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Du skal undersøge og diskutere en sag, hvor ondskab spille en central rolle. Du skal anvende viden og metoder fra to fag - metoderne skal være forskellige. Du kan inddrage engelsk, samfundsfag, dansk og religion. Du skal enten vælge dansk eller engelsk.

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Magnus M, Magnus R, Johan B

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Magnus K, Andreas, Mads

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Frederik, Johan H, Jacob, Mathias

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Oliver, Tobias, Svend, Daniel

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Ida, Nana, Maya, Cecilie

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Camilla, Sofie, Emilia, Emma

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Katrine, Line, Sarah, Emily

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Simone, Maria, Maja, Cecilia, Maria AC

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Hvordan fungerer jeg i en gruppe?

Eksempler på, hvad jeg er god til:

o   Få ideer

o   Tage noter

o   Sammenfatte og konkludere

o   Skabe en hyggelig stemning

Eksempler på, hvad jeg ikke er så god til.

-        Hvad kan jeg godt lide ved at arbejde i grupper?

-

o   Hvordan giver jeg andre feedback?

o   Hvad gør jeg, hvis gruppearbejdet ikke fungerer?

§  Går til læreren

§  Laver det hele selv

§  Melder mig ud af gruppen

§  Giver op og laver ingenting

-        Hvordan reagerer jeg i pressede situationer?

o   Bliver sur på de andre – det er deres skyld

o   Bliver motiveret

o   Andet

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Punktroman, minimalisme, hybridroman - dette er nogle af de betegnelser, man har anvendt om en tendens i moderne dansk prosa, der for alvor blev tydelig i starten af 90'erne med unge forfattere som Solvej Balle, Merete Pryds Helle, Christina Hesselholdt, Helle Helle, Katrine Marie Guldager, Peter Adolphsen, Simon Fruelund og Morten Søndergaard.

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Mads Brenøes første bøger udkom midt i en bølge af litteratur og film med pågående skildringer af død, sex og vold. Flere af disse skildringer havde klare elementer af kulturkritik og handlede ofte om psykopati og grænsetilfælde. Herhjemme var Brenøe en af dem som satte nye grænser for skildringer af ovennævnte slags.

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Hvad er vores styrker?

Hvor skal vi være opmærksomme?

Hvad gør vi, hvis det bliver besværligt?

–      Hvor lang tid må der gå, før vi reagerer?

–      Hvad er OK at sige til hinanden? Må man konfrontere hinanden?

–      Hvornår og hos hvem beder vi om hjælp?

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American Psycho is a novel by Bret Easton Ellis, published in 1991. The story is told in the first person by Patrick Bateman, a wealthy, narcissistic, vain Manhattan investment banker who supposedly lives a double life as a serial killer. Alison Kelly of The Observer notes that while "some countries [deem it] so potentially disturbing that it can only be sold shrink-wrapped", "critics rave about it" and "academics revel in its transgressive and postmodern qualities".

A film adaptation starring Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman was released in 2000 to generally favorable reviews. Producers David Johnson and Jesse Singer developed a musical adaptation for Broadway. The musical premiered at the Almeida Theatre, London in December 2013.

Bateman was crazy the same way I was. He did not come out of me sitting down and wanting to write a grand sweeping indictment of yuppie culture. It initiated because of my own isolation and alienation at a point in my life. I was living like Patrick Bateman. I was slipping into a consumerist kind of void that was supposed to give me confidence and make me feel good about myself but just made me feel worse and worse and worse about myself. That is where the tension of American Psycho came from. It wasn't that I was going to make up this serial killer on Wall Street. High concept. Fantastic. It came from a much more personal place, and that's something that I've only been admitting in the last year or so. I was so on the defensive because of the reaction to that book that I wasn't able to talk about it on that level.

Set in Manhattan during the Wall Street boom of the late 1980s, American Psycho follows the life of wealthy young investment banker Patrick Bateman. Bateman, in his mid-20s when the story begins, narrates his everyday activities, from his recreational life among the Wall Street elite of New York to his forays into murder by night. Through present tense stream-of-consciousness narrative, Bateman describes his daily life, ranging from a series of Friday nights spent at nightclubs with his colleagues-where they snort cocaine, critique fellow club-goers' clothing, trade fashion advice, and question one another on proper etiquette-to his loveless engagement to fellow yuppie Evelyn and his contentious relationship with his brother and senile mother. Bateman's stream of consciousness is occasionally broken up by chapters in which he directly addresses the reader in order to critique the work of 1980s pop music artists. The novel maintains a high level of ambiguity through mistaken identity and contradictions that introduce the possibility that Bateman is an unreliable narrator. Characters are consistently introduced as people other than themselves, and people argue over the identities of others they can see in restaurants or at parties. Deeply concerned with his personal appearance, Bateman gives extensive descriptions of his daily aesthetics regimen.

After killing Paul Owen, one of his colleagues, Bateman appropriates Paul's apartment as a place to host and kill more victims. Bateman's control over his violent urges deteriorates. His murders become increasingly sadistic and complex, progressing from simple stabbings to drawn-out sequences of rape, torture, mutilation, cannibalism, and necrophilia, and his grasp on sanity begins to slip. He introduces stories about serial killers into casual conversations and on several occasions openly confesses his murderous activities to his coworkers, who never take him seriously, do not hear what he says, or misunderstand him completely-for example, hearing the words "murders and executions" as "mergers and acquisitions". These incidents culminate in a shooting spree during which he kills several random people in the street, resulting in a SWAT team being dispatched in a helicopter. This narrative episode sees the first-person perspective shift to third-person and the subsequent events are, although not for the first time in the novel, described in terms pertaining to cinematic portrayal. Bateman flees on foot and hides in his office, where he phones his attorney, Harold Carnes, and confesses all his crimes to an answering machine.

Later, Bateman revisits Paul Owen's apartment, where he had earlier killed and mutilated two sex workers, carrying a surgical mask in anticipation of the decomposing bodies he expects to encounter. He enters the perfectly clean, refurbished apartment, however, filled with strong-smelling flowers meant, perhaps, to conceal a bad odor. The real estate agent, who sees his surgical mask, fools him into stating he was attending the apartment viewing because he "saw an ad in the Times" (when in fact there was no such advertisement). She tells him to leave and never return.

Bateman's mental state continues to deteriorate and he begins to experience bizarre hallucinations such as seeing a Cheerio interviewed on a talk show, being stalked by an anthropomorphic park bench, and finding a bone in his Dove Bar. At the end of the story, Bateman confronts Carnes about the message he left on his machine, only to find the attorney amused at what he considers a hilarious joke. Mistaking Bateman for another colleague, Carnes claims that the Patrick Bateman he knows is too much of a coward to have committed such acts. In the dialogue-laden climax, Carnes stands up to a defiant Bateman and tells him his claim of having murdered Owen is impossible, because he had dinner with him twice in London just a few days prior.

The book ends as it began, with Bateman and his colleagues at a new club on a Friday night, engaging in banal conversation. The sign seen at the end of the book simply reads "This is not an exit".

According to literary critic Jeffrey W. Hunter, American Psycho is largely a critique of the "shallow and vicious aspects of capitalism". The characters are predominantly concerned with material gain and superficial appearances, traits indicative of a postmodern world in which the 'surface' reigns supreme. This leads Patrick Bateman to act as if "everything is a commodity, including people", an attitude that is further evident in the rampant objectification and brutalization of women that occurs in the novel. This distancing allows Bateman to rationalize his actions; in one scene in which he cannibalizes a victim, Bateman remarks "though it does sporadically penetrate how unacceptable some of what I'm doing actually is, I just remind myself that this thing, this girl, this meat, is nothing ..."

Bateman's episodes of schizophrenia also shows clear signs on how he copes with being an affluent person living in a superficial world, fashioned on consumerism. As described by the critic Jennifer Krause in her intertextual analysis of the novel, which relies on the work of postmodern theorist Fredric Jameson, Jameson "blames the schizophrenic's ills on the incoherence of postmodern media and capitalistic consumption".

Jameson's critique is expanded by Krause, who writes: "We can see a distinctly popular culture schizophrenia arise, a disease spread by the postmodern culture industry, which ruptures personality and isolates the fractured self. Though Jameson does not specifically reference two different types of schizophrenia in his writings, he implies an artistic schizophrenia versus a more popular form-one more or less accepted, and the other anathema. This raises questions about how popular culture might act as a potential cure for madness". On the one hand is a rich Wall Street banker, Bateman, concerned and very self-conscious about every detail of his physical appearance, expensive possessions, and control of the people and the world around him. On the other hand, is the inner self of Patrick Bateman, the aboriginal-self, who copes and relinquishes his outer complications and "fake" identity, created by consumerism, through violence on other human beings, who he finds consumable, and expresses absolute control of his desires and true self through his violent fantasies. His consumer, artificial self, proceeding in society as a wealthy consumer would live and spend his income, versus his natural self, who, instead of spending money, would hunt and prey on the weak and vulnerable, usually women, whom he deems expendable. Bateman treats the people around him just like any other consumer product, because of the void he still battles with and wishes to fulfill from within, hence, having dual personas, having the dull artificial identity, compared to his free limitless persona of his mind.

Observing another side of potential behavior coming from the affluent American society of consumerism is explained through C. Serpell: "Though serialized violence in American Psycho is an extension of the deadening effects of serialized consumer exchanges in an economy where commodities and bodies become interchangeable and indistinguishable, this point largely escaped the notice of the novel's harshest critics". Despite critics arguing over the aesthetic properties of the novel from rapid patterns and transitions of self-consciousness and murder, Serpell claims critics have overlooked the key themes and motives of the novel. Serpell bringing to light the patterns and trends Ellis expresses through Bateman, what the consequences of how "serialized consumer exchanges in an economy where commodities and bodies become interchangeable and indistinguishable", could affect society, and the way affluent people view others whether they are higher, lower, or the same in wealth or social status. The critic Thomas Heise states that "the uncertainty about the reality of Patrick's violence has become the chief critical debate on American Psycho, and it serves as a convenient introduction to the entanglement of epistemology and ethics in the novel". Bateman's character and traits, according to Heise, challenge what readers understand as the social norms for the way the elite upper class think and react to society on a normal basis. Bateman's epistemology and ethics in regards to his actions and way of thinking throughout the novel is a reflection, through his violence, which raises the questions of the moral and ethical understanding of all individuals in Bateman's position and status, and how they might act and think similar or completely identical in a consumer world built on capitalism as people see in today's American society.

The novel subtly and relentlessly undercuts its own authority, and because Bateman, unlike, say, Nabokov's unreliable narrators, does not hint at a "truth" beyond his own delusions, American Psycho becomes a wonderfully unstable account. The most persuasive details are combined with unlikely incidents until we're not only unsure what's real, we begin to doubt the existence of reality itself.

It has often been noted that Patrick Bateman is an example of an unreliable narrator, and this feature of American Psycho has been the subject of discussion in several academic works. In a 2014 appearance on theWTF with Marc Maron podcast, Ellis stated that Bateman's narration was so unreliable that even he, as the author of the book, did not know if Bateman was honestly describing events that actually happened or if he was lying or even hallucinating.

Patrick Bateman - the central narrator and villainous protagonist of the novel.

Evelyn Richards - Bateman's supposed fiancée.

Timothy Price - Bateman's best friend and colleague. Later appears as a teenager in Ellis's novel The Informers.

Paul Owen - Bateman's colleague who is later murdered by Bateman.

Jean - Bateman's secretary, whom Bateman refers to as "Jean, my secretary who is in love with me".

Luis Carruthers - a closeted homosexual co-worker who is attracted to Bateman, something that disgusts the latter.

Courtney Lawrence - Luis' fiancée who is having an affair with Bateman.

Craig McDermott - Bateman's colleague, part of a social foursome alongside Bateman, Timothy Price and David Van Patten.

David Van Patten - Bateman's colleague, also part of Bateman's main social group.

"Christie" - a prostitute, employed and badly abused by Bateman on multiple occasions before he eventually murders her in a grisly fashion. Bateman gives her this name; her real one is never revealed.

Elizabeth - a dinner date of Bateman's, drugged and coerced into having sex with "Christie" before being violently murdered.

Marcus Halberstam - Bateman's colleague; Paul Owen repeatedly mistakes Bateman for Marcus.

Donald Kimball - private detective hired to investigate Paul Owen's disappearance.

Alison Poole - sexually and physically assaulted by Bateman; created by Ellis's friend Jay McInerney in his novel Story of My Life and based on McInerney's former girlfriend Rielle Hunter, reappears as a main character in Ellis's later novel , where she is involved with the lead character, Victor Ward.

Sean Bateman - younger brother of Patrick Bateman and also the lead character of The Rules of Attraction.

Paul Denton - friend of Paul Owen, who also appears in The Rules of Attraction where he is possibly romantically involved with Patrick's brother Sean.

Christopher Armstrong - Bateman's colleague at Pierce & Pierce.

Bethany - an old girlfriend of Patrick's whom, after a date, he tortures and subsequently murders.

Stash - Evelyn's friend, who is HIV positive.

Vanden - Evelyn's friend from the East Village who claims to attend Camden College, the main setting of The Rules of Attraction.

Al - a homeless man whom Bateman blinds and disfigures with a knife.

Tom Cruise - lives in the same apartment building as Bateman, in the penthouse.

Bono - the leader singer of Irish rock band U2. Appears in a chapter in which Bateman and his colleagues attend a U2 concert.

Patty Winters - the host of a talk show which Bateman frequently views. As the novel progresses the subject of her programs become more and more absurd, implied to be no more than a figment of Bateman's imagination.

Ellis later wrote that people assumed that American Psycho would end his career. It was originally to have been published by Simon & Schuster in March 1991, but the company withdrew from the project because of "aesthetic differences". Vintage Books purchased the rights to the novel and published the book after the customary editing process. The book was not published in hardcover in the United States until 2012, when a limited hardcover edition was published by Centipede Press, although a deluxe paperback was offered. Before its publication, Roger Rosenblatt of The New York Times approved of Simon & Schuster canceling the "worthless" book in a review called "Snuff This Book! Will Bret Easton Ellis Get Away With Murder?". Ellis received numerous death threats and hate mail after the publication of American Psycho. The Los Angeles Times's review-"the one good review in the national press", he said-resulted in "a three-page letter section of all these people canceling their subscriptions".

In the United States, the book was named the 53rd most banned and challenged book from 1990-1999 by the American Library Association.

In Germany, the book was deemed "harmful to minors" and its sales and marketing severely restricted from 1995 to 2000.[citation needed ]

In Australia, the book is sold shrink-wrapped and is classified "R18" under national censorship legislation (i.e., the book may not be sold to those under 18 years of age). Along with other Category 1 publications, its sale is theoretically banned in the state of Queensland, and it may only be purchased shrink-wrapped. In Brisbane, the novel is available to those over 18 from all public libraries and can still be ordered and purchased (shrink-wrapped) from many book stores despite this prohibition. Ellis has commented on this: "I think it's adorable. I think it's cute. I love it". In New Zealand, the Government's Office of Film & Literature Classification has rated the book as R18 (i.e., the book may not be sold or lent in libraries to those under 18 years of age). It is generally sold shrink wrapped in bookstores.

Feminist activist Gloria Steinem was among those opposed to Ellis' book because of its portrayal of violence toward women. Coincidentally, Steinem is the stepmother of Christian Bale, who played Bateman in the film. This coincidence is mentioned in Ellis' mock memoir .

During the trial of Canadian serial killer Paul Bernardo, a copy was discovered in Bernardo's bedroom. The Toronto Sun reported that Bernardo "read it as his 'bible'", though it turned out it actually belonged to his wife and accomplice Karla Homolka; it is unlikely Bernardo ever read it.

In 2000, writer Guinevere Turner and writer/director Mary Harron adapted American Psycho into a dark, comic film released by Lions Gate Films in United States and Columbia Pictures in other territories. This screenplay was selected over three others, including one by Ellis himself. Bateman is played by Christian Bale with Willem Dafoe and Reese Witherspoon in supporting roles. As a promotion for the film, one could register to receive e-mails "from" Patrick Bateman, supposedly to his therapist. The e-mails, written by a writer attached to the film and approved by Ellis, follow Bateman's life since the events of the film. American Psycho premiered at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival where it was touted as the next . The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) gave the film an NC-17 rating for a scene featuring Bateman having a threesome with two prostitutes. The producers excised approximately 18 seconds of footage to obtain an R-rating for the film.

It polarized audiences and critics with some showering praise, others scorn. Upon its theatrical release, however, the film received positive reviews in crucial publications, including The New York Times which called it a "mean and lean horror comedy classic". Ellis said, "American Psycho was a book I didn't think needed to be turned into a movie", as "the medium of film demands answers", which would make the book "infinitely less interesting". The film received generally positive reviews.

