The new international poster for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo‎.

The official 'Girl with the Drago Tattoo' site gets a big update.

http://www.dragontattoo.com/

Vanity Fair Portrait: David Fincher
December 2011

When The Social Network put David Fincher within a whisker of a best-director Oscar, his modest (and unused) acceptance speech said it all. Aaron Sorkin, who won for the screenplay, knows Fincher’s reputation, the more complicated reality behind it, and the extraordinary vision the director brings to his next film, out this month: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

David Fincher in a bad mood isn’t easy to discern from David Fincher in a good mood. Fincher tired is the same as Fincher energized. There’s never anything about his demeanor that asks you to ask, “What’s wrong?” This might be what people mean when they talk about strength. Also focus.

David sees dead people—which is to say, he sees things I can’t see. The smallest gradations of color and shadow. The positioning of a prop relative to the composition of a frame. The wetness of a gutter partially illuminated by a traffic light.

He’s extremely funny. Not just funny—sly. But in a city where Schadenfreude brings out the very worst in all of us, you’ll never hear David make a joke at the expense of another filmmaker. This is noteworthy because David doesn’t like most movies. But he knows they were hard to make and he respects the people who made them.

David has great patience with people who aren’t as gifted as he is. What he can’t abide are people who don’t work as hard as he does. And he won’t work with people who don’t care as much as he does. Everyone who works in Hollywood has two personalities: their real one and the one assigned to them by rumor. The rumor about David—whose credits include Zodiac and Seven—is that he’s gruff, harsh, and difficult to work with. The truth about David is that he’s warm, honest, and an exceptionally generous collaborator. He’s fine with the rumor.

He was nominated for an Academy Award last year (not his first nomination). He didn’t win (not his first loss). Off the top of my head I can think of 10 people who cared more than David did when his name wasn’t called. I don’t want to give Academy members the wrong idea—he respects the Academy and its highest honor—he just doesn’t cry over spilt milk. Outside of his beautiful partner and producer, Ceán Chaffin (also an Academy Award nominee), and their magnificent, volleyball-destroying daughter, Phelix, David doesn’t cry over anything. My guess is that his single biggest reason for wanting to win was to avoid having people offer condolences for not winning. For the three months leading up to the Oscars we’d been going head-to-head with the eventual best-picture winner, The King’s Speech, and six hours after David lost to that film’s director, Tom Hooper, he sent me an e-mail with his unused acceptance speech attached. It began, “We’ve finally answered the question, ‘Apples or oranges?’ ”

Genius has a lot of faces. Here’s one of them.

-Aaron Sorkin

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/fea ... her-201112

Director David Fincher Takes On The Girl With Dragon Tattoo
22 November 2011



"The mass murder and hate-sex in Dragon Tattoo is proof that your mom has been reading some weird stuff lately"

A few months ago, David Fincher was having a problem with his new movie. This in itself wasn’t especially surprising, as Fincher’s productions seem to attract crises of the cosmic-joke variety, be they midshoot injuries (Se7en), last-minute casting switcheroos (Panic Room), or on-the-fly script rewrites (Alien3). Despite the director’s meticulous planning—he can spend years preparing for a film—something usually goes awry. He’s used to it. “All movies are a trial,” he says matter-of-factly. “It’s war.”

But this latest battle was unique. In a roundabout way, it had to do with ABBA.

For much of the past year, Fincher has been filming The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, his roughly $100 million adaptation of the macabre Swedish mystery that centers on a punk-hacker heroine with distinctive skin art. On one of the first nights of shooting, Fincher and his crew were in Sweden, filming a murder scene that takes place alongside a gloomy dock. But after a night’s work, Fincher didn’t have the shot he wanted, and the film’s ultratight schedule meant he wouldn’t be able to return for months.

