pornographic. For my own "bestest ever top 10" and especially a top 5, it has to hit a lot high notes in terms of artistic function. But, that's just me. It's not really fair of me to ask you why you like it. That's like asking why someone loves a spouse or likes the taste of cilantro. Art is a visual medium and I must grant that it is a visual accomplishment.



Also, I generally don't care for "torture porn" at all, but I think Se7en stops well short of that line, particularly compared to what's come after. The fact that the most upsetting act is only described, that the big reveal is forever left to our imagination, and that we're privy only to the aftermath of each scene, are all evidence of this. I know it may sound weird to say the film shows a lot of restraint, but I think it does, and that's why it's endured.
Fincher skillfully and purposefully doesn't show as much gore as your mind may think he does. If you watch it closely and even stop it frame-by-frame on the DVD you'll discover it is editing and mood and sound effects and acting and quick, suggestive cuts. The LUST killing is probably the most brutal of the seven, but it is your mind and the performances that sell it. You never really get to see the woman's body, but the shock and horror of the man forced to perform the deed coupled with the Polaroid of the device is all the viewer needs to imagine what the victim looked like. We see the detectives stopped cold by it. Obviously it was disgusting. It was diabolical. And Fincher never showed it happen. Unlike Hostel and its ilk, the filmmaker allows your depraved mind to visualize it rather than show you ripping flesh and tons of blood.







It is surely a depraved and horrific scene. It just isn't graphically depicted.
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Why would we want Se7en to "teach us something" as a noir?
Blade Runner taught audiences what it means to be human as a noir.

No Country for Old Men
offers a lesson in hubris and contingency and self-judgment.

The Usual Suspects audaciously stands narrative expectations on their head.

Memento is a brilliant exploration of time, memory, self-delusion, and identity and has a formal device that performs its message.

All of these are films that will make you think and even transform you a little bit.

A film in any genre doesn't need to do any apart from share enough formal features to warrant inclusion in the classification. A great western, however, needs to be more than just a western. It must be a great film that belongs in that genre. The best films in a genre have a little something extra. They might even redefine the boundaries of the genre.

There is a difference, for example, between the most "typical" or "average" Beef Wellington and a Beef Wellington made by a master chef. A Beef Wellington doesn't need to blow your hair back to be a Beef Wellington, but it had better be to make a top 10 list for that dish.

I can understand preferring films to do that sort of thing, but in the context of noir, the idea that it's going to be about hopelessness and depravity and people's flaws is built into the discussion.
True but the other films I mention do this, but also do a little more, don't they? I am just not sure why I "needed" to see Se7en, but I do know why I needed to see No Country for Old Men and Memento and Blade Runner.

If it were too didactic and uplifting it wouldn't be part of this thread to begin with.
A lesson doesn't have to be "thudding" to be there. No Country for Old Men has a lesson to teach, even though most people left it scratching their heads (I wish I had taken a recording device to make a permanent record of audiences grumbling as the credits role to Coen Bros films -- I remember one time an audience member shouted in frustration, "They did it too us again!" when the credits rolled to one of their films).

Also, I generally don't care for "torture porn" at all, but I think Se7en stops well short of that line, particularly compared to what's come after. The fact that the most upsetting act is only described, that the big reveal is forever left to our imagination, and that we're privy only to the aftermath of each scene, are all evidence of this. I know it may sound weird to say the film shows a lot of restraint, but I think it does, and that's why it's endured.
It doesn't show as much as some films, true. It is, however, rather disgusting and deeply misanthropic. Like the film Funny Games, it seemed to be a film that didn't like me or any other human being. And yet, I would even rate Funny Games higher as a film, because of it's novel method of saying "F**k you" to the audience.

A lot of people love this film, however, so they must be getting something out of it which is "there" to be had. I'll have to watch it again sometime and see if I can wring something more from it.



Oh, the dreaded necessity of 'substance' in art. I thought Warhol put a stake through that heart decades ago. As if creation, when done with enough ingenuity, passion or individuality shouldn't just be enough.



