Daily Dialogue — July 23, 2013
INT. SLUM STAIRWELL — MORNING
Mills and Somerset are standing in the middle of one flight of stairs. Both are highly agitated.
SOMERSET: The way this has gone till now, I wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but we may have underestimated this guy.
MILLS: I want him bad. I don’t just want to catch him anymore. I want to hurt him.
SOMERSET: Listen to me. He’s all about playing games.
MILLS: No kidding! No fucking kidding!
SOMERSET: We have to divorce ourselves from emotions here. No matter how hard it is, we have to stay focused on the details.
MILLS: I don’t know about you, but I feed off my emotions.
SOMERSET: He’ll string us along all the way if we’re not careful.
Mills is looking at the floor, still burning. Somerset grabs him by the jacket.
SOMERSET: Are you listening to me?
Mills pushes Somerset’s hand off.
MILLS: I hear you.
There is a sudden, brilliant FLASH OF LIGHT and the SOUND of a CAMERA ADVANCING. Mills and Somerset look.
Down the stairs, a REPORTER has his camera up, pointed at them.
REPORTER: Say cheese.
He take another picture, flashbulb flashing.
Mills goes down the stairs, grabs the reporter, a balding, almost silly looking man with thick glasses and wrinkled clothing.
MILLS: What the fuck are you doing here?
The reporter squirms, holds up a laminated press pass on a cord around his neck.
REPORTER: I have a right, Officer. I…
Mills shoves him, and the reporter stumbles a few steps, then falls to the landing below with a thud.
MILLS: That doesn’t mean anything! This is a closed crime scene!
Somerset comes to pull Mills back. The shaken reporter stands uneasily.
REPORTER: You can’t do this! You can’t…
MILLS: Get the fuck out of here!
The reporter scrambles down the nest flight, out of sight.
REPORTER (o.s.): The public has a right to know!
Somerset yanks Mills back harder, till Mills sits on the stairs.
MILLS: How do those cockroaches get here so quick?
SOMERSET: They pay cops for the inside scoop, and they pay well.
MILLS (calming): Sorry about that… I just…
SOMERSET (sarcastic): Oh, it’s all right.
Somerset starts back up the stairs.
SOMERSET: It’s always impressive to see a man feeding off his emotions.
— Se7en (1995), written by Andrew Kevin Walker
The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is tantrums, suggested by Aarthi Ramanathan. Today’s suggestion is by blknwite.
Trivia: New Line executives originally balked at the film’s ending, but Brad Pitt refused to make the film if the ending were changed.
Dialogue On Dialogue: What is the point of this scene? It provides no new information, no new leads into the case. But it does do this: It shows Mills rising level of emotions, losing his temper with the photographer, which is one more step in the character’s move toward pulling the trigger on John Doe in the movie’s climactic scene.
A special treat courtesy of blknwite who found this supercut of memorable movie temper tantrums:
Guess we know where we can pull some for the rest of our Daily Dialogues this week!
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