I watched the (two-part!) original Swedish adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo yesterday, having picked up the DVD boxed set at the weekend, and I'd have to say that it is less true to the book than the US version.
Yes, you read that right.
The only sins of the US version, by and large, are of omission. Great chunks are left out (Blomkvist's prison time, anyone?) but the rest follows the book quite closely. In the Swedish version, enormous amounts are rewritten, to a greatly detrimental effect.
For example: Salander involves herself in the Blomkvist's investigation into the Vangers by emailing him the crucial hint about the names and numbers he finds in Harriet's personal effects. The book goes to great lengths to express that, if sufficiently interested, she might have done her own investigation but that, her report on Blomkvist complete, she would have felt no real reason to carry on snooping on his machine - she wasn't interested at that point. The American movie stays true to this, and the clue is revealed by chance, by Blomkvist's daughter, exactly as per the book... The Swedish version makes Salander the deus ex machina.
The dumbest mistake it makes is having Blomkvist call the police after his ordeal towards the end. In the book, the whole thing is hushed up, to avoid ruining the Vangers (and, thus, Millennium magazine). There's a point where Henrik Vanger, Dirch Frode, Blomkvist and a police officer are discussing events... While a similar conversation happened in the book, it occurred minus the copper.
It does get one thing right, however... Well, right-ish. For the final denouement, Blomkvist does travel to Australia in the Swedish version, while the American version oversimplifies (probably to avoid the expense of shifting production to the other side of the planet for a few short minutes of film) almost to the point of stupidity. The problem with this in the Swedish version is that Blomkvist is apparently allowed to make the trip before serving his prison time. Sweden is either very liberal with its criminals and their travel rights while on a suspended sentence, or that puts the Swedish movie well outside the boundaries of 'suspension of disbelief'.
There is more... Hell, I could nitpick this thing for weeks... Suffice it to say that, broadly speaking, it's a good film... but it changes too much of the story for no discernible reason. I can see why the US version was cut down and simplified (largely to fit the running time), but I don't see why the Swedish version erased some details and added new ones. Neither dwelt on the changing fortunes of Millennium magazine, but I felt it was better to leave them out entirely (US) than to muddle them up and chuck them in at random (Swedish). The handling of the Wennerstrom affair was similarly dubious.
Casting is interesting... Michael Niqvist is no Daniel Craig but, let's face it, Craig is only perceived as remotely glamourous because of a very few specific roles. He's rugged rather than pretty. Even so, I'd have to accept than Niqvist suits the role of Mikael Blomkvist slightly better. Lena Endre and Marika Lagercrantz are just as attractive as their counterparts in the US movie (Robin Wright and Geraldine James, as Erika Berger and Cecilia Vanger, respectively), just not Hollywood attractive. Christopher Plummer, meanwhile, makes a far craftier Henrik Vanger than Sven-Bertil Taube, who channels more of Henrik's 'favourite uncle' vibe, and doesn't dangle a golden carrot in front of Blomkvist. The biggest difference is the casting of Martin, of course, but only because I've probably never seen Peter Haber in any other role, while Stellan Skargård was playing very much against type compared to his roles in any other film I've seen. His part is substantially reduced in the Swedish version, so his secrets are less of a shock. The weirdest casting choice was that of Anita Vanger, and here also the Swedish version got it right: Ewa Fröling was an excellent choice, both for this and the later chapters of the Millennim Trilogy. Joely Richardson is at least ten years too young, which may explain why the role was altered slightly in the US version.
In other news, the weekend was comparatively busy - visiting the folks on Saturday and taking over a home-made dessert for them to sample, then going out to see two movies on Sunday. The movies in question couldn't have been more different: The Woman in Black and The Muppets.
Since I've already written about one movie - and, yes, I'm sorry, even more ranting about that Stieg fucking Larsson fucking Millennium fucking trilogy - I'll keep this brief...
The Woman in Black is a traditional horror movie - it relies on chills rather than gore and viscera. Some of the 'what did I just see?' tricks are still used in today's slasher movies, but TWiB is classy stuff. I'd have to assume that most of the audience had never seen a horror movie before, because some of 'em were literally shrieking at the slightest scare (the crow in the bedroom right near the start? Really?). The film relied on showing things so briefly that the audience doubted their eyes right along with the protagonist. We were put in his shoes, rather than required to passively observe the horrors as they unfolded. I've heard lukewarm things about Dan Radcliffe's first major foray outside JK Rowling's universe, but I think he nails the role of Arthur Kipps: He's shellshocked, emotionally distant, and very driven. This is a very young man who lost his wife at the very time he gained a son, and he's clearly unable to cope. On the verge of losing his job, he's given one last chance to redeem himself, and he becomes obsessed with seeing the job through to its completion, in spite of heavy resistance from almost everyone he encounters, not least the film's eponymous ghost. I did start to wonder if the book makes reference to him taking Laudanum, or some similar drug, based on some of his behaviour. Suffice it to say, this film does not have a happy ending.
Or does it? See it, and decide for yourself.
For my part, I hope Mr Radcliffe will consider working with Hammer again in the future. He may not be the next Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing, but he has the right look, and a certain indefinable something that makes him ideal for Hammer's old-style approach to the traditional chillers.
The Muppets... was a very different film to what I was expecting. Either I've never before seen a full Muppets movie, it they're not normally this format. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the usually like theatrical adaptations, where you can almost imagine that you're seeing something performed on stage? This... has some elements of that kind of production, but it's played completely straight (or as far as that's possible) as if Muppets are somehow everyday members of modern society, albeit no longer as famous as they were in their heyday. There's a ridiculous plot about a tycoon wanting to drill for oil beneath the Muppet theatre (in downtown LA?) and lots on in-jokes about movie-making tricks ("Let's travel by map, it'll be faster!"), plenty of fourth wall breakages and some pretty good songs. Having been a long-time fan of the Muppets, there were a couple of points that almost brought a tear to my eye but the effect was very nearly ruined by the rather forced inclusion of the "Mah-Na-Mah-Na" song right at the end. Sure, I like the song... but context, people, context.
Last night's astronomy lecture was a massive let-down... Something of an example of the lecturer's passion for the subject overriding common sense about making a presentation. That it was based on a PowerPoint slideshow was bad enough (yes, he actually read from the slides, rather than using them to support his lecture), but he ended up skipping through a good chunk of them as they were full of - his words, here - "boring graphs". Nice that he saw they were boring eventually, but he really should have figured that out before the show...
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