Christopher Nolan vs David Fincher

Rufnek - I must say many of your Se7en arguments are a bit thin, and some of them are just off-base. I am at work, but, when i get home, I will try to find time to jump on and retort. But, for now, just know that:

The Fridge: The killer made some grooves in the floor with some sort of tool, right in front of the fridge and then made the fat dude eat the pieces he had carved out of the floor. They are later found by the coroner, submitted to the two detectives, who then return to the scene a second time, specifically looking for a source of the material. They sleuth around a bit, and then one of the detectives notices the groves on the floor, matches a piece of material to one of them, and THEN gets the idea to move the fridge. I rather like this sequence of events, as it was a pretty tough clue, set up by the killer in such a way that only detectives with some good level of skill would find them. Also, the fat dude was already obese, which is why the killer chose him for gluttony.

As for the UPS truck... Not a huge stretch, as I believe it was a private courier, not actually UPS, and , if I was said courier, and some spooky cat came up to me and offered me...say... a grand, to make sure my skinny ass was on some dirt road with a package at 4pm...well, let's just say I would get there at 3:55... Also, the package had a name on it...Detective Mills.

The rest of your post talks about the happenstance of the last sin falling into place, which you are right about. Alas, the killer talks about this, stating that he was at a loss with the last sin, and hadn't figured out a victim...until he met Mills, and his plan came together. So... He didn't have a plan for all the sins before he started his game, perhaps just the first 6... I know they talk about this in the film, and it's covered.


Your arguments on The Prestige, however...are not thin.

__________________

Or the twin actually was a clone from Mr Ziggy Stardust's machine and came when Batman needed to do the trick, after marriage.

__________________

Rufnek, you're busted. We all know now that you're real identity is Detetcitve Mills, The Skeptic.

All the things you are bringing up are all represented in the Mills character, the ordinary guy, the decent guy who is just like you and me - and because of just that, he becomes a tool for John Doe. Mills represents us all, the numb majority who are being tools used by the bad guys to move the madness forward while we think we're doing our best to stop it.

You are saying that Se7en is not working because the way the murderer is carrying out his plan is not realistic enough. Well, that's kind of the point. The thing with John Doe's brilliant plan is that it is so carefully and cleverly planned that only a man working with God's help could have pulled it through. That or a very intelligent, patient, disciplined and completely mad man. It also demands that the case is being handled by a cop like Somerset, someone who understands John Doe, something which is necessary for the plan to work. Being caught is necessary for the plan to be a success, something that Somerset understands too late. It is a plan so complex and sophisticated that it is most likely to fail, but it didn't because of extraordinary and almost unreal, but not impossible, reasons. And that's why it looks like an act of God.

The plot works.

__________________
The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

--------

They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

Probably Fincher since he's the only one who's made a mildly insightful film with Fight Club. Nolan is a clever filmmaker, not an intelligent one. His films have no real thematic depth; it's all just fancy narrative tricks and whatnot.

Ever heard of film noir?

Very possible. It has been a looooong time since my one viewing of the film and I don't pretend to remember everything about it. And I'm certainly not claiming there are "right" or "wrong" answers. A lot of you enjoyed it on one plane and that's fine. Glad you liked it. But some things bothered me at the time, and I'm recounting my objections to the best of my memory. For instance:

Okay, I'll take your word for that. I don't remember carvings from the floor force-fed to the victim or a second visit to the scene of the crime. My recollection was all of it happening on the first visit. But playing it your way still means that the killer must chance that (a) the medical examiner finds and identifies the foreign matter in the victim's stomach, (b) the detectives connect that material to grooves in the floor, (c) the detectives conclude that there may be a clue behind the fridge, (d) they move it to look for that clue. There is no guarantee that any of those four things will happen, and if the detectives don't find that first message, then the plot comes to a dead halt. In real life, medical examiners aren't that bright. I once covered a case where the initial verdict was heart attack, but when they started to move the body, they found a knife in the guy's back. Houston has as sophisticated medical examiners office as there is, but I know of at least two cases that were first put down as suicides and murder-suicide that years later proved to have been murders. Point being that from the start the killer in Se7en is depending on chance, with elements that are beyond his control.

