I’ve watched Seven three times in the past two days. (Does that make it 21 times?) Yes, this is a bit extreme, and slightly disturbing. But, it’s not quite what you think. I watched it straight through the first time, then with one of the four commentaries (Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, David Fincher), then with another commentary (Andrew Kevin Walker, Richard Dyer, Richard Francis-Bruce and Michael De Luca). Nearly every time I prepare to watch Seven, I have at that point forgotten just how great a movie it is. And, with this viewing, I was compelled to continue my exploration of the film by learning more about it. But I’m not going to recreate or duplicate the insight found on the DVD’s. For that, you should actually own a copy. Instead, I’d like to share my thoughts on some parallels I found between Seven and a certain popular graphic novel that is soon to be a film itself.
At a certain point in the “story” commentary, Andrew Kevin Walker casually mentions that he was living in New York, writing the screenplay and reading Watchmen, but this aside is more than just a casual name-drop or mention of reading habits. Instead, it becomes one of the most informing anecdotes on the writing of the film.
First of all, this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Watchmen is one of the most influential pieces of fiction ever produced, causing ripples of influence upon anything it touches. Different elements of the complex and disparate storylines that interweave to make Watchmen have been cut up, dissected and copied / homaged in other projects. The television show Heroes used the idea of an acceptable sacrifice to save the world. In fact, Heroes didn’t even bother to use any kind of subterfuge in its homage by using the same exact percentage number of acceptable losses to save the world as a whole. Lost, a television show that does tend to do a better job in masking its influences, albeit only slightly, has dozens up on dozens of nods to Watchmen, to the point where there’s an entire page of parallels on Lostpedia. Hell, even the animated film, The Incredibles, takes its concept of a world where superheroes are banned / in hiding from Watchmen. In other words, borrowing from one of the richest pieces of fiction in history is par for the course.
Where Seven lifts from Watchmen is in its central antagonist, the enigmatic John Doe. He is, in essence, Rorschach (though he also has a bit of Ozymandias in him). The parallels are numerous. Both consider themselves on a higher moral plane, willing to subvert criminal law to justify their own ends and means. Both mete out vigilante ‘justice’ to uphold their own moral code. Rorschach and John Doe believe in moral absolutes. Rorschach’s morals are right wing extremist, and Doe bases his morals on the ‘Seven Deadly Sins,’ a code that Doe observes, correctly, is broken every day. (And this was before all the “Powered by Pride” stickers on pickup trucks everywhere).
Both seek anonymity. John Doe is, as Detective Somerset remarks, ‘John Doe by choice.’ He named himself, cuts off the tips of his own fingers to avoid fingerprinting, pays everything in cash, and essentially lives a quiet, Spartan lifestyle. Rorschach (aka Walter Kovacs), lives an incredibly similar lifestyle, alienating himself from the world, keeping a low profile, avoiding interaction, and even sporting a mask that never appears the same way twice, its trademark inkblots continually moving and shifting.
John Doe’s past is never mentioned in the film, though there are allusions and theories made by the detectives in the film. These theories match up with the past given to Kovacs, a disturbing childhood filled with humiliations, degradations, abuse and constant exposure to people in his environment breaking what would eventually be his moral code.
Though we may not be meant to sympathize completely with each character, we are meant to identify on some level. Rorschach is a vigilante hero, working outside the law to catch criminals and dole out his own form of violent justice. Ever since Batman, a direct response to the seemingly flawless and impervious do-gooder superheroes like Superman, comic book heroes have been doing this for decades, and those characters always seem the most popular. Batman, Wolverine, Deadpool, etc. These are the ‘heroes’ that garner the biggest followings. And while John Doe’s actions are horrific, we are meant to witness the last full conversation between Doe and the two detectives as a dialogue in which every point of view is valid and identifiable. Detective Mills’ simplistic view of the world sees Doe as insane, and that is an easy, surface way to look at the character. Somerset tries to speak to Doe on his level, trying to find chinks in the armor of moral absolutes by pointing out that martyrdom should exclude enjoyment. Somerset sees shades of grey and intellectual complexities where Mills sees black and white and mental imbalance. In that way, Mills and Somerset are actually seeing two sides of who John Doe really is, without ever putting the two together for a complete picture. In fact, Doe is portrayed as an intelligent foil to the character of Mills, who often shows his lack of smarts by mispronouncing names of important literary figures (“The Marquis de Sharday”) and reading Cliffs Notes instead of the actual books recommended by Somerset. Unlike many other fictional villains, the trail to Doe is found by use of the public library. Mills dismisses his intelligence as insanity when he says, “He’s a nut-bag! Just because the fucker’s got a library card doesn’t make him Yoda.”
We are, in fact, also meant to identify with John Doe. His speech about seeing the Deadly Sins broken every day is, while clearly incensed and motivated by that righteous moral absolutism, filled with observational truths. I, myself, have had a difficult time reconciling the hypocrisies of those who supposedly follow the Christian code of the Ten Commandments and continually break the Seven Deadly Sins. But, that would get me off on a tangent, so I’ll merely come back to the fact that, while stated with a certain amount of mania, John Doe’s point of view is meant to be understood and accepted. The difference between us, as law-abiding citizens, and John Doe (and Rorschach), is that while we may identify with these feelings of disgust and moral revulsion, we do not take the leap to act upon these feelings.
John Doe and Rorschach (and Ozymandias), do take the leap to act upon their moral outrages, and do so in an incredibly questionable fashion that breaks other laws and codes, civil, criminal, moral or otherwise. John Doe’s master plan is Machiavellian in nature and quite ingenious. So, too, is the plan of Ozymandias in Watchmen. They both feel as though their own individual grand schemes will change the world. John Doe states, “I’m not special. I’ve never been extraordinary. This is, though. What I’m doing.” Ozymandias states, “I saved earth from hell. Next, I’ll help her towards utopia.” While the latter statement is more grandiose, each anti-hero sees their work as important, and possibly leading toward a more utopian future, in terms of their own moral visions.
Finally, there is an odd bit of homage in the business of dead dogs. After Kovacs is arrested, he is shown, ironically, inkblot tests. One reminds him of a dog with its head split open. The therapist asks how the dog’s head got that way. Kovacs replies that he did it. At the end of Seven, after Doe is arrested, he leads Mills and Somerset to a remote location. There, they find a dead dog. Doe quickly responds meekly, “I didn’t do that.”
Though Andrew Kevin Walker throws out his Watchmen aside casually, there is nothing casual about the relationships between his movie Seven, and the iconic graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Specifically, we can see there are many parallels between the dangerous enigmatic vigilante characters of John Doe and Rorschach. The final thing I want to mention is that, in listening to the commentaries, I can’t believe that the producers and studio wanted this film to be changed in such drastic ways. This film, like Watchmen, is filled with complexity, darkness, is a mirror to society, and shines a harsh light on reality in all its ugliness. One producer in particular, an idiot in my opinion, remarked that Fincher turned a perfectly good cop picture into a foreign film.
Thank goodness he did.
