We sit down with theatre director David Fincher to discuss the inner works of the complex character that is The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo , or Lisbeth Salander . Find out why Fincher is loathe to dub the offence - campaign hacker a superhero , and what his divine guidance was for the much - buzz - about seafarer title from this film . Warning freebooter .
So you ’ve now made two picture very latterly about technology and invasion of privateness , is that your biggest fear a succeeding world where nothing is private ?
David Fincher : No , not my biggest fear . You know it was interesting , I was process my daughter very firmly as I was making “ the Facebook movie ” about how we have to be so thrifty and [ asking her ] , “ Why is it that your generation is so willing to give up these kinds of inalienable rights that people fought so hard to get for you ? ” And her response was an interesting one . She said , “ Well , peradventure when you ca n’t take back those humiliating photographs of you , mayhap in some way everybody agnize how self-aggrandising a fuck up everybody else is , and the playing field gets leveled . ” I cogitate that was sort of an interesting defence of my position . I thought it was an interesting way of looking at it . But no , I decidedly feel that we are less private and less protect than ever before . We ’ve gone willingly like sheep to that present reality . It ’s a little lamentable , but you know , everybody is on the cover of their own Rolling Stone now .
The claim sequence in Dragon Tattoo was astounding and it really bestow out the cyberpunk aspects to this moving picture . What did all of the involved USB wires and seaman Bath have in mind to you ?
I went to my friend Tim Miller , who has a company call Blur . They do a luck of biz cinematics , and we had been trying for two or three geezerhood to get Heavy Metal and The Goon made as CG features . I came to him and said here ’s the theme , I desire to do something that is sort of about the primordial ooze of Salander ’s subconscious mind . What would her nightmare look like ? We take to show her connection to technology .
There ’s this wonderful thing that he did with these virile hand that envelope her brass , and then her facial expression just melts , and she ’s not there any longer . It ’s almost like a soft shabu cream translation of herself . So he came up with all this imagination of these things , these ideas for what we would see . Her flash press cutting between herself as a 10 - year - old and who she is today , her connection to the drubbing and near putting to death of her mother .
So the task at deal was : We had this two minute and twenty five 2d call , I want to put all of the credit up front , the order would n’t let me , Sony would n’t struggle on my behalf to do it , because they ’d grandfathered in the Cubby Broccoli ’s bond paper form of address sequence . Which is what I want to do , was figure out a way to make a nine minute title succession take place in two and a one-half minutes , and put them all upfront . But we did n’t do that . So we ended up just doing the cast and the section heads . That ’s really Tim ’s creation . It ’s just this abstract impression , how do we get Salander ’s opinion of her quandary ?
And you have Karen oxygen vocalizing Robert Plant ’s part in “ Immigrant Song . ” Was that an designed gender swap ? Did you do that to march the swapping of grammatical gender roles between Mikael and Lisbeth Dragon Tattoo ?
You intend because she show up with a nine branding iron and he does n’t ?
Yes , Mikael is the damoiselle in suffering in this .
Well that ’s the book , and there ’s no doubt , I was driving through the North of Sweden in a van , locating - scouting , and I just befall to be listening to my Zeppelin Mothership collection and I got to “ Immigrant Song , ” and I thought , this could either be really good or really sorry . And I called Trent Reznor . Once he stopped laugh , he said , “ have me take a shot at it . ” There was no dubiousness that we wanted to do it with a female voice . There was no doubtfulness that we want this to be Lisbeth ’s battle cry .
A lot of your full-grown female leads , Sigourney in Alien 3 and Lisbeth , while they are very superimposed they have an exceptionally grotesque side to them , the direction they depend , the direction they assay retaliation , they are violent citizenry . While many of your leading men are a mo more low and imperfect willed . Do you have a enthrallment with the monster inside each adult female ?
No . In those … No . No .
Does a woman have to become a fiend to asterisk in a big Hollywood feature ?
I do n’t call up so .
Based on the characters competency , backcloth and wish fulfillment it ’s very comfortable to relate Lisbeth to a superhero . Which you ’ve stated is something you shy aside from .
Vehemently opposed to it .
Obviously you ’re a buff of musical genre flick and the superhero character as you were rumored to direct the new Spider - Man at some time so I ’m peculiar why you ’re so resistant to any superhero association ?