A direct-to-video sequel, American Psycho 2, was released and directed by Morgan J. Freeman. This film was not based on the novel or the original film, as its only connection with the original is the death of Patrick Bateman (played by Michael Kremko wearing a face mask), briefly shown in a flashback.

In 2009, Audible.com produced an audio version of American Psycho, narrated by Pablo Schreiber, as part of its Modern Vanguard line of audiobooks. A Hungarian version of the novel was written by Attila Hazai (1967-2012) called Budapesti skizo ("Budapest Psycho", 1997); it was Hazai's best known work but as of his death never translated into English.

In 2013, a Kickstarter campaign was launched by Ellis and others to get a musical stage adaptation made. The premiere of the musical, with music and lyrics by Duncan Sheik opened at the Almeida Theatre, London in December. The role of Patrick Bateman was played by Matt Smith. In 2015, the musical was workshopped in New York, with Benjamin Walker re-assuming the role of Patrick that he had originally taken on in 2011. It premiered in early 2016, but closed on June 5 of that year after a run of only 54 regular performances. In the announcement, they cited "stiff competition" from more well-known musicals like , Shuffle Along, and . A version of the musical is the focus of the musical episode titled "Chapter One Hundred and Twelve: American Psychos" of the sixth season from the series .

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American Psycho is a novel by Bret Easton Ellis, published in 1991. The story is told in the first person by Patrick Bateman, a wealthy, narcissistic, vain Manhattan investment banker who supposedly lives a double life as a serial killer.

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Jeg må indrømme, at jeg føler mig lidt ilde til mode ved titlen "Litteraturen og det onde". Af to grunde. For det første har jeg svært ved at forholde mig til et så overgribende begreb som "det onde", fordi det er en abstraktion. Lidt på samme måde som "kærlighed" er.

Hvorimod det, som det udspringer af, den onde handling, altid er konkret, altid er fæstnet i tiden, altid har en særlig historie, der involverer bestemte mennesker. For det andet underforstår titlen, at litteraturen skulle have noget med det onde at gøre, ja, at den i grunden skulle være tæt forbundet med det. Og denne udbredte holdning, som i reglen kommer med en ganske bestemt kanon, hvor navne som de Sade, Poe, Baudelaire, Céline, Genet og Bataille er centrale, har ofte noget posøragtigt over sig, ja, undertiden endda noget pubertært. Som om den aura, der omgiver det onde, det mørke og det grusomme på en eller anden måde bliver attråværdig og overføres til dem, der skriver om det, således at også deres tekster bliver farlige i en eller anden forstand. Det onde kan være så meget, men en akademisk øvelse er det ikke.

På den anden side ville det modsatte, en forelæsning med titlen "Litteraturen og det gode", indgive mig endnu større modvilje på grund af den nymoralistiske bølge, der for tiden skyller hen over Skandinavien, hvor litterære værker, i fuldt alvor og med stor iver, bliver evalueret i henhold til, om det, som de udtrykker, er rigtigt eller forkert, godt eller dårligt. Ikke i forhold til kvalitet, men i forhold til moral.

Et eksempel blandt flere er modtagelsen af den svenske forfatter Stig Larssons sidste bog, som i mange anmeldelser blev fordømt. Ikke fordi den var dårligt skrevet eller dårligt tænkt, uinteressant eller uoriginal. Men fordi det liv, som den beskriver, er forkasteligt: Hovedpersonen behandler nemlig ikke kvinder, som de bør behandles. Især én scene er meget omdiskuteret, nemlig den, hvor hovedpersonen, som er Stig Larsson selv, binder en kvinde og har analt samleje med hende. Det er hovedpersonen og hans handlinger, som bliver vurderet og målt, og ikke den litteratur, de fremtræder i.

Fascistisk

Et andet eksempel er den såkaldte Tintin-debat i Sverige, hvor en bibliotekar ville fjerne tegneserien Tintin fra børnebiblioteket, fordi den udtrykker en forkastelig holdning til sorte mennesker. Også ved modtagelsen af mine egne bøger er noget lignende sket. Da anden bog af Min kamp udkom i Norge, stillede Aftenpostens anmelder sig det spørgsmål, om et i romanen beskrevet forhold var strafferetsligt forældet. Med andre ord: om forfatteren i grunden ikke burde fængsles for det. Samme bog er i Sverige blevet kaldt fascistisk, og forfatteren, altså undertegnede, er flere gange, bl.a. i Sveriges største avis, blevet sammenlignet med Anders Behring Breivik.

Lige siden sommeren 2011 har Breivik været synonym med den rene ondskab i Skandinavien. Så når en romanforfatter sammenlignes med ham, er det et stærkt udtryk for, at de holdninger, som hans romaner udtrykker, er uønskede og farlige og i grunden slet ikke bør trykkes. Bag sådanne reaktioner ligger der for det meste den implicitte holdning, at litteraturen bør være god, bør være opbyggelig og bør tjene samfundet og kulturen ved at udtrykke sunde værdier og holdninger. Når vi læser om sådanne holdninger i tidligere tider, f.eks. dem, som optræder i Flauberts Madame Bovary og Baudelaires Le Fleur du Mal fra slutningen af det nittende århundrede - bøger, hvis udgivelse i begge tilfælde skaffede forfatteren en retssag på halsen - har vi vanskeligt ved at stille os på anklagemyndighedens side og erklære os enig i, at Madame Bovary er så umoralsk, at den burde forbydes. Og når vi læser om de reaktioner, som maleren Edvard Munch blev mødt med af sin samtid, der med væmmelse opfattede hans billeder som syge og destruktive - når vi læser denne 1800-talskritik - er det alt for let at latterliggøre disse holdninger som småborgerlige, snæversynede og kunstfjendske. Vi gør det alt for let for os selv, for selv om 1800-tallets moralske grænser ikke er de samme som vores, har også vi vores moralske grænser, og det er overskridelsen af dem, som vi må forholde os til, hvis vi skal være fair over for 1800-tallets kunst og litteratursyn.

For det er selvfølgelig dér, i overskridelsen af den gældende moral, som er fællesskabets sans eller fornemmelse for, hvad der er ønskeligt eller uønsket, for hvad der er forbudt, og hvad der er tilladt, at skæringspunktet mellem litteraturen og det ondes problem ligger. Hvis en roman er racistisk, hvis en roman er kvindefjendsk, hvis en roman er ærekrænkende, eller en romanforfatter er en voldtægtsmand, så griner vi ikke, så er vi ikke længere småborgere, der fordømmer dem, men mennesker, der kæmper for en god verden.

Måske har jeg læst for mange romaner. For mig er romanens væsentligste egenart netop dette perspektiv: det lille menneskes historie. Det betyder ikke, at jeg vil afvise, at der findes store systemer, eller at jeg underkender de samfundsmæssige overbygninger, det politiske og det ideologiske og tilstedeværelsen af det, man kunne kalde den strukturelle ondskab i verden, og som eksempelvis gjorde Holocaust mulig. Men kun at dette perspektiv altid aktualiseres i den enkelte, i dig og mig, og følgelig eksisterer på to niveauer, som en abstraktion, noget, vi forholder os til i form af statistik og tal, almene ideer og forestillinger, og som en konkretion, i enkeltmenneskers tanker og gerninger, hvor det almene falder sammen med det personlige.

Den mystiske grænse

Et eksempel på denne figur kan være forholdet mellem det lokale og det globale, som den franske sociolog Bruno Latour analyserer i bogen Vi har aldrig været moderne. Det lokale ophører ikke med at eksistere som størrelse, selv om der udgår forbindelser fra det lokale til det globale. Ved at følge processen skridt for skridt "krydser man aldrig den mystiske grænse, som skulle skille det lokale fra det globale". Hvornår forlader toget det lokale område og bevæger sig over i det globale?, spørger Latour og svarer: aldrig.

Det globale er en abstraktion, det lader sig kun stedfæste og overskue, i den udstrækning vi forlader vort eget blik, vores egen verden og anlægger et hypotetisk perspektiv. Det var i dette perspektiv, at menneskene engang opfandt Gud for at sikre sig, at det onde som et alment begreb eksisterer sammen med alle andre generelle begreber om det menneskelige såsom det heroiske eller det racerene eller kærligheden.

Cervantes' Don Quijote, udspiller sig netop i dette rum, mellem forestillingen om verden og menneskene i den, repræsenteret ved den fordrukne adelsmands romantiske ridderromanideer, som igen og igen kolliderer så brutalt med den uforskønnede virkelighed. Det samme gælder for Flauberts Madame Bovary, hvor det er forestillingen om den romantiske kærlighed, som punkteres eftertrykkeligt ved mødet med det franske 1800-tals provinsvirkelighed. Men mest blændende formår måske James Joyce at turnere de to niveauer. Jeg tænker på Ulysses, hvor Joyce først og fremmest udforsker, hvordan ideerne og det immaterielle manifesterer sig i det materielle ud fra den tankegang, at det kun er her, det findes, i øjeblikket, i kroppene og genstandene, som er her akkurat nu.

Romanen tager fat på det myldrende liv på en helt almindelig dag i en helt almindelig by, og da handlingen udspiller sig i løbet af denne ene dag, og teksten hele tiden er nærværende i øjeblikket, findes der intet overgribende. Alt er opløst i nuet og set igennem individet. Det gælder historien, det gælder mytologien, det gælder de døde, det gælder filosofien, det gælder religionen, og det gælder ikke mindst og måske først og fremmest identiteten. Ingen af disse enheder er splintret eller opløst, de er blot set gennem øjeblikkets prisme, som kun kan overskue små sekvenser ad gangen. Et glimt af den døde mor, lugten i rummet, hvor hun lå, en tanke af Thomas Aquinas, et solblink i en rude, bruset fra bølgerne, en bryggerhest på vej hen over gaden, en sætning i en avis, et stykke fra en arie, en underdanig bibliotekar, en tanke på bøgerne på hylderne som kister. Sådan er det at være i verden. For at forstå den, eller tænke over den, må man tage et skridt tilbage fra den. Sådan er det også med Ulysses. Alle de små sekvenser, alle de i nuet opløste strukturer, samler sig i et større billede, som er Joyces svar på spørgsmålet: Hvad vil det sige at være menneske?

Det menneskelige er det enkelte menneske, det findes ingen andre steder, og det enkelte menneske er ikke suverænt. Det er begrænset, utilstrækkeligt og næsten altid småligt, bange for de mest idiotiske ting, som det kan eller ikke kan kontrollere, men desuagtet bruger mange kræfter på, bundet til en lille gruppe af mennesker, familie og venner, fyldt af begær, som oftest utilfredsstillet, trist eller glad ved andres selskab, et menneske, som laver mad, som brænder sig eller stikker sig i pegefingeren, når det syr, eller rammer tommelfingeren, når det skal slå søm i, som pludselig kan snuble, eller som fyldes af raseri og slår nogen, der står det nær, eller som holder raseriet tilbage og hellere vil gå til af frustration.

Stumme af betagelse

Mennesket forstår mere eller mindre, men aldrig synderligt meget. Alle slags følelser kommer og går, og alle slags plager, store og små, tømmermænd og hæmorider og splinter i fingrene, kræft og pest og hjerteinfarkt. Dette menneskeliv, som er vort og det eneste, vi har, opstod ikke som noget ophøjet og vældigt, det opstod i det små, nogle stykker i en dal et sted, en flok skabninger, som puslede rundt og forsøgte at få det bedste ud af det, som så op på stjernehimlen og blev stumme af betagelse, som samlede sig omkring den døde og forstummede, så nye mennesker blive født, ud fra ingenting, det vil sige dem selv, deres eget kød og blod. En gud for dem måtte være stor, som mørket, der sænkede sig om aftenen, og dæmringen, som kom om morgenen og brød ud i et væld af lys, men også lille, som pilen, der forfejler sit mål eller båden, som var uheldigt bygget, tog vand ind og sank efter kun få minutter på vandet.

Mellem det kosmiske og det komiske befinder det menneskelige sig, og den Gud, som de engang var forbundet med, var vævet ind i det. Han repræsenterede de universelle magter, men når han viste sig, var det i det lokale. Ja, historien om Gud i Det Gamle Testamente er også historien om det lokale. Om det ene menneske, Adam, Eva, Kain, Abel, Noa, Abraham, Isak, Josef, Moses, om dette enkelte sted, denne enkelte flod, denne enkelte by. Det menneskelige ved denne tidlige Gud brydes med det umenneskelige, når Guden lader alt liv drukne i syndfloden eller udsletter hele byer. For disse handlinger, som er så fulde af blind destruktivitet, er et udtryk for en straf for menneskenes overskridelser og er derved direkte knyttet til deres liv, hvilket rejser spørgsmålet om, hvad godhed er, for hvis han vil dem det gode, hvorfor er han da så grusom, at han udsletter dem? Ikke bare de, som har syndet, men alle andre, som befinder sig der, også uskyldige børn?

Er denne Gud også ond? Hvordan kunne han lægge hele to byer øde? Lade alle undgælde for de fås ugerninger? Det er også vores spørgsmål, for selv om vi lever uden for Gud, blev to byer fuldstændig udslettet for blot tre generationer siden, hundredtusindevis brændt levende, også uskyldige børn, som en gengældelse for det, nogle få havde gjort. Problemet er det samme, for også her var udgangspunktet det retfærdige og det gode, mens resultatet blev det onde. I Sodoma og Gomorra skete det, da Gud hævede sig over det menneskelige, i Hiroshima og Nagasaki var det mennesker, som hævede sig over det menneskelige. Begge steder åbnede himlen sig med en kraft, som forvandlede dagligdagen til et helvede. Selve verden åbnede sig, og den vældige magt viste sit ansigt. Den kom til os, vi havde kaldt på den, og den vrede, den viste, var det guddommeliges vrede. I den fandtes ingen moral, intet hensyn, ingen tanke.

Den var lige så blind som blændende, lige så død som dødbringende, som alle magter er blinde og døde, vinden og solen, for der kom vind, og den var dødelig, og der kom sol, og den var dødelig, mennesker og ting smeltede, mennesker og ting blev blæst i stykker, og derefter bredte der sig noget usynligt i en videre omkreds og dræbte resten af dem, som befandt sig indenfor, mens det tog bo i dem, som befandt sig udenfor, gjorde dem syge og gjorde deres børn misdannede på så groteske måder, at man skulle tro, at det var djævelen, som havde moret sig med at pille spædbørnene fra hinanden og sætte dem sammen på ny. Som forholdet er mellem det lokale og det globale, hvor det globale aldrig viser sig, når man følger vejen ind i det, men forbliver lokalt, er også forholdet mellem det menneskelige og det overmenneskelige.

Følger vi linjerne fra den teoretiske fysik, som gjorde spaltningen af atomet muligt til konstruktionen af atombomben og frem til, at den eksploderede over Hiroshima, viser der sig ingen umenneskelighed, men kun en række mennesker, som sysler med hver deres, hver og en af dem et mere eller mindre godt menneske, men ikke ondt og ikke et menneske, som i sig selv har noget ansvar for det, som skete. Hvordan skal vi kunne holde ham ansvarlig, den stakkels soldat, som trak i håndtaget og åbnede lugen, som lod bomben falde med de enorme, apokalyptiske konsekvenser, som fulgte?

Det, som gør en pris på 500.000 menneskebørns død mulig, er afstand. Fysisk afstand, som med bomberne over

Hiroshima eller med USA's udenrigsminister. Men også mental afstand: Havde tyskerne betragtet jøderne som deres ligemænd, som medmennesker, ville udryddelsen have været umulig. Men det gjorde de ikke. De så dem dels som rotter eller bakterier, dels som tal i et system. Sprogforskeren Victor Klemperer, som var tysk jøde, beskrev samfundet set indefra, hvordan afstanden til det jødiske voksede sig større i Hitlertyskland, og hvordan den først og fremmest viste sig som en glidning i sproget. Da Hitlers Mein Kampf udkom i 1925, blev den opfattet som en urimelig, umulig og umoralsk bog, og den blev nedsablet i de store aviser, hvor der stod, at med den var Hitlers politiske karriere lagt død. Ti år senere var den en accepteret del af virkeligheden. Det var ikke bogen, som havde forandret sig, det var modtagelsen af den, altså modtagernes holdning, altså moralen. Hannah Arendt skrev, at moralen i Tyskland gik fra at sige: "Du skal ikke slå ihjel" til at sige: "Du skal slå ihjel". Moralen er alles, den tilhører fællesskabet, men udtrykkes i den enkelte.

