Hacker Cinema
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
2011 · Film · 158 min
Directed by David Fincher
Disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist investigates the disappearance of a weary patriarch's niece from 40 years ago. He is aided by the pierced, tattooed, punk computer hacker named Lisbeth Salander. As they work together in the investigation, Blomkvist and Salander uncover immense corruption beyond anything they have ever imagined.
6 positive4 negative1 mixed15 neutralfrom 26 commenters
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26 comments on Hacker News
The Net is a guilty pleasure of a movie
> But we don't talk enough about how improbable it would be that this elite hacker circa 1994/1995 would be using a Mac in those cursed Michael Spindler times.
Fast forward to 2011 where The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo also uses a Mac for hacking, a bit cringe but not as impossible like Mission Impossible, then in the same movie she uses Nokia 770 and that thing had some genuine superpowers compared to Nokia 9210
Similarly, the first 100 pages of “The girl with the dragon tattoo” was just really dull and heavy to get through. Then the rest becomes good.
Interestingly they condensed those 100 pages into less than 5 minutes at the start of the film version of it.
The most knowledgeable hackers were consulted for 'The Matrix' (0-day SSHv1 CRC32 scene), 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' (a surprising homage to the actual PWN Phone, some micro details only a hacker would know, etc).
But these are more of side devices. No movie captures the culture as such — neither the original meaning, nor the illegal, nor the current business.
'The Social Network' attempted to take on a particular narrow aspect of it, and while the results are mixed, it did capture some of the real vibe.
TV — of course 'Silicon Valley', since it was already mentioned. The 'jerking off' algorithm was researched by a real team, and some of the members are here.
I do the exact same thing with their soundtracks. I've listened to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo soundtrack a lot but still haven't got around to watching the movie. It's going to be a very strange experience.
Any soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (The Social Network, Book of Eli, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, etc) is pretty powerful for me.
Half of them, I’ve played the soundtrack numerous times before ever watching it’s movie, which gives a strange sense of familiarity.
How do you mean “unregular”? Lots of movies are showing consummation of desire, or otherwise healthy sex in maybe risky or unwise circumstances.
Films like Girl with the Dragon Tattoo show maltreatment and restorative sex both. I’ve heard that porn tends to unregular, but I haven’t made time for that research, the porn I’ve seen would be worth aspiring to.
Thanks!
I tried PoI, but it didn't catch me (first ep only). Maybe I try again. I would love a good, techy private detective series. Would love to find something like Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, as a series.
For me, in Germany, Breaking Bad was the series which changed the game. After breaking bad, TV became the superior story vessel. There were some good series before, but after BB "everyone" around saw the appeal. It's a different narrative style than traditional TV series. Even gems like Battlestar Galactica, feel more episodically contained and are not bincheable like modern shows. BB wasn't pioneering but rather the turning stone(?), I think.
And yes, I do recommend giving BB another try. It starts so slowly, but it will get insanely intense! However, it's becoming uncomfortably stressful story-wise. If you don't like that sort of drama, you may not enjoy it. Then Better Call Saul is even better, but also even more slow progression. Tho, if you got into the BB style, the wrinting, acting and cinematography are unmatched IMO.
I could go on and on about how great Nordic Noir shows are. They are a refreshing change from the American style of shows. The best are, in order, "Before We Die" (Sweden), "All The Sins" (Sweden), "Broen Bron - The Bridge" (Sweden, Denmark), "Bordertown" (Finland), "Deadwind" (Finland), "Ófærð - Trapped" (Iceland), "Rebecka Martinsson" (Sweden, first season)
I have the Millennium series queued up: "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", "The Girl who played with Fire", "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets"
The only Nordic Noir book I've read is Smilla's Sense of Snow, but I can't recommend.
There are two American Nordic Noir series I recommend: "The Killing", set in Seattle and based on the Danish show "Forbrydelsen." Also "Fargo" the movie and all 4 seasons of the TV series.
It's interesting that that Fargo sensibility that the Cohen Brothers captured so well comes from the Nordic regions. Duluth Minnesota was once called the Helsinki of America.
What enjoys widespread appeal is however the cream of the crop. Being raised in Sweden I often opt out of watching a Swedish movie or tv-show simply because everything that makes Nordic Noir good, morally complex stories with plain language, can make the main characters insufferable and obnoxious. You have to remember that the most exciting stories in a culture are about those who do something daring and in Scandinavia, where we are very conflict averse, you thus get heroes acting like assholes because we wouldn't dare do that ourselves.
It can work quite well as evidenced by the popularity of The Bridge, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and others ... but it can also not work out at all if you don't sympathize with the characters' cause. That's why they're almost all crime dramas, because asshole or not, we all sympathize in their attempt to catch the bad guy. Try watching a Scandinavian romantic drama to see what I mean.
I was unable to determine what you mean by “the dragon book”. Is that related to the recent Dragon movie that was in the Oscars? I don’t imagine you mean The Magicians book 2. Maybe you mean “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (terrific dragon on the cover!) but I’m honestly not really sure what you mean otherwise :(
While you could answer my above questions directly, I don’t need them answered; I’m just trying to make the point that “nicknames” cannot be easily correlated with a book when you scale up to “the entire word of readers”.
