MINDHUNTER Series Discussion

[Drain Bamage]

i'm surprised you feel that way. as others have already said, i think he's great.

Yeah I may have been a little harsh in my assessment

 

[SmilinDesperado]

I'm only an episode in so far, and I'm lukewarm on it right now.
I don't really like the main character, unless the twist is that he's a serial killer, he has some weird autistic tendencies himself. He has a lot of weird interactions with people , but I don't feel like the writers were intentionally trying to make him a weirdo.
Some of the conversations also seem too forced and unnatural.

The topic is interesting though, so I'll stick with it.

 

[fortheo]

I'm on episode six and I'm loving it. It's a slow burn, but the character development is building in each episode and the plot is slowly unfolding. The cinematography is very fincher like, which I've always appreciated.

 

[fortheo]

I watched the first two episodes and enjoyed it. One big criticism I have to get out of the way. The lead character is the most boring character in the show. Bland, dull, naive, and just talks in an off-putting manner. All the surrounding characters are more interesting and it's hard to understand why they are drawn to hang around Holden. Like his girlfriend. She seems intelligent and interesting, they have an awkward first date where she talks circles around him and he says nothing impressive. I don't understand why they are together. It comes across as a failed first date and he never does anything to redeem himself.

I find him interesting, but only because 95 percent of what he says is just train of consciousness thoughts about whatever case he's working on, and that includes his dialogues with his girlfriend—he'll often bounce ideas off her in regards to his current case. There's also a certain mystery about a guy who came from "all around", born in "brooklyn" yet distinctly not new yorkish. I'm only on episode 6, so maybe they go nowhere with that back story of his, but I find him interesting enough.



That said, it took me an episode or two to warm up to him. The very first negotiation scene with him in the beginning was a pretty big turn off for me in regards to his character and mannerisms/speech, but he grew on me quickly.

 

[Peteyandjia]

Three eps in- really liking it. Fincher is a boss.

Came here to say this.

Good stuff.

Really feels like Zodiac: Extended Edition

And that ain't a bad thing.

 

[Protectandserve]

Finished it last weekend and absolutely can't wait for the follow up seasons.

 

[ThulsaDooom]

Kinda of a serial killer junkie. I've watched documentaries on most all of the big names and Kemper was always the most interesting to me. The guy playing him is fucking perfect. Very much enjoying it thus far through 2 eps.

Knew his name but didn't know about his....accomplishments. Fucking his dead mother's head, screaming at it for an hour and using it to throw darts at it is almost kind of hilarious in a weird and gnarly way because it's almost too crazy to believe. The actor was phenomenal though and the conversations they had were fascinating to watch unfold.

Just like The Wire, The Deuce, Better Call Saul, etc....this definitely isn't a show for the short attention span crowd. Not sure why people are saying Holden is boring when he's up against insane resistance to change in the FBI, he is highly intelligent but starts the season as a naive kind of boy scout but slowly morphs into a highly capable interrogator that's also recklessly arrogant. His relationship with Debbie shows this all too well, you're not supposed to be rooting for them as a couple, it's more about his character growth as he, and his co-workers, develop a groundbreaking system.

 

[ShartDog]

Do you guys hear a weird tapping sound in the background of the show occasionally?

 

[HereticBD]

Knew his name but didn't know about his....accomplishments. Fucking his dead mother's head, screaming at it for an hour and using it to throw darts at it is almost kind of hilarious in a weird and gnarly way because it's almost too crazy to believe. The actor was phenomenal though and the conversations they had were fascinating to watch unfold.

I only knew of him recently. He's featured in some documentary from way back I saw not too long ago, and they interview him in prison. The actor NAILED it.

He's one of the more interesting, lesser known serial killers. Although, he's gonna be a star now. Is it a little fucked up that a part of my brain is thinking "It's about time he got some recognition. This guy was totally underrated."

 

[Bullitt68]

I'm with the majority on the main character sucking. A few episodes in and I was thinking that this has to be the lamest lead character/actor combo in anything I've seen in recent memory. I can't lay all the blame at the actor's feet, though. I think, in virtually every scene that didn't involve a killer, the writing was actually pretty poor. Comparing this to something like The Social Network, for example, you really get a sense in this show of the limitations of someone like Fincher if the writing foundation isn't there (as if Seven wasn't proof enough of this problem).