When Fincher began planning the reshoot, he learned that the property had been sold to one of the guys in ABBA. Apparently, the new owner—either Benny or Bj\0xF6rn, it’s not really clear—wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of having his evening stroll interrupted by a simulated drowning, and he refused to let the crew come back. Rather than find a new location or make do with the footage he had, Fincher decided to build his own Swedish dock.

Which is why, on a late-summer afternoon, we’re standing on a Los Angeles soundstage, examining a replica of a rural-Scandinavia mise-en-scène: mossy rocks, foliage-fat trees, and—perched high above the docks, turtlenecking out of the woods—a squat, deceptively cozy faux cottage. Like most sets, it looks a bit weird naked. But once the lights hit and the smoke drifts in, we are suddenly in the land of stunted summers and moderately high suicide rates.

As usual, though, Fincher is not satisfied. He stands in the middle of the stage, arms folded, a coffee stirrer clenched in his teeth. He’s 49 and trim, dressed in dark jeans, a gray polo, and sneakers, his mouth framed by a neat turf of mostly salty salt-and-pepper whiskers. He then starts pacing the set, calmly relaying what needs to be changed, tune-ups that range from the subtle to the barely perceptible: a branch that’s sagging a few inches too low; a pair of lightbulbs with mismatched wattages; a patch of leaves that needs to be a little bit darker.

Most viewers won’t notice the way the pebbles are scattered or how high the watermarks rise on the fake rocks. But Fincher will. Even in an industry full of control freaks, Fincher stands out as obsessive—a guy who will scrutinize and engineer every element in the frame until the images on the screen fit the ones in his head. Sometimes that means repainting a few leaves; sometimes it means doing 50, 60, even 100 takes of a single scene.

Dragon Tattoo is Fincher’s ninth film in two decades. And while the movies often focus on dark-hearted subjects—madness (Se7en), paranoia (The Game), nihilism (Fight Club), greed (Panic Room), obsession (Zodiac), and betrayal (The Social Network)—they’re always beautiful to look at. Each is packed with so much careful detail—physical, aural, spatial—while also being so clean and composed that he’s earned his own fanboy-bestowed sobriquet: Fincheresque.

Like middle class and pornography, the term is know-it-when-you-see-it elastic, but it’s usually pinned on a scene that’s darkly lit, darkly themed, and eerily beautiful. Think of the flashlights sabering through a shut-in’s filthy apartment in Se7en or the skyscrapers exploding and folding like glass accordions at the end of Fight Club.

Moments like these have established Fincher as one of Hollywood’s few accessible auteurs, a guy who can make commercially viable movies without 2s in their title and who never sacrifices his artful cynicism for phony uplift. “There aren’t a whole lot of directors trying to find the balance between commerce and—loath as I am to say it—art,” Se7en writer Andrew Kevin Walker says. “Somehow, he manages to make something incredibly handcrafted and heartfelt on a big budget.”

But Fincher’s bleak yet captivating visions might also be why, despite all his success, he’s never had an Inception-size box-office smash. Even a movie like Se7en, which pulled in $300 million worldwide, had the aura of a cult hit, if only because it felt weird to enthuse openly about a movie in which a pregnant woman’s decapitated head is stuffed into a box. “My whole career has been pervy books, pervy scripts,” Fincher says, only half kidding. “It wasn’t so much about finding a niche. It just didn’t seem to me like there was any need to be doing more of what everyone else was doing.” It’s not that Fincher’s films aren’t beloved—they are—it’s just that sometimes it take a while for audiences to come around to them. It’s as if Fincher lives in the near future, releasing movies a year or two before the world is ready for them.

Full article: www.wired.com/magazine/2011/11/ff_fincher/all/1

Daniel Craig on His Hopes for 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'
2 December 2011



Talking of ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’, which opens in cinemas this Christmas, Craig admits he’s confused by those critics who have interpreted Stieg Larsson’s novel as being sexist. The book – and the new film – tell of Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), a young Swedish woman and top-grade computer hacker who is repeatedly abused by men. She is joined by a disgraced journalist, Mikael Blomkvist (Craig), in the hunt for a serial killer of women.