Mein Kampf udkom tre år efter Ulysses og befinder sig, litterært set, i den helt anden ende af skalaen: Hvor Ulysses går så tæt på et enkeltmenneske og et enkelt øjeblik, som det er muligt at komme, er enkeltmennesket totalt fraværende i Mein Kampf. Det menneskelige betragtes på enorm afstand og altid som noget sekundært i forhold til det ideologiske. Fordi bogen på denne måde betragter mennesket som et middel og ikke som et mål i sig selv, har den lighedstræk med de handlinger, jeg tidligere nævnte. For også Hiroshimas mennesker og Iraks børn var et middel for andre mål. I skønlitteraturen er mennesket selv målet, og den forskel er væsentlig. Skønlitteraturen er ikke-instrumentel, og det er definerende for den: I det øjeblik skønlitteraturen bliver instrumentel, er den ikke længere skønlitteratur, men noget andet: dokumentarroman, pamflet, brugsanvisning.

Brændte bøger og mennesker

Al litteratur er billeder af verden. Deri bliver der automatisk indlagt en afstand. Det afgørende er imidlertid, at i tilfældet Mein Kampf stoppede Hitler ikke op ved den omskabelse af verden, som skønlitteraturen udvirker. Han gik videre og forsøgte at omskabe verden i bogens billede. Med sine flag, sine dødningehoveder, sine optog og sin middelalderkult gav nazisterne fiktionen liv, og alt det, som ikke passede ind i denne fiktion, forsøgte de at fjerne - først brændte de bøger, så brændte de mennesker. I sig selv som litteratur eller verdensanskuelse var billedet i Mein Kampf ikke farligt. Det truede i udgangspunktet ingen, og det var heller ikke originalt, for alt, hvad der fandtes i Mein Kampf, fandtes i forvejen i den verden, som bogen stammede fra. Det måske vigtigste element, forestillingen om det biologiske menneske, kom fra den tids førende forskningsinstitutioner. Også hele det industrielle og bureaukratiske apparat, som gjorde nedbrydningen af de enkelte jøders identitet mulig, og den faktiske, fysiske udryddelse gennemførlig, var noget, som allerede eksisterede. Gaskamrene fandtes, de var en amerikansk opfindelse, mens koncentrationslejrene var en engelsk opfindelse, og heller ikke den ekstreme antisemitisme var særegen for Hitler og nazismen, men udbredt og det i langt højere grad, end mange i dag er klar over - en af de verdens førende antisemitter var Henry Ford, manden med bilen og samlebåndet.

Hvis det virkelig er sådan, at de samfundsmæssige forhold i Tyskland nok udgjorde forudsætningerne for, men ikke de udløsende faktorer for nationalsocialismens menneskelige katastrofe, er det måske imod Hitler selv, hans karakter og personlighed, at vi må vende os for at forstå, hvad der skete. Gør vi det, vil vi finde et mishandlet og omsorgssvigtet barn, ude af stand til at etablere nære forhold til andre mennesker, med kunstnerdrømme og stor skønhedslængsel, som fandt meningen i sit liv under Den Første Verdenskrig i de upersonlige relationer og de klare mål, som herskede i militæret, i skyggen af skyttegravskrigens ligdynger, under forhold, hvor menneskeliv var til at bruge og smide væk og følgelig værdiløse. Og som derudover havde intimitetsangst og seksualskræk og var besat af et abnormt stærkt had til jøder. Men også alle disse træk var i rigt mål til stede i den kultur, han var en del af, både hver for sig og samlet - og selv om det gør det muligt at forstå Hitler, bliver det ikke dermed muligt at forklare ham eller den bevægelse, han næsten egenhændigt vakte til live i slutningen af 1920'ernes Tyskland.

I romanens perspektiv, som er det enkelte menneskes perspektiv, vil også Hitlers ondskab opløse sig i det liv, han levede, forsvinde ind i hans ungdomsforelskelser, hans morsomheder, hans frygt og vrede, hans sorger og længsler, hans pis og hans lort, hans søvn og hans måltider, hans suveræne taler og hans forkærlighed for elegante biler og søde kager. Dette ville ikke være at reducere ondskaben, for dens gerninger er ubestridelige og endegyldige. Det ville bare være at sige, at Hitler var et menneske som du og jeg.

Det spørgsmål, man her vil stille sig, det gør jeg i al fald, er: Hvad skal vi stille op med denne forståelse? Hvorfor menneskeliggøre Hitler? Hvorfor menneskeliggøre det onde? Må det ikke være nok, at vi forbyder antisemitisme, forbyder racistiske ytringer, fordømmer de indvandrerfjendske kræfter og holder et vagtsomt øje med alle nationalister? Hvad skal vi med Céline? Han var jo antisemit. Hvad skal vi med Hamsun? Han beundrede nationalsocialismen og skrev Hitlers nekrolog. Hvad skal vi med Heidegger? Han var nationalsocialist.

For nogle år siden blev denne problemstilling accentueret i den norske offentlighed, da forfatteren Stig Sæterbakken i rollen som kunstnerisk leder besluttede sig for at invitere den berygtede engelske historiker David Irving til Lillehammerfestivalen. Irving er berygtet, fordi han har sået tvivl om, hvorvidt Holocaust faktisk fandt sted, eller i det mindste om, hvorvidt Holocaust havde det omfang, historikerne tillægger denne begivenhed - et forhold, han blev idømt fængselsstraf for i Østrig. Temaet for festivalen det år var 'sandhed'. Jeg husker, at det forekom mig som en god idé. For med til sandheden hører jo også sandheden om løgnen, tænkte jeg. Men det viste sig, at der kun var ganske få, som tænkte på den måde. Invitationen afstedkom et helvedes rabalder i Norge, fordømmelsen var så massiv, som den kun kan blive, når nogen har moralen på sin side. Det hele endte med, at invitationen blev trukket tilbage, og Stig Sæterbakken måtte gå af som kunstnerisk leder.

For hvad var nu det for en idé: at give en talerstol til en nazist?

En social størrelse

Stig Sæterbakken er også optaget af det onde. Ikke så meget af det onde som overgreb og magtmiddel. Nærmest som det modsatte: som en form for overskridelse. Ikke i virkeligheden, men i litteraturen, ud fra den indsigt, at moralen er en social størrelse, og at det sociale ud over at være stedet for fællesskabet og solidariteten også er stedet for binding, for tvang og for begrænsning. I et essay om Hedda Gabler sammenligner han Henrik Ibsens forfatterskab med August Strindbergs. Hvor den verden, Ibsen skriver frem, er ekstremt velordnet og planlagt, således at den mindste replik og handling er fyldt til bristepunktet med mening, som altid går op i et større hele, er Strindbergs tekster det modsatte. I dem er der intet, der går op, og den store sammenhæng, som måske nok er tænkt ind i udgangspunktet, brydes altid op af indfald, af samtaler, som ikke fører nogen steder hen, af beskrivelser af noget, som ikke føjer sig ind i nogen helhed, men står isolerede, ude i scenekanten. Eller med Sæterbakkens ord: "Tegn og ting indgår her ikke nødvendigvis i et konsistent forhold, men flyder omkring og danner nye, tilfældige konstellationer, nye betydninger. Meningen er en labil ting."

Frie, moderne mennesker

Hvad betyder det, at meningen er en labil ting, som hos Strindberg, og at meningen er en stabil ting, som hos Ibsen? Hos Ibsen er det stabile og konsistente det sociale, som i grunden ikke er andet end et sæt spilleregler, som meningen indgår i. De, som befinder sig i dette spil, ser ikke, at det er et spil, før noget udefra truer det, og det er blandt andet den trussel - indsigten i, at alt lige så godt kunne have været helt anderledes - som gør Ibsens stykker til tragedier. Menneskene i Ibsens stykker er, som Sæterbakken skrev, "underlagt en rigid social og psykologisk tvang, fanget i et betydningens net, som de blot vikler sig stadig mere ind i, jo mere de river og slider for at vriste sig fri."

Vi, som lever i dag, tilhører ikke Ibsens borgerskabsverden. Vi er frie, moderne mennesker, som tænker det, vi vil, om hvad vi vil, og som bor i et åbent, frit samfund. I al fald er det sådan, vi tænker om os selv. Men spørgsmålet er, om ikke Ibsens mennesker også havde et sådant selvbillede? Kunne vi på tilsvarende vis være underlagt en rigid social og psykologisk tvang, som vore meninger blot er en del af? Således at vore meninger og vore holdninger, selv de af dem, vi føler os mest sikre på, i grunden er vilkårlige og med andre ord kan misbruges? Nej, nej, nej, insisterer vi. Måske 1800-tallets mennesker var fanger i det sociale, men vi er frigjorte, og det, vi mener, det mener vi virkelig. Med hele vort hjerte og hele vor sjæl.

Det spørgsmål, vi må stille os, er for det første, om denne indsigt er sand, og for det andet, hvad vi skal stille op med den. Hvad skal du stille op med den, når du sidder i dit rækkehus uden for centrum af en af de skandinaviske byer, og regnen siler ned udenfor, mens du mader din datter med en ske, som hun slår på, så du får grød på sweateren og lidt modløs må tørre det væk, mens din kæreste er på vej over grusgangen trillende på en cykel, en af de utallige hverdage, du har oplevet i en tilværelse præget af relativ tryghed? I har fast arbejde og har en god indtægt. I har gode venner, din mor bor i nærheden, så I kommer også ud en gang imellem. I ser nyhederne i tv, i tager i sommerhuset næsten hver weekend i sommerhalvåret, og ved valgene stemmer I som oftest på det borgerlige eller på det socialdemokratiske parti.

Sådan ser livet ud for det fleste af os. Så hvilken relevans har Célines maniske misantropi og antijødiske pamfletter for os? Hvilken relevans har Strindbergs enorme følelses- og meningslabilitet for os? Hamsuns landsforræderi, Handkes forsvar for Milosevic, Teratologens groteske volds- og sexfantasier, Bernhards næsten sindssyge Østrig-had, hvad skal vi med det? Hvilken slags sandhed findes i dette bizarre panteon af forfatterskaber, som har det til fælles, at de alle går for langt? Ja, hvorfor brugte Stig Sæterbakken så megen tid og så mange kræfter på at skrive om netop dem? Fordi det almindelige, trygge liv i grunden var en illusion, noget falsk, et skuespil foran en afgrund af meningsløshed? Var Célines jødehad mere sand end for eksempel Jens Stoltenbergs åbenheds-, kærligheds- og solidaritetstale?

Stillet op imod hinanden på den måde, det lyse og almindelige liv i rækkehuset mod den forvredne, sindssyge, umoralske og nihilistiske litteratur, hvem ville da med hånden på hjertet sige, at den sidste rummer sandheden om livet, mens den første ikke gør? Jovist, vi lever i et forbrugersamfund, vi er enige om de grundlæggende værdier, så hvorfor i alverden udfordre det? Vi er jo enige om det, fordi det er godt! Er det at vende sig imod det, som ikke er godt i litteraturen, det, som er moralsk og etisk suspekt, ikke bare en tom gestus, en provokation, en forstillelse?

Problemet med dette ræsonnement er ikke, at det sætter to uforenelige størrelser, liv og litteratur, op imod hinanden, men at det er stort og overgribende. Læser man Céline, Bernhard, Handke og Strindberg, kommer man så tæt på det indre af et jeg med dette jegs egne tanker, impulser og fordomme, at hele den begrebslige virkelighed - alt det, som handler om godt eller ondt, rigtigt eller forkert - simpelthen går i opløsning. Det går simpelt hen i opløsning, fordi det, vi er i kontakt med, når vi læser disse forfattere, er noget, der er meget større end dikotomien god/ond, rigtig/forkert, moralsk/umoralsk. De skriver om det menneskelige. Ikke sådan som det burde eller skulle være, men sådan, som det er, ikke for alle, ikke overalt, men akkurat her, for akkurat denne.

Det, vi ikke vil vide

Det handler med andre ord om frihed. Forskydningen er beskeden, den foregår i hverdagslivet, men konsekvenserne er store, for at sættes fri betyder, at bindingerne ophører, og det er aldrig bare noget, man er bundet til, men også altid nogen. I denne brudflade, mellem den enes frihed og fællesskabet for alle, udspiller alle forfatterskaber af betydning sig, og det sted, som også er stedet, hvor det sande og det hele krakelerer, er det sted, Sæterbakken søger imod i sine essays. Alt det, vi i grunden ikke vil vide af, det onde, det modbydelige, det hæslige, vender han op og ned på ud fra sin indsigt i, at det er noget, vi alle bærer rundt på, noget, vi alle har i os. Ikke som noget stort og forfærdeligt, men som noget småt og genkendeligt. Om det onde skrev han: "Det kan synes, som om vores glansroller som anstændige medmennesker og lovlydige samfundsborgere forbyder os at reflektere over det onde på nogen anden måde end ved at tage afstand fra det. Som om vore betragtninger er forudbestemt til at antage fordømmelsens form. Men følgen bliver, at disse betragtninger sjældent eller aldrig bringer os nærmere det, som for hver enkelt af os repræsenterer en mulighed for katastrofal udskejelse, hærgen og fald.

Vi taler som dommere, aldrig som lovovertrædere." Alle katastrofer i det menneskelige begynder i det små, med en lille forskydning, uanset hvor store konsekvenserne bliver. Utøya-massakren, for at nævne en hændelse, som fortsat er aktuel, eller Hitler-Tyskland, kan i litteraturen forstås som det, der i virkeligheden ligger inden for det menneskelige, eftersom litteraturen, ved at være fri, også er fri fra moral, det vil sige fra fordømmelse. Som Sæterbakken skrev: "Litteraturen er det sted, hvor vi kan tale frit om alt dette."

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Jeg må indrømme, at jeg føler mig lidt ilde til mode ved titlen "Litteraturen og det onde". Af to grunde. For det første har jeg svært ved at forholde mig til et så overgribende begreb som "det onde", fordi det er en abstraktion. Lidt på samme måde som "kærlighed" er.

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Ondskab er blevet mainstream

Essay. I århundreder har ondskab i kunst, film og litteratur draget og fascineret os.

Ondskab er ikke noget nyt. Tænk bare på Det Gamle Testamentes fortælling om Kain, der slog Abel ihjel. Eller tag slangen i Paradisets Have, der lokkede Eva til spise af Kundskabens forbudte træ.

Alligevel fylder ondskaben mere end før! For med hensyn til ondskab er alle tabuer nu kun til for at blive afskaffet.

Næsten daglig læser vi gladelig om, at Jack The Ripper er genopstået som bestialske mænd, der skænder og myrder kvinder på det grusomste.

Det er heller ikke uaktuelt, hvad sadistiske fascister engang gjorde ved deres ofre. For i en Østerbrovilla har teatergruppen Republique/Signa netop lavet en forestilling over Pier Paolo Pasolinis ondeste og mest sadistiske film 'Salò - 120 dage i Sodoma'.

Ikke engang den ultimative ondskab - jødeudryddelserne under Anden Verdenskrig - er passé. For med guldplomber fra holocaustofrenes tænder har kunstneren Marco Evaristti bygget en minimodel af kz-lejren Auschwitz-Birkenau og dermed pustet nyt liv i diskussionen om, hvad kunst kan tillade sig for at tilfredsstille publikums stigende nysgerrighed.

Den forbudte frugt Men lad os begynde med begyndelsen. I den såkaldt mørke middelalder virkede ondskaben i en højere sags tjeneste, nemlig godhedens. Den var det djævelske redskab, som kirken truede alle med, hvis de ikke var tilstrækkelig fromme.

Senere fik ondskaben andre arbejdsgivere, og i dag er den ikke længere et skræmmebillede. Den er blevet et fascinationsobjekt. Den har fået sit helt eget formål.

Den fascinerer og fastholder og er blevet en blodrød skummende bølge i tidens store hav af underholdningstilbud.

Hvorfor? Fordi ondskabens fundamentale figur lukrerer på vores nysgerrighed. Den repræsenterer grænseoverskridelsen, det forbudte. Den er stadig som en frugt fra Kundskabens træ, og den smager tilsyneladende bedre end nogensinde.

Den kan stadig få nogen til at gøre alt det, de ikke må, hvad enten det er at have sex med naboens kone, snyde en gammel blind enke for hendes sidste sparepenge eller begå hadeforbrydelser over for minoriteter.

Frank Hvam
Ondskaben har ingen alder. Men på det seneste har den fået vokseværk og kommer nu til os i alle størrelser og variationer. Ondskab i småtingsafdelingen har aldrig haft noget stort publikum. Men der kan være undtagelser.