What does something like the Passion of Joan of Arc teach us beyond what we could read over the course of a few pages regarding her persecution and execution? Maybe its clear and persistent articulation of what persecution looks like is all it has needed to survive as being one of cinema's greatest for 100 years. Likewise, Seven doesn't need to wade far from thematic shallow waters to show us its value. Its pessimistic view of the world slowly crushing the life out of its protaganists is where its soul is. Hardly revelatory on paper, no, but one can be awed by Fincher's ability to bring it so fully formed onto the screen. One can be seriously impressed, or moved,or entertained by it regardless of any deeper implications (and this assumed their aren't deeper implications, which of course others may have found in it)



I've had a lot of movies teach me things in my life, and good on them. But I hardly see why this would be the standard other films need to live by in order to also be considered great. Of course, to each their own, because there are many reasons people are drawn to what they are drawn to in the arts. I imagine my top ten is filled with films that all have very different reasons for being there (respect to craft, uniqueness, nostalgia, generating empathy, trolling any sense of respectability and ,somewhere in there, I'm sure there is also a few lessons to be leaned. Maybe)



First off, thanks for the response. It's very substantive and thoughtful.

Blade Runner taught audiences what it means to be human as a noir.

No Country for Old Men
offers a lesson in hubris and contingency and self-judgment.

The Usual Suspects audaciously stands narrative expectations on their head.

Memento is a brilliant exploration of time, memory, self-delusion, and identity and has a formal device the performs its message.

All of these are films that will make you think and even transform you a little bit.

A film in any genre doesn't need to do any apart from share enough formal features to warrant inclusion in the classification. A great western, however, needs to be more than just a western. It must be a great film that belongs in that genre. The best films in a genre have a little something extra. They might even redefine the boundaries of the genre.

There is a difference, for example, between the most "typical" or "average" Beef Wellington and a Beef Wellington made by a master chef. A Beef Wellington doesn't need to blow your hair back to be a Beef Wellington, but it had better be to make a top 10 list for that list.
I agree with all this, but I also think this defines "teach you something" in a broad enough way that Se7en qualifies. I suppose I took it for granted you were giving that phrase a positive connotation if you felt it didn't. I probably should have put something about that in my response preemptively, but since your response illuminates the distinction well, I'm kinda glad I didn't. Anyway, on to how/whether it qualifies:

True but the other films I mention do this, but also do a little more, don't they? I am just not sure why I "needed" to see Se7en, but I do know why I needed to see No Country for Old Men and Memento and Blade Runner.
Right, we agree that noir can still have a message/teach us things, just not in the happy or uplifting way. It can be a warning or a dark insight about human nature, etc. Cool. So...does Se7en do that? I'll say yes, and I think it actually does some of the very same things you mention above. Specifically, the thing about No Country for Old Men and playing with audience expectations. This is probably the thing Se7en does best.

As a mystery, it subverts our expectation in that he's...just a guy. The audience and the detectives wonder the whole time: who could do this? What happened to him? And the answers are: no one, and nothing. He's not somebody's dad or brother, and we don't hear of any personal trauma that made him into a monster. There is absolutely nothing satisfying about his identity, even though that's the thing every mystery is building towards.

As a crime story, it messes with us in some really fiendish ways. Our expectation for a film like this, in addition to the killer's identity being meaningful somehow, is that he'll lose. He'll get caught, and specifically he'll be outsmarted by the very detectives he's taunting. He'll get his, and he'll usually lose in a way that's vaguely humiliating. Beaten at his own game and all that. And absolutely none of that happens here.

That first subversion, letting the bad guy "win," admittedly doesn't look as impressive now. But I think it was at the time (and between this and The Usual Suspects, boy, what a year 1995 was for Kevin-Spacey-wins-as-the-bad-guy). Ditto for the "giving himself up" thing, which is a trope now but a total shock when I saw it. I'd file both these under "ahead of its time but oft-imitated since."

The second subversion is that they don't really outsmart him. They use a little extralegal surveillance database access to find him, and even if you want to call that ingenuity, it doesn't work! He just smashes one of them in the face and runs away. The detectives are living in a standard crime thriller, but John Doe isn't.