Well I recall it ’s a trivial overly facile to say that . My stamp of what Spider - Man could be is very different from what Sam [ Raimi ] did or what Sam wanted to do . I mean the reason he direct that movie was because he want to do the Marvel amusing superhero . I was never concerned in the Book of Genesis story . I could n’t get past a guy rope getting bit by a red and blue wanderer . It was just a problem … It was not something that I felt I could do straight - face . I wanted to lead off with Gwen Stacy and the Green Goblin , and I wanted to kill Gwen Stacy .
The title succession of the movie that I was going to do was going to be a ten minute – basically a music video , an opera house , which was going to be the one shot that took you through the entire Peter Parker [ backstory ] . Bit by a radio dynamic spider , the last of Uncle Ben , the passing of Mary Jane , and [ then the movie ] was pass to begin with Peter confluence Gwen Stacy . It was a very different thing , it was n’t the adolescent account . It was much more of the guy who ’s settled into being a freak .
So , very different thing . Lisbeth , to me , it degrade the point of entry for the womanly interview for this book to work her [ into a superhero ] . I call back it ’s a very masculine thing to reckon in terms of legal action shape . I think women , I think that girls , I conceive that feminine viewers are much more attuned to … I always find it interesting that whenever I have an detailed and detailed discussion about Fight Club , the most interesting and the ones that are closest to my take on the material almost always make out from women .
So I felt that it was ultimately a ridiculous think to think in term of reducing Listbeth to this pilot , because it seemed like it let so many people out . I think that the thing that ’s finally so stunning about [ Stieg ] Larsson ’s creation is that , I do n’t think she ’s a feminist introduction . I mean that she ’s a humanist creation . I recollect that everything she ’s speak about , I do n’t remember it specifically tie in to the trauma of overcoming ferocity to unity vagina . It has to do with being marginalized or being evidence that you ’re not .
The misogynism in what Larsson ’s talking about in the first record book extends to [ Mikael ] Blomkvist ’s moving aside from Erica . He leaves her high and dry and he ’s sort of , “ Do nt ’ be so mad , why are you being so emotional about this ? ” I think there ’s a tiny percentage of misogynism there … And I finger like as much as we compartmentalized and made her into an action figure , it seemed like it was discounting half the people on the street . People who say , “ I do n’t cognise what it is to have all the right answer . I do n’t jazz what it is to be able to sound off box , or ride a motorcycle . ”
She ’s not the Terminator , she ’s a real girl . That was , to me , the interesting part . How do you make her relatable in all her get it on - up - ness ? In all her choler . What does her anger do ? Does her anger make her sting people ? No . Her choler progress to her avoid people . It makes it so she ca n’t make heart contact . It ’s not that she ’s perpetually leading with her chin . It ’s that she ’s this variety of feral . Her response , ironically , is much more attuned to the response that her forefather would have . And part of what spills out of her in moments are the ways that she crusade not to be Zala [ her father ] . And yet they ’re the things that free her at times , but they are also the things that bind her to this trajectory .
So you take issue with the media ’s 2D representation of the Superhero ?
I do n’t see this character in a Happy Meal , and I do n’t see her with a cape . I think that , that diminish her shock . I think her smashing impact is that you have multitude that have n’t been needs been victimized by the foster care programs , it does n’t have to be that . It can be the agency multitude say , “ Aw sweetie , do n’t PMS . ” That in and of itself is kind of an act of misogyny .
The Goon vs. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea — which will hap first ?
No musical theme .
I read that you said 20,000 Leagues would be about 70 % CG ?
Yeah probably .
But many of your genre flick have one foot always grounded in reality . How are you going to make a movie that is 70 % CG grounded in reality ?
To say it ’s CG does n’t signify that it necessarily has to look like Toy Story , that ’s shiny plastic toys . There were things that we were capable to do even at the end of Benjamin Button , we ’d gone into it with our quiver filled with root to problem , but by the remnant of it we were finding even more sort of odd constitutional solutions to making this lilliputian dwarf - same odd guy and the hairsbreadth in his ears , and all that stuff and nonsense . CG is no more fake or plastic than you will allow it to be . It can be just as real as Vermeer . An oil picture by Vermeer is not a tangible thing . What makes it worked up is the art behind the proficiency . The proficiency of computer generated images does n’t have to simply contribute itself to lustrous moldable objects .
Would Captain Nemo be a CG character ?
No .
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