Fight Club and Breaking the First and Second Rule

by Christopher Barr

If you can wake up at a different place.

If you can wake up in a different time.

Why can’t you wake up as a different person?

Fight Club is a brilliant existential film from a time when there was more hope then there is now.  The film is about a man in the screenplay simply known as Jack, who was a drone who worked in a high rise office building and had a sleeping problem.   ‘With insomnia, nothing’s real.  Everything is far away.  Everything is a copy, of a copy, of a copy…’  He was the modern man whose life lacked meaning and whose lust for life left him a long time ago.  What was left behind in the rubble was a habituated consumer, a man desperately trying to find what piece of furniture for his condo defines him as a person.  IKEA became his place of worship and its catalog, his bible.

Fight Club is about the wasted life, it’s about the tragedy of modern day society and the consumer culture that has been created to help mask reality, hiding the truth about our servitude.  It’s also about recognizing that you’ve been living with a fast-food identity.  One that wasn’t self-created but rather mass produced for millions upon millions of worker bees to project, while they devote their entire lives to the service of making money for filthy rich white men.

Sadly our identities are formed in relation to the symbolic network, the Big Other.  These fast-food, single-serving identities most of us possess is a call from the Big Other to assume depersonalization, in spite of how deep down this goes against who we spontaneously feel ourselves to truly be.

In the case of the film, Jack wasn’t himself and began to speak with a voice that was not his own.  So he channeled his true voice within the symbolic network, in a desperate attempt, to come to his aid.  To save him from his chained pointless existence.  That identity came in the form of…..Tyler Durden.  Philosopher Slavoj Zizek says, ‘to achieve self-identity, the subject must identify himself with the imaginary other, he must alienate himself, put his identity outside of himself, so to speak, into the image of his double.’  There eventually has to be a catalyst in the film where Jack finally needs to accept his other identity as his own identity.  He has to see the illusion himself as the autonomous agent which is present from the beginning, he must misrecognize himself in order to decentre what he believes is real and what he believes is not.  This film truly navigates the complexities of the mind in all its layers and voids.

Prior to the revelation that Jack is Tyler Durden, Jack investigates what’s happening to him and this investigation is in line with the same epistemological trajectory as Scottie in Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece, Vertigo.  Here we are dealing with a man, a detective, trying to solve the mystery of the meaning of our lives.  Both of these films have their radically destabilizing moments where the audience is pushed to a point they must reshuffle their own ideas and values, about what it is to be subject to a point of view rather then connected to the actual real world.  In Vertigo, we are under the illusion, along with Scottie, that we are in a romantic/tragic unfolding love affair but ultimately it turned out to be a manipulative scheme to which Scottie is used to witness a murder.  Madeline was never real and Judy was actually an exploiter pulling one over on Scottie.  In the case of Fight Club, this is the moment when it is revealed to Jack that he is Tyler Durden.

“You were looking for a way to change your life.  You could not do this on your own.  All the ways you wish you could be….that’s me.  I look like you want to look, I fuck like you want to fuck, I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I am free in all the ways that you are not.”

In the context of the film, Tyler Durden is a good looking, free-thinking man that single-serving Jack meets on a plane and befriends.  They form an underground gathering of men they called Fight Club.  On the surface we see men beating the shit out of each other and getting their respective jollies off in the process, but when you look deeper, you see it’s their extreme attempt to feel something in a society that only wishes to be numb.

As the film moves on, Jack becomes more and more awake and this manifests itself in the form of where Fight Club evolves.  It rises up out of the dirty dark bloody basement in the form of Project Mayhem, where as a member one has to have their hand chemically burned to enter a new level of pain at rock bottom, because only there one can truly see the light after you lose everything, a very Buddhist sentiment, albeit it an extreme one.  The decisions for the group fall to Tyler, who has become more independent of Jack.  The anarchist movement must be Jack’s own realization that he is part of a corrupt system that can’t be allowed to continue.  So their revolution is Jack’s subconscious revolution, where real things happen to the group along with real consequences.  But they still move forward with their plan to financially and societally collapse the system to pave way for a more free-thinking romantic post-apocalyptic world.