For i passende doser kan den være fornøjelig, fordi den er så menneskelig. Det kan man se i Casper Christensen og Frank Hvams 'Klovn': Tv-serien handler om to mænd, der ikke har det spor godt med De Ti Bud: De har andre guder (mammon), de begærer deres næstes ejendom, de begår hor (hvis ellers de kan slippe af sted med det), de bærer falsk vidnesbyrd, det vil sige lyver, og de respekterer heller ikke rigtig deres forældre - for nu bare at tage et par bud.

De repræsenterer en postmoderne ondskab, hvor det onde er, at deres overskridelse er helt integreret i deres levevis - og de er for så vidt succesfulde. Man kan sige, at 'Klovn' skildrer ondskaben i kulturen, for nu at henvise til gamle Sigmund Freud.

Lad den rette komme ind
Men for at være rigtig ond kræves der magt, og det er den store magtfulde ondskab, der optager os mest. Ellers ville vi ikke blive ved med at læse tykke biografier om Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler og Josef Stalin. Vi vil så gerne forstå, hvordan så megen ondskab dog kan opstå og blive til kød og blod.

Der findes dog formildende omstændigheder, selv for ondskab. Den kan legitimeres og er ofte blevet det i kulturens verden. For når ondskab bliver nødvendigt for at overleve - blandt anden ondskab - er den svær at dømme ude.

Er det moderne ondskab at se en far slå drenge ihjel, ja slagte dem, for at skaffe blod til sin tørstige vampyrdatter? Og vi taler vel at mærke ikke om Transsylvanien eller London by night, men om en tilsneet svensk soveby.

Det var en sådan en ondskab, vi oplevede i den svenske instruktør Tomas Alfredsons bloddryppende film 'Lad den rette komme ind'.

Perverteret tak for sidst
Er det moderne ondskab at se en pige sætte ild til sin far, fordi han har været satans styg ved mor? For det så vi jo, endda flere gange, i Millenniumtrilogien af en anden svensker, Stieg Larsson.

Eller er det moderne ondskab, når en kvinde har sex med sin mand og i selve nydelsens ypperste øjeblik bliver årsag til, at hendes barn falder ud ad vinduet og mister livet? For sådan begyndte Lars von Triers nyeste kultfilm 'Antichrist'.

Ondskab kan også være en betinget refleks, et nødvendigt svar på særlig graverende omstændigheder, en perverteret tak for sidst. Og derved får den sin berettigelse i et samfund, hvor systemet ofte svigter og retfærdigheden ikke altid sker fyldest, medmindre man - som Lisbeth Salander i Stieg Larssons bøger - selv påtager sig rollen som hævnens engel.

I Skandinavien har selvtægt altid været forbudt, såvel legalt som mentalt. For ved selvtægt sætter individet sig ud over alle regler. Selv en nok så uretfærdigt behandlet borger har værsgo at følge landets love. Men kun indtil han er blevet tilstrækkelig provokeret.

Ondskaben har ingen alder. Men på det seneste har den fået vokseværk og kommer nu til os i alle størrelser

Ondskaben er simpelthen blevet mainstream

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Den problematik er der drejet mange film over. Det begyndte med amerikanske mainstreamfilm som 'Dirty Harry' og fortsatte med 'En mand ser rødt' i 70'erne. Genren, de såkaldte vigilantefilm, blev i starten udskreget som fascistoide og farlige på grund af den såkaldte helt overlagte ondskab, som de repræsenterede:

At hovedpersonen i en film kunne miste tålmodigheden og tage loven i egen hånd repræsenterede noget klart antidemokratisk. Set med ordensmagtens briller kom genren til at stå som en trussel mod den vestlige civilisations helt grundlæggende politisk-juridiske spilleregler.

Og over tredive år efter sit gennembrud er genren stadig lige så kritiseret og udskældt, som den er elsket for sin katarsisvirkning. For når en kynisk massemorder er frikendt ved domstolene på grund af bevisets stilling eller noget andet juridisk hokuspokus, er det nu engang enormt befriende, at nogen alligevel gider blæse ham til støvregn.

Ondskab under den pæne overflade
Den franske film 'Irréversible' af Gaspar Noé har vendt hævnen om. Først ser vi voldtægtsmanden blive brutalt slået ihjel med en brandslukker. Men årsagen til drabet og ondskaben får vi først i midten af filmen som en otte minutter lang anal voldtægtsscene.

Ikke kun bliver kvinden (Monica Bellucci) skændet bestialsk, men hun får også sine klassisk smukke ansigtstræk slået til sildesalat.

Pointen er netop at demaskere selvtægten ud fra filmens dekonstruktion af den aristoteliske trekant med en begyndelse, en midte og en slutning i kronologisk forløb med forløsning til katarsis og pointe.

Til gengæld kan man pege på østrigeren Michael Hanekes film om ondskab, 'Pianisten', 'Funny Games' og senest 'Det hvide bånd', som lader det onde stå tilbage sort og smerteligt på det hvide lærred.

Disse film er eksempler på, at ondskaben også hviler trygt og godt i såkaldt pæne og civiliserede, ja, endog intellektuelle europæere, men er betingelserne til stede, stikker den sit hæslige hoved frem.
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Det samme kan også siges om de fleste af Lars von Triers film. Ikke mindst hans seneste, 'Antichrist', som bag den banale gyserskabelon beskæftiger sig med seksualiteten som en trussel mod den maskuline civilisations egen selvforståelse.

Den postmoderne gyser, hvor syndefaldet fører til død og undergang, er en dæmonisering af kvindelig seksualitet set med maskuline øjne: Kvinder som seksuelt og aktivt udfarende væsener forrykker en sexistisk balance.

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Hannibal the Cannibal fra 'Ondskabens øjne' repræsenterer en potenseret ondskab, fordi han på den ene side har en række kompetencer, som man sædvanligvis værdsætter. Han er belæst, kunstnerisk begavet, intellektuel og intelligent.

Læs også: 'Antichrist' er et grotesk mesterstykke

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Men desværre for helhedsindtrykket er han også en passioneret lystdræber og seriemorder. Langt ude er han i familie med Patrick Bateman i Bret Easton Ellis' nu klassiske 1990'er-roman 'American Psycho', en bog som på mere skematisk vis skildrer det forhold, at det onde sagtens kan fremtræde både pænt og nydeligt på overfladen, selv om medaljen skjuler et orgie af modbydelighed, perversion og utæmmet lyst.

I 1990'erne blev seriemorderen i det hele taget dyrket som en heltefigur på trods af socialkarakterens helt indlysende anticivilisatoriske verdensanskuelse.

Men det heroiske ved netop de fiktive seriemordere som kannibalen Hannibal, überyuppien Patrick Bateman og den postmoderne udgave af Bonnie og Clyde, Mickey og Mallory, fra Oliver Stones 'Natural Born Killers' fandt publikum vel sagtens i den ekstremt radikaliserede individualisme, som disse figurer repræsenterede og udtrykte.

Veje til ondskab
Men der er også skildringer af ondskab, som forsøger at analysere den frem af særlige historiske og sociologiske omstændigheder. Det vil sige at se den som et fysisk fænomen skabt af omstændigheder, som hverken er metafysiske eller religiøse, som om en særlig iboende ondskab hører hjemme i en speciel maskulin og patriarkalsk kulturkreds.

Det kan være måden at opdrage drenge på, så de bliver til 'rigtige' mænd ud fra den tyske filosof Nietzsches devise: det, der ikke slår dig ihjel, gør dig stærkere. Metoden blev praktiseret i den spartanske opdragelse af overklassedrenge, som vi mestendels forbandt med kostskoleungdom i Storbritannien og omegn.

Eller i svenske Jan Guillous selvbiografiske roman 'Ondskaben' fra 1981 - senere gjort til en Oscarnomineret film - demonstrerer, hvordan såkaldt kammeratopdragelse korrumperer unge mennesker og kolporterer ondskab.

Pædagogisk censur
Bør man være bekymret og ængstelig for denne udvikling og over ungdommens ukritiske og enfoldige annammelse af al den ondskab? Skal man måske kalde alle pædagoger af gårde for at bede om etisk anstændighed og politisk korrekthed?

Sådan gik det i 1950'erne med tegneserier og splatterfilm. Over for alt, hvad der lignede ondskab i populærkulturen og popkunsten, havde den pædagogiske censur næsten lige så megen magt, som den havde agt. Men standse ondskaben - eller gøre den umoderne - kunne den ikke.

Set i kunsthistoriens store hulspejl er det onde ingen nyhed. Det at nogen gjorde noget ondt ved andre, er blevet skildret utallige gange og temmelig minutiøst, især i fortiden.

Ondskabens bibelske formål
Både Kristus og alle kristne martyrer er kommet frygteligt af dage - det er derfor, at de er martyrer, og deres sidste lidelsesfulde timer på denne jord er blev udpenslet af talløse kunstnere.

Kristus blev bundet til en søjle og pint, før han blev sømmet fast til korset på Golgata, Johannes Døberen fik hovedet hugget af, Paulus blev korsfæstet med sit hoved nedad, Sebastian fik sin krop gennemboret af pile, mens Laurentius blev stegt over sagte ild etc.

Men al denne ondskab udløste en belønning: for uden lidelse ingen helgenkåring. Endnu længere tilbage - i middelalderen - var ondskaben ligefrem personificeret og havde sine faste opgaver. Den kom i Djævelens skikkelse, og dens formål var at skræmme os til et bedre liv.

Abstrakt kunst er mindre ond
Men da religionen tabte terræn og mistede noget af sin ret til at holde menneskene på dydens smalle vej, kunne ondskaben heller ikke mere optræde som et meningsfuldt instrument i Guds og godhedens tjeneste.

Det onde blev ikke længere betragtet som noget, der var indstiftet for at fremme sin egen modsætning. Den var heller ikke mere at finde på sine gamle tilholdssteder, som i billedkunsten for eksempel.

Det er nemlig umuligt at tale om eksempelvis et blåt eller grønt nonfigurativt billede, der er ondt. Det, ondskaben går ud over, må i sagens natur altid være figurativt, det skal vise eller fremvise noget levende, man kan identificere sig med.

Noget af det eklatant mere onde i dansk kunst siden 1980'erne har været Michael Kviums malerier og Christian Lemmerz' og Marco Evaristtis skulpturer.

Da Kvium kom frem i start-80'erne, skildrede han et lastefuldt borgerskab i færd med at foretage sig unævnelige ting over for deres børn. Hans skaldede eksistenser er oftest mænd, man nødigt betror opsynet med en skoleklasse.

I en definition af begrebet er det vanskeligt, men nødvendigt at skelne mellem 'det onde' og 'det ulækre'.

Ondskaben er 'back in town'
Meget nyere kunst tager gerne appetitten, i takt med at den tager pulsen på tidens dunkle lyster. I installationen 'Burn Out. Brændt børnehave' fra 1994 satte Jes Brinch og Henrik Plenge Jacobsen fokus på det værste, der var hændt børn siden barnemordet i Betlehem.

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Den vakte forargelse dengang. Siden har det krævet udstoppede hundehvalpe, sammensyede grise eller fisk i en elektrisk blender at opnå effekter, der kunne tages til indtægt for kunstens behov for ond provokation.

I hvert fald synes der at være sket et mentalt paradigmeskift i holdningen til det onde efter 11. september 2001. Ondskaben er back in town, bogstavelig talt med billederne af Twin Towers i New York, der rammes af to kaprede fly.
Ondskaben er mainstream

Verden står ved et historisk vendepunkt.

Men vi står der sammen.
Ondskaben er i højeste grad nuværende og nærværende på denne side af årtusindskiftet, og endda helt ind i kernen af vores eget samfund. I kølvandet på terrorangrebet hin septemberdag har Danmark engageret sig i en krig, om hvilken vi i dag ved, at den bruger tortur og andre beskidte og brutale tricks, naturligvis for at bekæmpe ondskaben hos de andre. Samtidig er vi en del af noget, som de andre, fjenden ude i bjergene eller i skjul i ørkenen, kalder for det onde. Det ser vi, hver gang en død dansk soldat kommer hjem i sin stålkiste. Vi sørger for en stund. Men for at overleve og komme videre er vi snart tilbage til en overbærende og ironisk distance til skadefryden i 'Klovn' og 'X Factor'. Ondskaben er simpelthen blevet mainstream. Så gør det ondt? Kun når vi griner.

Redaktionen anbefaler:

Det er nærmest en folkesport blandt filmnørder at gøre grin med komikeren Adam Sandler.

Men til trods for lavpandet komik og dårlige anmeldelser, kan Netflix prise sig lykkelige for den langsigtede aftale, de har lavet med den vellønnede skuespiller.

Film som 'The Ridiculous 6' og 'The Do-Over' er blandt det mest sete indhold på Netflix, og det er oven i købet indhold, som tjenesten selv har produceret.

Det er tiltrængt, skriver Los Angeles Times i en lang artikel, der gennemgår firmaets økonomi.

I min barndoms jyske landsogne talte de voksne medlidende om de sjældne 'særlinge', gammeljomfruerne og pebersvendene.

Det var synd for gammeljomfruerne eller pebermøerne (ugifte kvinder over 30), som sad i små kår, fordi de ikke havde nogen forsørger. Og det var synd for pebersvendene, som var usunde og boede i et farligt svineri, fordi de ikke havde nogen til at lave mad og gøre rent.

Enlige mødre var stadig en moralsk skandale, og skilsmisser var både en skandale og en tragedie, som de voksne hviskede om, for at vi børn ikke skulle høre det.

I de forløbne 60-70 år er der sket en udvikling, så det i dag er fuldstændig normalt at være fraskilt og/eller single. Man kan uden overdrivelse tale om en revolution i civilstandsmønsteret. Og samtidig spørge, om ægteskabet/det faste parforhold er på vej til at forsvinde - ligesom de håndskrevne breve, papiraviserne og postvæsenet.

En mand blev ramt, da der er tirsdag aften igen blev affyret skud på Nørrebro i København.

"Vi fik klokken 19.13 en anmeldelse om, at der er affyret op mod fire skud på Nørrebrogade", fortæller vagtchef Henrik Moll fra Københavns Politi.

"To mænd på knallert kommer kørende ad Nørrebrogade og ved Den Røde Plads affyrer de flere skud mod en eller flere personer, der står på fortovet foran en forretning", fortsætter han.

Kort efter får en af politiets patruljer kontakt med en mand på Bispebjerg Hospital. Han er blevet ramt af skud i den ene balle.

en forholdsvis stor accept af tanken om, at køn ikke begrænser sig til kvinde og mand. Og det er blandt de yngre befolkningsgrupper, at accepten er størst. Det viser en undersøgelse, Megafon har foretaget for Politiken. På spørgsmålet om hvorvidt der i interviewpersonernes omgangskreds er en accept af, at et menneske kan være ikke bare mand eller kvinde, men også transkønnet, kønsneutral eller andet, svarer 54 procent af de 18-29-årige og hele 56 procent af de 30-39-årige, at de er helt eller overvejende enige. I takt med, at de adspurgtes alder stiger, falder procentdelen for at ende på 40 procent for de, der er 70 år eller derover.

Det samme mønster gør sig gældende i forhold til kendskabet til det flydende køns centrale begreber. Et udtryk som 'queer' er kendt af 58 procent af den yngste gruppe mod 27 procent af de ældste. Mens 'transkønnet' er kendt af 93 procent af de 18-29-årige og 94 procent af de 30-39-årige - mod 70 procent af gruppen på 70 år og derover.

Til gengæld er kønsneutrale pronominer som 'hen' stort set ukendt i alle aldersgrupper. Uanset alder svarer over 90 procent af de adspurgte, at de ikke kender nogen, der bruger 'hen' eller lignende om sig selv.

begyndte på sit projekt 'Gender Bender', stod det hurtigt klart, at hvis hun ville fortælle historien om, hvordan unge udfordrer den traditionelle køns-opfattelse, måtte hun vise "en mangfoldighed af udtryk". Som hun siger:

Det lyder som en besnærende og sympatisk tanke at gå i samarbejde med afrikanske regeringer og give dem en økonomisk gulerod for at standse strømmen af migranter over Middelhavet til Europa. Men forslaget, som manden bag EU's flygtningeaftale med Tyrkiet, Gerald Knaus, står bag, tager ikke højde for den realitet, at de afrikanske regeringer har enorme interesser i at lade migrationen fortsætte.

Det siger førende eksperter i migration og afrikanske forhold.

De penge, som migranterne sender hjem til familien, udgør således en meget væsentlig del af landenes økonomi. I Gambia, der trods sin beskedne størrelse ligger i top på listen over migranternes hjemlande, kommer over 22 procent af landets bnp fra de såkaldte remitter - penge, der sendes hjem. I Senegal er det 14 procent af bnp.