‘I get a lot of questions from people saying, “Do you think the film is sexist?” But I don’t see it,’ Craig says. ‘With anything like this that becomes a phenomenon, people analyse it up its own arse: “Ah, I see it now! It’s sexist!” People point out to me that the original book was called “Men Who Hate Women”, and ask, “Do you see anything in the title?” It’s like, no: it’s about men who hate women isn’t it? Just because he’s writing about misogyny doesn’t mean he’s a misogynist, does it? I don’t see it.’

Craig is full of praise for his co-star, Mara (‘The Social Network’), who won the role of Salander after fierce competition from well-known actresses and other lesser known names. ‘There was a whole shenanigans going on while she was being cast, and David Fincher was adamant,’ Craig explains. ‘When she puts the hoodie on and the leather jacket, she looks like a 14-year-old boy, she looks sexless. Which is perfect.’

Talking of the film’s director, Craig identifies ‘The Social Network’ as a turning point in Fincher’s career – a sign of a new maturing of the already-celebrated director of ‘Fight Club’ and ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’. ‘You see someone who is getting as good as they can be,’ suggests Craig. ‘That is exciting. It’s unusual. A lot of directors have a big splash and then slide rapidly. It’s like he’s changed his attitude to filmmaking, and that’s a great thing as an artist to do… Great artist? Fucking hell! He should be paying me money for this!’

http://www.timeout.com/london/feature/1 ... -interview

8 minute trailer

http://www.latinoreview.com/news/new-eight-minute-trailer-for-girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo-15526

Here's an iTunes link for a HD version of the 8 minute trailer.



itunes.apple.com/the girl with the dragon tattoo 8 minute trailer

David Fincher Interview - BBC One
9 December 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lTrWku8Qn4

Time Magazine – 10 Questions for David Fincher
December 2011

Seven, Zodiac and now The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo — why so many serial-killer films?

- If I was financing my own movies, that would be a very suspect thing, but I'm responding to movies that people are sending me.

Don't a lot of men in your movies have issues with women, from Dragon Tattoo to Fight Club to The Social Network?

- I think this movie is more about sexual politics. Mikael Blomkvist moves freely among women and doesn't have any problems with them, but his relationships aren't always mature. I think you can say that about a lot of male-female relationships. The men are not really present.

What is it about Stieg Larsson's stories that have captured the current imagination?

- They're talking about how men and women work together, and that gives a modern riptide to the crime thriller. The relationship between a middle-aged man and a young woman, how they are friends and partners and sometimes lovers — it's not just the guy cop and the girl cop.

There have been weird stirrings of violence in Scandinavia recently that echo this book. Is civilization an illusion?

- I think civilization is an agreement, and once in a while, you're going to run into people who didn't get the memo.

You made some of the most iconic music videos, including Madonna's "Vogue." Are you still making them?

- The last one I did was for Trent Reznor, a song called "Only." But movie-credit sequences are similar, in that they're just images cut to music.

What's the most fun product to make a TV commercial for?

- Perfume is pretty good because nobody has to hold the product by their face or use it. And I love shooting football.

Did you really do 99 takes for the first scene of The Social Network?

- I did 99 takes over nine setups. It was elaborately dovetailed dialogue that had to fit together. We wanted people to be able to hear critical, nuanced line deliveries that set up who these people are and what their major malfunction is.

Is that many takes a bad thing?

- Let's put it this way: if the amount of media I recorded affected the ticket price, then this would be a conversation that should be had. But this "Oh my God, you shot 25 takes of that?" — sometimes you have to do it. So I'm being defensive. I'm extremely exhausted with this question.

Is there a big gap between the movie you make in your head and the movie that gets made?

- Everything seems really simple on paper until you take a camera out of the box. Then 90 people are offering up solutions to the problems those pages create. You're trying to make something very clear in this maelstrom of activity with all this anxiety about how much money is being spent. I don't think you can ever make it the way you have it in your head.