This is where we can firmly place this film in its time and place.  The late 90’s, where the end of the century was just around the corner, where that bullshit Y2K scare was lingering, but more importantly there was a hope of reform, a hope for change within the system.  More cynically there was a naiveté, like in the 60’s they believed that there was a real chance of winning.  Fight Club falls into the category of idealized hope for the future, as long as we all stick together we can beat the money hungry capitalist and regain back our humanity and identities in the process.  Looking back now you can see how hopelessly naïve that was.  I wish it wasn’t, I wish that grass-roots movement out of the 90’s did take hold and that change was a possibility.  The problem with that is, ‘what then’?  Using dreams to combat reality has its purpose in some cases but usually dissidents of the system are removed, or discredited, or assassinated. 

“You are not your job; you’re not how much money you have in your bank.  You’re not the car you drive.  You are not the contents of your wallet.  You’re not your fucking khakis.  You’re the all singing, all dancing crap of the world.”

On its surface, Fight Club had that dream to dial it all back to zero and rewrite our own history on our own terms.  But to be the cynical reason in the room, I’m reminded of the events that transpired in the George Orwell’s classic novel Animal Farm, where freedom, as it were, could easily just lead us all back to a totalitarian dictatorship.

I think the problem with society is there’s no possible version on it that would work, at least on the massive population scale we all operate in.  Like Agent Smith in The Matrix, telling a tied up Morpheus about the earlier versions of the Matrix, where humanity was in harmony with itself and then the program crashed, losing all the crops, Smith then told Morpheus that human beings define their reality through misery and our species is like a virus, it consumes an area of all its resources only to move to another area and do the same.

There is a reality to the failed human project that needs to be analyzed if we, as a species, hope to save what’s left of it all, but there I go again with the romance.  But then what, rebuild?

“Right, we’re consumers.  We’re by-products of a life-style obsession.  Murder, crime, poverty, these things don’t concern me.  What concerns me are celebrity magazines, television with five hundred channels, some guy’s name on my underwear.  Rogaine, Viagra, Olestra……”

The genius of Fight Club was that the film was about a man that freed himself from the shackles of a cave wall and walked into the light.  A man that was a prisoner of a controlling system and became free from it, in a similar way as Neo become free from the technological panopticon of The Matrix or Truman freeing himself from a fake TV reality in The Truman Show.  So maybe in the beginning Jack thought that meeting Marla Singer was a bad thing but in the end, she was the best thing to happen to him.  Because he, up to the point of meeting her, was trying to solve his problems by escaping them rather than facing them, Marla unknowingly forced Jack to deal with his plight in the form of Tyler Durden, who himself was a part of Jack’s psyche that screamed to get out.  Whatever it is that we are, we are not emotionless, consumer, workers that slave for a greedy system day in and day out, only to be left wondering in the end what does it all mean.  We are thinking, spontaneous growing beings that desire freedom and room to breathe for purposes of growth, not to solve the mysteries of the universe or to understand the microbiological behavior of germs, but to exist outside cages with the freedom to chase possibility.  Wait, did I get all romantic again?

“I am Jack’s Wasted Life.”

Batman and Daredevil: Symbols of Darkness before the Light

by Christopher Barr

“Adults..struggle desperately with fiction, demanding constantly that it conforms to the rules of everyday life.  Adults foolishly demand to know how Superman can possibly fly, or how Batman can possibly run a multibillion-dollar business empire during the day and fight crime at night, when the answer is obvious even to the smallest child: because it’s not real.”

– Grant Morrison

Batman and Daredevil are two of my favorite darker comic book characters, one from the DC universe and one from the Marvel, respectively.  Both these men created their symbols as representations of their own fears as well as the reality of what they were engaging themselves in.

