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Director David Fincher's thriller, Seven (1995), raises the question of the ability of mankind to be inexplicably very evil. In this film, a psychotic serial murderer uses the seven sins: extravagance, greed, gluttony, envy, pride, wrath, and discouragement as the basis for perpetrating his evil. Detectives William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) and his new rookie replacement, David Mills (Brad Pitt), are assigned to the case. Somerset and Mills quickly become discouraged (sinful) with one another's life outlooks which drives their work styles, and it makes it impossible to be partners. They are assigned separate cases, but just as quickly find the murders they're assigned are the same perpetrator, and they must, therefore, collaborate.
But for the fact that evil truly exists, it might have been impossible to write such an intriguing and frightening script. The world has stood witness to the evil of men: the concentration camps of World War II, the genocide in Rwanda, and the depths to which mankind has sunk throughout history in the name of religion or other cause, or to be just plain evil are unfathomable in the minds of most of us. This film brings home the dark and evil side of mankind, and troubling as it might seem, it is a comment on what has passed.
There is only one way to fight evil, and that is to confront it with its polar opposite, goodness. This does not mean that we should confront it with harsh language, but that we should attempt to at worst eradicate it, and at best to isolate it, as is the case of Charles Manson. Like the film's evil perpetrator, John Doe (Kevin Spacey), Manson manifested signs of a highly intelligent person, but that intelligence, when lacking moral perspective, or, in the case of John Doe, when the moral perspective gives way to psychosis, does not prevent the individual from becoming profoundly evil, and capable of extreme acts of torture and violence against others.
At the end of the film Somerset quotes Ernest Hemingway, "The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for," he is saying that good people are the majority, and evil people are the minority, therefore the world is worth protecting against the darkness of the evil people.
Reference List
Fincher, D. (dir) (1995). Se7en (Seven), motion picture, New Line Cinema, USA.
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