Favorites: Morgan Freeman in “Seven”

There are two types of great performances; One, is the kind that maps new land outside of the territory of what is in script. These are the type where it can sometimes feel like the actor is in a completely different movie, (think Jack Nicholson in The Departed, or Gary Oldman in a lot of things) then there is the other; the kind where it is in an spiritual alignment with the vision. One so molecularly connected to the script and the vision that it feels the actor, script, and director form a Holy trinity, like Isabelle Adjani in “Possession” or in this case Morgan Freeman's performance on Andrew Kevin Walker and David Fincher's “Seven”. Freeman's performance is a phenomenally understated one in a phenomenally overstated movie lives off of excess in depravity, so in that way he becomes it's anchor, but also it's conscious. The best quote about Freeman's performance that I read was from film critic Desson Thompson, who then remarked that Freeman had given an a “Sensational journeyman's performance”. Yeah, that part. The word journeyman speaks to an aspect of not only Freeman's performance but of the movie itself and their symbiotic relationship. It's a very workmanlike performance in unison with a very workman like character co-created by Andrew Kevin Walker. By that I mean and everything from his sartorial choices to his demeanor the character gives off this sort of unpolished straightforward non-ornate sensibility. Detective Somerset is not a Sherlock Holmes or Hercules Poirot type character, he's not even a Clarice Starling type. He's not presented as particularly academic nor particularly eccentric, and he's not a hot head top cop or a man of his people (cops) like Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon, more so than he is dedicated, principled, well read, and empathetic. That combined with the ways in which Freeman chooses to articulate this is the major appeal of Somerset.

Somerset’s brilliance is not coded to be in his mind as much as in his heart. This is the characteristic that sets Somerset apart especially from his male contemporaries as a character and as a performance; his empathy. It's commonplace to talk about Gwyneth Paltrow as the light of this movie (which she is) because it's so obvious. She represents a sort of innocence lost in a very ugly place and because Freeman with all his morose somber politics and “Debbie Downer” musings seems to be apathetic, but while he's not the type of light that Paltrow is in the film he is nonetheless a light, and alot of that is in the subtleties of Freeman’s performance which bookend the film from beginning to end, alot of which is shown in what he doesn't say as compared to his partner and bosses, how he says things, and how he responds to things. When you look at Somersets characteristics plainly imagining just the script itself, he can come off or could have come off easily as purely clinical, but Freeman sees it another way, many of the first things he says to Brad Pitt's Mills has not only very little disdain or anger, but also the sense that he does have an understanding where Mills is coming from but ultimately for the integrity of the scene needs him to be gone since he is clearly not ready for the needs of this particular crime scene. When they visit the coroner to be briefed on what the autopsy has revealed there are various looks on Freeman's face that work in concert with what Somerset doesn't say (like not joining in to comment derogatorily on the man's body) that imply a sincere since of compassion for the dead that governs his ethics. What Freeman profoundly understands about the character of William Somerset is that he is the one cop on the force who feigns being dispassionate about people who is actually very passionate about people and life when he actually is, whereas all the other cops feign compassion for life and for people but in actuality don't really like them. In the cold open of the film he enters an anonymous murder scene where the first question he asked is “did the kid see it”to the detective briefing him on site. The question by many of actors could easily have been one that was decidedly detached with no sense of warmth just a detective looking for the facts, but Freeman gives it body and a sense of not only sadness but a tinge of pain at the very idea of the possibility of it, the kind only an actor of his ilk could give and even then one specific to the traits carried in his voice and the precise way in which he employs it. The cop that he asked is immediately perturbed at the idea of the question, in his mind it is sick to even think on it, but also not worth thinking about. His reply is swift and viciously callous; “Who gives a f*** he's dead and his wife killed him, anything else has nothing to do with us”, but it is exactly that bit of compassion and hope that opens up Somerset's ability to solve crimes in the way that he does, he's willing to sacrifice his own mental health for the sake of these others and it is the apathy of those around him that really gets to him. Thus though not the luminous bright light that is Gwyneth Paltrow's “Tracy”, Freeman is nonetheless a soft warm light in the film.