Speaking more broadly, I did enjoy this show, but nowhere near as much as I was hoping to. It's light years in front of True Detective, which I thought was basically trash, but it's light years behind something like Hannibal, which offers far more insights (in quantity and quality) into the psychology of twisted people (to say nothing of how literally every single aspect of the creative process far exceeded anything in just about anything else that's ever been on TV). I also thought the supporting characters in this show were dreadful, both written poorly and played by people who brought absolutely nothing to the table. The girlfriend was especially excruciating and the way that relationship was handled boggled my fucking mind.

All of that said, I'm also with the majority in thinking that Cameron Britton stole the fucking show as Ed Kemper. Holy shit was that guy good.

Bottom line: There are plenty of worse shows out there, but there are also plenty of better ones. However, if you like the "true crime" stuff and/or if you are or ever were a serial killer buff, there's enough here to make this show worth your time.

 

[ThulsaDooom]

I'm with the majority on the main character sucking. A few episodes in and I was thinking that this has to be the lamest lead character/actor combo in anything I've seen in recent memory. I can't lay all the blame at the actor's feet, though. I think, in virtually every scene that didn't involve a killer, the writing was actually pretty poor. Comparing this to something like The Social Network, for example, you really get a sense in this show of the limitations of someone like Fincher if the writing foundation isn't there (as if Seven wasn't proof enough of this problem).

Speaking more broadly, I did enjoy this show, but nowhere near as much as I was hoping to. It's light years in front of True Detective, which I thought was basically trash, but it's light years behind something like Hannibal, which offers far more insights (in quantity and quality) into the psychology of twisted people (to say nothing of how literally every single aspect of the creative process far exceeded anything in just about anything else that's ever been on TV). I also thought the supporting characters in this show were dreadful, both written poorly and played by people who brought absolutely nothing to the table. The girlfriend was especially excruciating and the way that relationship was handled boggled my fucking mind.

All of that said, I'm also with the majority in thinking that Cameron Britton stole the fucking show as Ed Kemper. Holy shit was that guy good.

Bottom line: There are plenty of worse shows out there, but there are also plenty of better ones. However, if you like the "true crime" stuff and/or if you are or ever were a serial killer buff, there's enough here to make this show worth your time.

While I disagree with some of your points, I had to give a like for Hannibal. I'm going to be squealing like a little girl when we finally get season 4.

 

[HereticBD]

While I disagree with some of your points, I had to give a like for Hannibal. I'm going to be squealing like a little girl when we finally get season 4.

Did something change? Last I heard was that it was cancelled for good, and even Netflix passed on it.

 

[ThulsaDooom]

Did something change? Last I heard was that it was cancelled for good, and even Netflix passed on it.

Just read that talks have begun and the rights to Silence of the Lamb ran out in August. Fuller talked with Mikkelson and Hugh Dancy on his plan for a fourth season and they're both "keen on it." Still nothing concrete but there's hope! Looking much better than before.

 

[Drain Bamage]

I'm with the majority on the main character sucking. A few episodes in and I was thinking that this has to be the lamest lead character/actor combo in anything I've seen in recent memory. I can't lay all the blame at the actor's feet, though. I think, in virtually every scene that didn't involve a killer, the writing was actually pretty poor. Comparing this to something like The Social Network, for example, you really get a sense in this show of the limitations of someone like Fincher if the writing foundation isn't there (as if Seven wasn't proof enough of this problem).

Speaking more broadly, I did enjoy this show, but nowhere near as much as I was hoping to. It's light years in front of True Detective, which I thought was basically trash, but it's light years behind something like Hannibal, which offers far more insights (in quantity and quality) into the psychology of twisted people (to say nothing of how literally every single aspect of the creative process far exceeded anything in just about anything else that's ever been on TV). I also thought the supporting characters in this show were dreadful, both written poorly and played by people who brought absolutely nothing to the table. The girlfriend was especially excruciating and the way that relationship was handled boggled my fucking mind.

All of that said, I'm also with the majority in thinking that Cameron Britton stole the fucking show as Ed Kemper. Holy shit was that guy good.

Bottom line: There are plenty of worse shows out there, but there are also plenty of better ones. However, if you like the "true crime" stuff and/or if you are or ever were a serial killer buff, there's enough here to make this show worth your time.

True Detective season 1 was far better than Mindhunter.

You got a problem with the writing of Seven?