By the way, do you recall what was the actual cause of death with the gluttony victim? Was it gluttony or something else?


All I recall is that it was a brown delivery truck: Might have been UPS, or maybe a look-alike imitator--doesn't really matter. But does it say in the movie that the killer bribed the courier to make the delivery? Or are you just helping the movie along by making that assumption? The way my faulty memory recalls it, we see the brown delivery truck drive up, we see the package that looks like any other delivery package, so my assumption is that this package has been sent through the usual channels to a specific address. But what's the address for a radio tower on a dirt road out in the dessert? And how can the killer manage to get both the delivery truck and the police car at the same spot at the same time so the delivery can be made? Remember, there was some discusssion among the cops about whether or not to go out to that location. So we have the killer in custody depending on his ability to persuade the cops to go to this remote location at a certain time while he's also counting on the delivery truck showing up at the same remote location at the same time. Means he has to rely on the courier's ability to find the location (or is it likely he really makes regular deliveries to that unmanned site?) and not have a flat somewhere along that remote dirt road before he gets there.

I know they talk about it in the film but I wasn't satisfied that it was fully covered. How many victims do they find before the killer, posing as a newspaper photographer, meets Mills? Certainly the "game" has already started with the discovery of the obese victim before the killer can possibly know what detectives will be assigned to the case. So he's already put himself at risk of discovery and capture before he allegedly has figured out how to bring his plot to a successful conclusion. Again, he's just taking a chance on a situation over which he has no control. Reminds me of the theater owner in Shakespeare in Love who keeps saying, "Never mind. It will all work out. I don't know how--it's a miracle."

Meanwhile, I definitely remember the detectives in Se7en discussing how it had taken the sloth victim years to die and that meant that the killer had been planning this whole thing for years. Planning it for years but not knowing what his final move will be until he meets the young detective? Somehow that just doesn't sound right to me.

Not only being caught but also being killed by the young detective, Mills or whoever. Otherwise, the killer's whole plan is a failure. But the killer can't count on it ending that way--he has absolutely no control over the final outcome. That's all in the hands of the young detective, who can choose not to shoot the killer; or the old detective, who can choose to shoot his partner to save his prisoner.

Is it possible for the whole plot to fall together just by fate? Sure, to the same degree that it's possible to dump out a package of Lincoln Logs and they all land together in the shape of a log cabin, complete with roof and chimney, instead of being scattered randomly over the floor.

Yes, it is out of his control but he's counting with Mills to shoot him - which he finally does. I, again, think you're missing the point here. The point isn't that John Doe has total control over every part of the plan. The point is that he has figured out the human race and is so disgusted by it and therefore uses the human behaviour to punish the human race. If he'd had total control over Mills then John Doe's work wouldn't be the masterpiece he wants it to be. It's because he knows us so well and can see how we have lost God in our lives that he is able to carry out his plan. Not because he's got the kind of control over us like a president or something.

If you consider, for instance, Mills killing John Doe an act of fate you must have been sleeping or misunderstood the whole film completely. Would you say that being shot by a man who've just seen his pregnant wife's head in a box a coincident, a man that all the way through the film we've gotten to know as an impulsive man following his heart and instinct rather than his intellect?

What I would consider to be unrealistic is what you're giving examples of, that Somerset would kill John Doe. Why would he feel the kind of rage, the wrath, that motivates Mills? Or why would Doe's plan be stopped by Somerset shooting Mills? Why would Somerset risk Mills' life to protect John Doe's? And the point of having them going out to this open but remote place is of course to hinder other people from intervening. And he paid the delivery guy extra to be sure he actually showed up and on a reasonably correct time.

There are lots of thing that could have gone wrong but that would have required someone to behave in an unpredictable way, which isn't likely to happen since humans are totally predictable and worthless, according to John Doe. And it's all becuase we've lost the godly morals in our lives.

