Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is an international phenomenon. I remember seeing Dragon Tattoo for the first time in hardback in Nashville the summer of 2009. It was at Border’s so that goes to show what a different era it was, though I bought Tana French’s debut In The Woods instead because it wasn’t as long. (By the way, it’s an excellent portrait of a sociopath and the best of French’s three
mysteries so far). Within a year, the three Larsson books were everywhere and people I respected intellectually were conversant with them. I didn’t get it. There have been so many good to excellent mysteries published in the last five years and this is the set that has sucked up all the publicity and sales.
mysteries so far). Within a year, the three Larsson books were everywhere and people I respected intellectually were conversant with them. I didn’t get it. There have been so many good to excellent mysteries published in the last five years and this is the set that has sucked up all the publicity and sales.
A colleague of mine who should have a PhD in Mystery Studies said that the first (Dragon Tattoo) is certainly worth reading, but skip the other two. When we talked about the movie and its violence, she said the next two were even more intense, though I guess Lisbeth doesn’t castrate her next victimizer (enough about that until later). The reason I don’t understand why this trilogy is so talked about is that the mystery isn’t that special – there wasn’t some incredibly surprising twist – or difficult. I’d figured out the identity of one secondary character. What was semi-compelling was how that character had ended up in a different physical location.
What worked about this movie is that David Fincher directed it. It’s very long, but it moves swiftly. Benjamin Button and Zodiac also checked in at almost three hours. One major difference for Zodiac was that it examined thrillingly the San Francisco Zodiac Killer, who held the city in fear in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s and it went so far as to solve his identity. Some critics have thought that Dragon Tattoo looks genuinely Nordic. However, the blue-tinged color palette with the natural wood interiors (I don’t know how else to describe it) goes back to Fight Club (1999) and was at its most obvious in The Social Network – last year’s best picture.
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| Mara Rooney as The Girl |
Mara Rooney nails Lisbeth Salander, the genius computer hacker, who assists Daniel Craig as Mikael Blomkvist, the disgraced magazine reporter/publisher out to vindicate himself. She transforms herself from an attractive starlet to an androgynous, contemporary banshee, who’s also probably dealing with undiagnosed Asperger ‘s Syndrome. Lisbeth has been abused by her father, a lawyer who’s assigned as her new legal guardian, and perhaps other men, so she gets her own back in a pretty savage fashion. It was horrible and extraordinary compelling and I agree with Neil that the violence turned on the audience. He thinks that’s the secret behind the phenomenon, in the U.S. at least. It sadistically links violence to sex, but the woman gets the upper hand so that somehow neutralizes it from a politically correct standpoint. On the other hand, Lisbeth’s brilliant online work is what vindicates Blomkvist after she literally saves his life. This is the Hermione syndrome (from Harry Potter), namely that the female second banana with the brains does most of the work, but has to stand by while the primary male wins the payoff she’s provided.
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| Daniel Craig and Robin Wright |
Another side issue is that Neil and I love to play casting director and we would have pushed for Viggo Mortensen in the lead because he isn’t as identified with a specific character the way Daniel Craig is with James Bond. The other casting problem is that the American actors try to put on Swedish accents with varying levels of success or sustainability. (Mara is the best by far). Craig and the British actors don’t even bother. This is the reverse of what used to happen about thirty – fifty years ago. However, the greater problem is how to make a film in a foreign country, but with actors that are not from that culture or language. On some level, there should be consistency. Scorsese solved this in Hugo by casting only actors that were either British or could put on a perfect English accent even though the film was set in Paris. The characters sounded foreign, but American, British, and many other viewers didn’t have to read subtitles so producers can be assured of greater box office receipts.
Sounds like another movie that I may want to close my eyes at times.
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