 

[Bullitt68]

While I disagree with some of your points, I had to give a like for Hannibal.

I'm going to be squealing like a little girl when we finally get season 4.

That show was so damn good that a part of me hopes they just leave it alone. Then again, that team was so good that another part of me wants to see what the hell they'd come up with

True Detective season 1 was far better than Mindhunter.

You got a problem with the writing of Seven?

I have major problems with both True Detective and Seven. Not only that, I've actually ranted about them on here in considerable detail. To save space, I'm going to spoiler tag my rants for you to follow up on if you're interested.

True Detective:

Spoiler

I watched HBO's other show set in Louisiana with the word "true" in the title, and let me tell you, True Detective is no True Blood. I'd add True Detective to the list with The Wire and Breaking Bad as overrated crap the popularity and critical acclaim of which I just cannot fathom. What was it? McConaughey's hobo-hippie hairdo? Woody being Woody? The ten-cent Wiki-existentialism?

True Detective is essentially the short bus Hannibal. They wanted to make a smart, philosophically-charged show but then they realized that nobody on the writing staff knew diddly shit so they just started writing random gibberish for McConaughey's Hippie Heidegger character to jabber on about at interminable length for 8 agonizing episodes. I will say that, buried beneath the cheap philosophy and the artificial atmosphere, there was a fantastic show waiting to be told. Episodes 6 and 7 when they were in the present-day with the snuff film and the burned-face guy were the strongest of the bunch (though they even managed to fuck that up with the retarded way they decided to end that story in the first half of Episode 8). If they would've tried to cross 8MM and Angel Heart, they might've had something great with the creepy ritualistic stuff, the disturbing snuff stuff, the religious conspiracy stuff, and the "Yellow King" stuff. They had a ton of awesome material that they buried under a boring story about two losers, and that makes me hate True Detective even more than The Wire and Breaking Bad because between the three of them it's the one that had the most potential.

As far as bullit trashing, TD... Not surprised. I'll take the guys views on movies all day, but shows? Idk about that. The only thing similar between Hannibal and TD is the fact that there are murders and cops involved. Very different shows going for very different themes

You guys know I'm never a contrarian just for the sake of it, I never try to be "cool" by not liking the popular stuff, but I've found, with TV more than movies, my taste is almost never in line with the majority. True Detective is just the latest popular and critically acclaimed show to miss me by a mile.

He's watched something completely different.

I didn't watch something different. I wanted to watch something different than what I was stuck watching, which IMO was disappointingly unoriginal and hackneyed.

The murders are simply one aspect of a conversation Pizzolatto is having with the audience about men and women, and how we (incorrectly) think that the thought processes that lead to such murders are so distant from the things happening in our homes (Marty's reaction to his daughter sleeping with multiple males in a car).

This is never followed through on, though. If it's about relationships and "things happening in our homes," what happened in the home of the Yellow King? What were his relationships like? We never actually understand what is happening or what led to it, and more to the point, neither do the characters. I won't deny, I really liked the dialogue where McConaughey complains about how they didn't get everybody involved and Woody responds, "And we ain't gonna get 'em all, that ain't what kind of world it is, but we got ours."

I like the idea of a finite character-world where not every last thread will be tied together to make a dramatically perfect story, but at the same time, I felt cheated by how little I did get dramatically speaking. It's one thing to try to go a different route from the standard hour-long police procedural where every last loose end gets tied up before the end credits roll, but after eight episodes and however many diegetic years during which time McConaughey devoted his life to putting that puzzle together, I wanted a hell of a lot more than what I got.

If that's more me bitching than it is me identifying crucial flaws in the overall conceptual edifice, I'll accept that, but I think it's a valid criticism of elements which, if handled better, could've elevated the series rather than weigh it down.

Also, all the stuff about how McConaughey is a walking Heidegger ignores its purpose - organic character arc, and even in terms of veracity, is far more rooted in research than the pop psychology sessions in Hannibal (I've only seen Season 1 though). Screw that even because, you know, fuck veracity; everything Cohle says (especially the "time is a flat circle" speech) ties in perfectly with how the story plays out.

Realism isn't my primary concern. It's part of the problem with the way McConaughey's character was written, the way it felt so abstract and not grounded in the concrete situations in which his character was enveloped, but realism is not a prerequisite to great storytelling. In fact, I find the hyperbolic nature of Hannibal to be its greatest strength.