Your first movie, Alien 3, was not well received. Is it true that you learn more from failure than from success?

- I learn the most from making my own mistakes. There's nothing worse than when somebody says, "Oh, you made that movie? I hated that movie," and you say, "I agree with you." You want to be able to get in a fistfight over your movies. But I've learned more from having made my own errors in judgment than when somebody says, "This vice president is going to recut your film." I don't know what I learned from that other than to fight.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 65,00.html

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - World Premiere
12 December 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTAAoxuU7VU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N58pnsKNpoU

rooney and trent reznor was nominated for a golden globe today for their work on TGWTDT also.

'Girl With The Dragon Tattoo' Is MTV's Best Movie Of 2011!
16 December 2011



You won't see a film all year that holds you like David Fincher's thriller.

It was our fault for underestimating David Fincher.

Honestly, though, we weren't the only ones going, "Wait, really?" when the Oscar-nominated helmer (who got straight-up robbed by the Academy last year in the Best Director category) cast his sweet, dimpled, couldn't-even-really-intimidate-a-tech-nerd "Social Network" actress Rooney Mara as hard-edge hacker Lisbeth Salander in his adaptation of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."

Then, this past January, we got our first look at Mara in character: She was Salander. And we were wrong, wrong, wrong. How do you say "mea culpa" in Swedish?

Maybe like this: "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" is MTV's Best Movie of 2011!

The movie hasn't even hit theaters yet (that'll happen on December 20), but trust our panel of experts on this one, OK? For all the sizzling cool of "Drive" and all the 3-D majesty of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2," you won't see a film all year that holds you — that'll haunt you — like "Dragon Tattoo."

Based on Stieg Larsson's international best-selling crime thriller (you know, the one half the people in any subway car in any city in the world are reading at any given moment), Fincher's film followed up on the Swedish original, a critical and fan fave in its own right. What these three fictional treatments have in common, of course, is the story: Mikael Blomkvist, a disgraced journalist, is hired to investigate a decades-old missing-persons case. He convinces Salander, a motorcycle-driving ward of the state who's not adverse to violent confrontations with anyone who crosses her, to assist in the search.


Where Fincher separates and ultimately distinguishes his picture, then, is not in plot particulars (though he and writer Steven Zaillian do take a few liberties, especially with the ending), but in how he unfurls the story. Moviegoers might never need to travel to Sweden after watching his "Dragon Tattoo," so fully does Fincher immerse viewers in an atmosphere of foggy Nordic islands and gritty Stockholm back alleys. There's really no sense arguing: David Fincher is the finest working director in Hollywood.

He's also one hell of a casting director. There could be no other English-language choice for Blomkvist than Daniel Craig. Fincher fought for Mara against the wishes of his studio, even as A-listers like Scarlett Johansson competed for the role. To say Mara transformed herself to play Salander doesn't quite capture the enormity of what the actress pulled off — butchering her hair, piercing her body, shedding weight, picking up a Swedish accent and almost re-sequencing her DNA to create the character. We'd say she came as close to becoming Salander as anyone born outside of Scandinavia could possibly be, if we hadn't already seen Noomi Rapace's impressive performance in the Swedish original and been sure Mara's is the more absorbing portrayal.

"The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" is by no means a prefect film. It drags at times. It's probably confusing to anyone who hasn't read the book and committed the names of the huge cast of characters to memory. The ending, regardless of Fincher's tweaks, remains a letdown. But these are quibbles. Let the Oscars and Globes anoint a silent black-and-white film as their favorite of the year. MTV knows "Dragon Tattoo" is the Best Movie of 2011.

See for yourself on December 20 (or 21).

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/167615 ... 2011.jhtml

For some reason I don't look forward to this movie at all....

'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' Cast on Charlie Rose
15 December 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXXcjErcA3Y