SEVEN

I believe that David Fincher's Seven explores anumber of different key themes of post modernism.

There is the sense in Seven of  Fabulation or magical realism as popularised by Robert Scholes. The unnamed location of where the film takes place is in fact made up of several cities parts of LA and New York and therefore reflects the constructedness of society. With the sense that Seven explores a world of texts and the self reflexitivity shown on these observes that it is a police film with somerset making observation on the life of the police. 

We also have a sense of fragmentation within the film in relation to the loss of a grand narrative which JOhn Doe in a sense is trying to reinstate with his crimes. Also Mills and Somersets journey throughout the various landscapes of the city suggests there is a fragmented sprawl of desert and buildings suggestting no organised pattern.  The city also with its constant rain suggests a bleak outlook for the future of society

Somerset within Seven represents the nostalgia for society of the past as his dress is 1940s in style whilst Mills is shown to represent contemporary society with his more modern look. This nostalgia and recylcing of the past is also evident in the overall look of the film which derives from film noir of the 1940s perhaps arguing that that was a time of order and a society with a  narrative that was whole.

Las Vegas - A Postmodern City

Las Vegas is the opposite of many American cities which conform in uniformed space where all the Cities look the same, subsisting in a hyperreality in which nothing is real, or has any attachment to the once existed. Las Vegas represents a themed space and Baudrilliard theory of Simulations and Signs. Within Las Vegas there is no originality, everything is a copy of a copy. Walking down the main strip of Las Vegas affectively you could visit Paris where there is the Eiffel tower which is half the size of the original; this is just one example of a simulation represented in this themed urban space. Las Vegas if often portrayed as an Adults Disney Land which is an escape from reality. Thus, everything in Las Vegas exists as a simulation of a reality that is in fact not real. This then demonstrates the simulacrum of society through the false portrayals of Americanism that Las Vegas proudly displays. Its casinos are built in themes that themselves do not exist in the real, they are instead hollow buildings that give a false identity within a false reality. Las Vegas strip is surrounded by a sprawl that reinstates the post modern character of the City. Looking at all of this reinforces the idea as Las Vegas being a contemporary post modern city within America which could interestingly be compared to the city of Los Angeles.

Here is a good website with an interesting view of Las Vegas being postmodern: its called 'Las Vegas: Postmodern City of Casinos and simulations.'

http://www.transparencynow.com/vegas.htm

The sprawl of Los Angeles

The image given here clearly represents the sprawling nature of Los Angeles as a post-modern city. Los Angeles is often regarded as the model for the post-modern city, as it envelops each aspect of defining the post-modern city. The first aspect, that of fragmentation and decentralisation, is echoed in LA through the lack of a centre that is evident in other modern cities such as New York. The fact that LA is a culmination of the merging of many towns and cities eradicates the possibility for a centre. Whereas New York is able to claim cultural centres such as Times Square and economically through Wall Street, Los Angeles does not present this same sense of centre. Perhaps the most prominent feature of LA is the area of Hollywood and its supposed centrality for the film industry, but the area of Hollywood itself does not contain more than one studio, henceforth creating an illusion of centrality.

The planned nature of New York is a stark comparison to the 'unplanned' layout of Los Angeles, a city that spreads across the surrounding landscape in any direction. In this way, Los Angeles can be seen to parallel Las Vegas. Whereas New York builds up, Los Angeles builds outwards, shown through the use of skyscrapers in New York, and increasing small town areas around the outskirts of Los Angeles.

The lack of street life in Los Angeles is another defining characteristic. It is more common to drive around the city of Los Angeles - evident in the use of highways and freeways intersecting the city - than it is to walk, and the constant use of technology as a means of less human interaction is a defining aspect of the post-modern city.

The sprawling landscape of Los Angeles is another defining aspect of the post-modern city. The city and its centre, such as high streets, are replaced by strip malls and expansive housing developments, and which leads on to the idea of themed space and the idea that all cities look the same. As previously stated, Los Angeles and Las Vegas bear similarities in their layout, and Las Vegas is seen as the epitome of a themed space. This individuality of Las Vegas is interestingly becoming imitated by other areas of modern cities however, such as Times Square in New York.

Las Vegas - Freemont Street Experience

Freemont Street is an interesting example of Las Vegas as the Post Modern city as it embodies numerous characteristics such as the flattening of space and a themed environment. 