I think there's a point about Kubrick paradigmatically explicated in this surprisingly solid internet write-up that will prove equally relevant for a critical context in which to assess Hannibal.

Kubrick once told Jack Nicholson, "We're not interested in photographing the reality. We're interested in photographing the photograph of the reality."[2] Stanley Kubrick's films are not fictions but psychic documentaries. Suspending our disbelief

This was the little metaphysical soliloquy that told us what the show was about. It outlines the truth of our perceptions as audience members, no, fourth-dimensional audience members, looking in (at story). As an audience staring at our LEDs at a visual story, we have numerous luxuries. We can see Cohle and Hart in 2014, in 1995, in 2001. Given our fourth-dimensional vantage point, we can see the threads that connect one character to the next, one theme to a set of characters. Hence, it is natural for us to hypothesise, theorise, to try to find answers, to connect the dots. But, as fourth dimensional beings, to us "it's a circle". It isn't as multi-faceted as a sphere. It only exists so we can make broader connections, not connections that tell us about the yellow king specifically, but about men like the yellow king, men who, whether they are within the frame or without, constantly affect the circumstances of women and men.

I don't know anything about quantum theory, but my interpretation of that M-theory stuff is that the fourth-dimensional vantage point is better, at least in the sense of being able to see everything from a teleological perspective. Neither McConaughey nor Harrelson can perceive a telos inasmuch as they are barred from a fourth-dimensional perspective. According to your contention, that the fourth-dimensional perspective is a distinctly spectatorial (in every sense) perspective (and therefore our perspective as the spectators of this series), the fact that we are just as unable to perceive a telos should signal our placement at a different dimensional vantage point, one shared by McConaughey and Harrelson.

Without wanting to go too far down the theological rabbit hole, a fourth-dimensional perspective that can not only recognize but chart beginnings, middles, and ends; a perspective that sees, knows, and understands all, that sounds to me like the perspective of a creator, not a spectator, which is to say, an author. And this is why I'm so hard on True Detective: The author of this series threw so much shit at the wall that it all splattered together and I can't even tell what stuck. The fourth-dimensional perspective stuff sounds "deep," but it opens up so many incoherent character, spectatorial, and authorial positions that it ends up confusing more than illuminating.

It's not necessary for us, as fourth dimensional viewers, to understand the specific thought processes of The Yellow King, but to understand it's place in the larger story.

I'm not following you here. What do you mean it's "not necessary?" And, in support of my earlier complaints, how can we be expected to understand the "place in the larger story" of the Yellow King without understanding the Yellow King?

So when Cohle is near death, he reaches out into this fourth dimensional space, and gets a sense of the view that we have as a fourth-dimensional viewer. He feels his own existence within the larger story. All this time he's needed to find out the details (his crazy John Nash room) but once out there, even for the short time that he was, he sees only what we've seen. That The Yellow King is simply part of this larger story. That as a character within his story on earth, not only can he not see the threads that we can, but he can't even see the rest of the members of the cult, because he is bound by the realities of being someone on earth, like you and me when we read about a captured serial killer and worry about whether he has influenced/affected/killed others.

Here again you've gotten tripped up by equating the fourth-dimensional perspective with a spectatorial position. If McConaughey truly occupied a fourth-dimensional perspective, he should've been able to see all of the players and all of the threads, but because he is "someone on Earth," he therefore couldn't have possibly achieved for even a brief moment a fourth-dimensional perspective. You also went from placing us above McConaughey ("not only can he not see the threads that we can") to placing us on the same level ("he is bound by the realities of being someone on Earth, like you and me"). I'm losing track of which dimension I'm in.

It took their transcending to this other world, even if only momentarily, for them to understand that they wiped out a truly evil being, and that light had replaced it, however small the difference might appear in the night sky.

Again, I don't quite support the idea of slipping between dimensions, but on your point about the Yellow King being "a truly evil being," this would seem to invite a linkage between True Detective and the concept of the multiverse. Rather than thinking about dimensions, with a fourth-dimensional perspective representing an ostensibly omniscient perspective, I think the idea of multiple universes (e.g., the McConaughey/Harrelson universe versus the Yellow King/cult universe) and our privileged view into only one is a better approximation of our spectatorial position. Added to which, for me as a spectator, I always find it compelling when multiple universes interpenetrate (I'm thinking here of the two films I mentioned earlier in connection with True Detective: Angel Heart and 8MM), something that unfortunately never happened in True Detective.

