Seven Pounds

     Film creators today use many different tactics and effects to suck people in and draw out their emotions. Colors, shots, framing, sequences, scene set up and many other things play a huge role in persuading the viewers thoughts, emotions, and understanding of them film. Without studying film, one may not realize that almost every small detail is not by chance but completely intentional. As the viewer, most don't even realize how much effect the little things are having on their feelings throughout the movie and overall view of each character. The brain tends to subconsciously notice these things and incorporate them into the viewer's general emotion about each scene, character and the film as a whole. An amazing film to explore these ideas with is Seven Pounds. The main character, Ben Thomas, is in a very dark place as he was the cause of a car accident that killed seven people including his fiancé, Sarah. He sets an elaborate plan into motion to save seven different lives with different parts of his body, the last one being his heart and thus causing his own death. As he is "investigating" the people he is ultimately giving his life to, he falls in love with Emily. Emily is the woman he leaves his heart to. By examining Ben throughout the film the viewer is touched with deep feelings of death, guilt, sadness, conflict, and unbelievable selflessness that Ben radiates throughout the film. Despite his heroic actions, Ben never accepts forgiveness for what he did and he dies still punishing himself down to his last breath.

     There are endless signs throughout the film that prove how Ben is feeling, the viewer can see them externally on Ben through body language and can decipher the film to find them internally through framing, color, and mise-en-scene. The viewer sees both these aspects in every shot of Ben from start to finish. At the beginning of the movie, Ben is at the IRS looking at different profiles of people for an unknown reasons. This is one of the first few scenes. Ben pulls up the profile of Emily Posa and then it flashes to a shot of him. It is a medium close up shot of Ben looking at the computer. The viewer sees his nose and up but his mouth down is covered. His brow is furrowed and he looks like he is on the verge of tears. The background is half pitch black and half low-key lighting. The side with low-key lighting is cluttered with stacks of papers and folders on a shelf (Seven Pounds). This shot tells the viewer so many things right away. Externally, sadness and fear are displayed on Ben's face. This creates a curiosity in the viewer. The viewer is completely baffled, they don't know why he is at the IRS, who Emily is, and why he looks so upset. But, this starts building Ben's character and obviously is essential to the story. By analyzing the shot, the viewer can uncover even more about Ben. The fact that half the shot is dark and half the shot is lit has multiple dual meanings. It displays the concept of life and death. Ben is dead on the inside but alive on the outside. It also foreshadows. The darkness he has faced in his past versus the light he will bring in his future and the viewer does not yet know what those are for him. The contrast also shows conflicting thoughts within him, thinking about his plan and if anything can truly redeem him. Lastly the clutter that is in the lit side of the shot displays the unorganized ruins his life is in. Later in the film, Emily calls Ben from her hospital bed and asks him to tell her a story. As he talks to her he walks to the hospital to be with her while she sleeps. He walks to her room and looks from the outside, through the wired glass window into the room at her sleeping. The scene is very dark and has a greenish tint to it. Looking at Ben through the window provokes the feeling that the viewer is not supposed to be watching Ben as he watches Emily, the viewer is placed on the outside looking in (Seven Pounds). The fact that the glass is wired shows that Ben is caged in. He is trapped in his own devastation and guilt. The dark, sickly green portrays the decay of Ben's life. He is falling for a girl while loving another and he is falling for a girl that he can never truly share a life with. This realization strikes him severely with guilt. Near the climax of the film, after Ben and Emily sleep together and say "I love you" there is a shot that pans up from Emily to Ben. Emily has light shining on her face and the shot gets darker as it moves up to Ben's dark face that is showing so much emotion. Sadness, worry, fear, guilt, and love are all clear in his face (Seven Pounds). Ben is looking as Emily, the light in his world now, and recognizing that they cannot be in this world together. He knows he has to leave her side, but more importantly leave her in this life. She is lit up because she is the light in two ways. One being she is the light that guides Ben through his darkness and the other being she is the life, she is the one that is going to live. Ben is dark because he cannot escape his guilt and he is death, he has been death continuously and now he knows for sure that he is going to die in just a short amount of time. Ben suffers so much depression from the car crash forward. He feels the only way to be forgiven for what he caused is to save seven kind people. Yet, throughout the film the viewer always sees him returning to the same emotions, never coming close to breaking away from them.