Exactly! Mills "finally" shoots him. But first he raises his pistol, lowers it, raises it, lowers it. His mind is warring over his sworn duty as a policeman and his gut instinct to kill the man who has killed his wife. If the killer (did they really call him John Doe?) really had "figured out the human race," there would have been no hesitation. Mills would have opened the package, pulled his pistol and immediately shot the killer. Yes, the killer is betting Mills will react as he hopes, but he has no guarantee that plan will work, unless you assume there is no such thing as free will.



But I don't! I reject the whole notion of predestination and the assumption that the killer can accurately predict what any one human being will do under certain circumstances. My whole contention is that it's chance, not fate (i.e., an inevitable outcome). A roll of the dice--maybe one thing will happen, maybe another: the killer, no matter how "crazy like a fox," simply does not know for certain.

Which raises another point--law enforcement is all about procedure--collecting and processing of evidence, Miranda warnings, verifying facts, etc. It's all intellect with little reliance on instinct and no room at all for impulsiveness. Mills exhibits enough evidence of being out of control all through the picture that in a real police situation, he'd be pulled off the case and assigned desk duty while undergoing examination, counseling, and investigation.

If you're talking about Freedman's character killing the killer, I've never suggested that. In fact, I said that, had Freedman investigated the killings alone, before Mills was assigned as his partner, there was no way the killer could provoke the desired reaction from the older, more laid-back cop.

That said, however, as the ending now stands, it was Freedman's character, not the hotheaded Mills, who suffered the real moral lapse. Why? Because the killer was in his custody and it was his duty to protect him so that he could be brought to trial. That means up to and including shooting Mills so that he couldn't murder the prisoner. By not doing so, Freedman's character was no better than the western sheriff who steps aside to let a mob lynch his prisoner. Two detectives go out with a live prisoner and come back with a dead one with the bullet from one officer's pistol still in him, and both will soon be up on charges. One can say, "I did it," but the DA is going to ask the other, "Why did you let him?" The laid-back Freedman knew that Mills was a loose cannon, knew that killing the prisoner would be wrong, yet did nothing to prevent it. At the very least he's going to be fired and lose his pension, and likely as not will get some jail time in the bargain. What seems unrealistic to me is that, knowing this, he takes no action to protect his own career against some hothead that he'd only met just days before. Doesn't seem realistic to me for him to risk his own career out of "loyalty" to a partner he knows is a hothead and trouble-maker. The blue just doesn't run that deep.

Does it really say that in the movie? Yet even a big bribe couldn't have helped if the delivery truck had a flat along the way. Lucky for the killer (not to mention the scriptwriter and director) that didn't happen.

"There are lots of thing that could have gone wrong . . ." My point exactly. The killer spent years spinning a fragile web that could have fallen apart at many different points anywhere along the line.

Maybe John Doe really did think "humans are totally predictable . . ." But then he was crazy. And hasn't observed as many jury verdicts and elections as I have. I'll put my money on free will over fate, chance over certainty, any day of the week.

I think these two Directors are gems of our time and should be cherished. The wo are excellent craftsmen - technical and engaging at the same time. To compare, I think that Nolan has captured the studio eye a little better, lately doing more accessible material and doing movies a a fine clip - maybe more like Scorcese, but not in style. Fincher is more cerebral and certainly paces himself project-wise. Not a main-streamer, but able to become one if he grinded a little harder... maybe a little more like Welles?

It's impossible to compare these guys to other filmmakers - they are there own people in style, technique and vision. It's fun to try though.

Rufnek, Back to the Future must make your head explode.

That's as maybe, I just want to get my hands on this new documentary called Se7en!

__________________
"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

Errr, ever heard of old post?

I thought that clever and intelligent had the same context.
So you're saying that Memento, Following and Batman Begins and The Prestige aren't insightful films, right? How the can you suggest that a film like Memento has no real thematic depth when my lecturer presented me and the rest of my class mates with a 5000 essay regarding the thematic issues of the damn film? If you're not a fan of Christopher Nolan, fair enough. However, don't say that his films don't have any thematic depth when they clearly do.