Seven:

Spoiler

Se7en is up near the top of the list of movies I want to like so much more than I actually do. Whenever I watch that movie, I spend the whole time wanting it to be better, because based on the plot, there are no excuses for why it sucks so much. The script blows, Fincher's direction is worse, Pitt was even more terrible than I remembered, Paltrow is barely a blip, Spacey is wasted, and Freeman is just there.

The entire dynamic between Freeman and Pitt makes no sense, is written so clumsily, and performed like shit. The antagonism is extremely forced and the friendship over dinner is one of the most cringeworthy things in movies. And I don't think anybody involved in that film at any point knew what the fuck they were trying to do with Freeman. What the fuck was that character? He's no cynical Sam Spade, he's no smarmy Philip Marlowe, he wasn't a misanthropic Mike Hammer. What was he supposed to be? And what was he supposed to end up as? His "philosophy" was imbecilic and incoherent and never cohered in the film's Weltanschauung.

A filmmaker once said of Tarkovsky that he wasn't a great thinker but that he was a great practitioner, and I think that's quite a fitting a description for Fincher. Beyond the shitty script and the worse acting, the pursuit of such philosophically deep material was something neither Fincher nor his screenwriter were intellectually equipped for, and it shows in the finished product. However, as a great practitioner, much of Se7en's aesthetic is excellent, particularly the sequence where they follow the SWAT team into the sloth's place and most notably that magnificent sequence where they track down Spacey from the library records and he gets the drop on Pitt. Cinematically, the latter sequence is pure perfection from every perspective, especially the cinematography and the sound design, and not even I would dare attempt to take anything away from those few minutes. But beyond those few minutes, there's little of merit, IMO.

Bull, still waiting for your Seven rebuttal.

Haven't had time to give a real response, though now, of course, the film isn't as fresh in my mind. Still, I'll do my best:

I thought you loved The Game?

After my first viewing, I loved the shit out of it, and for years afterwards, that was my basis. Then sometime in the last year or two I caught it on TV and it was like night and day (I could've sworn I posted about my disappointing rewatch but I couldn't find it), like Fincher had done some magic trick but somehow I ended up backstage and the whole illusion was ruined and I felt cheated. None of the initial intensity was there, nothing made any sense, and the ending was retarded.

I love a good thrill ride, and first time experiences with shit like Miracle Mile and Cloverfield are the kinds of movie experiences I really cherish, but the difference between those two and The Game is that the ride is good for more than just one spin.

For me, the movies there is no such thing as movies I want to like. I either do, or I don't. For example, Prometheus. Do I want to like it? No. This is what I have to watch and it sucks. But do I wish it were 1000 times better? Of course. Who doesn't want a perfect movie?

I guess I'm trying to hit on the conceptual aspect. I tell you the plot of a WWII movie about the Nazis abducting an American soldier and trying to pull off an elaborate hoax to convince him that he'd been injured and he was now waking up years in the future after the war had already ended so he'd let his guard down and talk about the "old" secrets to give the Nazis a heads-up on D-Day. That's a bad ass plot, and for me, I hear something like that and I'm hoping it's as bad ass as its premise, and sure enough, I watched 36 Hours and it was amazing.

Same thing with Se7en. I hear about a plot involving a serial killer ritually murdering people based on the seven deadly sins, that's a wickedly cool premise that I hope gets an execution that does it justice. But watching Se7en, I want to like it so much because there's so much great material there and it's so frustrating watching it all slip away.

Prometheus is a good example, because I had a similar feeling there, too. Not quite as pronounced as with Se7en, but I definitely wanted something better than what was intimated by the first portion of that stinker.

can you elaborate on this more?

This is the type of question I wish I would've been able to answer with the movie fresher in my mind. At this point, my answer has to be more general than I'd like, but the most specific I can get is in the beginning. The script sets up Freeman as the super rational/intellectual detective and Pitt as the emotional hothead. They butt heads, but this seems contrived. The film scholar Kristin Thompson has four categories of motivation for the existence in films of narrative events: (1) Compositional Motivation, (2) Realistic Motivation (3) Transtextual Motivation, and (4) Artistic Motivation. Compositional Motivation is sort of a fancy scholarly way of saying something is in the movie because it has to be so the plot moves along. It's not necessary in itself, but based on the way the movie is set-up, it needs to be there since there's only a point B in relation to a point A.

