Nordic Noir Adaptations as Reflections of Denationalization : The Effects of Public Film Support on a National Cinema (Paper presentation)

The objective of this paper is to briefly examine and contrast the two audiovisual productions of Swedish author Stieg Larsson’s first novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo from the perspective that the two films were prepared, shot and finalized within vastly dissimilar production economies. The rationale behind the examination is that it seemingly reveals certain paradoxes that appear to challenge received forms of thinking regarding the workings of the audiovisual industries in Europe and global Hollywood respectively. In addition, the comparison is meant to underline how Europe’s expanding landscape of public film financing, including state funds, regional funds, transnational co-production funds, the Media and Eurimage programmes – as well as increasingly partaking television companies – has fashioned increasingly intricate but at the same time cunning financing structures in the name of economic efficiency. Meanwhile, and perhaps paradoxically, a brief assessment of the making of David Fincher’s Hollywood version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), shot on somewhat the same locations as the Swedish film and with a partly Swedish crew and cast reveals a surprisingly lenient production agenda, at least in a relative sense.