I remember seeing this movie and thinking it has changed everything for cop thrillers. I still remember how I felt leaving the theatre, and thought about the movie for days afterwards.

Hell YES!

That's a scene for the books! It's just as great on the page as it is on film. I guess that's one rare example of everyone involved being on 'the same page'...

I wonder if that sequence is the culmination of numerous rewrites or if it was composed that way from the get go. Scott?

I love the way John Doe's dialog contrasts against the two detectives. The monosyllabic gutteral responses of men who are struggling at a very basic level to control their emotions and actions versus the fork-tongued villian who is playing them right to the end. John Doe is so purely in touch with his fate. There is no hesitation.
That final scene is perfect in my opnion

Great scene. Studied the screenplay a few times.

One thing I've come to notice is that Andrew Kevin Walker's narrative voice, which we harp on a lot here on GITS, isn't exactly "unique."

His descriptions come across as if they could have been written by anyone. They're the typical, bland descriptions you may see in fairly inexperienced writers... not novice writers... but beginning writers still trying to FIND their voice.

Yet the story as a whole is still incredibly gripping. It grabs you by the throat and never lets go.

And I believe this is simply the strength of the unique plot and strong characters.

***Sooooo, question for you Scott: Do you think that it's easier to get away with an unoriginal, "typical" narrative voice/style if you've got the foundation of a wholly original plot?

... Because that seems to be the case, here.

And by "typical, bland descriptions," I don't mean AKW's a bad writer. He's clearly great. He's able to pair strong word choice with concise sentences to accomplish a mood.

But his narrative VOICE doesn't come through in the way, for example, Joe Eszterhas' does.

It doesn't leave you with the feeling that you were just told a great story by a great storyteller. You feel like, "wow that was a great story, but I don't remember who told it to me."

Make sense?

@stefano altieri: Unless Andrew Kevin Walker is actually from a different planet, my guess is the sequence represents numerous rewrites - because that's just the way screenwriting is (i.e., writing equals rewriting).

@ The High Dweller: That's a slightly different way of saying what I wrote -- that the events of the sequence in question were so powerful, Walker was smart enough not to overload it with sophisticated verbiage.

I agree that the Narrative Voice portrays a rather neutral 'character,' miles away from a Shane Black or even a Joe Eszterhas cop story. And I don't know if this is a case where Walker just wrote the script in this style without reflecting about Narrative Voice. But I can make an argument that this blunt, direct style of SD fits the genre:

(1) It is at its core a police procedural, i.e., investigating and solving a series of murders. The "just the facts, ma'am" approach to SD fits that.

(2) While the plot may be complex, the three primary characters - Mills, Somerset, and John Doe - are pretty basic people. Yes, Doe is definitely tweaked and has an intriguing world view, but in the end, his plan is to mastermind the ruination of a good man (Mills) and his own death by murder. So again, the SD language fits in terms of the key characters in the story.

But the main thing is, as I have noted -- and this may well be something Walker did consider -- the events, twists and turns are big enough themselves; they don't need to be oversold through SD, rather they function better with a direct, honest style of narrating the story.

I'm going to go look for an interview with Walker re Se7en. Maybe he's spoken to the question somewhere.

Thanks for posting that scene & analysis Scott!

It's amazing all the REVELATIONS AKW gives us at the very end of the screenplay - Somerset & Mills discover what's in the box - John Doe saying "become vengeance... become wrath" makes us rewind through the entire script to realize what his end-game was all the way along - Mills discovering his wife was pregnant...

All stuff we discover along with the characters, blowing our minds time & again at the end of the 3rd act. No wonder this movie is a classic!