Crime is what they are combating, because the police from Gotham and New York appear to have their own problems with corruption and apathy.  These men have taken it upon themselves to fight for those who can’t fight for themselves.  The heroism for both men I think is in their own sacrifice, they’ve set aside their own well-being and pursuit for happiness to help people.

“I run blindly through the madhouse… And I cannot even pray… For I have no God.”

- Grant Morrison, Batman: Arkham Asylum

Bruce Wayne’s parents were murdered when he was a child, so he was forced into the realities of the world at a very young age.  Bruce come from a privileged background which makes it uncertain what kind of man he would have grown up to be, if he and his parents went left instead of right that fateful night.  Maybe he would have taken on more of the characteristics of his villainous foe, The Joker, because when Batman is fighting the Joker, symbolically, Batman is fighting himself.  Comic books are like therapy sessions without the benefit of the comfortable couch and the hefty bill.  People have demons and Batman is no exception, so if Batman is a manifestation of a strength Bruce Wayne only wished he could have, then the Joker conversely is his Shadow side he must fight on a regular basis to essentially be, Bruce Wayne.  I guess that’s why Batman can’t simply kill the Joker and put an end to his anarchy, because that would be suicide, he’d be killing a part of himself.

Matt Murdock, if the fictional universes collided, would have a lot in common with Bruce Wayne.  They could have beers and discuss their childhoods with one another.  Matt’s father was murdered, leaving the little boy understandably devastated.  But prior to that murder, Matt was involved in an accident that separates him from Batman in the colored pages of comics.  Matt received chemical burns to his face, blinding him, but leaving him with sonar abilities, where he is able to see via sound waves as well as other heighten senses.  He’s also been gifted with super human strength.  Matt grows up and becomes a lawyer by day and a crime fighter by night.  He has the Kingpin and Bullseye to fight in the dark of night while the majority sleep safely in their beds.

The Dark Knight and The Man without Fear, break the law to do what is right.  They are both seen as vigilantes but revenge is not their primary motives, it would take a conversation with Freud for someone to see a little revenge hiding behind their ‘good deeds’.  These are men after all that are products of their past which informs their present, they might not have had a choice but never the less they are where they are.  

Batman was originally a creation as a result of the success of Superman but took on his own fan base soon after his debut.  He was dark and gritty and less forgiving than Superman.  He hard to fight harder because he didn’t have super powers, he had to push himself more than Superman, who has always suffered from the problem of being too super.  Batman could get hurt, Batman could die and that’s what we love about him, he’s more real and relatable.  

One thing that Batman does have in common with Superman is the men who created them.  Like Ian Fleming’s James Bond, these fictional characters were created by men that were not popular and not respected.  These characters reflected that, they were alter-egos for their creators to fantasize through.  This is the ingredient I think that stands these iconic characters apart from those that don’t resonate, those that only attempt to replicate.

But that’s what Batman and Daredevil are; they are these cyphers that represent their creators and our own desires for justice.  Somehow it’s not just good enough to catch the bad guy and turn him over to the police, like Spider-man.  Batman and Daredevil both are far more violent with their approach to heroism, certainly not in a nihilistic or sadistic way but I think they think it’s not just good enough to catch them.  A lesson must be taught as well as a message must be sent, this type of activity will not be tolerated.  That’s what my favorite characteristics about these two men are, is that they can be very unforgiving.

“Fortunately for me, I’m not a cop.  So, I can break your face into a jigsaw puzzle if I want to…”

- Daredevil

Batman has been way more successful in the movies than Daredevil but I do hope one day that the Devil will appear again on screen, it’s looking like at this point the small screen will have to do.  But they do need to be careful not to lose what makes these characters so rewarding to watch, in spite of the violence and the head aches; they have to be more than vigilantes.  They have to maintain their humanity above all, regardless of the villain in their way or in themselves.  Society’s only hope is that the good people stay good in the face of extinction. 

“You think you can….turn me into a blubbering wreck….by preying on my fears…But I’ve already faced them – and come out the other side!  I know what I am…Who I am… And I am not afraid!”

