Well, as a follow up on
my last post on Fincher’s The Girl with
the Dragon Tattoo, I will dedicate this brand new post to Niels Arden Oplev’s
2009 Swedish version. My classmate Billy
(thanks Billy!) was kind enough to lend me his copy of the DVD, and I was glad I
had the opportunity to compare the two films.
Before
I begin, I love the character of Lisbeth Salander. Dark, haunted, and badass, she exudes a strangely
sexy confidence that we wish we had. It’s
also the kind of personality that we wish to see a female portray on
screen. With that said, Noomi Rapace and
Rooney Mara bring something different to the role of Lisbeth Salander. Rapace, from the Swedish version brings a
more human quality to the role than Mara, who stars in the same role in the
2011 film. Roger Ebert in his review of
Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
comments that “Rapace seems more uneasy in her skin, more threatened.” I would agree. Rapace’s Salander questions herself, she has
emotions. That isn’t to say that Mara’s
character doesn’t have emotions, but her Salander is more mechanical.
With
short dark hair, high cheekbones, and a uniform straight from Hot Topic, Mara
is androgynous. She has taken everything
Rapace is in her film and transformed it.
In Fincher’s film, the piercings are more extreme, the make up more
ghostly, and the attitude twice as cold.
Mara appears more robot than human.
Where we can actually see the human qualities behind Rapace’s Salander,
Mara has taken the character and turned her into confident criminal. There is no emotion when Mara shoves a dildo
up Nils Bjurman’s rectum. She does it
with the same efficiency and assurance it takes to hack into a computer. For her, there are things that need to be
done and she does them. She doesn’t
appear to question her actions during or after they have taken place; in her
eyes she is justified. With Rapace, we
have a Salander that is more mentally present.
In the scene where Rapace is attacked by a couple punk kids in a subway
station, we are able to witness her emotional responses. When she is struck by one of the boys, we can
see the pain on her face. She looks
frightened. These aren’t the human
emotions we can share with Mara.
On a side note, I wanted to address each cast
as whole. I preferred Oplev’s Swedish
cast over Fincher’s for many of the same reasons I have listed above that deal
with Salander. The Swedish cast seems
more real, more raw. They are not the
most attractive group of actors, whereas Fincher definitely goes full Hollywood
with his casting choices. Mikael
Blomkvist is played by Swedish actor Michael Nyqvist, whose portrayal of the
character is natural. Not that the
characters are any less believable in Fincher’s film, but Oplev definitely
seemed to get it right when it came to choosing actors that allow us to relate
to.
I appreciate you took the time to write a blog about the differences between the two The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo movies because the films themselves and the characters in them are both so different. People ask me all the time which I liked better, since I have seen both and have read the books, and I always find it hard to articulate my thoughts because the films are completely different.
ReplyDeleteYour take on the differences of the raw human emotion seen in the Swedish version versus the kind of mechanical representation we see in the American version is dead on. I believe since the original novels were written in Swedish and are supposed to be about the dark, seedy underworld of Sweden, full of murder, rape, and violence (especially towards women). The Swedish film is more raw and real because the Swedish people understand the inhumane violence no one talks about a lot better. Even though the trilogy was translated into several different languages I do no think anyone who is not Swedish could truly understand the context and the message behind the story. This is why, I believe, the American version is left wanting in the emotions department. Though there are some great actors in the film, the pain and violence towards women is not really felt by any of the actor’s portrayals unlike the raw power the Swedish cast delivers.
The only point you make that I disagree with is Rooney Mara’s portrayal of Salander. I, too, love Lisbeth. She is one of my favorite female characters in all of literature. She is tough, independent, disturb, and complex. When reading the books, the reader is obviously aware she is a person but there is something about her that is just not human. So I absolutely LOVED Mara’s performance. I thought she did an outstanding job. I actually liked her portrayal better than Rapace’s Salander because I just did not feel the same kind of not-quite-human vibe from Rapace. She was too broken in my eyes. Mara’s Salander was exactly the way I pictured Lisbeth to be in the book physically and mentally. She was the thing I liked best about Fincher’s version.
I’m curious to see what you think.