Girl With The Dragon Tattoo: NSFW

I'm deeply excited about David Fincher's The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

On the one hand, I get that Hollywood is kind of jumping the shark by remaking foreign films less than a decade after the original film comes out.  Especially considering the international film market in America.  But I look at it this way: sometimes a story is just TOO GOOD to be left alone.  Which is probably the case with TGWTDT - the books are so popular, and the story is so good, that the American film industry couldn't leave that golden egg untouched, even if the Swedish films are barely out of the projection rooms.

I get that a lot of people are upset, considering the acclaim that Noomi Rapace has gotten from her portrayal of the problematic anti-heroine, Lisbeth Salander.  I get that many people see this film as unnecessary.  Y'all know that personally, I did not enjoy the Swedish film and I did not enjoy Rapace in the role - my entry discussing that little skeleton in my cinema-loving closet can be read here.  Like I said at the beginning of this post, I'm deeply excited about Fincher's version and I'm deeply excited about Rooney Mara as Salander.  Which brings me to what I want to talk to you about today: that controversial movie poster.  (This is also why this particular entry is NSFW - nipples are about to be unleashed.)

(Side note: all of Mara's piercings are authentic.  She got them done as part of the job.  I kinda hope she keeps them, not because I find them particularly attractive but because I'm pretty tickled by the idea of that kind of method acting.  Plus fake piercings typically don't look as good as the real thing.)

Can you hear the movie audiences of America complaining about this image?  However I feel about it, it's not hard to understand - we are not used to bare breasts hanging out in our advertising.  Or in public at all, really.  Fincher is obviously making a statement with this poster about how prepared he is to "bare it all," so to speak, and I support that - not to mention that the image itself is starkly beautiful.  But I get the objections people have to it.

Well, almost all the objections.  Here's a quote from an Entertainment Weekly forum about this image:

"Lisbeth Salander is fighting back from being a victim. To have her posed in such a vulnerable state (and yes, when you’re nude, you’re vulnerable, whether you’re “strong” or not) really negates the power that the Lisbeth character has earned. She is supposed to be the protector, not Blomquist. I doubt that Stieg Larsson would have approved this campaign."

There's a lot of this going around.  That the problem with the image is that it cuts down how strong Salander is, how it misogynistically shows Craig as Blomkvist protecting her, restraining her, and how it negates a powerful female protagonist.

The problem with this view is that it's wrong.  If you haven't read the book and plan to, no worries, I'm not going to let fly any spoilers.  But suffice to say (and you've probably gotten a hint of this just in all the talking about this movie that's going on) Salander ISN'T strong, and that's the point.  The entire third book is about all the people she's managed to get in her corner banding together to save her.  I'm not saying she's a damsel in distress, but Salander is a broken, prickly character whose story arc is about learning how to share her problems with people she learns to trust, and how ultimately her problems are SO big she can't save herself on her own.  Blomkvist is protecting her in the poster in the same way he does through every single book.

I'm not trying to take anything away from Salander.  She's incredibly resilient, resourceful, and intelligent, but she only ever projects the appearance of strength to other people.  Inside, she's crumbling, and it's up to Blomkvist (and eventually others) to catch her pieces and put her back together.  This is what her story is about.

Tumblr'd Posters: Part 2

More of my favorite movie posters!

Coraline

Two things this does right off the bat: establishes the adventurous nature of our titular heroine, and the eerie tone of the alternate world (without straight up telling you that there is an alternate world involved).  It tells you that things are not as they seem and give you tiny hints as to the weird-ass things that go on (the button and the cat in the title text, the creepy painted-on-the-wall text).  On my tumblr I noted that I could have done without the text, but frankly I think that's because I've read the book so I knew exactly what I was getting into - the tagline is kinda creepy, kinda sneaky, and importantly, like I said, establishes a tone without giving much away.  For someone who HADN'T read Coraline, it's a pretty effective line.