"Remitterne er økonomisk set vigtigere end både ulandsbistand og udenlandske private investeringer. Man skal byde meget højt, hvis det skal være økonomisk attraktivt for afrikanerne at standse migrationen", siger Holger Bernt Hansen, professor emeritus ved Center for Afrikastudier på Københavns Universitet.

Naturen på recept: Peter Q. Geisling møder Politikens sundhedsredaktør

Hvorfor er naturen sund for os, og hvorfor og hvordan kan den redde dig fra stress og tristhed? Få den videnskabelige forklaring.

Per Arnoldi og Henrik Palle - om rastløsheden sat i system

Politikens Henrik Palle har set nærmere på Per Arnoldis liv og karriere, og vil, i selskab med Per Arnoldi selv, forsøge at finde den røde tråd, måske en form for mening - og binde en sløjfe på det hele.

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Ondskab er ikke noget nyt. Tænk bare på Det Gamle Testamentes fortælling om Kain, der slog Abel ihjel. Eller tag slangen i Paradisets Have, der lokkede Eva til spise af Kundskabens forbudte træ. Alligevel fylder ondskaben mere end før! For med hensyn til ondskab er alle tabuer nu kun til for at blive afskaffet.

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Seven (stylized as Se7en) is a 1995 American crime thriller film directed by David Fincher and written by Andrew Kevin Walker. It stars Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow, and John C. McGinley. Set in an unnamed, crime-ridden city, Seven's narrative follows disenchanted, near-retirement detective William Somerset (Freeman) and his newly transferred partner David Mills (Pitt) as they endeavor to thwart a serial killer from executing a series of murders based on the seven deadly sins.

Walker, an aspiring writer, based Seven on his experiences of moving from a suburban setting to New York City during a period of rising crime and drug addiction in the late 1980s. His script was optioned by an Italian film company but, following financial difficulties, the rights were sold to New Line Cinema. Studio executives were opposed to the script's bleak conclusion, insisting on a more mainstream and optimistic outcome. Despite their efforts, Fincher, eager to prove himself after a career setback, read Walker's original script, sent to him by mistake, and committed to directing the project on the condition that the ending remained intact. Principal photography took place in Los Angeles between December 1994 and March 1995, on a $33-$34million budget.

Seven garnered middling test audience results and was not predicted to perform well due to its violent and mature content. However, it grossed $327.3million worldwide, becoming a surprise success and the seventh highest-grossing film of the year. Contemporaneous reviews were mixed; critics praised Freeman's performance but criticized the film's dark cinematography, explicit and implied violence, and bleak ending. Seven revitalized Fincher's career and helped Pitt move from roles based on his appearance to more serious, dramatic roles.

In the years since its release, consensus on the movie has shifted; Seven is now regarded as one of the best thriller, crime, and mystery films ever made. It remains influential in filmmaking, inspiring many imitators of its aesthetic, style, and premise of detectives investigating serial killers with distinctive methods and motives. The film's title sequence, which depicts the killer preparing for his actions later in the film, is considered an important design innovation and has also influenced later credit sequences, while the film's twist ending has been named as one of the best in cinematic history.

In an unnamed city overcome with violent crime and corruption, disillusioned police detective William Somerset is one week from retirement. He is partnered with David Mills, a young, short-tempered, idealistic detective who recently relocated to the city with his wife, Tracy. On Monday, Somerset and Mills investigate an obese man who was forced to eat until his stomach burst, killing him. The detectives find the word "gluttony" written on a wall. Somerset, considering the case too extreme for his last investigation, asks to be reassigned to another case but his request is denied. The following day, another victim, who had been forced to cut one pound (0.45 kg) of flesh from his body is found; the crime scene is marked "greed." Clues at the scene lead Somerset and Mills to the sloth victim, a drug-dealing pederast who they find emaciated and restrained to a bed. Photographs reveal the victim was restrained for exactly one year. Somerset surmises the murders are based on the Christian concept of the seven deadly sins.

Tracy invites Somerset to share supper with her and Mills, helping the detectives overcome their mutual hostility. On Friday, Tracy meets privately with Somerset because she has no other acquaintances in the city. She reveals her unhappiness at moving there, especially after learning she is pregnant, and believes the city is an unfit place to raise a child. Somerset sympathizes with Tracy, having persuaded his former girlfriend to abort their child for similar reasons and regretting it ever since; he advises Tracy to inform Mills only if she intends to keep the child.

A comment by Mills inspires Somerset to research libraries for anyone checking out books based on the seven deadly sins, leading the pair to the apartment of John Doe. Doe unexpectedly returns home and is pursued by Mills, who is incapacitated after Doe strikes him with a tire iron. Doe momentarily holds Mills at gunpoint but soon flees. The police investigate Doe's apartment, finding a large amount of cash, hundreds of notebooks revealing Doe's psychopathy, and photographs of some of his victims; the cache includes images of Somerset and Mills by a person they believed was an intrusive journalist at the sloth crime scene. Doe calls the apartment and speaks of his admiration for Mills.

On Saturday, Somerset and Mills investigate the fourth victim, lust, a prostitute who has been raped with a custom-made, bladed strap-on by a man held at gunpoint. The following day, the pride victim is found; she is a model whom Doe facially disfigured and died by suicide rather than live without her beauty. As Somerset and Mills return to the police station, Doe arrives and surrenders himself. He threatens to plead insanity at his trial, potentially escaping punishment, unless Mills and Somerset escort him to an undisclosed location where they will find the envy and wrath victims. During the drive, Doe says he believes God has chosen him to send a message about the ubiquity of, and apathy toward, sin. Doe has no remorse for his victims, believing the shocking murders will force society to pay him attention.

Doe leads the detectives to a remote location, where a delivery van approaches. Somerset intercepts the vehicle, whose driver was instructed to deliver to Mills a package at this specific time. Somerset is horrified at the package's contents and tells Mills to put down his gun. Doe reveals he himself represents envy because he envied Mills' life with Tracy, and implies the package contains her severed head. He urges Mills to become wrath, telling him Tracy begged for her life and that of her unborn child, and takes pleasure in realizing Mills was unaware of the pregnancy. Despite Somerset's pleas, Mills, distraught and enraged, shoots Doe dead, completing Doe's plan. Police remove the catatonic Mills, and Somerset tells his captain he will "be around." Somerset says in voiceover: " Ernest Hemingway once wrote: 'The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for.' I agree with the second part."

Seven also features Julie Araskog as Mrs. Gould, John Cassini as Officer Davis, Reg E. Cathey as Doctor Santiago, Peter Crombie as Doctor O'Neil, Richard Portnow as Doctor Beardsley, Richard Schiff as Mark Swarr, and Mark Boone Junior as a "greasy FBI man". Hawthorne James appears as George the library night guard, Michael Massee portrays "man in massage parlor booth", Leland Orser plays "crazed man in massage parlor", Pamala Tyson portrays a thin vagrant outside Doe's apartment, and Doe's delivery man is played by Richmond Arquette.

Doe's victims include: Bob Mack as gluttony, a morbidly obese man who is force-fed until his stomach bursts; Gene Borkan as greed, a criminal attorney who is forced to cut off his own flesh; and Michael Reid MacKay as the sloth victim Theodore "Victor" Allen, a drug dealer and child abuser. Cat Mueller portrays the lust victim, a sex worker who is impaled with a bladed sex toy, and Heidi Schanz appears as model Rachel Slade, pride, who Doe disfigures. Writer Andrew Kevin Walker makes a cameo appearance as a corpse Somerset investigates during the film's opening scene; Morgan Freeman's son Alfonso appears as a fingerprint technician; and columnist George Christy portrays the police department janitor scraping Somerset's name from his door.

In 1986, aspiring screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker moved from the suburbs of Pennsylvania to New York City, and described the "culture shock" of living in a city undergoing significant rises in crime and drug abuse. While working as a sales assistant for Tower Records in 1991, Walker began writing a spec script called Seven, which is set in an unnamed, bleak and gloomy city that was inspired by his "depressing" time in New York. Walker said: "it's true that if I hadn't lived there I probably wouldn't have written Seven... I think it's that way for anything-the right time and the right mood, and the right inspiration, whatever inspiration is. That's what's so scary about writing". Film studios were eager for high concept spec scripts; Walker believed his thriller about police officers pursuing a serial killer driven by the seven deadly sins would attract attention and help begin a professional writing career.

Walker intended to leave the script's narrative open to interpretation to avoid invalidating the opinions of the prospective audience. He wanted to defy audience expectations, and leave them feeling "violated and exhausted" by the conclusion. According to Walker, "there's lots of evil out there, and you're not always going to get the satisfaction of having any sort of understanding of why that is. That's one of the things that scares people the most about serial killers". For inspiration for writing the killer, Walker recounted his own experiences of walking down city streets, and observing crimes and sins being openly committed on every corner, and asking what would happen if someone specifically focused on these sins. He had Doe surrender himself to the police because it would rob the audience and characters of the anticipated satisfaction, and make them uncomfortable before the finale.

In the early 1990s, Italian company Penta Film, under manager Phyllis Carlyle, optioned the script. Walker was paid the minimum fee allowed by the Writers Guild of America, which he described as not being "fuck you money" but enough to quit his job, relocate to Los Angeles, and work on Seven.

Director David Fincher (pictured in 2010)

To lead the project, Penta Film hired director Jeremiah S. Chechik, who had recently directed the successful comedy film National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989) and was looking for a more serious project. Chechik and Penta Film mandated several script changes, including the removal of the bleak "head-in-the-box" ending, in which Tracy's severed head is delivered in a box. Given the option to refuse the requests and risk being replaced or the project canceled, Walker acquiesced and wrote a more-mainstream ending in which the detectives confront Doe in a church that is described as either on fire or burned out. In the revised version of the script, Doe embodies the sin of envy and kills Mills before being shot dead by Somerset, while a pregnant Tracy leaves the city. In a 2017 interview, Walker said he felt he was ruining his script and should have left the project. In total, he wrote thirteen drafts to meet the studio's demands. The project failed to progress; because the option was expiring and Penta Film was experiencing financial difficulties-eventually dissolving in 1994-the studio sold the rights to producer Arnold Kopelson, who took it to New Line Cinema. Chechik also left the project, and Guillermo del Toro and Phil Joanou were approached to replace him; Joanou rejected the offer because he found the story too bleak.

David Fincher was mainly known for directing popular music videos, such as " Vogue" and " Who Is It". His only feature film, (1992), had been a negative experience and the film was edited by its studio against Fincher's intent. Fincher disowned the film, saying "I'd rather die of colon cancer than make another movie". His agent, however, brought him the Seven script. Fincher was uninterested in the police procedural aspects but found himself drawn in by the gradual revelation of Doe's plans, saying: "I found myself getting more and more trapped in this kind of evil... and even though I felt uncomfortable about being there, I had to keep going". He determined the script matched his own creative sensibilities, particularly its "meditation on evil and how evil gets on you and you can't get it off", and uncompromising ending in which "Tracy's been dead for hours and there's no bullshit chase across town and the guy driving on sidewalks to get to the woman, who's drawing a bath while the serial killer sneaks in the back window". Fincher expressed his interest to the studio, which realized he had been sent Walker's original script. New Line Cinema sent Fincher an up-to-date draft in which Tracy survives but Fincher would only agree to direct the original script. He met with New Line Cinema's president of production Michael De Luca, who also preferred the original script, and they agreed to start filming that version in six weeks, believing further delay risked executives noticing and interfering with their plan.

Kopelson and studio executives made efforts to lighten Seven's tone and change the ending. Fincher was resistant to any changes, and was unwilling to compromise his creative control and vision. De Luca remained supportive of Fincher, and the original ending gained further backing as the project secured prominent actors, including Freeman, Pitt, and Spacey. Pitt said he joined Seven on condition the head-in-the-box ending was retained, and that Mills "[shoots] the killer in the end. He doesn't do the 'right' thing, he does the thing of passion". Pitt was upset the original ending to his previous film Legends of the Fall (1994) had been cut in response to negative test-audience responses. Kopelson was persuaded to support Fincher after being reassured the severed head would not be shown, saying "it needed this horrendous event to kick off the last sin, wrath" that would be discussed for decades. Walker said: "there's nothing wrong with [positive] endings, it's just that the dark ending of Seven was what it was about. To change the ending to something else was to remove the very heart of the story".

Walker refined the script; his change included extending a chase sequence depicting Mills cautiously pursuing Doe, aiming to avoid typical cinematic chases in which characters frantically pursue their target. He said: "I always thought, 'God, if someone was shooting at me, I would be terrified to turn any corner!'" A shooting script was completed by August 1994.

Pitt had established himself as a credible film star following successes with Interview with the Vampire (1994) and Legends of the Fall, but Fincher had not considered him to portray Mills because "I'd never seen Mills as particularly accomplished, and I was concerned that [Pitt] seemed too together. But when I met him, I thought, this guy is so likable he can get away with murder-he can do anything and people will forgive him for it". Kopelson was aware of Pitt's popularity and importance to Seven's potential success; he shortened the pre-production schedule from twelve weeks to five to fit Pitt's schedule. Pitt rejected several offers from other films because he wanted to escape his typecasting as a romantic lead character in favor of something with a more "documentary feel" with urban settings and a focus on dialogue, akin to thriller films such as The Conversation (1974). He said: "I just wanted to escape the cheese... I came to find out [Fincher] had a lactose intolerance as well, so I was very happy about it". Pitt described Mills as a well-intentioned "idiot" who "speaks before he really knows what he's talking about". He cut his hair for the role and lost weight to reduce the muscle he developed for Legends of the Fall. Sylvester Stallone and Denzel Washington rejected the role.

Walker named the character Somerset after writer W. Somerset Maugham. Walker envisioned William Hurt playing the character but Fincher cast Freeman; the studio was concerned pairing a black detective with a white one would make Seven seem derivative of the action film Lethal Weapon (1987). Robert Duvall, Gene Hackman, and Al Pacino rejected the role. The script was further modified after Pitt's and Freeman's castings to better match their acting styles; Mills was made more verbose and Somerset's dialogue was reduced, and made more precise and direct. Robin Wright auditioned for the role of Tracy and Christina Applegate rejected it before Paltrow was cast. Pitt had recommended Paltrow after being impressed by her audition for Legends of the Fall. Fincher also preferred Paltrow but those involved told him she would not be interested in a "dark" film like Seven. Fincher auditioned about 100 people before Pitt contacted Paltrow to meet with them. Fincher said Tracy is "so important because it's the only sunshine we have in the film. This is the feel-bad movie of [1995]... we needed someone who could take those little seconds she gets and fill them with soul, and that's what I'd always seen in [Paltrow's] performances".

Fincher and Walker wanted Ned Beatty to play John Doe because of his resemblance to the 1969 composite sketch of the Zodiac Killer; Beatty declined, describing the script as the "most evil thing I've ever read". Michael Stipe, lead vocalist of the rock band R.E.M., was considered but filming dates conflicted with the band's tour. Val Kilmer declined the role; R. Lee Ermey auditioned but Fincher said his portrayal was "completely unsympathetic" and without depth. Kevin Spacey was preferred by Pitt but executives refused to pay his salary. Doe's scenes were initially filmed with an unknown actor portraying Doe; the filmmakers quickly decided to replace them and Pitt helped negotiate Spacey's involvement. Spacey, who filmed his scenes in twelve days, said: "I got a call on a Friday night, and on Monday morning I was on a plane to Los Angeles, shooting on Tuesday". Spacey wanted his name omitted from the film's marketing and opening credits to ensure the killer's identity remained secret. He said:

"I'd just done Swimming With Sharks (1994), The Usual Suspects, and (both 1995)... I knew that if any of those movies did well, my profile would be... different. How would that affect my billing in Se7en? If I'm the third-billed actor in a movie where the top two billings are trying to find somebody and they don't find that somebody until the last reel, then it's obvious who that somebody is. It was a bit of a shit-fight for a couple of days, but I felt very strongly that it was the right thing to do for the movie. We finally won because it was a deal-breaker; I was either going to be on a plane to shoot the movie or I wasn't".

The 480 lb (220 kg) actor Bob Mack made his film debut as gluttony, who was described as a "very heavy guy face down in spaghetti". Gene Borkan was cast to play the greed victim because the filmmakers wanted someone who resembled lawyer Robert Shapiro. He did not realize his character would already be dead and refused a request to perform nude, telling Fincher: "I'll be naked if you're naked. Otherwise, you don't get that". On the set, when he realized what his scene entailed, Borkan renegotiated his salary, receiving "five times [the $522 Screen Actors Guild day-scale fee]". Michael Reid MacKay's audition for the sloth victim involved him portraying a corpse that slowly turned his head towards the camera; his performance was deemed "creepy" enough. Set decorator Cat Mueller portrayed the lust victim after Fincher's assistant said she had the personality and body to portray a "dead hooker". She received $500 for six hours of filming over two days but described being nude in front of Pitt as a perk. Model Heidi Schanz was cast as the pride victim after the previous actor dropped out. Fincher, who was running low on time, wanted a model with existing headshots and pictures that could be displayed in the character's apartment. She said: "even though I'm dead, I think it's the most glamorized murder". The film's content made casting and crewing Seven difficult; Gary Oldman turned down an unspecified role, Fincher's former costume designer declined to work on the film, and talent agents refused to pass offers on to their clients, describing Seven as "evil and misogynistic".

