Assembling A ‘Dragon’

For those of you who haven’t seen The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, David Fincher’s latest film, I implore you to drop whatever it is you are doing and go see it. After seeing the film, a remake of the 2009 Swedish film Män som hatar kvinnor – literally – Men Who Hate Women), this movie had me amazed. Shot on RED Cinema Epic cameras, this film is not only a visual masterpiece but also a narrative triumph. Though Fincher combined a number of compelling actors to bring his audience into the world of the film, it was his incredible filmmaking that really won me over.

           

In a recent New York Times article, Fincher and the film’s editors Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall, broke down a four-minute sequence of the film. This scene follows journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) who is visiting the aging industrialist Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), who is asking him to investigate a decades-old mystery involving his niece Harriet. As Vanger’s story unfolds, the shot shifts to a flashback to 1966, as connoted by the frame’s golden tones and bright hues; as Fincher put it, “Very warm and familial.” Back to the present, Vanger tells Blomkvist that his family was gathered on their ancestral island for a board meeting. There’s a time jump here, as now the two men are sitting in a study with drinks. According to Wall, editing is all about compressing time so it gives you the illusion of continuity, even as we take out the ‘boring’ bits. At 56 seconds we're back to the flashback, as the young Vanger (Julian Sands) conducts business. “Here you’re seeing three different shots glued together,” says Baxter. Fincher is known to shoot dozens of takes with the camera in the same position looking for the best take possible. Then the editors will piece together their favorite performances with digital split-screen effects. 

The flashback continues, as Vanger is interrupted by an accident on the bridge connecting the island to the mainland. One major precept of film editing is that, while you can show a scene from different angles, you will disorient viewers if you cross an invisible dividing line; one example is suddenly switching the point of view from a character’s left side to his right. The shot of the bridge is edited to nearly break this rule with the direct intent of disorienting viewers to match the confusion and chaos of the scene unfolding. At 2:50 we are back to present day, as Vanger explains that Harriet couldn’t have left the island without being seen; thus leaving murder as the only reason for her disappearance. At the end of this shot, Vanger’s dialogue from the next scene starts as a voice-over on top of this one, leading the viewer into the following scene. This technique is known as a prelap. Though common, the method often goes unnoticed. “Your brain fills in the gaps,” Wall said. Baxter adds the scene will seem slow if they don’t. 

After a brief scene in the attic, we are at 3:53. The audience sees the train leaving, but Blomkvist isn’t on it. This is the 83rd shot in the sequence; Fincher said, “I wanted to make the sequence move as quickly as it could, but still get the value of something that feels measured.” Contrary to the sequences of Blomkvist, the later sequences with Salander are edited at a speedier tempo. “Her decisions come faster; she’s thinking at a higher level.” As Baxter and Wall put it, editing not only requires intelligence, but it can also create a sense of it onscreen.