- Matt Murdock

So what does it mean to win a battle knowing you are losing the war?  Not to sound too cynical but Batman and Daredevil are fighting losing wars.  It’s their battles that concern these men as the criminals keep pouring over the edges of cities.  I would say both these men aren’t optimistic for the future of mankind but they do feel compelled to at least try to fight the good fight, even if the people are skeptical of their heroism.  Even if they are wanted men, they suffer the cuts and bruises because they are the men most of us should aspire to be. 

What’s really great and inspiring about Daredevil and Batman is their attitude in realizing that it doesn’t matter what people think, what the press and media think.  It doesn’t matter what all the nations politicians or criminals say.  It doesn’t matter what the whole country or even world for that matter think.  The idea is these men know that, it is of the highest principle to stand up for what you believe, no matter what the odds or the consequences are.   These men know that, morally and constitutionally, they must at all cost plant themselves like trees, firmly next to the river of truth and shout to the world, ‘Now, you move!!’

“Don’t talk like one of them.  You’re not!  Even if you’d like to be.  To them, you’re just a freak, like me!  They need you right now, but when they don’t, they’ll cast you out, like a leper!  You see, their morals, their code, it’s a bad joke, dropped at the first sign of trouble.  They’re only as good as the world allows them to be.  I’ll show you.  When the chips are down, these…. These civilized people, they’ll eat each other.  So, I’m not a monster.  I’m just ahead of the curve.”

- The Joker

SE7EN: the Decay of Morals and the Rise of Apathy

By Christopher Barr

What sick ridiculous puppets we are, and what a gross little stage we dance on.  What fun we have dancing and fucking, not a care in the world, not knowing that we are nothing.

- John Doe

Spoiler Alert!

Se7en is a gritty masterpiece of film noir about two police detectives hunting down a sinister serial killer. The killer uses the seven deadly sins as his modus operandi when choosing his victims, punishing them because he believes that they need punishment.  He thinks we all need to be punished for what we did to this world, for how we are to each other, and sadly to ourselves. 

John Doe is the place-holder name given to the crazed serial murderer.  He’s a man that certainly takes his philosophy to an extreme but hopefully, his point isn’t lost on people.  And that point is; we as a society have become apathetic toward one another and also complacent about that fact.   Doe has simply had enough and decided to be a teacher to those who aren’t willing to learn anymore, so his brand of teaching is violence, his brand of justice is an awakening to a sleeping populace.

Detective Somerset is an older man who has seen the tyranny of evil men in his long career and has decided to retire to a place far away from the dark of city life.  His new partner Detective Mills is a young man still learning the ropes but has experience in law enforcement.  Mills is the hope the film has to offer but it also asks the question; is hope simply a side effect of naiveté?  The nameless dank city they reside in is filled with decay and dread, Somerset wants out and Mills thinks he can change things for the better, but for seven days, they are stuck together to solve a series of bizarre, hideous murders.

G L U T T O N Y

Long is the way and hard that out of hell leads up to the light.

"When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee. And put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite."  

- Proverbs 23:2

Gluttony is overindulging, it's over-consuming, it’s an inordinate desire for over-eating and drinking, it was a sin in Sodom known as 'fullness in bread'.  The gluttony victim in the film is found dead at his kitchen table.  A mammoth of a man with his head face down in a bowl of spaghetti.  His apartment was ill-kept with cockroaches roaming about the filthy and disgusting sloven place. 

Obesity is a pervasive problem in the privileged parts of the world, the parts where McDonald’s sells ‘Super-sized’ meal deals by the millions and pizza comes in mega-large boxes.  People it would seem are not only stuffing themselves beyond their physical capacity but they are also filling their homes with a cluttered, warehouse of stuff, transforming living rooms and hallways into busy sections at the local Wal-Mart.   

G R E E D

A pound of flesh, no more no less, no cartilage no bone, only flesh.

American Psychologist, Erich Fromm refers to Greed as “a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.”

Greed is selfishly and unethically wanting too much for you despite the cost of depravity it may cause other people, the scavenging and hoarding of money and power for personal gain, it also involves disloyalty and deliberate betrayal, exceeding the dictates of survival and comfort.