 

Firstly Freemont Street the original strip is now separate from the main part only accessible by car from the well known casinos and therefore a prime example of the erasure of space. Freemont Street through being represented on television invokes nostalgia for James Bond and gambling through is original neon lights. Now as the strip continuously changes appearance through casinos being remodelled, the reused lights on freemont street invoke the original image of Las Vegas. As various images of Vegas would have you believe the Strip and Freemont are not connected but give the appearance through the architecture of buildings being the same, a classic example of the flattening of space as argued by Edward Soja . Soja's analysis relates to the edge city or the exopolis which one could argue with its nostalgic neon lights and growing light show Freemont street is becoming the exopolis of the strip. Freemont strip has almost broken free from the strip with having its own centre of business ( casinos) which do not detract from that available of the strip. Las Vegas as a whole is clearly a fragmented sprawl and if Freemont street continues to grow so does the fact that Las Vegas has no real centre.

 

For those more knowledgable freemont street is different from the strip but to the naked eye like all themed cities freemont street looks exactly the rest of Las Vegas in particular the strip.  Full of signs and simulations it is ‘hyperreal’, and in particular attempts to suggests that one is visiting the real original Las Vegas, but this is only implied from the recycling of the original neon casino lights.

 

Interestingly Las Vegas despite being overtly postmodern through the casino it attempts to combat the death of the city as a meaningful centre, as a place of pleasure, opportunity, culture and economic value. However as with the rest of Las Vegas it only combats this on the surface and simply simulates culture through imitation of other cities (mini Eiffel tower, empire state building) and billboards of winners that one can have pleasure but it is valid only for the duration of their short stay and is not available on a permanent basis.

Los Angeles' Freeways

This image depicts what Michael Dear and Steven Flusty refer to as the one of the only ‘common narrative(s)’ of Los Angeles; the freeways. Rayner Banham also commented on the freeways of Los Angeles, stating that ‘the freeway system in its totality is now a single comprehensible place, a coherent state of mind, a complete way of life’. The freeways of the city act as connectors, linking one side of the endless city to the other.

These freeways indicate the postmodern qualities that Los Angeles possesses. Firstly they aid the fragmentation of the community, creating segmentation and isolation. This isolation of postmodern communities is shown by a city such as Los Angeles; affluence and poverty are able to exist almost side by side, the only barrier being the freeways. The decentralisation of Los Angeles is exacerbated by the existence of the freeways; the dominance of cars and mobility is aided by the freeways, helping to create a culture of technology where intimacy is unnecessary. ‘Community’ is a notion that is scarce within postmodern cities; the street is now insignificant in light of the rise of the freeways and the automobile, personal communication is now almost obsolete due to the telephone and the modem.

The landscape of Los Angeles is a complete overhaul of the modernity of cities such as New York and Philadelphia with their city centres, their shops, and their sense of community. The sprawl of Los Angeles, intersected by freeways and boulevards, is a perfect example of a postmodern city; decentralised, fragmented, a simulacrum.

Las Vegas's main strip

This panorama is of Las Vegas’s main strip this image was taken from a website which seeks to advertise the city as “SIn CIty”. This image is a fine example of a themed city, Vegas also displays the death of the grand narrative and cultural fragmentation in a physical manifestation with its uncoordinated urban sprawl, although the main strip is meant to be in a way a centre, the way in which it is organised, is Indicative that ita a decentralised and fragmented urban space which displays an absence of the organic apart from a few trees poking through the concrete jungle which gives the indication of the death of the city as a meaningful centre.

The image conforms to Ralph's postmodern townscape in that the image shows textured facades that allow pedestrians to move freely, in the foreground of the picture a car park and walkways can clearly be depicted where both the road and the pedestrian intersect, also fitting Ralph's description is that the Postmodern displays stylishness which accentuates affluence and fashionability. The colourful allure of the lights displayed on the buildings support this assessment.

This also shows Hyperreality the culture of simulation where people prefer the vivid decorated exterior of the Las Vegas buildings in contrast with other cities like New York which displays a more modernist construction design. The variation in the colour and the shapes of the buildings demonstrate Exteriorisation which “express the self, either through architecture as a display of identity” moreover it represents individual aspirations in what can be achieved through architectural commerce which could draw the comparison to the “city as a theme park”. The billboards and automobiles make up a glamorous simulation with the neon colours light contrasting well with the night sky. “theme parks as places of simulation without end, charac¬terized by aspatiality plus technological and. physical surveillance and control.” The casinos in the picture would have their own security forces in order to protect their profit-making margins which would enforce their economic control.

