FILM INTERVIEW: NIELS ARDEN OPLEV
Director of 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' Talks Crime, Incentives & Strong Women
For a Scandinavian cinema used to Bergman-esque tsuris, no film in the nation’s history has exploded with the Hollywood action-mystery abandon of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Based on the first in a best-selling “Millennium” trilogy of books by the late, muckraking journalist Stieg Larsson, the Girl kicks open the door on a murderous family of industrialists, courtesy of a disgraced investigative reporter and an introverted super-hacker heroine who doesn’t suffer capitalist fools or serial killers lightly.
Putting visuals to page to the Swedish box office tune of over a hundred million dollars is acclaimed Danish director Niels Arden Oplev, who’s found his biggest hit and likely cross-over appeal to Hollywood with this thrillingly smart movie, especially given a heroine with the dark smarts of Clarice Starling. “When I read Stieg’s book, I knew that this was material I’d been looking for a long time,” he says. “European cinema complains that American cinema is taking away all of the tickets, but I thought The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo could have the feeling of a big American wide-screen film yet, at the same time, keep the exoticism of the Nordic countries and the edginess of European cinema. To accomplish that, we, wanted to have the same sense of mystery and strong characters that you’d find in Silence of the Lambs, and I think you get emotionally engaged in Elisabeth Salander’s character in much the same way you do with Clarice. She makes the whole thing modern and takes it levels over a normal crime story.”
A self-admitted “info-maniac” who’s addicted to newspapers and the Internet, Oplev’s energetic approach made sure to shine light into the closet that some older Swedes would be happy to keep closed — crimes that take murderous root in the computer-modern age. “If you looked at Swedish crime stories, you’d think people did nothing other than having dark alliances with the Nazis!” he remarks. “It’s been a vehicle for evilness in a lot of Swedish books and films. Yet at the same time, the country has never had a real confrontation with what their past was, along with their so-called ‘neutrality,’ which wasn’t as neutral as they thought.”
An admirer of John Cassavettes and Andrei Tartovsky, Oplev now resides on America’s East Coast, hoping to take advantage of Girl’s international success. “It is my desire to make an English-language film, and I’ve got several projects in development,” he says. “I’ve done consecutive box-office hits and television hits that have won international Emmys, so I can do anything I want to in Scandinavia, and that’s kind of why I left! With this being the most successful Scandinavian film in history, I think it’s a good time for me to be over here.”
About the only English-language project that Oplev won’t readily consider is the rumored remake of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. “Nobody has asked me, but I don’t think it would be wise. I’ve already made it, and I don’t think it would be wise to go back and try to repeat a huge success on the same film. The magic might not be there, but it would be interesting to see what someone else would do with this material. An American filmmaker could do something that would be really be challenging.”
Beyond the visceral thrills of bringing down untouchable industrialists with a firm gasp of Hollywood storytelling, Niels Arden Oplev sees a deeper reason for Dragon’s crossover potential. “Given that brutality against women, and rape is a huge problem in the U.S., I think Lisbeth’s character will be an enormous inspiration,” he concludes. “No matter what bad things happen to her, she fights back. She refuses to be a victim. She is the dark angel of revenge. The books have already been inspiration for women, and to see her on the screen is a very powerful experience. Besides that, it’s a damn good movie.”
Music Box Films' 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' is released on March 19, 2010.
Special thanks to Nancy Bishop and Venice Magazine.
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