You sound like you're scolding him for actually trying to do different things with narrative.

I think my assumptions about you were correct, you've just started studying film and you've been thrown an example of Nolan and reading his film and since you've not looked at film in deeo analysis before you're bumming it.

I've had option to do essays on Memento and my friend even did. If you read the essay i'm sure there'll be some critique of the film. I've just writen a 4000 word essay on Blue Velvet only looking at is a surreal text, i could write 10,000 words on the film, does that mean it's the bets film ever?

Nexus is right, they don't provide any particular interesting insight, or particularly well done compared to Fight Club and it's layers of subconscious.

Naw, I enjoy most fantasies! Guy wants to pretend there such a thing as time travel, I'll go along for the trip. And Raiders of the Lost Ark was the only Spielberg movie I enjoyed because it's a Saturday afternoon serial that's not supposed to make sense, so I never worried about where the guy was going to "hide" on that submerging German submarine! But if a director is going to pretend he's being serious and realistic, then I'm gonna hold his feet to the fire. (That stupid E.T. for example-- if the little bugger had remembered he could fly when he was first being chased by earthlings, he could have gotten back to the saucer in plenty of time instead of getting left behind!)

Sounds like my wife: "It's only a movie, not a damn documentary!" I love a good mystery as much as the next guy, but I want it to make sense instead of the screenwriter and director hoping that I won't notice the holes in the plot.

I'm really not trying to convert anyone who likes Se7en. If it works for you, great! I went to the theater willing to enjoy it, but was disappointed when the killer starts leaving clues behind fridges and depending on last-second developments to make his plan work.

Had the same problem with Vertigo when the killer counts on Jimmy Stewart and everyone else confusing Kim Novak with his actual wife, who apparently is still walking around in the same city. When it comes to the actual killing, he's counting on the "suicidal" Novak clilmbing the bell-tower steps faster than Stewart who suffers from Vertigo. Okay, that's possible. But he's also counting that the love-struck Stewart doesn't summon up the determination (as he later does when he takes Novak back to the scene of the crime) to go all the way up the tower to save the woman he loves. Not only that, the killer must count on no one noticing that he and an identically dressed blonde climbed the tower before Stewart and Novak. Or that the killer husband and identically dressed Novak came down again after the apparent "suicide." All of this at the Capistrano mission that is a tourist attraction! Then Novak, now an accessory to murder, turns her blonde hair brown and stays on in San Francisco where Stewart of course finds her. And although the two have been intimate, the audience is asked to pretend that he doesn't realize for the longest time that this is the same woman! Any guy with any experience at all knows that boat won't float. Even Hitchcock can't make happenstance look like fact.

the prestige disappointed me. I followed it it ok but others might find it difficult to follow. I almost did.

and how can one magician always pick his rival who was disguised from the audience every single time? this was a big killer for the film.
And u would assume that after the second time the rival messed up his trick, he would go to his house and simply sort it out once ans for all.

Bales character had a twin brother who no-one knew about. Now, i assumed that he kept this a secret because the twin brother was the only method to do the "transported man".

But tell me, before he even became a magician why did he not tell anyone he had a twin? And as they were growing up with no intentions of becoming magicians, why did they feel the need to hide the fact they were twins from eevryone?

did they plan on doing the "transported man" since the age of two?

and why did bale kill off jackmans wife in the beginning? did he really do wrong knot on purpose or not? and why?

And i was expecting something clever as to how bale done the transported man. As it turns out, it was a twin . This in my opinion was cheap due to the reasons i gave above.

A twin brother to explain all that happned? rubbish!!

"the illusionist" wiht ed norton was a superior film. Go see it peeps.

Which means Michael Caine's character got it right from the start, when he said using a double "is the only way I know that it can be done." It's also the only way that Angier knows how to do it, yet he keeps buying into the ideal that his opponent has come up with "real" magic. A professional magician who believes in "magic" rather than tricks??? He should have known better!

Yet, then the damn film shows us that Angier is actually cloning himself, in some whacked out sci-fi twist that hamstrung the whole thing... wtf?