This is a film with a strong religious flavor. When you see the title, you think of the similar "Seventh Seal". If Bergman questioned and explored the root of faith and the existence of God in "The Seventh Seal", then "Seven Deadly Sins" shows what the world would be like if the faith were lost.
The New York in the film is dark, damp, dirty, and chaotic. The successive murders are simply hell on earth.
At the beginning, two generations of police officers, young and old, tracked down the murderer, and it felt like a detective film. The tragedy of the slain and the gloomy scene of the crime made people nervous at the beginning of the film. When the case reached the third time, they suddenly realized that the murderer was preaching by killing, in the name of God to punish the seven major sins considered by the Catholic Church to be eternally plundered: gluttony, greed, laziness, anger, pride, lust, envy. The religious significance of the film also began to emerge from here, and it was emphasized more and more in the progress of the plot, especially near the end of the film, where the murderer tried his best to accuse him, saying that he was chosen by God to punish those who are guilty.
The film seems to just show the world: human nature is degenerate, and the guilty will be punished. In this way, the film has a sense of moral admonition, and people may reflect on whether they are guilty or not after watching it. However, the film did not seem to give a clear explanation for what caused these people to sin and make the murderers unbearable and punish them by killing in the name of God. Is it because of the lack of faith? In the West, the Enlightenment movement discovered rationality. Since then, rationality has gradually been pushed to the supremacy position. People's self-awareness has continued to expand, which fully affirmed human reason and began to despise God. In modern times, rationality centered on science and technology has destroyed the spirit of religious belief. Human beings who believe that science and technology are omnipotent feel that rationality can achieve everything. It is true that rationality represented by science has indeed promoted the rapid progress of Western society and completed the process of modernization. However, rationality has increasingly become a shackle for people to restrain themselves. According to Simmel's view, the development of society is increasingly dependent on "rationalization" things such as efficiency, calculation, and punctuality. Such rationalization is actually a kind of "materialization", and money and commercial value become the measure of all values. The only measure is that the relationship between people has become increasingly indifferent due to the power of money. In the film, the indifferent reality of modern cities is constantly being shown. For example, William mentioned that a lady who encountered a rapist should not call for help but call for fire. David and Tracy, who were deceived by the landlord, lived in a house that was constantly shaken by the subway; the landlord regarded the tenants who were tortured into living ghosts as the most important thing. A good tenant, because he will regularly receive the rent in the mailbox.
The attitude of the old William is actually the representative of modern urban people. He is very disgusted with the world. After witnessing a street robbery, he got into a taxi. The driver asked him where he was going. He said, "Far far away...I don't know this place any more......" He chose to escape. This kind of psychology was exposed by David in a bar conversation with David. David also said that he would not be like this. He knew the sins of the world, but he still insisted on fighting it. William didn't object, his thinking was true. He realized that he should also face the world positively and could no longer escape, so when he returned home, he smashed the alarm that made him feel more lonely. And finally when the police officer asked him where he was going after retirement, he said: "around, I'll be around." However, David's persistence is not blindly optimistic, but because he has motivation and belief, that is, love for his wife. In the film, you can see David ending his inner dialogue with William and returning home, holding his wife and saying: I love you, very much... But William's persistence is somewhat of a last resort, and it's just a personal act.
This is a desperate film. It shows people the guilt and indifference of the world, but it does not tell people how to avoid the deterioration of this situation. Is it to maintain the goodness of human nature and to convert to God? But the tracy with beautiful humanity created in the film was finally brutally killed by the murderer. What is shown in the film is the darkest side of the world. It completely obscures the bright and warm side. The love between David and Tracy can be counted as a beam of light on this dark background, and finally disappeared due to the killing of Tracy. Where is the way out for people? At the end of the film, the old police officer William quoted Hemingway's words: the world is a fine place, and worth fighting for. I agree with the second part. This ending is too convincing, this world is not a good world, how is it worth fighting for?
In addition, I saw an interesting phenomenon in this film. It is the point that Bozeman repeatedly discussed in "Entertainment to Death" and "The Disappearance of Childhood", the emergence of new media has changed the way people perceive the world. Old and young police officers, William and David, represent two generations influenced by different media. William Sr. grew up in the environment of print media. He should have been born in the 1920s or 1930s, when television was not popular at that time. And David is obviously a generation who grew up watching TV. So they showed two completely different ways in handling the case. Printed matter is made up of characters. Reading requires the brain to decode, memorize, echo, summarize, and abstract. It is a typical logical thinking process. The old William is adhering to the logical, rigorous and profound way of thinking created by the print medium. He is good at discovering details and uses them as clues for logical reasoning. When encountering problems, he even reads classical works, showing a calm and cautious investigative style. TV is a combination of light, shadow and sound. You don’t need to use your brain to watch TV. People can understand the popular language and pictures on TV without any effort. Since childhood, David, who has been accustomed to seeing images and biased towards the visual experience,’s performance is frantic, impulsive, Irritable, slippery, and full of swear words. During the investigation, he looked at several scene pictures endlessly. The books of Dante given to him by old William were cursed by him and thrown into the drawer.
In addition, when the old William went to the library to check materials, he encountered a group of idle colleagues. They stayed in the library all year long and only knew about drinking and playing cards. When William asked them why they didn’t learn knowledge, they laughed at themselves as being literate, and then turned on the record player. The song broadcast was Bach’s "Aria on the G String" in Quiet In the peaceful melody, the old William was thinking, and they continued to play cards for fun. The intellectual and elegant music of the sages is ignored by people. In such a plot, the music is like the sad music of civilization degradation.
Also, Morgan Freeman, an old black man, has great acting skills, especially when he finally answered the police officer’s question where he would go after retirement, his expression and voice when he said "around, I'll be around". The first time I saw him was In "Shawshank's Redemption", I felt that the black prisoner he played was really good at the time. I heard that he also played "Fake God", and I will definitely look for a chance to watch it in the future. Then there is Pitt, very handsome, although the role is young The police officer was impulsive and reckless.
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