The majority of the casinos, night clubs and hotels are located along the main strip this can be seen in the panorama all display a themed urban space, the monuments in Las Vegas such as a building shaped like the Eiffel Tower which displays nostalgia, can be observed in the picture is a pastiche (blank parody) which in addition shows Intertextuality between various world wide cities including New York’s Times Square suggesting that originality has been usurped. This panorama shows clearly thatLas Vegas is a Postmodern city through its use of simulation and its multitude of themed environments.

Las Vegas as the Postmodern City

Eve Quillin penned the notion of Las Vegas existing as an ‘…adult Disneyland’ within which the simularcrum of society transports each individual into a world built upon hyperreality, containing no fixed identity or relationship to the ‘real world.’ Instead, the material and the interpretation of the city are pure images reflective of the stereotyped utopian view of American sentiments and perceptions. This postmodern interplay interjects itself into the constant imagery of iconicism that itself is a copy of a copy of a copy. That is, the projected displays of American acknowledgement in Las Vegas exist as mere polythene metaphors of the country’s ideals and not its reality. However, Mike Greenberg contests this concept, stating instead that, ‘you can't go to Disneyland because you're already there’ . Thus, postmodernity has created its own narrative by which America believes it should live, when paradoxically, by conforming to postmodernism, the country is forming a displacement and falsehood that devotes itself to a simulacrum. That is, America is Disneyland as it conforms to a make-believe narrative that creates sprawled metaplaces, personified by Las Vegas. As exemplified by Matt Gottdiener, the ‘casino themes…include detailed reproductions and simulations…reinforcing a fantasy environment for visitors.’ Thus, in postmodernity, as literary illustrated by the staging of Las Vegas’ ‘reality’, those who gamble buy into the utopian façade as well as the table. In turn, the environment is simulated to achieve as much economic gain as possible, whereupon actions of a visitor are made to seem alike the city, that is, unreal.

The hotel and casino Excalibur exemplifies postmodernity and the effect of the simulacrum inherently. Through simply examining the structure and grandeur of the building, notions of child-like dreams and fantastical explorations enter the consciousness to form a fairy-tale ‘reality’. However, the postmodern paradox reigns when peeling back the façade to reveal cardboard and foam, materials that turn the fantasy into a stark reality of the falsehoods of the American city’s construction.

Postmodernism in David Fincher’s Seven

I was unable to find a different clip to those which have already been posted, so I thought it would be more interesting to consider some of the postmodernist traits that are obvious within Seven rather than repeating points that have already been made about the clips.

One postmodernist issue that I feel is contemplated within Seven is the Lyotard’s belief in the end of the grand narrative. The society portrayed in the film is one of fragmentation and immorality where the truth has disappeared. Whilst there is no argument that John Doe is a criminally insane serial killer, his actions answer those of the society in which he exists; he acts to rid the city of those who he believes employ low morals, to clean up society.

This feeling of an imperfect society is also an example of retro and nostalgia; John Doe yearns for a better society, a past society. Doe echoes postmodernism by perhaps looking backwards to a better past which he intends to recreate through his murderous actions.

The idea of simulation is also an interesting one to consider within Seven. Whilst this may not be such an obvious example, it is an underlying tone that runs throughout the film. The city in which the text is set is not an original; it is a mixture of old style Northern cities such as New York and Chicago, rainy and bleak. This fictitious setting is a work of imagination, but also a copy of certain places which already exist. This setting also represents the death of reality; the rain of the city is replaced by desert in the dénouement, a situation that just couldn’t exist in reality. Whilst this fabricated situation could never truly happen, within the film it takes on a reality of itself. The bleakness of the action is mirrored by the two extreme weather conditions that are presented in the film, and the rain and the desert somehow make sense within the text, and on first watching I found that I didn’t even notice this juxtaposition. It was only in later viewings that I picked up on the inconsistency.

Seven as a postmodernist text is an interesting one to consider. It employs many postmodernist themes in order to project the society in which the narrative takes place. The narrative reflects a postmodern society, and the dangers that can be present within a society such as this. It highlights the negative aspects of certain elements of postmodernity, and through its bleak imagery and narrative portrays a society which, in reality, is no longer a society. It highlights the dangers of the fragmentation of contemporary culture, and how this fracturing of society can result in dislocation, distrust, and, in this instance, tragedy.