Seven was filmed mainly in downtown Los Angeles (pictured in 2016)

Principal photography began on December 12, 1994, and concluded on March 10, 1995. Assistant director Michael Alan Kahn recalled the start of filming: "I went up to Fincher and I said, 'Look at this! Look! It's here! We're here! You did it! We're shooting a movie... isn't this amazing?...' And he looked at me as though I were from outer space and said, 'No, it's awful... now I have to get what's in my head out of all you cretins'". Walker was on set throughout filming to provide suggestions or on-spec rewrites but did not give Fincher much input, believing he should adapt the script as he wanted.

Location filming took place entirely in downtown Los Angeles. Fincher wanted to film in Oakland, California, because it had "beautiful clapboard houses" but the schedule would not allow for this. Rain often fell during filming; Fincher decided to film in rain to avoid continuity errors and because Pitt was only available for fifty-five days before he began filming (1995). Fincher also said the rain introduced an inescapable element for the characters because conditions were bad inside and outside, and that the rain made the film's city appear less like Los Angeles, which is associated with sunny weather.

Seven's aesthetic was influenced by films such as All That Jazz (1979), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), and The French Connection (1971), as well as the "vulnerable", over-the-shoulder viewpoint of documentary television show . Cinematographer Darius Khondji named the crime thriller (1971), as a significant influence because of its "use of toplight... widescreen compositions for intimacy rather than big vistas, the way that vertical strips of the city are shown in horizontal mode, the fragments of faces and bodies... the look of Se7en has this heightened sense of realism-a realism that's been kicked up several notches and becomes its own style". Fincher chose one scene in Klute in which the only illumination is the character's flashlight, saying he disliked other films in which characters state visibility is low but the audience can clearly see the scene. Khondji used a mixture of lighting, using the warm light of Chinese lanterns to represent the past and present, and the cold light of Kino Flos to represent the future.

The studio was unhappy with the darkness of the dailies; Khondji suggested printing the footage brighter but Fincher refused to compromise. Available footage was made into a well-received promotional showreel for the theater-owner convention ShoWest, after which complaints about the darkness ceased. Khondji used Panavision Primo lenses, which offered a sharp image with good contrast, and Kodak film stocks that could capture the "gritty" interiors and deep blacks for night-time exteriors.

Khondji described the scene in which Mills pursues Doe as one of the most-difficult scenes to film due to its length, fast camera movements in rain, and tight, barely lit interior spaces. One segment had to be re-filmed because the location was too dark for the camera to capture Freeman's face. Pitt insisted on performing his own stunts for the scene; he slipped on a rain-slicked car bonnet, crashing through the windshield and sustaining injuries including cut tendons and nerves in his left hand; Fincher said he saw exposed bone. Pitt returned to the set a few days later, having received stitches and a forearm cast, which had to be written into later scenes. For scenes set prior to the chase, Pitt would keep his hand in his pocket or otherwise obscured to hide the injury. Pitt said he regretted not disrobing for a separate scene of Mills and Somerset shaving their chests to wear concealed listening devices. He disliked the public attention given to his body but later came to believe taking off his shirt off would have conveyed the growing partnership between Mills and Somerset.

The crew had to clear used condoms and crack pipes from the location of the sloth victim sequence, replacing them with prop crack pipes and air fresheners. The actors were not told the sloth victim was a person in costume; McGinley's shock at the body's movement is real. Lights with green color gels were shone through the window from the adjacent building to impart the scene with a green tint. Leland Orser, who portrays the man who is forced to kill the lust victim, deprived himself of sleep to achieve a "deranged mindset"; his scene was postponed so he stayed awake another night. He breathed rapidly between scenes to make himself hyperventilate on camera. The ending was scripted to take place directly beneath transmission towers, a location Doe selects to interfere with the police communications; the towers, however, interfered with the film crew's radios and the actors had to use cell phones to communicate with the crew from afar.

The film's ending remained a point of contention between New Line Cinema and the filmmakers; Fincher, intending to stun the audience, wanted to follow Mills' shooting of Doe with a sudden cut to black but executives believed this would alienate audiences. Fincher instructed staff at a test screening to keep off the lights following the cut to black so the audience could take it in but his instructions were not followed. After the screening, one female audience member walking by Fincher said: "the people who made that movie should be killed". According to Fincher, the screening invitation said: "Would you like to see a new movie starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman?", both of whom were known for films very different in tone to Seven; Fincher said: "I don't know what the fuck they thought they were gonna see... but I'm telling you, from the reaction of the people in there, they were bristling. They couldn't have been more offended". Executives wanted a mainstream conclusion in which Mills and Somerset pursue Doe and a kidnapped Tracy, who would survive. According to Pitt: "[the studio says] 'You know, he would be much more heroic if he didn't shoot John Doe-and it's too unsettling with the head in the box. We think maybe if it was [Mills'] dog's head in the box'". Freeman preferred a storyboarded sequence of Somerset killing Doe, sparing Mills from losing his career as well, but Pitt believed Mills had to kill Doe and test audiences preferred that version. Another alternative ending depicted Mills shooting Somerset to stop him killing Doe first. Fincher and Pitt refused to compromise on the head-in-the-box ending but settled for a longer epilogue showing Mills being arrested and Somerset delivering a concluding narration, offering some optimism.

Pitt and Fincher were unhappy with the car-ride scene leading into the ending because the dialogue had to be overdubbed because too much ambient sound had been picked up during filming. Pitt believed this caused the scene to "lose its breath", affecting the pacing and emotion. The helicopter scenes were also filmed in post-production because there was no time during principal photography; the studio agreed extra time and funding if the scenes were deemed necessary. Because these scenes were filmed several months later that the rest of the film, the green ground had turned brown and the ground-based scenes had to be color-corrected to match the new footage. The opening credits were scripted to be set over footage of Somerset visiting a countryside home he intended to purchase for his retirement, taking a piece of the wallpaper he would carry through the film, before returning to the city by train. This was intended to create a stark contrast between the countryside and the darkness of the city but there was insufficient budget to film it. As a result, scenes of Somerset looking at the wallpaper piece had to be cut.

Richard Francis-Bruce edited the 127-minute theatrical cut. His style focused on "having a motivated cut", believing every cut needed to be done with a specific purpose. For the finale, he introduced more rapid cuts to emphasize the tension as Doe's plan is revealed, and a brief, four-frame insert of Tracy as Mills pulls the trigger to compensate for not showing the contents of the box. To emphasize the darkness, Fincher and Khondji used an expensive, lengthy bleach bypass chemical process that retained some of the silver that would normally be removed from the film stock. The silver created a luminous effect in light tones and deeper, darker colors. Of the 2,500 prints sent to theaters, only a few hundred used the process.

Seven was budgeted at $30-$31million but Fincher persuaded studio executives to provide further funding to achieve his vision for the film, eventually pushing it $3million over budget, to $33-$34million, making it New Line Cinema's most expensive film at that point. A studio employee said executives "would go into these meetings with [Fincher], saying, 'Absolutely not, not a penny more'... but he was so relentless and persuasive that they'd come out all ga-ga-eyed, and give him more money". About $15million of the budget was spent on below-the-line costs.

Fincher hired Howard Shore to score Seven based on his score for The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Shore said Fincher would attend recording sessions but rarely interfered with Shore's process. The score, which was performed by an orchestra of up to 100 musicians, combines elements of brass, percussion, piano, and trumpets. "Portrait of John Doe" serves as the central theme with two cue notes; a rising version is used for Tracy's appearances. Shore described the film's ending as having a "visceral, kind of primal effect on me"; he incorporated his reaction into the sequence's score, providing little accompaniment during the dialogue between Mills, Somerset, and Doe, but using it to punctuate significant moments such as Somerset opening the box. Shore said: "the music starts, and it turns the scene, it turns it into John Doe's perspective... the music enters, and you realize, the look of the horror on his face, it's a chilling moment".

Shore's opening theme "The Last Seven Days", which is described as a more-upbeat piece, was replaced with Nine Inch Nails's song " Closer", which was remixed by Coil and Danny Hyde. David Bowie's song " The Hearts Filthy Lesson" is used for the end credits. Seven features songs including "In the Beginning" by The Statler Brothers, " Guilty" by Gravity Kills, " Trouble Man" by Marvin Gaye, "Speaking of Happiness" by Gloria Lynne, " Suite No. 3 in D Major, BWV 1068 Air" by Stuttgarter Kammerorchester and Karl Münchinger, " Love Plus One" by Haircut One Hundred, " I Cover the Waterfront" by Billie Holiday, "Now's the Time" by Charlie Parker, and " Straight, No Chaser" by Thelonious Monk.

Fincher hired his friend Ren Klyce as sound designer. They inserted sounds on the outside of each frame, such as rain or screaming, to create a psychological impression that terrifying things are occurring even when the audience cannot see or escape it. Klyce and sound designer Steve Boedekker also produced the music that is heard at the entrance to the sex club where the lust victim is murdered.

Fincher, Khondji, production designer Arthur Max, and costume designer Michael Kaplan collaborated on establishing a unified vision for the art direction. Fincher established the design rules for the film, saying: "This is a world that's fucked up and nothing works". He wanted every design to look neglected and in a state of decay. The photography of William Eggleston and Robert Frank influenced Fincher, who focused on "coolness", making the visuals simultaneously gritty, stylized, classic, and contemporary; Khondji said Frank's style could be seen in Seven's very bright exteriors and dark interiors. Many of the film's interior scenes were underexposed to create a stark contrast, which made the exteriors stand out more. Interior lighting was often provided by external sources, using only a few interior artificial lights. The final scene with Mills, Somserset, and Doe, has inconsistent lighting because the actors were always lit from behind by the sun regardless of their placement in the scene, which Khondji described as "a bit of a nightmare and never realistic in terms of continuity".

Fincher wanted precise staging for every scene to make the audience feel as if they were in the location. Believing it was important to create limitations to challenge himself, Fincher had sets built without removable walls, and the crew had to film within their confines. Doe's murder scenes were influenced by photography, such as the work of Joel-Peter Witkin. The "gluttony" set was wrapped in plastic to contain the cockroaches; a cockroach wrangler was used to help control them. The sloth scene in particular was influenced by the work of painter Edvard Munch, drawing on the green and "claustrophobic" imagery. The ceilings of the sex club in which the lust victim is murdered were lowered to make the space more claustrophobic, and[clarification needed ] was sprayed on the walls to give texture and to imply they are covered in bodily fluids. A former bank was used as the library and 5,000 books, which were supplemented with fiberglass replicas, were rented to fill the space. The shaking in Mills apartment, which is caused by a passing train, was created using gas-powered engines attached to the set. Walker's script extensively described Doe's home, whose windows are painted black for privacy and a drawer is filled with empty painkiller bottles to help Doe cope with regular headaches.

Rob Bottin led development of practical effects. He researched crime-scene photographs and police evidence files, observed an autopsy, and studied the effects of obesity to realize his designs. For the gluttony victim, Mack spent up to 10 hours a day having makeup and prosthetics applied. A scuba-like device was used to let Mack breathe while face-down in spaghetti. Mack said he was unaware he would be surrounded by live insects until reading the daily call sheet and noticing a "cockroach wrangler"; Pitt would flick some roaches off Mack between takes. The character's autopsy used a fiberglass replica with a deliberately enlarged penis; Fincher said after Mack spent so long in makeup for 30 seconds of screen time, he could "at least give him a huge cock".

For Schanz's pride victim, Fincher added blood to her while her nose was taped to the side and her face was covered in gauze. To secure the film's release, several scenes of Bottin's effects work had to be cut. Fincher described Seven as psychologically violent, implying violence without overtly showing it. In the opening scene, Walker portrays a corpse lying in a pool of blood; he said the blood was very cold and he had a minor panic attack once in place because he was worried about moving and ruining the shot.

Following the removal of the planned opening train-ride scene with Somerset, Fincher needed a temporary title sequence to screen Seven for studio executives. He recruited R/GA designer Kyle Cooper and his team to assemble a montage slideshow reflecting Doe's perspective. This helped establish the character and his threat earlier in the film because Doe does not appear until Seven's final act. The sequence was set to the "Closer" remix at Fincher's request.

The sequence was well-received by executives, who suggested retaining it for the theatrical release. Fincher did not want to appear to be accepting their suggestion and instructed Cooper to develop a new concept; Cooper persuaded Fincher to use a more-elaborate and detailed version of his slideshow. Cooper focused on Doe's elaborate journals, which are briefly glimpsed in the film, while Fincher suggested the sequence should depict Doe. Fincher wanted Mark Romanek to direct the sequence, being a fan of his music video for "Closer" and sharing similar design sensibilities but Cooper secured the role because of his previous experience on similar title sequences. Fincher told Cooper: "all I want is for the audience to want to run screaming from the theater during the title section".

The title sequence depicts Doe's preparations and routines for his murderous plans, such as cutting off his fingertips, processing photographs in his bathtub, and making tea. This was inspired by Cooper's appreciation for the "elegant" way Doe stirs his tea following his surrender. The sequence focuses on Doe writing his journal and crossing out words such as "pregnancy" and "marriage", and other elements representing a "perfect life", which he does not believe people deserve. Fincher said: "it was a way of introducing the evil. The idea was that you're watching title sequences from the mind of somebody who's lost it... [the audience] won't understand while they're watching it, but they'll get it later". Clive Piercy and John Sabel made Doe's journals, which cost tens of thousands of dollars each to fill with text and images; about six complete journals were made, supplemented by blank ones on shelves. Artist Wayne Coe storyboarded the sequence, which Harris Savides filmed and Angus Wall edited. Cooper regularly conferred with Wall on ideas, and spent the night before filming locating items such as fish hooks and loose hairs from his drain, which he believed would make interesting inclusions.

In 1995, theatrical box-office revenue in the United States and Canada was falling; the first quarter was about $90million lower than the same period in 1994. At the same time, markets outside of the U.S. and Canada were growing, accounting for an average 41% of a film's total gross-including theatrical and home media profits-and outperformed the U.S. and Canadian box offices for the first time in 1994. Scheduled for release were anticipated films such as Batman Forever, Crimson Tide, and Pocahontas, and Waterworld, the most-expensive film of its time. New Line Cinema had low expectations for Seven based on middling scores from test audiences.

New Line Cinema's marketing president Chris Pula called the advertising campaign for Seven "risky" because it had to "prepare people" for the film's dark, violent content while making it a topic of discussion among potential audiences. Early trailers and newspaper, television, and radio advertisements focused on the seven sins, presenting Seven as an "edgy" prestige film rather than a jumpscare-style horror. Entertainment professionals believed violent or horrific films had a limited appeal and rarely received positive reviews. Fincher's public image had been tarnished by the failure of Alien 3, and although Freeman and Pitt were proven stars who were capable of attracting audiences, New Line Cinema struggled to capitalize on Pitt's popularity. Pitt's core audience, teenage girls, were not the film's target audience and research showed young men would avoid taking a romantic partner to films featuring Pitt because they felt "threatened" by his appeal. The positive word-of-mouth following Seven's theatrical release led the marketing campaign to shift focus toward targeting Pitt's female fans.

The premiere of Seven took place on September 19, 1995, at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, California. The event was attended by over 800 guests, including Fincher, Freeman, McGinley, Spacey, Tia Carrere, Elliott Gould, Matthew Modine, Lori Petty, Lou Diamond Phillips, Michael Rapaport, Eric Roberts, Robert Rodriguez, Steven Seagal, John Singleton, Christian Slater, Quentin Tarantino, and Jennifer Tilly.

Seven was released in the United States and Canada on September 22, 1995. During its opening weekend, Seven grossed $14million across 2,441 theaters-an average of $5,714 per theater-making it the number-one film of the weekend, ahead of the debut of ($8.1million), and To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar ($4.5million), in its third week of release. Seven had the highest-grossing September opening weekend of its time, replacing 1991's Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare ($12.6million). The successful opening was credited to the marketing campaign overcoming audience skepticism and Pitt's popularity with males and females-although a higher percentage of the opening audience were male-and the competing action films. New Line Cinema distribution executive, Mitch Goldman had preponed the release date of Seven to avoid competition and strategically opened the film in more theaters than usual to target suburban and small-town locations where Pitt's recent films had fared well.