The third subversion, and my favorite, is that this confrontation happens too early in the film. We know the beats of these stories: they don't usually give us trials, or even interrogations. They get their lightbulb moment, confront him, and he forces them to kill him so we get our catharsis without the heroes having to off him in cold blood. But what's going on? They found him already? This is too soon. Something's not right. The movie doesn't feel over. And because of that, for the rest of the film, we're genuinely unsure of what happens next. It feels like we've got past the end of a normal movie and we're in uncharted territory. This would never happen if the film's whole structure was unfamiliar. It only works if it's largely familiar, largely follows the same beats, but then goes past them. And to be fair, up until this point, the film is just an exceptionally well-polished, clever/creative example of the genre. I think until this confrontation it's pretty much what you feel it is.

The biggest subversion of all, though, and the thing it has to teach us, is about our own capacity for hatred: for most of the film we're disgusted with these acts. We can't imagine who could do it, and we want to see them caught, drawn, and quartered...and that's the point. We're complicit. Even in the act of (ostensibly) wanting justice, we lapse into one of the deadly sins. We share John Doe's animalistic fury and disgust. We rationalize it by saying he's just that bad...we want him to suffer because he caused others to suffer, whereas he did it for lesser things. Even if that's true (and I think sin and vice are a lot more complicated than that), we have to admit that some version of him is inside us. We can feel that kind of spite, and the difference is what we direct it at, or a difference of circumstance, or a difference of degree...but not of kind. I imagine more than a few people in those theaters were every bit as conflicted as Mills was. And I'll bet more than a few wanted him to pull the trigger, but left the theater feeling guilty anyway.

Anyway, that's my time. Too many words already, but hopefully it helps explain why some people think of it so highly.

It doesn't show as much as some films, true. It is, however, rather disgusting and deeply misanthropic. Like the film Funny Games, it seemed to be a film that didn't like me or any other human being. And yet, I would even rate Funny Games higher as a film, because of it's novel method of saying "F**k you" to the audience.
The misanthropic part is tricky. On one level it's hard to disagree, for, uh, obvious reasons. But there's a lot pointing the other way. The closing voiceover is obviously giving us a positive takeaway: that the proper response to despair is to persevere. It doesn't tell us the world is fine, and it doesn't tell us everything's hopeless. It simply tells us to keep going, which is arguably the most uplifting thing any noir can say while still remaining a noir.

That said, I'd probably be forced to agree if someone said that closing quote/voiceover is a little on the clumsy side.

A lot of people love this film, however, so they must be getting something out of it which is "there" to be had. I'll have to watch it again sometime and see if I can wring something more from it.
Yeah, fair enough, and I appreciate the response.



Oh, the dreaded necessity of 'substance' in art. I thought Warhol put a stake through that heart decades ago. As if creation, when done with enough ingenuity, passion or individuality shouldn't just be enough.
Are we talking about art categorically or honorifically? Art is a largely meaningless term today. Art is pretty much everything which means that it is also pretty much nothing. The categorical discussion is rather moot. If we're speaking of art honorifiically, on the other hand, if we are discussing what makes the best narrative art great, then we are led back to the question of substance.

If we're talking about the best of a best in a category (film) or a subcategory (genre), then we will, perforce, have to interrogate standards of excellence.

Ingenuity is not enough. There are a million ingenious and useless patents on the book. Passion is not enough. There are mountains of authentic poetry out there which are also authentically bad. Individuality is not enough. That something is unique does not mean it is valuable.

What does something like the Passion of Joan of Arc teach us beyond what we could read over the course of a few pages regarding her persecution and execution? Maybe its clear and persistent articulation of what persecution looks like is all it has needed to survive as being one of cinema's greatest for 100 years.
I think you just answered your own question there.

Likewise, Seven doesn't need to wade far from thematic shallow waters to show us its value.
But it does need to do something particularly well. To be the best, minimally, it needs to be a film that one needed to have seen. It has to have complicated us or bettered us in some way.

Its pessimistic view of the world slowly crushing the life out of its protaganists is where its soul is. Hardly revelatory on paper, no, but one can be awed by Fincher's ability to bring it so fully formed onto the screen. One can be seriously impressed, or moved,or entertained by it regardless of any deeper implications (and this assumed their aren't deeper implications, which of course others may have found in it)
Fair enough. I suppose that I was simply not awed by this film, so much as revolted. I don't know what Fincher is giving us here in terms of matter or manner, form or content, that elevates it to the top of the genre heap.

