Sunday, May 29, 2011

Why I'm unimpressed by that 'bootleg' teaser for David Fincher's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo remake.


I didn't post this yesterday because I was under the impression that it was an illegally copied bootleg.  But now I'm hearing word that it was a PR-stunt from Sony pictures, so we'll see what develops.  Anyway, the two core problems with the teaser have nothing to do with its low quality embed.  First of all, the teaser is scored to a piece of music (Immigrants' Song, I believe), and it is merely a quick, context-less cut every time there is a beat in the music.  Quite frankly, this is freshman filmschool trailer editing plain and simple.  It may be painstaking, but there is little to no actual skill involved in merely cutting every time there is a 'beat' in a song, especially when using footage that has no dialogue and no connective tissue.  It's not a trailer so much as an extended music video, one that required much time but little artistic talent or imagination.

Second of all, and this is a bigger issue, the film basically sells itself as a Daniel Craig thriller, with barely a glimpse of Rooney Mara's title character.  One can argue that Sony is merely teasing us by withholding a good look at Lisbeth Salander.  But the feeling I get is that Sony feels that they need to hide the marquee character in order to trick audiences into thinking that the film is just another thriller involving a smoldering white male trying to solve a mystery.  The character of Salander is the only thing that elevates the original trilogy above the level of sub-par television procedurals (although I'd argue that they remain vastly overrated).   Yet this teaser appears to be afraid of the very character that makes the stories worth telling.  I may very well be wrong, and later trailers may well rectify this issue, but it appears at first-glance that Sony is afraid to sell the unconventional female heroine at its center and is instead hiding behind its bland and generic male sleuth.  As always, we'll see...

Scott Mendelson       

6 comments:

Matt said...

The reason people are liking this trailer is because it looks different than every other trailer out there. Is it perfect? No. (Your Rooney Mara complaint is certainly valid. And I'm not the biggest fan of the "feel bad movie of Christmas" stuff.) However, this trailer succeeds where it counts: it has my attention. What you call "freshman filmschool editing" is actually different than every other trailer I've seen for a long, long time. It could have been like every other trailer. It's trying to be different, and for that it deserves nothing but praise.

Another reason for the quick-cutting could be that this is all they have. I'll predict that there will be a few other trailers released in the next few months. This is simply meant to TEASE, and in that respect it has certainly whet my appetite.

Bigzilla said...

That's a stretch, man. There are PLENTY of "shots" of Mara in that trailer. They don't need to market that character to get people to come out. Her name and the title of the movie go hand in hand. The audience of people who love the books knows she features prominently. I think they simply want people to know who else is in the movie, and right now Daniel Craig is the biggest 'name' in that cast. Pretty simple. I think you're reading too much into it.

Brandon said...

Scott, I'm sorry, but I think you've decided you didn't want to like this movie before this trailer even leaked. This wasn't the best trailer I've ever seen, but it was definitely good and grabbed my attention. My only disappointment is that most of it looks like the Swedish film with the actors swapped. However, i know this isn't the case, and I think the Fincher version will be more faithful to the book, due to some notes and casting they've released.

Reminded me of A Clockwork Orange's trailer...but with heavier music

Alaneyres said...

Hang on. The crass editing style is surely part of the 'bootleg' aesthetic. It's supposed to look like a fan piece...

Scott Mendelson said...

Have actually never seen the original Clockwork Orange trailer. Frankly, I'm optimistic about the remake, if only because they have nowhere to go but up. Fincher hasn't really played in this genre since Se7en (Zodiac is more of a drama than a pure thriller), and I am a genuine Mara fan. My whining was frankly more about the trailer itself than the film being sold.

Isle of Ideas said...

It's not the editing skills which make this trailer good - although I wouldn't call it filmschool trailer editing- it's the bold choice of style. Having seen so many trailers that merely are 2 minute cut downs of the movie they're trying to sell I really liked this 'extended music video'. Imo the quality of a trailer is not defined by the editing skills involved but by its impact on the audience. This one obviously delivered.

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