Crime Drama Opening Title Sequence Analysis

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011 Film)

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the first film in Columbia Pictures' three-picture adaptation of Stieg Larsson's- 'The Millennium Trilogy' - books.


The film won seven awards, including an Academy Award for Best Film Editing.

Director: David Fincher 

Starring: Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara

 Screenplay: Steven Zaillian

The film is based on: The first novel in the trilogy with the same name. "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo." 

These images are from the film 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.' The credits are in the corner and in small print, so that it does not detract the audience from the actual action being shown in the sequence. However the credit in the second image is placed directly onto the moving image (though there is not a lot of action in the scene showing the second image), this could have been done because the creators of the film wanted the audience to immediately notice the person being credited, perhaps because that person had a large amount of influence whilst the producing

Also the names and words are in white to make it stand out against the black background and be sub-consciously noticed by the audience, which is similar to the way in which we (101 Productions) have planned to present our credits as well. However the actual film title is grey against the black background and is also the central image shown, so despite the colour being quite dull it stands out against the dark background and draws the audience's attention towards the film title- also because there is no other image shown apart from the title the audience's focus is directed towards the film title as well.

Tim Miller- who is the creative director for the title sequence- stated that he wanted to develop an "abstract narrative that reflected the pivotal moments in the novel, as well as the character development of Lisbeth Salander." (Salander is one of the central characters in the film who the audience later find out has been a victim of sexual and emotional abuse, as shown in the "Hot Hands" scene, in which the male hands caress Salander's face- third image shown).

Themes of domestic violence are represented when the woman's face shatters after a cruel beating in the title sequence:

From the title sequence, the occurring themes within the film are presented to the audience, therefore giving them insight on the actions that are likely to take place within the film.