I've had a lot of movies teach me things in my life, and good on them. But I hardly see why this would be the standard other films need to live by in order to also be considered great.
My standards don't have to be your standards. We're in the delicate dance of comparing intersubjectivities here, which is always precariously close to comparing "boos" and "hurrahs" and "thumbs up? and "thumbs down." I am probing the question of "why," and disclosing differences in terms my own filtering. I do endorse my own standard, I do believe in it (why else would I hold it), but I do not insist that anyone must share it.

I am trying to figure out what the true excellence it is that other see in it. Enough people highly rank this film to suggest, on face, that there is likely a there, there. Before declaring that the emperor has no clothes, one should consider the opinion of careful observers here.

We have to be careful or the whole thing collapses on itself. I am kind of scratching my head trying to figure out what the draw here is outside of the visuals. It's hard to talk about this without it seeming like you're dumping on someone's favorite flick and without mutual goodwill, we won't have to take sides to understand that taking sides will be all that our discussion will amount to.

One poster gave a good clue in stating that not as much is shown in the film as you think and that much is left to the imagination. Turn of the Screw created a lot of outrage (abuse of children), but the book never tells us what the help actually did to the children, so it is the imagination of the viewer that creates the accusation. Perhaps I stand accused by my own imagination? If so, this brings me a step closer to understanding why some endorse the film (in creating that enthymatic effect).



Are we talking about art categorically or honorifically? Art is a largely meaningless term today. Art is pretty much everything which means that it is also pretty much nothing.

Yeah, pretty much. Personally, I like the idea of it being everything and nothing. I try and maintain the contradictory views that art is something to be held in reverence above us as a light that guides, but also as something entirely common and available for anyone to participate in equally. I like talking about how certain films are clearly better than others, but in the next breath speak of how degrading hierarchies are for art to have true meaning. The longer I can maintain these two conflicting thoughts, the better. I think the work of both Duchamp, and the already mentioned Warhol, kind of get at this. I therefore try and judge it as much as possible from the many contradictory places art can be created from. Sometimes it is empty, sometimes it is full. Sometimes it's a pipe, other times it is not a pipe.


Ingenuity is not enough. There are a million ingenious and useless patents on the book. Passion is not enough. There are mountains of authentic poetry out there which are also authentically bad. Individuality is not enough. That something is unique does not mean it is valuable.

It's fair to say none of these things are necessarily enough on their own. I certainly agree that poetry written from a place of sincere passion is more often than not going to be dreadful. But frequently, these elements can be an enormous part of the appeal of a specific piece of art. They can be enough to overcome a lack of apparent craft, or even a lack of substance. If the art affects you, in whatever way it manages, its enough and who really cares what it should do. While I think its usually good to get into discussion of why one piece of art might illuminate one person, while doing nothing for another, I think we can also talk the mystery of arts effect to death by pointing at too many specifics. Sometimes certain things just inexplicably overwhelm us, and it is an equally moot point to start explaining this response in terms of skill, or teachable moments.


But it does need to do something particularly well. To be the best, minimally, it needs to be a film that one needed to have seen. It has to have complicated us or bettered us in some way.

Sometimes just something being itself, in defiance of everything else it is supposed to be, can be enough. At least almost. There are a number of films by Stanley Brakhage that have affected me, and I'm not even sure what they are that I was looking at, or if they complicated or bettered me in any way. I just found them inexplicable. Is that a good metric for something being great. I can only shrug as an answer, but in the moments I watched them, them simply existing seemed enough.


I suppose that I was simply not awed by this film, so much as revolted. I don't know what Fincher is giving us here in terms of matter or manner, form or content, that elevates it to the top of the genre heap.
I think it is understandable it doesn't do much for some people. It's certainly not a movie I'd put at the top of my heap. But it doesn't confuse me why it might be for others. It's no Babydriver we're talking about, after all.


I am kind of scratching my head trying to figure out what the draw here is outside of the visuals.

