Seven Analysis

At the beginning of Seven we are introduced to the character Detective Somerset (Morgan Freeman).Firstly We see  Somerset‘s character and we view him through  Mise -en-scene, cinematography, sound and through the editing as well. in the opening sequence we see Detective Somerset is in a kitchen assuming it is his, cleaning a coffee pot, from this we could interpret that he likes to keep his items clean and tidy. The curtains in his house look like bars this could represent that he lives somewhere dangerous, he is protective of himself or that he does not wish to communicate with the outside world much. on the table what we assume is his house there is a chessboard which is offend played by people who are strategic, this could be a big give away for  us to learn about him this is because chess is a game where you have to stay one step ahead of the other person, this then relates back to his job as a detective.

We see  Detective Somerset’s face, as he is tying his tie, we can see from this he likes to be well dressed, we could also say that he likes to dress intelligently, going back him and playing chess.   Next shot we see a close up of a table that shows a pen his police badge and a pocket knife. these three objects can all be seen differently, for instance the pen can be seen as the pen is mightier then the sword, as in he does more damage with his pen then his gun or pocket knife, his police badge can represent everything the police stand for justice fairness and safety. this can be related to his personality. his pocket knife can be seen as his back up after then pen sometimes you need to fight fire with fire. The objects are neatly positioned as well this tells us his coffee pot he has a place for his items and likes them neat and tidy.  We then see detective Somerset pick off a piece of dust from his jacket, going back to the coffee pot he likes his things clean and neat. This could also represent that  he scouts things out seeing every little detail. Detective Somerset's apartment is filled with darkness and has little rays of light bursting through this could be represented as him being a ray of hope in a dark town. There is also hardly any sound throughout all of this, there is no non-diegetic sound and hardly any diegetic sound just Somerset moving about his apartment.
   

In the next scene detective Somerset uses his keen eye to see the little detail. He then asks the other detective   “Did the kid see it?” the detective replies saying why does it matter if the kids see it or not we cant find the murder. This shows that he cares about the little things hoping that he can get big information out of something everybody could have missed .In the next scene we see Detective Mills (played by Brad Pitt)  ,we gather from his first impression he is almost smug, he looks and sounds confident and is chewing gum which is classic cheeky bad cop who plays by no ones rules but his own. We see Detective Somerset  asks Detective Mills about going somewhere else to relax and sit down to talk about the case. Detective Mills challenges Somerset and suggest something else. we see from this that they are both fighting to be alpha male or in this case the top detective.

This scene is shown the in the street the camera is in a worms eye view shot and looking towards them, this can show them as the law, big and powerful. Then this could be countered, when detective  Mills is walking down the street a woman bumps into him hard with no reaction of moving out the way. He then looks at her in disgust, this then tells me that maybe the law are not appreciated around those parts. When both detective Mills and Somerset walk down the they both walk with purpose and meaning, this is to feel the streets with authority.

The secondary part of the scene detective Mills tells detective Somerset that he doesn't want to be guarding a taco bell, this tells me that his last job he was all about the action and got the exciting cases to deal with. The next scene is back on Somerset and back in his apartment. He is reading a book in bed, this again helps me with the point of him being intelligent. He then carefully places his glasses on his bedside table and starts his metronome, the ticking of the metronome could be to help him drown out the background noise and help him concentrate on his thoughts, again refers to his intelligent's and him shielding himself from the general public.

As we get closer to Somerset's face with the metronome still going, the scene ends and we are brought on to the opening titles. It starts off by showing a close up of a book that is blank this is maybe a scrap book, there is also had that you can make out vividly turning the pages. The sound of  music in the background sounds very dark, creepy and adds a high pitch noise which sounds like screaming. We can clearly see that this book turner if you will is the bad guy in the film. the typography is projected as scratched on and moves quickly. This could represent the killer moving quickly without being seen