I get that they butt heads, but there seems to be no reason for the antagonism outside of setting up the "fun" dinner scene where everybody finally gets along and has fun and Freeman and Pitt commit to tracking down the killer. Why did I need to go through the half-hearted "conflict" before getting them teaming up? The answer via Compositional Motivation: Because there needed to be a conflict followed by a payoff. I felt the screenwriting too much, it was too transparent and carried off very poorly.

Added to which---and this is the most egregious part of my complaint---the antagonism itself, despite being compositionally motivated, contradicts the characterization of Freeman's character. When they show up to one of the murder scenes and Pitt is getting into it with one of the cops at the scene, Freeman chides him for being so emotional and irrational, asking him what the point would've been about the confrontation he was about to have. This is fine as it is, this could serve as a totally organic sequence fleshing out the way these two operate, but then how do you reconcile the emotional and irrational antagonism of Freeman towards Pitt, where the roles are reversed with Freeman refusing to let it go and avoid confrontation until Pitt has to ask if they can stop kicking each other in the balls?

Of course, this could be countered by saying, in real life (in other words, in terms of the Realistic Motivation) not everyone is completely consistent with their personality and real people are hypocrites sometimes so why shouldn't this character be one? But my answer to that would be because that's not how he was being written before nor is Freeman's inexplicable hypocrisy complicated later, for he again chides Spacey near the end for being hypocritical but there's never any examination of Freeman himself, nothing is even implicit, because it's beyond the capabilities of the filmmakers. This, to me, is symptomatic of what I was saying about the film having pretensions to intelligence it simply did not possess. Stuff seems to be trying to poke through the surface, stuff that could've made for really rich and complex characterizations like something out of a Michael Mann film, but the chops necessary for such complexity and depth were beyond the capabilities of the brain trust on Se7en, IMO.

I also thought Pitt's and Paltrow's relationship was so perfunctory and, again, just lazy Compositional Motivation. They were just there, and sometimes they seemed like the perfect golden couple, pretty young blonde high school sweethearts as American as apple pie, then sometimes they're fighting and having problems, but what the fuck was the point of any of it? There certainly wasn't any consistency, nor did anything amount to shit outside of the fact that the film needed to prop itself up on the idea of the happy couple to be able to have the ending be as shocking as it was supposed to be, but since they failed from so many different angles leading up to that ending, it couldn't have possibly been what it was supposed to be.

And, is there anything you liked at all about it?

I liked the moments where Freeman was being the detached, super logical detective. That seemed to be merely Transtextual Motivation, character decoration because the figure of the rational detective has currency in detective fiction with no organic mooring in the screenplay itself, but at least it was there. I wish that would've been developed and kept consistent, I wish something compelling would've been done with that. On the other hand, there was potential in his hypocrisy, but that potential was only made visible due to the shortcomings of the script, and as such, it sure as shit wasn't capitalized on as it wasn't even intentional!

And just a side note: Do they ever make clear why the picture of the lawyer's wife/girlfriend/mistress/whoever she was had bloody circles on her eyes? I always miss that and then, when I'm thinking back over the film, I remember it because it's such a striking image but can never recall how it's connected to anything.

You say here his direction sucks, but you call him a great practitioner and compliment him below. To me, it seems your issues are with the script and the acting.

Primarily, my issues are with the script and the acting. However, as Fincher was the director, the fact that the issues I have are so numerous and so egregious, I can't not lay some of the blame at Fincher's feet for being able to do nothing about them. How ANYONE could've been on set watching Pitt do that take at the end and considered their job done, that can't go unremarked. And how such little care could be given to consistency of characterization just for the sake of moving the "cool" plot along, again, must be taken into account.

As for the "great practitioner" comment, I guess, for the sake of clarity, you could replace that with "stylist." My "great practitioner" thing was meant to evoke Truffaut's old distinction between a metteur and an auteur. For me, Fincher has never gone beyond merely being a metteur en scene, a "stager." The script comes in, he adds props, sets, and bodies, and he shoots it. When it comes to the actual shooting of it---the cinematography, the editing, the sound, in short, the aesthetic, the style---he's very gifted. His sense of style has always been very strong, and I think there are some cinematographic flourishes in Se7en worthy of considerable praise, but that is only one level of the multi-level filmmaking process (Andrew Sarris didn't like the hierarchical model and preferred concentric circles consisting of technique [i.e., the mechanical process of putting a movie together, which Fincher seems to lack in general], style [at least with this Fincher is consistent and consistently interesting], and interior meaning [this is vague, but it speaks to the soul of the filmmaker and of his films, and for me personally, this is where Fincher is utterly bankrupt]) and for me, Fincher has never been able to reach the higher levels.

