The Dark Style of Se7enAbstractThis paper centers on the dark style of the film Se7en,which is christened as “film noir”.What Se7en interests and impresses me most is its film noir characters, surreal,nightmarish atmasphere and its disturbing visual style.This paper introduces some basic knowledge of film noir and emphasizes on the analysis of the dark style of Se7en from several aspects,including lighting,setting, and angle.Key Wordsfilm onir;dark; unease1.IntroductionSe7en, a dark, grisly, horrifying and intelligent thriller, may be too disturbing for many people, I imagine. But if you can bear to watch it, you will see filmmaking of a high order. It tells the story of two detectives - one ready to retire, the other at the start of his career - and their attempts to capture a perverted serial killer who is using the Seven Deadly Sins as his scenario. Director David Fincher doesn't want his audience to be comfortable for a moment while watching "Seven." Shaky camera shots, dark sets and a disturbing script that takes its characters to the extremes of emotion all contribute to the film creating a unsettled feeling that stays with you for a couple hours after the credits roll.2.literature reviewThe concept of film noir first emerged in 1940s France.Having been deprived of Hollywood films during the Germa occupation,French critics were finally able to see an numble of Hollywood films that had been made during the war years.The group of films that they saw shared a common visual style and a mood of cynicism,pessimism,and darkness,and they christened them “film noir”.Film noir characters are morally ambivalent,that is to say ,it is often impossible to draw clear lines between the “good” and the “bad”,and the traditional distinctions(cops=good/criminals=bad)no longer apply.Police and law enforcers arefrequently corrupt,or at least corruptible; criminals and lawbreakers may emerge as sympathetic figures;and victims are often themselves also villains.The protagonist is no hero;instead,he is an all-too-human figure who may both perpetrate(as well as suffer)some appalling abuse in the course of the film.A surreal,nightmarish atmasphere characterizes film noir film.This mood is fostered by unexplained motives and confusing plot twists.It is often difficult to establish motives for characters’actions,and equally difficult to predict in which direction the plot will spin. The audience experiences the kind of uncertainty and disorientation,feeling in a dream.The overriding theme of film noir is a fear of the future..The mood of film noir is that of loss,nostalgia,and trepidation.3.Own analysisMuch of the distinctiveness of Se7en can be attributed to its skillful adaption of the conventions of film noir to the contemporary world.There is a common moral ambiguity,which casts heroes as potential villains and villains as potential heroes;a trepidation about the future and nostalgia for a more civilized world that exists only in the imagination;a puzzling and disturding narrative which andermines one’s expectations;and the characteristic noir style of perpetual rainfall,low-key lighting,and a subdued colour palette dominated by dullish grays,murky browns,and putrid.It is a classic film noir,but with a twist—a serial-killer narrative that raises import contemporary questions about the respective roles of morality,culture,and the media in our postmodern urban world.A central feature of most film noir and neo-noir is moral contradiction.It is frequently difficult to draw clear lines between good and bad,or state with certainty who it is that occupies the high maral ground.This is certainly the case with Se7en,in that neither Mills nor Somerset demonstrates unimpeachable standards.In their professional lives,for example,both are prepared to take immoral (and even illegal)measures to achieve their goal of arresting and prosecuting John Doe.Somerset bribes an associate in the FBI for access to the library records of borrowers—of course,the fact that the FBI even keeps such records is of questionable legality—and together they use this illegally gathered information to find out Doe’s address.When they reach his apartment,Mills simply kicksopen the door,rather than follow the correct and legal procedures,and first get hold of a search warrant.Aware that illegally gathered information would be invalid in a court of law,they then proceed to bribe an poor local resident to make up a story that will exculpate them.The victims of Doe’s cruel crimes are definitely no better.The obscenely fat man is an insult to human dignity;the greed of Elias Gould is fed by the money earned from defending rapists and murderers in court;Theodore Allen,punished for sloth,is actually a drug dealer and maker of horrific sexual crimes;the blonde woman is a prostitute in a seedy sex club;and the model was so vain that she could not live without her good looks.