Sunday, February 11, 2007
A quick conversation
The movie Seven is one of my all-time favorites. Great script, great acting (for the most part...is Brad Pitt ever really acting like anyone who is not Brad Pitt?), and great directing. Just before the Vanity murder, the main characters MILLS and SOMERSET are having a discussion over beers. It goes something like this:
SOMERSET: People don't want a champion. They want to eat cheeseburgers, play the lotto, and watch television.
MILLS Hey, how'd you get like this? I wanna know.
SOMERSET It wasn't one thing, I can tell you that
Go on
I just don't think that I can continue to live in a place that embraces and nurtures apathy as if it was a virtue.
MILLS You're no better, you're no different.
SOMERSET I didn't say I was any different or better, I'm not. Hell, I sympathize, I sympathize completely. Apathy is a solution. I mean, it's easier to lose yourself in drugs than it to cope with life. It's easier to steal what you want, than it is to earn it. It's easier to beat a child than it is to raise it. Hell, love costs, it takes effort and work.
MILLS We're talking about people who are mentally ill. We are talking about people who are fucking crazies.
SOMERSET No, no, no, no! We're talking about every day life here. You can't afford to be this naive!
MILLS Fuck off. See, you should listen to yourself. You say, "that the problem with people is they don't care, so I don't care about people." That makes no sense, you know why?
SOMERSET You care?
MILLS Damn right.
SOMERSET And you're gonna make a difference.
MILLS Whatever. The point is, I don't think you're quitting, because you believe these things you say. I don't. I think you want to believe them, because you're quitting. You want me to agree with you: "Yeah, you're right. It's all fucked up, it's a fuckin' mess, we should all go live in a fuckin' log cabin." But I won't tell you that. I don't agree with you, I do not. I can't. I'm gonna go home.
Mills throws some money on the table.
MILLS Thank you though.
This is one of my favorite spots in the movie, because I feel like all of us can identify with where Mills and Somerset are coming from. In fact, I'm having both sides of the conversation with myself on a daily basis these days. I feel more like Mills, but probably only because I'm younger than Somerset. Apathy is society's life blood, has been for decades now and it is a tragedy. That's not to say I'm going to go John Doe, as that really wouldn't change anything but the newspaper headlines, until the next celebrity stripper dies an undignified death in a casino somewhere. Real change takes time, effort, and vision, but nothing is going to shock a post-9/11 world into action. 9/11 wasn't enough to bring about sustained, real change, after all.
Anyway, I was watching the movie and this particular scene jumped off the screen at me. What sort of place is this and where are we going?
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