In Se7en, a defense attorney is found dead in his office after being bled to death; his charge for his life was Greed.  He devoted his life to defending criminals in the name of personal gain and wealth.  This is, at its heart, the problem of modern society, greed kills the innocent, it kills the trees and land, and it kills the sea and the air.  The planet is dying because greed is winning, without any sign or speck of evidence to convince any free-thinking person otherwise.

Somerset goes to the library to research the seven deadly sins while security guards play Composer Bach’s baroque piece ‘Air’ over their radio.  Dante Alighieri wrote The Divine Comedy, an epic poem, in the 14^th century about his journey into the three realms of the dead, Inferno (Hell), Purgatory, and Paradise (Heaven).

Abandon  All  Hope,  Ye  Who  Enter

Dante first wrote about the nine circles of hell, which was where those condemned souls were brought to suffer, after living their lives under one or more of the seven deadly sins.  Through the gates of Purgatory, they were punished by which one they were most guilty of when they were alive.  

For Lust, one was smothered in brimstone and fire, for Gluttony the overindulgent soul was force-fed rats, toads, and snakes forever, for Greed the covetous soul is boiled in the finest oil, and the lethargic Sloth is thrown into a pit of snakes.  The fallen angry victim of wrath is perpetually dismembered alive while those souls subject to Envy were submerged in freezing water, leaving the Proud to be broken on a wheel, for eternity.

Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales at the end of the 14^th century and within it is a long treatise written in prose called The Parson’s Tale, which was on the virtue of living.  In the ‘tale,’ Chaucer offered remedies against the seven deadly sins as a form of saving one’s soul and avoiding condemnation in the torturous pits of one of Dante’s hellish circles.  Through these heavenly virtues, one was able to heal their sins, these virtues are as follows; humility, contentment, patience, fortitude, mercy, moderation, and chastity. 

S L O T H

Medieval theologian St. Thomas Aquinas said Sloth is “sluggishness of the mind which neglects to begin good…[it] is evil in its effect, if it so oppresses man as to draw him away entirely from good deeds.”

Sloth is apathetic, indifferent, and a person who’s carefree with time, essentially a lazy person who fuels procrastination which leads to unproductive behavior.  It seems these days because of hundreds of channels on the TV, endless gaming opportunities, and the psychological reality of consumer dissatisfaction, people have for the most part become paralyzed and content with their state of wastefulness.

In the film the detectives discover a man that has been bound for exactly one full year via various medications, only to just survive the ordeal and live what few days he has left in agonizing pain.  This was a man who did nothing to fulfill his life or contribute to society and now has been punished for it.  Society needs progressive-oriented people to push the human project to a more ever-lasting and harmonizing level.  Laziness in all cultures is rightfully seen as disrespectful to oneself and to psychological growth in general.

L U S T

Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer saw lust as “the only power that reigns is the inextinguishable desire to face, at any price, the blind love present in human existence without any consideration of the outcome.  So the theme of lust is to consider the horrors which will almost certainly follow the culmination of it.”

Lust is a powerful psychological force producing an intense need for an object.  Having lust is having a piercing fervor for sex or power, having a pulsating thrust in the body to attach itself to something in an often lascivious way but sometimes in a ravenous one as well. 

Mills and Somerset enter a sex brothel of sorts, where they discover a terrified man who was forced at gunpoint by John Doe, to pugnaciously fornicate with an unfortunate prostitute.  The sadistic part of this was he had to wear a 14-plus-inch razor-sharp blade on his penis as he entered her, surely giving her an excruciatingly bloody death.  The prostitute made herself a tool of desire for depraved men to lust themselves all over, thus John Doe felt it necessary to teach her the truly palpable, penetrating force of the power of lust.  

I would agree that lust could lead a person down a path not so dissimilar to alcoholism, where a disjointed life could get destroyed.  I would argue that a little lust is a needed ingredient to help drive a person toward a goal but it must be under control for one to lead a fulfilling life.   If unchecked, the downside to lust can often fuel disloyalty, rape, and possibly murder.