“The over-riding noir theme is a passion for the past and the present,but also a fear of the future.The noir hero dreads to look ahead,but instead tries to survive by theday,and if unseccessful at that,he retreats to the past.Thus film noir’s techniques emphasize loss,nostalgia,lack of clear priorities,insecurity;then submerge these self-doubts in mannerism and style.In such a world style becomes paramount;it is all that separates one from meaninglessness.”(Schrader,Paul.1999.Notes on Film Noir.) Se7en employs many of the classic film noir/neo-noir techniques to create its disturbing visual style.The main techniques and their effects are shown below.The look of "Seven" is crucial to its effect. This is a very dark film, the gloom often penetrated only by the flashlights of the detectives. Even when all the lights are turned on in the apartments of the victims, they cast only wan, hopeless pools of light. Gary Wissner, the art director, goes for dark blacks and browns, deep shadows, lights of deep yellow, and a lot of dark wood furniture. Film noir/neo-noir relies on the play of light and darkness for its characteristically oppressive mood,and se7en is no exception.To increase the luminosity of light tones and the density of the darks,director of photography for se7en,Darius Khondji,employed the seldom-used method of silver retention.The contrast is further exaggerated by the use of mise-en-scene:shadows,silhouettes,and flashlights probing into the envenoping darkness are the visual hallmarks of the film.Darkness thus becomes a symbol of that which is hidden beneath the surface;as Amy Taubin remarks,the film’s visuals”literalize the struggle of bringing things to light”.Yet while film noir/neo-noir tends to use darkness to create its sense of unease,this is not inevitably the case.In the final sequence,se7en relies not on darkness but on brightness—the scorching light of the desert—to induce asense of fearful anticipation.Khondji puts it this way,”For me,when I read the script,scary had to do with darkness.But it’s not always the case,sometimes it’s to do with a lot of light and no shadow at all```I thought that the scariest thing to suggest would be that there’s nowhere to hide.”As in most film noir/neo-noir,the setting is the city.Even when,in the final sequence,Mills and Somerset drive out into the desert,the city and its objects are never far away—it is theere in the pylons that ferry electricity to and fro,and it is there in the helicopter circling overhead.Scenes are generally filmed either indarkly lit interiors,or outside when it is raining.This predilection for city settings and dark interiors contributes to the prevailing mood of claustrophobia and entrapment.The low-angle shot is employed with great regularity,and has the effect of making buildings,ceilings,and human figures seem to loom down on the camera(and audience) in a sinister,theatening manner.Wide-angle lenses exaggerate this effect still further by distorting lines of positionally,lines are used to split the screen diagonally;they are used most prominently in this way in the final desert sequence where the electricity cables crisscross the screen.Se7en breaks the 189-degree rule in the scene in which Somerset and Mills drive Doe into the desert.One minute the camera is filming from the left,the next from the right,then from the back towards the front,and then from the front towards the back.This creates an effects of dislocation and visual confusion that is part of the overall sense of unease of film noir.“Even in close-ups,fencher keeps an uneasy distance(he favours low-angled shots,rather than eye-of-God overheads).The camera sometimes seems tofloat,sometimes seems dragged as if by sn undertow.The extremely shallow focus is a way of controlling the view’s eye,making you look at waht you don’t want to see an d suggesting that there;s something worse that you just can’t get a grip on lurking on the periphery.”(Taubin,Amy.2000.The Allure of Decay.)4.ConclusionAll in all,Se7en deserves all the reputation it has received.It gives us such a shock by successfully employing many of the classic film noir/neo-noir techniques.Its lighting,settings,shotting and scenes all together make the film worthy of the name of perfection.Bibliography[1]Schrader,Paul. Notes on FilmNoir.Shanhai: Shanhai Foreign Language Education Press,1999[2]Taubin,Amy.The Allure of Decay.Shanhai: Shanhai Foreign Language Education Press,2000[3] 马爱英(Ma Aiying).《中英文化翻译》.北京：科学出版社,2006。
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