The opening sequence of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo uses various film techniques to portray a female character's isolation and possible mental illness. Shots of a river and a face emerging from the water imply she was once kidnapped. Cables and fire are used to symbolize her breaking free from a masculine captor. Dark colors, quick cuts, and special effects create an unsettling mood that leaves audiences questioning what is happening and draws them into the story. These techniques influenced the creator to withhold some information in their own opening to generate mystery and intrigue about why the female protagonist is running away.

1. Opening sequence
analysis of ‘The Girl with
the Dragon Tattoo’

2. Mise-en-scene - Setting
 The opening sequence does not include a location as you can see
there is a river, so the audience will assume the movie must have an
main part in a river. You see more shots of the river as the opening
sequence develops.
At 1:18 you see a face
coming out of the water.
At 1:19 you see a
man drowning.
At 0:12 you see a shot of a river.
At 2:01 you see something coming out of
the water.

3. Mise-en-scene – Props
 The use of wire cables is shown through a various shots in the
opening sequence.
 The cable wiring connotes a importance as if it is trying to connect
to something but the other side avoids it and creates an explosion.
At 0:44 you see
few cables
moving towards
something.
At 0:48 you see the
cables going towards
something.
At 1:00 as soon as the cables are
attached you see them breaking away.

4. Mise-en-scene – Props (2)
 The use of the match sticks is shown significantly as there is a vital
shot where as the match stick drops everything is light up.
As the time progresses you see how the fire develops, first the match sticks
lights on an eye then you see a human skeleton lights up. Straight after this
you see a lava and a golden eagle, flying out.

5. Mise-en-scene – Props (3)
 The use of coins is shown at the start where you would not expect it
to be coming out the characters mouth. This makes the audience
question ‘what is the significance of the coins in the movie?’.
At 0:19 you see a black dot moving across coin, but at 2:16 you see a
load of coins coming out from both the females and males mouth.

6. Mise-en-scene – Positioning of
characters and objects
 The female character against a stationary background will
immediately draw the audience attention, also it is within a frame.

7. Mise-en-scene – lighting and
colour
 In the opening sequence most of the shots are shown in black,
which makes the female and male character stand out as they are
portrayed in silver. Also, creates an mood and atmosphere to the
audience.
 However we do see some light when the match is light and when the
bird/skeleton is light. This makes it eye catching as it grabs the
audience attention and is not dull from the use of black screen.

8. Editing – shot selection and
order
 The opening sequence is not in an chronological order that makes
the audience question what is happening and what is the opening
sequence to show.
As you can see in the clip
there is a shot of the
keyboard, then a shot of
someone getting strangled
then once again the
keyboard is shown.

9. Editing – pace
 The opening sequence is fast paced as there are so many shots
shown in the whole of 2:33 of the clip.
 There are cut shots which is used to replace one shot instantly with
the next.
The first shot is shown at 0:42 where there is an female and male character
attached to one another. Then straight after at 0:43 you see a match stick in
light.

10. Editing – special effects
 The opening sequence includes special effects throughout as you
see the droplets of water and the opening of the flower. This allows
the audience to properly see what they are doing.
 Also animations of flickering on the screen, this is to create an eerie
effects of the shots.
The development of the
flower opening, is not shown
one second after another,
but after every cut where
something else is shown,
then the flower appears.

11. Camera – close up shot
 This is used to create tension and encages the audience to pay
attention.
 This type of shot magnifies the object and directs the audience to
the significance of the action/ reaction of that time.
Close up shot of the some type of liquid coming out of the
characters mouth.

12. Camera – eye level
 The position of the camera is at eye level which connotes that both
characters are equal.

13. Camera - high angle
 When both the female and male character apart from each other, it is shown
in high angle which creates an impression of weakness and vulnerability.

14. Camera movements
 A tilt shot is shown when the camera moves vertically up the river.

15. Titles
 What we see in the opening sequence?
As you can see from the clip
the distribution, production,
director, main stars and the title
is shown.
The audience will be engaged as
soon as they see Columbia
Pictures as it is an high budgeted
distribution company. Also, seeing
Daniel Craigs’ name they will
instantly know that the movie
would be good.

16. Theme
 Through the opening sequence I have noticed that it is trying portray
a female character who was once either kidnapped or kept in
isolation, by a male character. As you see another black figure that
has masculine features trying to keep her to himself as he grabs her
by the face, as if he owns her. However, with the use of fire and wire
cables I can tell that she is free from whoever or whatever as both
are shown to explode. This is further proven as she is coming out of
the water also the spread of a birds wing, which shows ‘the bird is
finally able to fly away’.
 In my opinion I think the theme explored is isolation and something
related to mental illness.

17. How this influenced me when making
decisions for my film opening
 When I watched this opening sequence I found it quite hard to
understand what was being portrayed. However, when I thought
about this I found it quite assuming as it creates enigma to I myself
as an audient watching to ‘what is happening to the female?’, ‘why is
there fire?’, ‘why is there flies coming out of her eye?’. This is why
we decided to stick to showing not to much to the audience, so that
it creates enigma to ‘why is the girl running away?’.
 Also, I liked the use of dark colours as it is showing the audience
that the genre is most likely to be an thriller/horror movie. It is vital
for the opening sequence to show the audience what type of genre
the movie is.
 The titles are really important to show in the film opening, as it
engages the audience to watch the movie as there are Hollywood
stars starring and the distribution company.