“What’s in the box?!”
Warning: Spoilers for a ’90s movie below.
In 1995,Brad Pitt’s exclamation of fear and dread jolted audiences and left a lasting cultural imprint.
Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt in ‘Seven’.Credit: New Line/courtesy Everett Collection
The film’s initial introduction to its world, a metropolis mired in unrest, is normal enough.
But the third act abandons cinematic tropes and convention.
Doe acted on his envy of Mills' normal life and incurs Mills' lethal wrath.
Kevin Spacey and Brad Pitt in ‘Seven’.Peter Sorel
And it was allthisclose to not happening; “What’s in the box?!”
nearly missed its canonization.
The producers eventually conceded to uphold the work’s artistic integrity.
“To change the ending to something else was to remove the very heart of the story.”
Entertainment Weeklylooks at how off-camera elements of the film successfully crafted suspense and resulted inSeven’s enduring ending.
“Tension was built from the earliest scenes,” producer Arnold Kopelson writes in an email to EW.
Kopelson was one of the ending’s early opposers but says he eventually came around.
“We attempted many different endings and none worked,” Kopelson explains.
“It needed this horrendous event to kick off the last sin, wrath.”
Kopelson credits Fincher with maintaining intensity at the film’s end.
Fincher also embraced creative risks.
But most of all, Francis-Bruce praises Fincher’s commitment to his vision.
But it’s all upended right before the final act, when Doe turns himself in.
The scene hinges on the fated car ride with Mills, Somerset, and Doe.
But whenMills says Doe only kills the innocent, his evil materializes.
Is that supposed to be funny?"
Something of that DNA was intimated as the delivery truck rumbles in.
From there, Doe never concedes it.
“As a composer, you’re always very aware of time,” Shore says.
Here, the near-absence of the score is crucial.
Beat after beat, the score supports and intensifies the devastating revelations, until the film’s bleak end.
Measured cuts
“I’m a great believer in having a motivated cut,” Francis-Bruce says.
The signs appear even before the key players arrive at the field.
Somerset worries, opens the box, and then his face contorts with horror.
The truth, though unseen, stuns.
Mills is torn between his training and his tragic loss.
Finally, the quick four-frame insert to Tracy appears, Mills' thought before he pulls the trigger.
“The whole scene has a very natural build to it,” Francis-Bruce says.
That was, for him, a little added bonus to the whole thing."
Mills, defeated by Doe, is shuttled away to pay for his final sin.
But even after all the darkness of the climax, Somerset retains a semblance of hope.
“I agree with the second part.”
Want more movie news?
