Madness as scenario

We saw in the first two parts how madness could be used in cinema. Sometimes, filmmakers want to describe and explain a kind of madness. Other times, they want to denounce something and use madness as an allegory. In this last part, we are going to see that sometimes, madness is used only for art and scenario  reasons.

Here, it is difficult to have a plan. I decided to focus on two films : Solaris and Se7en.

 Solaris (2002)

Solaris is a psychological drama directed by Steven Soderbergh. It is based on a novel which inspired a famous Russian film of the same name.

The story takes place on a space station orbiting the planet Solaris, an extrasolar planet which rotates itself around two stars. Dr. Chris Kelvin is sent to the station from Earth following a call from one of the three occupants of the station he knows. As soon as he arrives, he discovers that something is wrong, an occupant committed suicide and the two survivors are terrorised. The psychological problems experienced by the occupants will be extended to Chris himself despite being a renowned psychologist. In fact, it is the planet itself, which comes into contact with the occupants. She is such a person. A replica is created by the planet for each occupant, every replica is a perfect reproduction of a loved one found in astronauts' brains by Solaris. Chris' replica is his wife who committed suicide 10 years ago. The whole story centres on Chris and his reaction after the reproduction of a duplicate of his wife, whereas he has actually lost her following a suicide. Chris will experiment problems of madness because of that, and more generally, philosophical questions.

Se7en (1995)

Se7en is a 1995 film directed by David Fincher (who also directed The Social Network).

David Mills and William Somerset are two police homicide detectives who work in quite a big city. There is an opposition between then since Mills is new and Somerset is about to retire. The whole story is about a serial killer who disguises his crimes using the seven deadly sins. Each crime corresponds to a sin. The seven deadly sins are : wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy and gluttony. Since the killer is very meticulous and sadistic, the two inspectors will not stop the killer until the 7 acts.

In this film, the end tries to illustrate a complete madness when the killer is arrested. This is all about what he thinks and what he feels. Whereas Mills cannot control himself, the killer is very calm. He understands perfectly what he did.