Se7en - Title Sequence Analysis

Se7en – Title Sequence Analysis

In the title sequence for Se7en we can tell what genre it is because of multiple things that are common in psychological thrillers. The eerie music is used to make the villain seem unstable and make the atmosphere unsettling, eerie music is used in psychological thrillers to show to create certain moods. Psychological thrillers stereotypically have an enigma that intrigues the viewer and makes them want to keep watching, in the Se7en title sequence we see someone collecting and writing strange things in books, the viewer wants to find out who is and why he is important to the film. This is also why the villains face isn’t shown in the title sequence and not even until the end of the film, only close up shot of his hands, because this keeps it mystery that the audience want to find out.

I think the soundtrack of the sequence was chosen because it is eerie and industrial. The sounds in the track like creaking and scratching (that sounds like screams) create an unsettling atmosphere. Without it the sequence would look like a man making a book of research, possibly a medical book, but the soundtrack makes it seem like he’s doing it for more sinister reasons and make the person appear to be a villain. The metallic, industrial sounds are used because they tie in with other aspects of the sequence such as the typewriter font used for the credits and the machinery and tools that are shown during the sequence, it makes everything seem unnatural.

The typography used in this title sequence is white to contrast its dark setting. The type is effective because its looks messy, the letters aren’t aligned and that could represent the villain not being stable. The other type used is a typewriter-like font which contrasts with the hand-written font because it is an industrial machine-made typeface. The typewriter font links to the soundtrack and the mise en scene of the tools he uses in the sequence.

From the mise en scene it looks like there is someone making books of research with photos, tape, extracts from text, we also see him remove his fingerprints. From this information we can tell he is a criminal because he wants to leave no fingerprints and also that he is a meticulous character because he has big pages filled with writing, self-developed photographs and hand sewn books. We see the person crossing out words like “intercourse” and “homosexual”, this along with the religious texts connotes that he is religious because of sex before marriage and homosexuality being wrong in the bible. The seven deadly sins are written about in his books which could mean he is an extreme Christian. Christianity being holy and pure contrasts with the dark imagery we see during the sequence like the disturbing photographs.

We find out in the sequence that the person is going to commit a crime because he is removing his fingerprints. The disturbing images of injuries and deaths could mean that he is a murderer and he is researching ways to kill people and the religious clues could infer that he is a deranged Christian thinking he can stop people who sin. We know that he is collecting research because he has notes and old photographs that he is compiling into books, most of the things relate to the human anatomy.

The title sequence has an erratic pace with some short clips and some longer clips. The erratic pace could infer that the villain is also unpredictable which could also be why he cut off his fingerprints so he can’t found. Being unpredictable also means that the audience doesn’t have a solid idea of what the person is going to do. The inconsistent pacing also leaves the audience confused because they do not know if something unexpected is going to appear or not. There are fades used as transitions. I think these are used to constantly show something happening on screen and overload it with strange writing and pictures so you can try to see what he is doing with them and decipher the enigma. Editing is also used to overlay scratches and film grain on the clips, this is to seem distorted and almost like a homemade low budget video almost like something the villain himself would make, which could also explain why we don’t see the person and only what he is doing with his hands.