Wall-E

Oh man.  Separating my incredible love for this film from my analysis of the poster, it is still a pretty rad poster.  The wistful expression on the robot makes him endearing before you even get to meet him, and filling most of the image with sky puts you in Wall-E's place a bit - you're looking into this expanse of blue and maybe wondering what's out there.  It also reflects the simplicity of the opening scenes on Earth (where we are in the poster) when there's no dialogue at all.  The sky is huge and at first glance empty, but it's beautifully colored with some good cloud and stars detail; what looks simple is actually richly nuanced.  Oh man do I love this movie.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Most of the Harry Potter movies had really, really good posters.  But there is nothing more haunting than this image of Hogwarts on the horizon engulfed in flames.  It utilizes the orange/teal color motif that many posters do now (because it's so visually arresting) but it's much more effective here because of how sparing the orange is.  The text is a lot like a hammer, dropping on your head right before you take in the burning castle.  I kind of want to cry just looking at the poster.

The Fountain

Oh, THIS MOVIE.  I've seen it a couple of times and I still don't really know everything that it's about.  But what I do understand is encapsulated in this image pretty damn well: it's visually detailed and emotionally brutal.  I love how the hand reaching up looks like it's being dragged down, much like how Hugh Jackman's character(s) struggle against scenarios that look truly hopeless.  I also love the contradiction inherent in this poster, being gray-toned when the film is SO brilliantly colored.  It's why I picked this one instead of the more common poster with Jackman and the tree.

Stay tuned for part 3!

Tumblr'd Posters: Part 1

If you follow my tumblr (which you totally should - sometimes I post neat stuff there), you'll have noticed that a couple weeks ago I ran movie posters for two days.  The ones that showed up are some of my favorites, and now I'm going to tell you why!

Pulp Fiction

What's so great about this is how thoroughly it exemplifies the feel of this movie.  I'm not a Tarantino fan and I really didn't care for Pulp Fiction, but this poster is brilliant - it looks like the cover of a pulp novel from the 50's or 60's, which, let's face it, is the tone the film is working in as well.  It's a perfect example of the sort of poster I like to see: something which gives you a taste of what the movie will be like without spilling any of its secrets.  The poster should make you want to watch the trailer, which should make you want to watch the film, and (no matter how I feel about Pulp Fiction specifically) I think this poster does that.

American Beauty

This tells you nothing about the film but is intensely memorable.  Even though none of the skin shown is exactly obscene, it's a lot of skin, and broken up by that red rose makes it feel a little bit scandalous without being overtly dirty.  Splashing the rose on there is also really lovely after you've seen the film and know how the rose imagery keeps coming into play, but here it's just enough to make sure you know this isn't a porn flick.  It's also interesting because that stomach clearly does not reside on either Kevin Spacey or Annette Benning - but it's important enough to make it on the poster.  I would want to see it just to find out who all that skin belongs to.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

I've had many issues with Tim Burton recently, but I confess to loving this one of his - the candy colors and Burton's macabre sensibilities and Depp's manic performance all gelled in a way that was pretty irresistible like chocolate. This poster lets you know it's really Depp's show - the kids are great, but no one really stands up to Depp's childlike, over-excited and overly fragile flamboyantly likeable candyman.  He's not Gene Wilder and he's not meant to be, and that's fine.  The poster, with his whimsical pose, top hat and velvet tails against that wonderful sunset background and frilly text, let you know this is a whole different story.

V for Vendetta

This image clearly calls back to the comic book roots of the story, and also recalls propaganda posters from World War II.  Both ideas give you a pretty good sense of what you're in for while still leaving you utterly unprepared - I enjoyed reading the comic, but mostly as an educational experience.  In my opinion the film leaves it utterly in the dust, re-validating a dated story and slotting a talented actress into an almost unbearable roll (Evie in the book is completely vile and I couldn't stand her).  The text in the upper corner almost disappears into the sun ray artwork, but putting part of it on V's black hat gives you the more important message.  I also love how V's hat is partially covering his face, which is already covered by his mask; it reinforces V's message in the film about ideas while also giving the viewer a taste of what Evie feels when she questions his identity - who is this guy?  In the end we know it doesn't really matter, but here it works to instill a curiosity about the film and the character.

Stay tuned for Tumblr'd Posters: Part 2!

Movie Posters!

I've queued up some of my favorite movie posters over on my tumblr that will post today and tomorrow.  Afterwards I'll talk in-depth about why I like some of them in particular.

Check is out here!

(Note: my tumblr is not dedicated to movies, so if you go through my backlog you'll get mostly pictures that amused me, many of which are owls.)