Seven remained numberone in its second weekend, ahead of the debuts of Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers ($7.3million) and Devil in a Blue Dress ($5.4million), and in its third weekend ahead of the debuting ($9.4million) and Dead Presidents ($8million). Seven remained the most-popular film until its fifth weekend, falling to number3 behind the debuts of ($12.7million) and Now and Then ($7.4million), and was among the ten-highest-grossing films for nine weeks. Seven had grossed about $87million by the end of December, when it received a wide re-release in select locations to raise its profile during the nomination period for the 1996 Academy Awards. The re-release helped raise Seven's box-office revenue to about $100.1million, making it the ninth-highest-grossing film of 1995 behind ($100.3million), ($100.5million), ($106.4million), Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls ($108.4million), Pocahontas ($141.6million), ($173.8million), Batman Forever ($184million), and ($192.5million). According to estimates by industry experts, as of 1997, the box office returns to the studio minus the theaters' share was $43.1million.

Seven also performed well outside the U.S. and Canada, receiving positive audience reactions and successful debuts in Australia ($1.8million), South Korea ($808,009), Seoul ($961,538), New Zealand, and the Netherlands. Seven is estimated to have grossed a further $227.2million, giving it a worldwide gross of $327.3million, and making it the seventh-highest-grossing film worldwide behind Apollo 13 ($335.8million), Batman Forever ($336.5million), Pocahontas ($347.1million), GoldenEye ($356.4million), Toy Story ($365.3million), and Die Hard: With a Vengeance ($366.1million). Seven was an unexpected success and became one of the most-successful and most-profitable films of 1995.

Kevin Spacey (pictured in 2013) was a late addition to Seven as the studio originally did not want to pay his fee. Critics praised his portrayal of Doe.

Critics such as Roger Ebert and Desson Howe described Seven as an intelligent, well-made film that could comfortably stand alongside other thrillers. Others compared Seven unfavorably with The Silence of the Lambs and The Usual Suspects, saying Seven lacks the other films' intelligent narrative, and takes itself too seriously as an examination of evil instead of a "silly piece of pulp". The Orlando Sentinel said, however, Seven offers a "terrific film-noir atmosphere" and excellent performances, with The Seattle Times saying the film would be "unendurable" without Freeman and Spacey.

Critics unanimously praised Freeman's performance. Terrence Rafferty and Kenneth Turan wrote Freeman's "exceptional" performance is mainly responsible for making Seven watchable in spite of itself. Howe and James Berardinelli said the performance elevated Pitt's own to appear "actorly", although Freeman often steals every scene in which he appears, providing a fresh take on an otherwise-cliché role. Reviews of Pitt's performance were polarized between those who found it "energetic" and impressive and those who believed the role was beyond his acting abilities. Some reviewers said Pitt's performance continued his successful transition to more-serious roles from those based mainly on his appearance, although Howe said Pitt's presence does more for Seven than his acting. The Orlando Sentinel said what could have been a cliché role was saved by Mills not being inept or inexperienced, just out of his depth in this case. Some reviews said the character is underdeveloped, pointless, stupid, and not particularly likeable, and that Pitt's performance lacks the subtlety or effectiveness to compensate. Critics positively received Paltrow's performance, saying she made the most of her limited screentime and was generally underused while considering the character a "flimsy contrivance". Spacey's performance was also praised for its creepy, understated portrayal of an intelligent character who does not undermine himself with "a moment of sheer stupidity".

Fincher's directorial style was praised for its "striking craftmanship" and "stunning" visuals that often simultaneously thrill and exasperate the viewer. In contrast, Rafferty said his style is less effective when stretched over the film's runtime, and that Fincher mistook darkness for profundity and chose style over coherence. Although Siskel considered Walker's script to be smartly written, several critics were less enthusiastic, finding the dialogue trite, many scenes implausible, and character motivations weak. Jami Bernard and Richard Schickel wrote Seven lacks many of the essentials prevalent in its genre such as suspense, witty dialogue and cathartic humor, and the psychological depth to match the intellectual thrills of The Silence of the Lambs.

The violent content of Seven was generally negatively received. Critics such as Berardinelli and Gene Siskel found the gore excessive and "gratuitous". While some found the violent visuals to be tiresome and detracting, others said Fincher skilfully avoided showing the violence that led to the deaths, preventing them from distracting from Seven's more enjoyable aspects. According to Ebert and Turan, however, Seven would be too disturbing for many viewers. Fincher responded: "I didn't set out to piss off the people who are upset. I was told that Michael Medved [film critic at New York Post] wrote that the movie was evil, but I'm sure he slows down when he passes an accident just like everyone else. Death fascinates people, but they don't deal with it". Howe and Owen Gleiberman said the ending is "like an act of treachery against the viewer", undermining any hope for a positive outcome; and Barry Norman said it denies the audience "even of the final comfort they fully deserve". Ebert, however, found the ending to be "satisfying" but underwhelming compared to the film's earlier events. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on a scale of A+ to F.

Seven received one nomination at the 68th Academy Awards for Best Film Editing (Richard Francis-Bruce), and Walker was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the 49th British Academy Film Awards. At the MTV Movie Awards, Seven received three awards; Best Movie, Most Desirable Male (Pitt), and Best Villain (Spacey). New Line Cinema re-released Seven in Westwood, Los Angeles, California, on December 26 and in New York City on December 29, 1995, in an unsuccessful attempt to generate Academy Award nominations for Freeman, Pitt, and Fincher.

Seven was released on VHS, DVD, and Laserdisc in 1996. A two-disc special edition DVD that was released in 2000 introduced additional features including a remastered picture scanned from the original film negative, extended and deleted scenes, the original opening with Somerset and cut-to-black ending, production photographs and designs, and storyboards for an alternative ending. The release also includes four commentary tracks: Pitt, Fincher, and Freeman discussing Seven; a discussion between Fincher, De Luca, Francis-Bruce, Walker, and film studies professor Richard Dyer; Khondji, Max, Dyer, Francis-Bruce, and Fincher; and an isolated music and effects score with commentary by Shore, Klyce, Dyer, and Fincher. The film was released on Blu-ray Disc in 2010; the release features remastered visuals and contains all of the additional content in the special edition, with an additional collectible DigiBook version containing production notes and photographs. In 2023, Fincher revealed he was developing a 4K resolution remaster of Seven from the original film negative. Fincher said he would not alter the film's content, but intended to enhance some visual elements to take advantage of modern technology and conceal any flaws made obvious by the higher resolution.

The soundtrack of Seven was released in November 1995; the 11-track compact disc and cassette-tape release contains several of the songs used in the film such as "Guilty" and "In the Beginning", and two pieces of the score ("Portrait of John Doe" and "Suite from Seven") but omits "Closer" and "The Hearts Filthy Lesson". A bootleg recording of the score was released in the late 1990s and an official debut of the full 16-piece score was released in 2016.

A novelization of Seven that was written by Anthony Bruno was released alongside the film in November 1995. A seven-issue comic-book series was released between September 2006 and October 2007 by Zenescope Entertainment; serving as a prequel to the film's events of the film, the comic book focuses on Doe and the planning of his crimes.

The apathy of the film's unnamed city's inhabitants is a central theme in Seven. Somerset does not believe the city can be saved, intending to retire beyond its confines, and telling Mills women are taught to yell "fire" rather than "help" because people are more likely to pay attention if they selfishly think themselves in danger. Amy Taubin described the city as an infection point for corruption in which signs of violence and decay are omnipresent in its dark corners and rain, television reports, fights, screams, and children in impoverished apartments. Dyer compared the near-constant rain to films such as Blade Runner (1982), as a near-inescapable presence, which in Seven can represent sin seeping into every gap. The city's bleak aesthetic implies a layer of moral decay and indifference by its inhabitants that enables Doe's plan. Somerset has not stopped caring but has become as apathetic as those around him because of the futility of his efforts. Seven reinforces this in several scenes, such as the dismissal of his concerns a child witnessed a murder, the police captain's indifference to a mugger needlessly stabbing out his victim's eyes, and the sex club manager who dislikes his role but sees no alternative. Somerset tries to spare Tracy from the influence of the city by advising her to leave with her unborn child.

Both Somerset and Doe perceive the ubiquity of sin and indifference toward it. There are parallels between the characters, both of whom live alone, are devoted to their work, and have no meaningful relationships. Although there is mention of Somerset's former partner and some degree of respect for his colleagues, he tells Tracy: "anyone who spends a significant amount of time with me finds me disagreeable". Doe's apartment is a reflection of his isolation from society. They differ, however, in their response to sin; Somerset has surrendered to apathy and sorrow, while Doe feels contempt for society and has assumed a role as its punisher. It is implied Somerset was once passionate about his work until he realized he could not change things; Doe is dedicated and passionate, believing wholeheartedly in the change his work will bring. Somerset has never killed anyone, and retains a spark of hope for humanity's improvement, while Doe kills freely, believing humanity is beyond saving. When Mills tells Doe he is killing innocent people, Doe replies:

"only in a world this shitty could you even try to say these were innocent people and keep a straight face. But that's the point. We see a deadly sin on every street corner, in every home, and we tolerate it. We tolerate it because it's common, it's trivial. We tolerate it morning, noon, and night. Well, not anymore".

Doe's plan works, shocking Somerset out of his apathy, and inspiring him to defer his retirement and fight for a better future. Walker said the ending is:

about "optimist Mills"... going up against this pessimistic kind of world-weary detective in Somerset... those dramatically opposed points of view are pushing and pulling each other throughout the story. And then once pessimism is confirmed, even to the optimist who's been arguing that the fight is always worth fighting, will the pessimist in the light of confirmation of all his worst predictions, will he stay or will he walk away?

Jonathan Rosenbaum described it as a "touching, old-fashioned faith in the power of good to reassert itself", tempered by the fact the hope is inspired by a self-martyred serial killer. He said Seven chose style over substance, giving the overall message we "remain exactly where we are". Dyer compared Doe to Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, in terms of ability to out-think and manipulate the authorities combined with his artistic method of arranging his murders, but that they are contrasted by their different social statuses; Lecter being an educated professional with a preference for luxury, while Doe is seemingly self taught, unemployed, and obsessed with his mission. Rosenbaum, however, said unlike The Silence of the Lambs, Seven does not "exploit its psycho killer for cheap laughs or blind hero worship". Adam Nayman found Seven problematic, believing it venerates Doe as having a valid criticism of society.

Somerset describes Doe's murders as his sermons to the masses. According to Dyer and Saunders, Doe is conducting a violent crusade, demonstrating the consequences of moral decay and sinning, based on his own interpretation of Christian ideology, in a city rather than the biblical Sodom and Gomorrah. Writer Patricia Moir said theorists in the late 1990s believed a growing trend in North America resulted in the decay of social meta narratives of order that were created by religion, science and art, in turn diminishing societal norms; and that in absence of these paradigms, all that remains is the chaos of existence. Somerset tries to create order using the ticking of a metronome to disguise the disordered noise of sirens and screams outside his apartment. According to Dyer, Somerset's smashing of the metronome is him acknowledging he can no longer ignore the city's darkness. Doe creates order by filtering literature about the seven deadly sins and works by authors such as John Milton through a lens of religious fanaticism. He believes his purpose is God-given, which is reflected in the opening credits depicting Doe cutting the word "God" from a dollar bill; Kyle Cooper said, "I hesitated on that one but decided to do it because John Doe took it on himself to play God".

Seven includes subtle references to the number seven, reinforcing the religious subtext; Doe's plan culminates on a Sunday, the seventh day of the week and the biblical day of rest, on which Doe's package for Mills is delivered at 7:01 pm. While researching Doe, Somerset references material including " The Parson's Tale" by Geoffrey Chaucer, which discusses penance; Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and its seven terraces of purgatory; a Catholic dictionary; and a reference to seven children being slain. There are also references to art such as a stack of spaghetti cans resembling Campbell's Soup Cans by Andy Warhol. Journalist Kim Newman said each of Doe's kills is arranged as an artistic piece dedicated to each sin. Commentary appears on the excesses of performance art and culture of celebrity; Mills refers to Doe as a "movie of the week" and a "fucking T-Shirt", implying his legacy will be brief before fading into obscurity. Moir said Seven provides no final answers about Doe's legacy but implies things have potentially only worsened.

Seven is now regarded as one of the best thriller, crime, and mystery films ever made. Some publications have listed Seven among the greatest films of all time. A 2014 poll of 2,120 entertainment industry professionals by The Hollywood Reporter ranked Seven the eighty-fifth-best film of all time. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes offers a 82% approval rating from the aggregated reviews of 85 critics, with an average score of 7.9/10. The website's critical consensus says: "A brutal, relentlessly grimy shocker with taut performances, slick gore effects, and a haunting finale". The film has a score of 65 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 22 critics' reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Retrospective reviews have said Seven retains its appeal over its peers due to its bleak, often imitated but rarely equaled ending, and Fincher's story-focused directorial style. Critic Matt Goldberg described Seven as timeless because of its stylized reality that is not linked to any particular time or place, and its lack of popular culture references, advertisements, and focus on technology. Discussing Seven's lasting positive legacy as a thriller, Walker said:

"I know a lot of people hate Seven and think it's just garbage, so it's good to be humbled in that way. I'm really proud of it... Looking back at the time that's passed, I feel extremely lucky that they never managed to make a sequel to it... I've been lucky that they've not managed to make a prequel to it, which, in my opinion, sucks all of the kind of meaning and energy out of who and what John Doe represents. I love that it's still a standalone piece".

Seven is included in the 2013 film reference book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, and has been listed among Pitt's and Fincher's best films.

Seven helped Pitt's transition into more-serious and dramatic acting roles. He and Paltrow became romantically involved before the film's release, and Pitt would work again with Fincher on films such as (1999). It also established Freeman as a mentor-type figure, an archetype he reprised in many later projects. After the failure of Alien 3, Seven revitalized Fincher's film career, establishing him among the most iconoclastic Hollywood directors of his generation; over the next few years, he directed (1997), Fight Club, and (2002). Walker and Shore worked with Fincher on several other projects. Describing the personal impact on himself, Walker said: "ten years down the line, if nothing else got produced. I'd still have this great movie on video... when I'm run out of town, living my old age, running a miniature golf shop, I can always have what I've dreamt of having since I was very young". In a 2022 interview, MacKay, who played the sloth victim, said he was still earning "healthy residual payments" for his role, and was occasionally recognized in public by fans. He said: "people still think they used a dummy in that scene... I get that a lot. But that was me".

Seven inspired many filmmakers, and is considered influential on crime-based films and television shows that replicated its grim aesthetic, body horror imagery, lighting, and premise of disenchanted detectives pursuing criminals with distinctive killing methods and motivations, including Kiss the Girls (1997), The Bone Collector (1999), Along Came a Spider, (both 2001), the series (2003), and television series Prodigal Son (2019-2021). said Seven caused a resurgence in faith-based horror, supernatural, and apocalyptic mystery films. The superhero film (2022) has a similar style and tone to Seven; Rolling Stone called it "part superhero blockbuster, part 1970s-antihero homage, and part Seven remake". Seven's use of alternative music by Nine Inch Nails is also seen as contributing to increased use of similar songs in films such as Final Destination (2000), Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), and Resident Evil (2002).

The New York Times called the title credit sequence for Seven "one of the most important design innovations of the 1990s". Art of the Title described it as the beginning of a "renaissance in title design, particularly in the horror genre, and its influence is evident over two decades after Seven's release. In 2011, IFC ranked the sequence as the third-best-ever behind those of (1958) and A Hard Day's Night (1964), and its style can be seen in the opening credits of films such as The Bone Collector, , and Taking Lives (2004).

The film's twist ending is considered one of the best in cinematic history. Pitt's line "What's in the box?" as he asks Somerset to confirm the contents of Doe's box, has become iconic, and is used in popular culture and memes. Walker said: "[The twist is] one of the reasons I think Seven did well... because people went in and they did not know in the first ten minutes exactly how the movie was going to end". Although it is only implied Tracy's head is in the box, Fincher recalled an encounter with a woman who said: "'There is no need to make a stand in of Gwyneth Paltrow's head to find in the box. You don't need to see that.' And I said, 'Well, we didn't.' And she said, 'Oh yes, you did.' So, the imagination, if properly primed, can do more than any army of makeup artists". Several publications have named John Doe as one of the great cinematic villains.