I don't think Spacey is wasted at all.

Perhaps "wasted" isn't specific enough. Considering how great an actor he is and how much he can add to a film (think of The Usual Suspects, Swimming with Sharks, hell even Horrible Bosses without him), he deserved more to work with, but instead was given mere scraps.

The opening credits (creepy as shit)

Opening credits in The Glimmer Man > Opening credits in Se7en.

"Performed like shit" I blame on Pitt.

Me, too, but with how bad he is, I also have to blame Fincher for not trying to go another way with the scene. Then again, I have no idea what was going on behind the scenes, so for all I know, he failed not from a lack of effort but literally only because Pitt sucked so hard.

His character has many layers

I only saw one: Emotional hothead. He may very well have been an onion a great screenwriter could've peeled over the course of the film, but as far as Se7en was concerned, that onion went untouched.

I have no idea who any of those people are, but he's obviously cynical and misanthropic, and I don't think he changes during the movie. At the beginning, during the investigation of the first crime scene, he's flabbergasted that a wife killed her husband. At the end of the movie when he quotes Hemingway, he says the world sucks but is worth fighting for. Same philosophy IMO.

In the beginning, he has no faith (symbolized not least of all in his wanting to retire and escape from the job, the city, and society itself); in the end, after the worst shit ever, he has faith. Where was the progression there? What could've possibly restored his faith? The film, and especially that character therein, was just so fucking incoherent. I don't deny that there's some continuity, but there's just as much if not more discordance, and it's the frequency of false notes that keeps me from being able to appreciate the piece.

I still don't understand your issue with Somerset. Are you looking for more out of his character?

I would've settled just for something, if they'd have taken one track and followed through with it. It didn't feel like there was an arc, just a bunch of random zigzags in the hopes of keeping up with their killer plot with the only real concern being pulling off their "big" ending.

Ok, so here it seems like you're looking for more out of the movie. Do you want more reasoning out of John Doe, and why he did what he did?

I wanted a point. Why did I watch all that? What of significance did Freeman or Pitt get out of that experience? How will it shape them as individual human beings, as cops, as partners, as friends? If you look at something like Heat, the harder Pacino goes after De Niro, the more he has to turn inward and examine himself and why he's doing what he's doing, what his relation is to the world and the people in it who are around him. How were Freeman and Pitt complicated by their search? How were they complicated by their interaction with Spacey?

It felt like a fancy arrangement of the food on your plate to try to trick you into not realizing what a small portion it is.

 

[Deleted member 196663]

I turned it off after that lame bar conversation. Jesus was that corny. I know it will get better, but I had to stop it at that point. Will try again later.

 

[Drain Bamage]

I have major problems with both True Detective and Seven. Not only that, I've actually ranted about them on here in considerable detail. To save space, I'm going to spoiler tag my rants for you to follow up on if you're interested.

I read them, but still not sure what your problem is beyond thinking they are bad. You say the writing is bad. You say Fincher's direction in Seven is bad but don't say why...

I think Seven's plot conception is pretty brilliant. The twist at the end, how he gets Mills to finish the act, to come up with that is pretty clever. It's easy to watch it and think "oh, well of course" but to actually give birth to an idea like that, which seems simple on it's face, is harder than most people think. Sort of like trying to write a simple 3 chord pop song that still sounds "fresh". There is brilliance to the simplicity.

 

[Loiosh]

Apologies if this has already been posted.

 

[ripsta619]

Just finished the season and it was pretty good. Like many here said the actor that plays Ed Kemper killed it. For some reason Holden reminds me of Dennis from Always Sunny. I bet Holden ends up being a serial killer.

 

[Daveb]

Just finished the season and it was pretty good. Like many here said the actor that plays Ed Kemper killed it. For some reason Holden reminds me of Dennis from Always Sunny. I bet Holden ends up being a serial killer.

I was just about to mention he looks and has the same implications of a serial killer as Dennis