The Art of Title Design: The Haunting Visuals of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

Written By: Joseph Naguski

Unnerving music accompanies the haunting black fluid that oozes onto the screen twists and turns into terrifying images that are sure to be nightmare fuel. This is just the beginning of the stunning visuals which plague the disturbing yet gorgeous title sequence for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. In my last analysis for Enter the Void there was a heavy focus on the typography of the sequence. This week we will take a look into how amazing visuals can create a compelling narrative through title sequences.    

The title sequence begins with an evocative rendition of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” by Karen O with Trent Reznor and Atticus Rose. As the score plays black oozing fluid begins to run down the screen, images flash before the viewer until the title The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo reveals itself. The title is flooded by the black fluid until the audience is quickly taken to a horrifying image of someone being tied up and gagged. This lasts only for a second before it cuts to the ooze drooping down a keyboard. Different images start to appear, a lighter and HDMI cables are abstractly displayed as they come together to show someone being burned alive. Viewers then encounter a flaming bird, flowers, someone drowning, a back with a dragon tattoo, climaxing with a dragon emerging from the liquid. The images then shift to wasps and faces being punched. The scene of the sequence switches again and eerie spectacles of flowers are intertwined with images of a girl, peaking with hands pulling back the girl’s face which morphs into a flower in bloom. At the conclusion of the sequence all the different images start to become more chaotically intertwined as the music fills listeners with tremendous anxiety before entering the mouth of someone screaming as they arise from the fluid. 

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’s title sequence gives audiences a sense of the motifs and the brutality that embodies this film and its nonexistent sequels which were intended to follow. Based on the novel by Steig Larsson, this psychological crime thriller from David Fincher follows journalist Mikael Blomkvist and unhinged computer hacker Lisbeth Salander. Mikael had just suffered legal and professional ruin after a being sued for libel by a billionaire conman named Hans-Erik Wennerström. He is given a chance to redeem himself by another wealthy businessman Henrik Vanger. Vanger offers a great amount of money and information that could destroy Wennerström. The job Vanger presents to Mikael is to try and solve the 40-year mystery of the disappearance and assumed murder of his grandniece Harriet. The only solid clue is that it must have been a member of his family who lives on their private island. As Mikael begins to research this we are shown the life of Lisbeth, who is deemed mentally unstable by the government and must be placed with a guardian. After her original guardian suffers from a stroke, she is placed with an atrocious man who forces her into sexual acts for money and ultimately rapes her. She captured the rape on a hidden camera and through her own twisted acts was able to escape his control over her. As Mikael continues to investigate he finds that needs an assistant and after learning of Lisbeth’s skills he convinces her to join him. The two discover that the situation at hand is much bigger than they first thought. They uncover a series of murders leading to the realization that a serial killer is in their midst and is still at large.

The terrifying cyberpunk imagery in this title sequence was designed as a representation of the main heroine Lisbeth Salander. The director David Fincher “wanted it to be like a fever dream, with a lot of abstract imagery.” (Tim Miller, artofthetitle) Some of these images we can trace back to information from the film. The black liquid that connects the whole sequence together symbolizes the motif of liquid aesthetic present throughout the film. (The drowning, the river separating the island from the rest of the world.) The keyboard represents Lisbeth’s exceptional hacking abilities. This aspect of technological privacy in the film is interesting as Fincher also directed The Social Network which released just a year prior. The image of the person being burned alive is call to her trying to burn her father alive which was mentioned briefly in the film. Flowers were an illustrative nod to the flowers Henrik Vanger was given every year on his birthday by Harriet and then her supposed killer. As I stated earlier, this film was based off a novel and intended to be a trilogy. Some of the images were supposed to represent events weren’t going to take place until second and third movies (like the wasps), so we are unable to analyze them.

A slight note on the typography of the sequence: the type is very simple yet demands the viewer’s attention as parts of the letters stretch out on the screen or begin to warp together before quick cuts are thrown to another image. The typographic design of the title itself was created by Neil Kellerhouse, as well as the design for the film’s posters.

The implementation of “Immigrant Song” as the score for the sequence was a major decision to Fincher and Blur Studio. “Huge, to have that in place right at the beginning, because the music really drives the editorial process in such a huge way. If you don't have that giant piece of the puzzle in place, everything can shift around a lot more.” (Tim Miller, gizmodo) The use of a Led Zepplin cover was chosen to be implemented by Fincher after listening to a big collection of Led Zepplin music. "It’s a little bit crazy, but it might be just the right kind of crazy." (Fincher, artofthetitle) The use of a strikingly eerie rock cover meshes well with the heavy metal theme of the sequence that displays Lisbeth's personality. The song's themes also are faithful to the setting and plot of the film, which is set in Scandinavia. It additionally is most likely a callback to the James Bond series which this sequence shares many similarities with, not to mention Daniel Craig's roles in the franchise. Fincher also stated that there was an intentionality to switching genders in the song because of the gender roles in the film. “Mikael is the damsel in distress in this.” (Fincher, gizmodo)

The title sequence is created by Blur Studio, a distinguished company which focuses on visual effects, animation, and design. Recent ventures of theirs include the opening sequence for Deadpool, the daunting opening credits for the Netflix series Mindhunter, and most recently Tim Miller has collaborated with Fincher for the animated Netflix series Love, Death, and Robots. For The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Blur Studio used RealFlow with the help of other CGI companies to create the CGI fluid. The viscosity and density of the fluid was created through a lot of simulations to get the perfect look. The studio also used 3ds Max, Softimage, and RayFire for effects and edited the sequence in Sony Vegas along with Digital Fusion and After Effects. (artofthetitle) For the people in the sequence they used digital scans of the actors portraying Mikael and Lisbeth (Daniel Crag and Rooney Mara) as well as other scans of people used to portray Harriet, a young Lisbeth, and her parents.

Copy and Paste this link to view video: http://www.fusioncis.com/press/gwdt/hothands_WithHands.mov

The visual effects in this title sequence help bring alive a narrative more sinister than even the film's content itself. The amazing black design which encompasses the piece coupled with “Immigrant Song” blaring into the audience’s ears really drives Lisbeth’s character through this technological night terror.

Work Cited
http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/the-girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo/
https://io9.gizmodo.com/an-exclusive-look-at-the-making-of-dragon-tattoos-stunn-5873372
https://io9.gizmodo.com/david-fincher-explains-why-his-dragon-tattoo-heroine-is-5870887
https://www.wired.com/2012/01/dragon-tattoo-opening-titles/