In 2002, New Line Cinema proposed a sequel named Ei8ht that would be based on a repurposed spec script titled Solace by Ted Griffin about a psychic serial killer who is pursued by a similarly psychic detective, Somerset. The idea was abandoned after principal Seven cast and crew, including Freeman and Pitt, expressed no intention to return for a sequel. Fincher said: "I would be less interested in that than I would in having cigarettes put out in my eyes". The script was made into the standalone thriller named (2015), which was a critical and commercial failure.

Dyer, Richard (1999). Seven. London: British Film Institute. ISBN 0-85170-723-8.

Horn, John (October 25, 1995). "Fall Box Office's Lucky Number Is Surprise Seven". The Tampa Tribune. Tampa, Florida: Tampa Media Group, Inc. Associated Press.

Montesano, Anthony (February 1996). "Seven's Deadly Screenwriter: Andrew Kevin Walker On His Horrific Masterpiece". Cinefantastique. Vol. 27, no. 6. Forest Park, Illinois: Fourth Castle Micromedia. pp. 48-50.

Woods, Mark (November 20, 1995). "Seven Rolls To O'Seas B.O. Heights". . Vol. 361, no. 3. New York City: Penske Media Corporation.

Moir, Patricia (February 1996). "The Horror! The Horror!". Cinefantastique. Vol. 27, no. 6. Forest Park, Illinois: Fourth Castle Micromedia. p. 49.

Saunders, Matthew F. (February 1996). "Seven". Cinefantastique. Vol. 27, no. 6. Forest Park, Illinois: Fourth Castle Micromedia. p. 55.

Schneider, Steven Jay (2013). "1990s". 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. Boston, Massachusetts: Murdoch Books Pty Limited. ISBN 978-0-7641-6613-6.

"Seven Is Re-Released For The Holidays". San Francisco Examiner. San Francisco, California: Clint Reilly Communications. December 23, 1995.

Taubin, Amy (January 1, 1996). "The Allure Of Decay". Sight and Sound. Vol. 6, no. 1. London: British Film Institute. pp. 22-24.

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Seven (stylized as Se7en ) is a 1995 American crime thriller film directed by David Fincher and written by Andrew Kevin Walker. It stars Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow, and John C. McGinley.

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ONDSKAB PÅ KONTORET: Forfatteren Christian Jungersen har nærstuderet de psykologiske mekanismer, som driver mennesket

Ondskaben. Den lever i os alle - uanset hvor gode, betænksomme og engleagtige vi end mener, vi er.

Det mener forfatteren Christian Jungersen, som i efteråret udgav succes-romanen "Undtagelsen".

En roman om ondskab på arbejdspladsen, om hentydninger, henkastede bemærkninger og småchikanerier, som gradvis vokser sig større og større for til sidst at føre en helvedes masse ødelæggelse med sig.

Romanen fik ikke kun det samlede anmelderkorps op af stolen, læserne har også stået i kø for at købe bogen.

For trods sin massive størrelse, 600 sider, og sin kredsen om emnet ondskab, er bogen blevet en regulær salgssucces.

Hvorfor? Hvad er det "Undtagelsen" rammer, og hvad er det, der gør 600 "ondskabsfulde" sider til en fornøjelse at læse?

- En del af svaret er, at "Undtagelsen" er bygget op som en spændingsroman. Den har et plot og en hemmelighed, som læseren naturligvis gerne vil kende. Hvem er det, der sender dødstrusler af sted til en af hovedpersonerne?

- Den indeholder også mord, kærlighed, intriger, alt det, vi godt kan lide at læse om. Men jeg tror også, at den rammer bredt, fordi den beskæftiger sig med problemer på arbejdspladsen, siger Christian Jungersen.

Kontor-ondskab

Men ikke på en vilkårlig arbejdsplads.

- Havde jeg valgt at lade historien foregå på Christiansborg, ville folk formentlig bare have tænkt, at de politikere sandelig også er korrupte og magtsyge.

- Havde jeg valgt et journalistisk miljø, ville jeg bekræfte den fordom, at journalister har rundsave på albuerne. Så jeg valgte en humanitær organisation. På det, jeg kalder Dansk Center for Information om Folkedrab, arbejder de fineste, mest redelige og idealistiske kvinder.

- Men med stor finesse er de i færd med at nedbryde en kollega og smadre hendes liv, siger han.

Deres mobning foregår parallelt med, at de udarbejder oplysningsmateriale om korrupte regimer og drab på uskyldige over hele verden. Bekæmper ondskab og uretfærdighed.

"Undtagelsen" gør det klart, at deres ædle mål om at skabe en bedre verden står i direkte modsætningsforhold til den verden, deres arbejdsplads udgør.

For her trives de samme kræfter, som driver den ondskab, de forsøger at bekæmpe.

Spurgte man kvinderne direkte, ville de næppe vide, hvad det er for et djævelsk spil, de driver.

Men blandt andet i kraft af små nik, antydninger, løftede øjenbryn og indforståede bemærkninger driver de deres nære kollega, Anne-Lise, ud i et psykisk sammenbrud.

Kvinders ondskab

Christian Jungersen er ikke begejstret for at tale om kvinders ondskab over for mænds.

- Det bliver hurtigt til en parade af klicheer, mener han - men siger alligevel, at kvinder ofte opfattes som mere komplicerede rent følelsesmæssigt, og at de tidligt lærer at bruge social intelligens for at løse deres konflikter, mens mænd lærer at slås for at klare deres uenigheder.

- Der er intet subtilt over en hård tackling under en fodboldkamp, men det er der til gengæld over de blikke, der kan holde piger ude af fællesskabet, mener han.

Ondskab trives også på typiske mandearbejdspladser, men der har den et anderledes udtryk, pointerer Christian Jungersen. Fokus i romanen er imidlertid ikke så meget mænds og kvinders psykologi som den ondskab, der ligger mere eller mindre latent i os alle.

- I "Undtagelsen" har jeg overordnet ønsket at belyse de mekanismer, der driver ondskaben. På trods af de enorme forskelle er det de samme psykologiske mekanismer, som udspiller sig på Dansk Center for Information om Folkedrab som på Balkan. Stort set.

- For dæmoni kan opstå overalt, hvor der er egennytte indblandet, og det er der sådan set alle steder, siger Christian Jungersen, der mener, at ondskabens mekanismer er begyndt at virke, når man ønsker det skal gå andre - f.eks. en kollega - dårligt for, at man selv kan opnå en fordel.

- Men man skal ikke glemme, at "Undtagelsen" også er en bog om godhed. De såkaldt onde kvinder er jo også heltinder, der kan handle uegennyttigt.

- Som jeg ser det, har vi alle muligheden for både at handle ondt og for at gøre det storslået gode, siger Christian Jungersen.

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ONDSKAB PÅ KONTORET: Forfatteren Christian Jungersen har nærstuderet de psykologiske mekanismer, som driver mennesket Ondskaben. Den lever i os alle - uanset hvor gode, betænksomme og engleagtige vi end mener, vi er. Det mener forfatteren Christian Jungersen, som i efteråret udgav succes-romanen "Undtagelsen".

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Hvilken indsats skal der ydes i forbindelse med gruppearbejdet/projektarbejdet?

Hvilket fagligt niveau skal der stræbes mod?

Hvad gør man, hvis en fra gruppen er fraværende?
Hvad gør man, hvis en fra gruppen ikke yder en passende indsats?
Hvordan sikrer vi, at vi på skift skriver i logbogen?
AFTALEN LÆGGES PÅ JERES EGEN PADLET

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Et samarbejde mellem fag Almen studieforberedelse (AT)

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Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:

Storyline

Signing a contract, Jack Torrance, a normal writer and former teacher agrees to take care of a hotel which has a long, violent past that puts everyone in the hotel in a nervous situation. While Jack slowly gets more violent and angry of his life, his son, Danny, tries to use a special talent, the "Shining", to inform the people outside about whatever that is going on in the hotel. Written by J. S. Golden

Taglines:

The tide of terror that swept America IS HERE [UK Poster]

Details

Release Date:

13 June 1980 (USA)

Box Office

Budget:

$19,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$622,337, 26 May 1980

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$45,533,245

Company Credits

Technical Specs

Runtime:

(cut) | (cut) (European) | (original) | (US dvd release: B002VWNIDG)

See full technical specs "

Did You Know?

Trivia

In the bar scene where Jack has some bourbon, the dialogue includes: "I like you Lloyd. You were always the best goddamn bartender from Timbuktu, to Portland, Maine, or Portland, Oregon for that matter." This is taken directly from the novel, and coincidentally a reference to their host city of Portland, Oregon, where they filmed the exterior scenes of the hotel, which was the Timberline Lodge on nearby Mt. Hood. See more "

Goofs

When Jack is walking towards the Gold Room, his image is not reflected in the last mirror. See more "

Quotes

[first lines]
Jack Torrance : Hi, I've got an appointment with Mr. Ullman. My name is Jack Torrance.
See more "

Crazy Credits

The movie's opening titles are also the only instance in any Kubrick film where scrolling credits, rather than title cards, are used. See more "

Alternate Versions

Three days after the release of the film, Stanley Kubrick and Warner Bros. ordered all projectionists to cut about 2 minutes from the end of the film, and send the footage back to the studio. Starting after the closeup of frozen Jack, the camera goes to a pullback shot with part of a state trooper's car and the legs of troopers walking around in the foreground. We then cut to the hotel manager Stuart Ullman ( Barry Nelson) walking down a hospital hallway to the nurse's station to inquire about Danny and Wendy. He's told they're both doing well and proceeds to Wendy's room. After some gentle conversation, he tells Wendy that searchers have been unable to locate any evidence of the apparitions she saw. Additionally, Jack's body cannot be located. We then cut to the camera silently roaming the halls of the Overlook Hotel for about a minute until it comes up to the wall with the photographs, where it [back to the ending as it is now known] fades in on the photo of Jack in the 1921 picture. See more "

User Reviews

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Directed by Stanley Kubrick. With Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers. A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where a sinister presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from both past and future.

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The idea of ultimate evil in horror is something I've wrestled with for years. There's something so incomprehensible about it. It's really frightening. I mean, even humanity's worst monsters had mothers that loved them, jokes that made them laugh, and favorite foods. We can relate to them -- at least at a distance. Ultimate evil, like some kind of Platonic Ideal of evil, is utterly unknowable. It's beyond human understanding at every level, and thus monstrous.

Theologians, philosophers, and psychiatrists have all grappled at one time or another with what defines evil: Is it universal? Relative? Does one become evil through the commission of evil acts, or does one commit evil acts because one is evil? Evil is hard to quantify in any universal sense, but like Justice Potter Stewart said when he was pressed to define obscenity, "I know it when I see it."

Movies and books allow us the luxury of knowing pure evil with little to no risk to ourselves. Hannah Arendt is famous for coining the phrase "the banality of evil" when she was writing about the Holocaust. This encapsulated her belief that most of the evils in the world are committed by perfectly normal-seeming people who believe that they are doing the right thing. Certainly, Philip Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment, and perhaps to a greater degree Stanley Milgram's electric shock experiment, seemed to support this premise. Evil in its purest form -- evil for the sake of evil -- is more often the province of art.

Since we're discussing the psychology of evil, it is perhaps most fitting to begin our examination of literary evil in film with Dr. Hannibal Lecter. While the evil doctor trope isn't a new one, Lecter is the character who could probably most benefit from Jesus' admonition, "Physician, heal thyself."

Lecter, a cannibal and aesthete of exacting taste, doesn't just stand in contrast to Arendt's "banality of evil": he consumes it. For much of author Thomas Harris ' novels (and the films they've spawned), Lecter remains a cipher. He murders with seemingly little provocation and in no discernible pattern. It is only in 1999's that we finally receive some small bit of insight into Lecter's pathology. His caretaker, Barney, reveals that Lecter only eats "the rude." Lecter despises crudity, duplicity, and banality. Undoubtedly, he'd much prefer to serve the Nazis Arendt was referring to as dinner than to serve alongside them. This isn't to say that any of the rest of us would be safe around Lecter: I do not doubt that most of humanity would fall short of his twisted moral standards, if not his palate. Lecter is beyond the petty evil of this world. He is a true monster -- a monster in human form. This is why he's so terrifying: We expect certain things from him -- pathos, empathy -- and he'll never deliver them. He has no "human" side, and is thus a complete work of incomprehensible, terrifying fiction. He is Death with a human mask.

Of course, there are monsters and then there are monsters -- the supernatural kind. From Old Scratch to Jason Voorhees, people have thrilled to stories of things beyond our mortal ken. Ironically, supernatural evil is the easiest form to understand. We don't expect Dracula or Satan to love puppies and have a Great Aunt they visit every Sunday in the nursing home. We expect malevolence from them, and they deliver.

Stephen King is responsible for no small number of instances of pure evil in book and film. 's Randall Flagg is a force of pure corruption: Not only is he intent on bringing plague and death to the earth's masses, he is also interested in leading men and women into personal damnation as well. Angry nerd Harold Lauder falls victim to the pleasures of the flesh -- and a self-inflicted gunshot to the head -- under Flagg's Faustian influence. Nadine Cross, Flagg's chosen concubine, only escapes his clutches by provoking him into killing her. Flagg is Satan, a corrupter of the flesh and the spirit, and a source of ultimate evil ... an Ur-Evil, if you will. Seen in this light, King's other creations -- while truly horrific -- are mere voices in the infernal choir. 's Pennywise is utterly terrifying, but all he really wants to do is consume you; so do lions. The Shining's Jack Torrance is an abusive alcoholic driven mad by cabin fever, ghosts, or both to kill his family. It's terrible, but regardless of what drives Torrance, he is another example of the banality of evil. Flagg's plans are of a more eschatonic nature: He is the End Times made flesh.

While most of us fear the kind of apocalyptic future that Flagg would bring, others would hasten it. Ira Levin's brilliant feminist horror story Rosemary's Baby, later adapted by Roman Polanski (who might deserve his own spot in an essay on the nature of evil, but I digress), depicts a young woman impregnated by the devil and forced to carry his child. Rosemary, played by a young Mia Farrow, tries desperately to regain control of her body with every attempt thwarted by those around her -- her seemingly kind neighbors, her doctor, even her husband. All of them are determined to see Satan's child born; Rosemary herself is just a receptacle. In the end, the baby is born and Rosemary has been reduced to a broken, hollow thing. Good news, though: "He has his father's eyes!" Released in 1968, five years prior to Roe vs. Wade, " Rosemary's Baby" resonated with the concerns of a new, young generation of women just coming into their own womanhood and beginning to question the traditional roles society had assigned to them.

" The Omen," released in 1976, was a variant on the changeling, a popular fairytale motif. While in Rome, the newborn son of Robert Thorn, played by the great Gregory Peck, and his wife both die shortly after childbirth. Father Spiletto, a Roman Catholic priest, pressures Thorn to adopt an infant whose own mother died at the same time as his wife. After a series of fatal accidents, Thorn begins to suspect that there is something very wrong about his adopted son Damien, and eventually discovers that he has adopted the Anti-Christ. Damien, like Rosemary's baby, are both born into evil. They can no sooner change this than a tiger can change his stripes. Again, this kind of evil, despite its obvious fictionality, is in some ways more easily understood: We don't expect anything better of them. It is also less frightening. We look at someone like Jack Torrance -- or even a John Wayne Gacy or Jeffrey Dahmer -- and think, "How could someone do something like this?" The question is all the more chilling if we really consider the implication of the words of the Latin writer Terentius: "I am a human being, so nothing human is strange to me."

The famed psychologist Carl Jung wrote about something he called the shadow self: This was the dark part of the human soul, our repressed weaknesses and worst instincts. We deny the shadow, attempt to negate it, but it always comes out. We project our own evil impulses unto others. We carry evil within us. Perhaps the reason that we find evil in popular entertainment so fascinating -- so frightening -- is because it serves as a distorted mirror, reflecting and exaggerating the parts of ourselves that we'd as soon pretend do not exist.

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Literary Evil in Film: The Devil You Know

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The idea of ultimate evil in horror is something I've wrestled with for years. There's something so incomprehensible about it. It's really frightening. I mean, even humanity's worst monsters had mothers that loved them, jokes that made them laugh, and favorite foods. We can relate to them -- at least at a distance.

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The Possibility of Evil By Shirley Jackson

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The Possibility of Evil by Shirley Jackson

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THE POSSIBILITY OF EVIL By: Shirley Jackson Miss Strangeworth is a familiar fixture in a small town where everyone knows everyone else. Little do the townsfolk suspect, though, that the dignified...

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The Man who Loved Flowers

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Philip Zimbardo knows how easy it is for nice people to turn bad. In this talk, he shares insights and graphic unseen photos from the Abu Ghraib trials. Then he talks about the flip side: how easy it is to be a hero, and how we can rise to the challenge.