     The acts Ben choses to do are acts to receive redemption and to make things right although Ben knows from the start that he will never feel redemption for his actions. He never even imagines forgiving himself for what happened the night of the accident but he still creates an incredibly selfless plan. The viewer wonders throughout the film,  if he will die, if Emily will, what exactly happened that night, and if he will ever be happy and move forward from the tragedy. The fact of the matter is, he will never feel like he has done enough to be forgiven. He will harness guilt until the second he dies. Ben donates his kidney to a hockey coach that helps underprivileged kids play hockey. The day he is donating his kidney in the film, there is a seen that shows the doctor, the hockey coach and Ben in a hospital room. It is a medium shot of Ben looking at the doctor, a medium close up of the hockey coach also looking at the doctor, and the doctor has his back turned to the camera looking at them. Ben and the hockey coach are smiling up at the doctor. The room is lit up but everything around Ben is dark (Seven Pounds). This demonstrates that even in the moments where Ben is doing a chivalrous act and saving a life he is still in the dark. On the outside he can show happiness but inside his guilt still haunts him and nothing will ever be enough for what he did. He can never cure himself of his wrong doings. Later on in the film, after Ben fixes "The Beast", Emily's printing machine, he gets back to the motel and lays down on the bed. He has a flashback of his bride-to-be in her purple dress and then it cuts to him laying flat on his back with his arms spread out wide, in the Christ pose on his bed. The room is very dark, empty, and once again has a greenish tint (Seven Pounds). The first thing to notice here is that directly after doing something loving for Emily, he flashes back to his fiancé on the night she died. She is in a purple dress which sets a loving and romantic mood. This sequence shows that he feels guilt for falling in love with Emily because he still loves his wife. Also, directly after doing something kind, once again the viewer finds hime in the dark, slipping away, empty and hollow. No matter how many good deeds he does, he is a man that cannot be forgiven. In the last twenty minutes of the film, Ben commits suicide. This is after he sleeps with Emily and then runs to the hospital to find out if there is any chance she will have a donor other than him. The chances are so slim, he knows they can never live long, prosperous lives with one another. He goes to the motel and puts his plan for death into action. Throughout the whole sequence of Ben getting into the ice bath, watching the time, knocking the jellyfish in, watching it swim up to sting him, him being stung, and the preparation for the heart transplant Ben is having flashbacks Sarah and the night of the crash. The bath tub is boxy and small. The ice resembles shattered glass. When he grabs the curtain, cringing in pain, the curtain almost looks like it could be the metal of a car (Seven Pounds). All the shots in the suicide scene draw parallels to the car accident. His memory is stuck on that night. Although he is dying now, this shows that he truly died in the car accident. It also shows that he has not let go of what happened. He still feels all the guilt he felt the day after the accident and even in his death, his last moments in this life, he could not redeem himself. There was hope throughout the movie than Ben would potentially find salvation through Emily. By the end, the viewer knows he can only find redemption through himself and he will never forgive himself for it.

     The plan Ben sets in motion is his way of making things right from the devastation he caused to specifically seven people but so many others were effected too. He is seeking redemption but a part of him always knows that he will never achieve it. He always knows it is not for himself but for others. Even during his acts of kindness he is depressed, he feels guilt, and he cannot find any true or lasting happiness. Even in his brightest moments he is in the dark both metaphorically and literally. The deaths haunt him and he is already dead. The moment that car crashes and he loses his fiancé he loses himself too. No redemption comes to him. Even when he cringes in the ice bath, preparing to die, he cannot forgive himself. Seven Pounds tells a story that presents hope for a broken man. But Ben never has hope. The viewer contemplates the possibility of Ben leading a long, happy life of redemption, potentially with Emily but Ben never sees that. Ben never relieves himself. Ultimately Ben dies a good man but a sad man. A man that cannot overcome his past. Some people that find themselves as the cause of a tragic event whether it be an accident, like Ben, making a life changing mistake in an relationship, or blaming themselves for an unpredictable incident they cannot control can find salvation. Some through therapy, some through kind acts, and some through Christ. The moment Ben inflicted this pain, he knew he would never stop feeling the pain himself.