The look of the film I would imagine is pretty important for most big fans of the film. But I also think its apparent nihilism isn't without a human element. There is a poetry to the lives Freeman and Pitt are living amongst this terrible squalor. There is a sadness in nearly every frame of the film, of something lost and not likely to be 'regained'. While Seven doesn't seem to point to any of its characters reclaiming any good from their lives, this doesn't negate the possibility that some may find a kind of beauty in these lost characters.



Right, we agree that noir can still have a message/teach us things, just not in the happy or uplifting way. It can be a warning or a dark insight about human nature, etc. Cool. So...does Se7en do that? I'll say yes, and I think it actually does some of the very same things you mention above. Specifically, the thing about No Country for Old Men and playing with audience expectations. This is probably the thing Se7en does best.

As a mystery, it subverts our expectation in that he's...just a guy. The audience and the detectives wonder the whole time: who could do this? What happened to him? And the answers are: no one, and nothing. He's not somebody's dad or brother, and we don't hear of any personal trauma that made him into a monster. There is absolutely nothing satisfying about his identity, even though that's the thing every mystery is building towards.
If so, then this is what Harris was doing with Hannibal Lecter,

“Nothing happened to me, Officer Starling. I happened. You can’t reduce me to a set of influences. You’ve given up good and evil for behaviorism, Officer Starling. You’ve got everybody in moral dignity pants—nothing is ever anybody’s fault. Look at me, Officer Starling. Can you stand to say I’m evil? Am I evil, Officer Starling?”
Harris, of course, would eventually show us Lecter's childhood, the author also giving up good and evil for behaviorism (at least, this is so if we judge him by his character's standard). There is something disturbing in thinking that your neighbor could have a torture dungeon or something. At bottom, the idea that anyone can be evil, is a little spooky, but so far this is a smaller element, I think. And I think that this is less of a lesson and more of a trope (the inscrutable villain who can, for example, smile and smile and smile, and still be a villain). It's not a bad trope, but not necessarily a truly defining feature.

As a crime story, it messes with us in some really fiendish ways. Our expectation for a film like this, in addition to the killer's identity being meaningful somehow, is that he'll lose. He'll get caught, and specifically he'll be outsmarted by the very detectives he's taunting. He'll get his, and he'll usually lose in a way that's vaguely humiliating. Beaten at his own game and all that. And absolutely none of that happens here.

That first subversion, letting the bad guy "win," admittedly doesn't look as impressive now. But I think it was at the time (and between this and The Usual Suspects, boy, what a year 1995 was for Kevin-Spacey-wins-as-the-bad-guy). Ditto for the "giving himself up" thing, which is a trope now but a total shock when I saw it. I'd file both these under "ahead of its time but oft-imitated since."
I wonder why I wasn't impressed with it at the time. My reaction was like that of StuSmallz. Maybe I had a "prudish" response which closed me off from the artwork.

I think that you mark another way in which this is better than a run-of-the-mill procedural.

The second subversion is that they don't really outsmart him. They use a little extralegal surveillance database access to find him, and even if you want to call that ingenuity, it doesn't work! He just smashes one of them in the face and runs away. The detectives are living in a standard crime thriller, but John Doe isn't.
Fair enough. This does seem a bit like we're in the orbit of Dr. Lecter who is really smarter than the people who hunt him.

The third subversion, and my favorite, is that this confrontation happens too early in the film. We know the beats of these stories: they don't usually give us trials, or even interrogations. They get their lightbulb moment, confront him, and he forces them to kill him so we get our catharsis without the heroes having to off him in cold blood. But what's going on? They found him already? This is too soon. Something's not right. The movie doesn't feel over. And because of that, for the rest of the film, we're genuinely unsure of what happens next. It feels like we've got past the end of a normal movie and we're in uncharted territory. This would never happen if the film's whole structure was unfamiliar. It only works if it's largely familiar, largely follows the same beats, but then goes past them. And to be fair, up until this point, the film is just an exceptionally well-polished, clever/creative example of the genre. I think until this confrontation it's pretty much what you feel it is.
OK, I think this is your strongest point so far.