The true magic of Freeman's performance lies in his interpretation, and his interpretation in the bevy of amazing line readings he gives throughout this film. As an actor looking at the script there is a pitfall or a trap that I could easily see actors falling in, to cloak the character in threads of detachment and a sort of sterile personality. If it was an actor more prone to overstatement then there might have been certain tics added to imply a sort of eccentricity that is suggested within the script in Somerset’s neatness, his attention to detail, and his inability to play well with others, but Freeman plays it all with such nonchalance as if it was never unique to see a black male character like Somerset on film. The character is not a walking poster boy for respectability politics, he is not overly dignified, he is not a slave , or a magical negro, not a token, or a stereotype of black criminality that occupied the collective fantasies of white people during the 80’s and 90’s, one of which Freeman played to the hilt in his big breakthrough in “Street Smart”, he is simply Detective Somerset and by any metric a still rather rare character. Freeman for his part fills it with all the wondrous pathways of his face and maybe the most skillful use of his voice in his career. Freeman in most of his roles decides on a tonality and for the most part keeps that same with his rhythms. In “Street Smart” as “Fast Black” the aim seems to be ferocity so he mostly talks in a growl. Driving Miss Daisy is a more demure, deferential and stately teacher like intonation, while Glory, Lean on Me, and Shawnshank see him in a similar spectrum but different position as a pulpit occupant. The tone is preacherly and it's consistent, but in “Seven” when you think about his various line readings they have a wide range and variance of tonality, of rhythm, pattern, and pitch adjusted to his various moods and a through line of who he is depending on who he's talking to. The tonality he takes with David (Mills) is not the same he takes with Tracey, nor either of them the same as he takes with his boss the Captain, (IMO a career best R Lee Ermey) or his friends at the Library.

Freeman's face can provide such a diverse range of emotion, he can use it to be an aide in the films levity (“Could you please not do that?”) , it's rage (you stupid son of a b**ch) and it's heart ( “You spoil that kid rotten”) . His eyes light up, and they hunker down, and they stare right into your soul as the lines on his face map out the specificity of the emotion behind them. Pitt and Paltrow are the couple, but it's both Freeman's scenes with Paltrow that are the magic of this movie and the “should've been” clips played as they announced and read off his name for the Oscar nomination ceremony. It's a beautiful dance of empathetic understanding that is undergirded by immense chemistry between the two. That moment where Freeman utters those words in the way ONLY he could say them about spoiling her child, that break into almost an ugly cry by Paltrow is one of the most pristine examples of an emotional alley oop and dunk on screen we've ever seen, the one not nearly as powerful without the other and it's all in perfect alignment with Finchers vision. Fincher and Walker needed an actor who could fit something very specific. Something that I think is embodied in the final line of the movie with the Hemingway quote, the world is a fine place and worth fighting for I agree with the second part”. There's a distinctive nobility, along with that a regality, a bit of romance,some vulnerability, and a courage in that quote. It's the statement of a man who saying that he knows the world can be and is often times a bad place, often times it is very much so like any interpretation of hell, and yet he chooses to fight for it still. Now we all know cops aren't the avatars for justice they've been made to be on TV and film and media at large, but as a man Somerset is exemplary and Freeman is exemplary and specific, abrupt, vulnerable, rude, funny, meticulous, patient, warm, and caring. Freeman oscillates between these things in a way that I really think only he could. When I think about the other actors that were called upon to play this I see them being able to play one side. For instance, I could see Harrison Ford being able to nail down that sort of abrasive lack of tact especially in communication he displays in certain scenes with Pitt’s “Mills Like when he says “It's too soon” speaking to R. Lee Ermey and then when Pitt says “you can say that to my face” turns immediately looks at him and says “it's too soon”,Ford would have the world weariness too. What I don't know is that he or for that matter Robert Duvall (who would be very gifted especially in the parts for levity or the dinner table scene) would have his regality, his very subtle, very poetic sense of command over his deep profound sorrow and melancholy. I think the edges would be rougher, more visible, less soft and with less of this weighty but quiet gravitas. We got the best we could ask for in Morgan, an iconic performance as a sort of sadder, black Columbo best up after years of seeing the absolute worst without any of the hope on Columbos still rather seedy Los Angeles setting, in an iconic film that would mark his last of a hell of a run before a bad run of movies for most of the rest of the 90s and sinking into more of a trope of himself in the next coming decades. An actor , a director, a writer, in a holy Trinity for a movie about the unholy.