The Marquis de Sade blissfully summed up the two sides of bladed desire in all its pleasure and pain. “Lust is to the other passions what the nervous fluid is to life; it supports them all, lends strength to them all; ambition, cruelty, avarice, revenge, are all founded on lust.”

P R I D E

“Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor.  So I threw you to the earth.”  Ezekiel 28:17

Lucifer the light-bearer, the greatest of all the angels, was cast down by God because of his pride and his desire to overtake the throne of God himself.

The allegorical implication of that age-old story is that this form of hubris, having such love for one’s own excellence could lead to exclusion.

We live in a world chock-full of proud people; Reality TV invests lots of blood money based on that fact.  Self-love is such an infectious spectacle in our society that the progressive side of learning and self-improvement has been all but lost.  Advertising and consumer culture are what the driving forces are now because they lead to dissatisfaction, which drives a person toward more and more stuff for them to fill in what they believe they are lacking in life.

The thing with these ‘sins’ is they all have two sides to them and pride is no exception.  There is a virtuous pride in one’s appearance and cleanliness, the magnanimity of a great mind and heart is something one ought to be proud of.  But in the case of the film, the Pride victim certainly wasn’t righteous; rather her self-love likely was met with a shallow sense of self and the world outside of the mirror she obsessed over.

E N V Y

Shakespeare writes in The Merchant of Venice, about the dangers of a person being green with envious eyes, spilling over to jealousy.  Portia states: “How all the other passions fleet to air, as doubtful thoughts and rash embraced despair and shuddering fear and green-eyed jealousy!”

Envy desires what another possesses.  This could be an object, another person, or behavior.  This could lead to a form of resentment toward another’s quality of life and achievements, which could result in the envious wishing the ‘fortunate’ didn’t have it either and desiring to poison them with misfortune.

This is what likely leads to so much unhappiness in people because these people become jealous of others and never see within themselves what they have to offer.  This is the case of John Doe, the killer himself is his sixth victim, a man envious of domestic life with a lovely perfect wife, David Mills had such a life, or so John Doe thought.  Therein lies the problem with envy, I think most people see themselves as boring and incomplete, whether this is conscious and/or subconscious, thus transferring what they perceive to be their lack onto another person or thing.  It’s similar to Freud’s views on Transference, where a patient redirects feelings and desires within themselves onto another.  I think fantasy exists in between our ability to know something, so we use our vast wealth of imagination to fill in the gap between what is real and what isn’t.  This blurry line becomes the picture of how we see another person and the fantasy is built upon that platform.  

John Doe, clearly a purist, was a man I think suffered from the very sins he punished others for.  I think he was too much of a coward to psychologically self-examine to live, and 'know thyself', with his faults and conversely, he wasn’t able to kill himself either.  So in the malicious recesses of his mind, he hatched out a massive plan to transfer his guilt and self-loathing onto others and to euthanize himself in the process.

Religion was clearly a problem for him when trying to live his life.  He likely comes from a devoutly religious background where punishment for sinning was commonplace.  John Doe has become the very evil his God fought so hard for him to avoid.  But because there is no actual God in the world, Doe along with many millions around the world are left with an emptiness that they thought belonged to God’s love.  That's the sad part of religion, and many around the world resist that revelation.  The denial of reality is the true key to believing in something that doesn't actually exist.

W R A T H

Dante saw Wrath as a “love of justice perverted to revenge and spite.”  

Wrath is a psychological interpretation that a person feels that they have been wronged, betrayed, or offended and their desire to retaliate through punishment.  This retributory punishment for the offense can lead to all sorts of violence when one loses oneself in anger.  It is amazing how self-destructive one can get traveling down that road to perdition, all in the name of revenge.