The biggest subversion of all, though, and the thing it has to teach us, is about our own capacity for hatred: for most of the film we're disgusted with these acts. We can't imagine who could do it, and we want to see them caught, drawn, and quartered...and that's the point. We're complicit. Even in the act of (ostensibly) wanting justice, we lapse into one of the deadly sins. We share John Doe's animalistic fury and disgust. We rationalize it by saying he's just that bad...we want him to suffer because he caused others to suffer, whereas he did it for lesser things. Even if that's true (and I think sin and vice are a lot more complicated than that), we have to admit that some version of him is inside us. We can feel that kind of spite, and the difference is what we direct it at, or a difference of circumstance, or a difference of degree...but not of kind. I imagine more than a few people in those theaters were every bit as conflicted as Mills was. And I'll bet more than a few wanted him to pull the trigger, but left the theater feeling guilty anyway.
OK. I think maybe the film laid it on too thick for me. I recall just being rather grossed out. We go from one gruesome (or seemingly gruesome) scene to another.

Anyway, that's my time. Too many words already, but hopefully it helps explain why some people think of it so highly.
You make a good case here. And I would rather hear why it is that I might want to reconsider a judgment than just leave it all shrugging at varying subjective responses to art.

I can recall, for example, not taking to poetry as a college student, but then "getting it" when an English teacher explained how some poems worked. It did not succeed in making me an avid consumer of poetry, but it did show me that there was a something going one which my eyes did not see on first reading.



Fincher skillfully and purposefully doesn't show as much gore as your mind may think he does. If you watch it closely and even stop it frame-by-frame on the DVD you'll discover it is editing and mood and sound effects and acting and quick, suggestive cuts. The LUST killing is probably the most brutal of the seven, but it is your mind and the performances that sell it. You never really get to see the woman's body, but the shock and horror of the man forced to perform the deed coupled with the Polaroid of the device is all the viewer needs to imagine what the victim looked like. We see the detectives stopped cold by it. Obviously it was disgusting. It was diabolical. And Fincher never showed it happen. Unlike Hostel and its ilk, the filmmaker allows your depraved mind to visualize it rather than show you ripping flesh and tons of blood.







It is surely a depraved and horrific scene. It just isn't graphically depicted.
Add to that the statements of both the sex shop owner that he'd built stuff weirder than that, or the sex place attendant who just doesn't care... "everybody's got a package! Some people they bring suitcases"



Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
One thing I like about old film noirs is the high key shadowy lighting, but it seems newer ones go for softer lighting with less shadows. Are they just afraid to go for shadows and high key lighting nowadays?



Sorry, real life dragged me away from this for the day, but I might go back later or tomorrow to address some thoughts. But in the meantime, I should probably pimp the episode of my podcast where I analyze one scene from the film, so here it is...

Thief's Monthly Movie Loot - Special Episode I (Se7en)

Enjoy!



One thing I like about old film noirs is the high key shadowy lighting, but it seems newer ones go for softer lighting with less shadows. Are they just afraid to go for shadows and high key lighting nowadays?
Might have to do with the high contrast of BW?

Blade Runner has some very deep blacks and they played with film stock to get good color and contrast in low light.

Also, we're increasingly watching movies on screens which "crush" deep blacks into sh***y greys.



Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
Oh okay, but even though Blade Runner has deep blacks, the actual lighting is still soft though. One movie I can think of in color that goes for that high key lighting more, at least during the indoor night scenes, is For A Few Dollars More, but it seems even neo-noir movies, want to go soften than that.



Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
Se7en, Drive, No Country For Old Men, Thief, A History of Violence, Memento, Nightcrawler, The Usual Suspects, Body Heat, Collateral.


1 Se7en
2 A History of Violence
3 Memento
4 No Country For Old Men
5 Drive
6 Collateral
7 Body Heat
8 The Usual Suspects

Haven't seen Thief.



Victim of The Night
I didn't see Collateral or Nightcrawler but here's my list:

1. No Country for Old Men
2. Thief
3. Body Heat
4. The Usual Suspects
5. A History of Violence
6. Drive
7. Se7en
8. Memento

Or something like that. I would say 3-6 are pretty close for me.

Also, if we're going back as far as Body Heat, I feel like we may be forgetting some films.