Clearly, we have an ideal view of people and when they betray us, some of us are unable to reconcile with that and feel, we must be the ones to swing the hammer.  Wrath exposes the animal in all of us, the uncivilized beast that no longer belongs to a society governed by rules and regulations.  Wrath is the result of an oppressive build-up within us that longs to breathe freedom.

Mills, at the end of the film, is confronted with a dilemma.  He is told that his wife has been murdered by the very man in front of him on his knees, John Doe.  Given the horrific events that have transpired during the week, Mills is inclined to believe, with much resistance, that Doe killed his wife.

So there Mills is with a gun pointed at Doe’s head as the reality of the loss of his wife by this sadistic man washes like acid over his mind.  This is the tragedy of the film and what the story led us to.  A moral question of what is right and what is wrong?  We know that Mills puts a bullet into the head of the man who killed his wife and many other ‘innocent’ people.  From a utilitarian point of view, the greater good and minimal loss of life are best, but they had this man in custody, he had been handcuffed, helpless really.  This man would have gone to prison and likely would have served many life sentences without the possibility of parole if Mills hadn’t killed him.

Maybe the film is exploring the necessity of the sins even in all their darkness.  The film also throws a hammer into the idea of divine morality, it’s saying we got it wrong and we’ve become sick as a society because we don’t address that fact.  In society these days, what’s often good seems to somehow benefit capitalism in some way, other than the basic day-to-day ethics of navigating through your home or walking in the park.  What’s wrong or bad seems to be what’s bad for business; our greed for wealth and power has stepped on our humanistic need to grow as a species.

Se7en explores the decay of morality; it explores the idea that those with morals have to adjust themselves to the decadence of the amoral man, the conformist man, and the sick man.  Intelligence and understanding hold no sway on the streets of the inner city, where the rules are street rules and are often devoid of reason.  The decay of humanity for the cost of beauty, wealth, things, indifference, and sex is a cost we pay daily.

The one point, around the middle of the film, we are in Detective Mills and his wife Tracy's kitchen when the apartment shakes, I think symbolizing the fragile structure that is modern-day society, a place where a man can’t even go to the sanctity of his own home and not be reminded of the breaking down of a city.  This symbolically happens throughout the film with all the rain and the inconvenience of it all.  It’s not until the last act of the film when the sun finally comes out, that the detectives believe they are finally in control.  But they are not in control because they are failures of the system, the ones that convince us when we can feel safe or not.  The house shakes because not only is society unstable but they are as well and they carry that with them everywhere they go. We are products of our environment but we are also contributors to its success, or to its misery. 

The car ride out to the last two victims in the third act was done quite interestingly. The metal screen that divides Mills and Somerset in the car from John Doe plays a particularly important part in the editing of the sequence. Anytime we see Mills and Doe talk, the screen is between them and anytime Doe and Somerset talk it isn't.  It’s clear that Mills is more emotional about his disdain of Doe and therefore a cage is required to keep him from acting on his impulses.  Somerset is more controlled and less shocked by a man like Doe so the cage isn’t required of the camera angles during their conversations.  But at the end of the film when Somerset discovers Mills’ wife, Tracy’s head in a box, things change for Somerset.  This is new even for him, which is why I think he agrees to stay on at the police force during the last scene of the film after Mills is driven away, handcuffed in the back seat of a police cruiser. 

Mills was too emotional for the coldness of the concrete jungle of modern-day society, whereas Somerset was too indifferent.  The monster of the machine beat Mills as Somerset thought it beat him, but the only solace left at the ending is Somerset now sees that the fight must come within him to ward off such evil in the world because otherwise, the sins themselves will overtake a population to asleep to see them coming.  This is declared when Somerset said in the end, “Ernest Hemingway once wrote, ‘The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.’  I agree with the second part. ”

The idea is to recognize there is a problem and ultimately then a solution can be worked on.  My cynical side thinks that the world is too big, with too many differences for all to get along, education is becoming too commodified and the government and corporations only wish to keep us all tranquilized.  But there is a side that does see the world as a bad place but one worth fighting for.

Gluttony

Greed

Sloth

Lust

Pride

Envy

Wrath