Frankly, I don't know which ones produce the best movies in general as this is somewhat subjective. There are gems from all countries and often there is a co-operation between countries.
However, since I especially like Swedish crime drama, I can give you specific recommendations of crime drama movies and TV-series from Sweden and other countries.
* Snabba Cash I, II, III ("Easy Money" I, II, III) * Wallander (yeah, the original Swedish one - there are many) * Beck (there are many) * Jägarna ("The Hunters", there's two) * Midnight Sun ("Midnattssol"; TV series taking place in Lappland)
The latter is a French-Swedish production which is, I think, a good example of what the directive of the article intends to create more.
In addition to watching a crime drama of the kind which you might not have not seen, you get to sight-see places as they are. I especially liked the visual appearance of The Midnattssol since it takes place in Lappland, which I think is beautiful in a rugged way.
Also, you may have seen Hollywood remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. There's a Swedish original which can be interesting to watch.
A Swedish-Danish series called "The Bridge" (Bro) is very good, but I have not seen it.
An Italian (actually Italian-German) series called "Gomorrah" is very good too, I heard. I have not seen that either, though.
I have yet to fully explore all the crime drama from other European countries; I've seen some Finnish ones (like "Vares") and they were OK too.
Hope this helps.
Edit: forgot Snabba Cash III!
I hate this because it suspends my suspension of disbelief. I can only think of three instances of tv shows and films that get it right: the US version of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (at least she uses a terminal emulator and ssh); The Social Network; and Mr. Robot. It's so commonly botched that I get really excited when someone gets it right. It doesn't even have to be perfect; just not laughably ridiculous.
Is this The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo as in the american version? I haven't watched that, worthwhile? Being from Sweden I did read the books and see the swedish films :)
I've been hoping for a while that we'd get this kind of movie. And I do think we're getting closer to it. There are a few recent movies that provide hints about how a film could successfully capture a hacking experience:
- The research scenes in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. - The texting scenes in Personal Shopper and House of Cards.
Does anyone have any other recommendations of close-to-the-keyboard style portrayals of communication, research, and hacking?
Pretty much no way I can enjoy the hollywood version... The 1996 movie is a watershed moment in anime to me. Its up there with Akira and the like. Same thing goes for Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, watched the swedish version first and cannot get through 10 minutes of the hollywood one.
I just saw The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo the other day.
The hacker is supposed to be researching a series of cold case murders... and when we see her typing, she's messing with a big-assed sql query with multiple joins and realistic-looking column names. Wouldn't be shocked if that did come from a real law enforcement database.
Was slightly surprised. Even serious movies (ones that want to be taken seriously) seem to stumble on this stuff.
Tech: Skype, Spotify, H&M, Neo4j, Mojang
Music: Tove Lo, Robyn, The Knife, Miike Snow, Those Dancing Days, Icona Pop, Lykke Li.
In fact, pop music around the world has been shaped and written by Swedish producers and writers, everything from Brittany Spears to Katy Perry.
And look at all the Swedish films that America loves to remake. Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Let The Right One In, etc.
And remember, this is just Sweden, a small country of 9 million people in the middle of nowhere.
For some reason I have always associated Zen monasteries with Japan. I've never been there, but judging from shows/movies, the cities there (esp Tokyo) seem pretty noisy, and overstimulating in general. On the other hand, Scandinavia seems very calm and serene (exception - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). Anyone who's visited/lived in any of these places, is this an accurate portrayal?
Also The Net, Antitrust and David Fincher's Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo have very realistic computer sequences.
Antitrust and Social Network also show real source code that compiles (C, Java, Perl, Bash, HTML), Antitrust even explains "Open Source" to the audience. The camera work (especially showing relevant parts of the computer monitors and pan around to keep it engaging for a longer time) on all four movies is really fantastic.
* The Net (1995) - filmed one year before the World Wide Web got traction with the first fully graphical Mosaic web browser: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113957/
* Antitrust (2001) - famous for highlighting the open source movement, features a "CEO" that resembles a mixture of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs in one person as evil character, shows Linux desktop and command shell, and shows real Linux developer: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0218817/
* Social Network (2010) - very realistic, based on real detailed technical blog posts from 2004 on LiveJournal from Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin's memory: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1285016/
* The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) - nmap tool, etc.: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1568346/
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* Jurassic Park (1993) - real 3D file manager application on Unix desktop, first use of OpenGL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107290/ , see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaRHU1XxMJQ and http://fsv.sourceforge.net/
* movies (like The Matrix reloaded) that use the nmap tool: http://nmap.org/movies/
So far I remember only one movie that shows "hacking" plausibly: Fincher's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo [1].
Most of the time in other hollywood films, it's downright bogus. [2]
[1] http://oracle-wtf.blogspot.ru/2012/05/girl-with-ansi-tattoo.html
[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aApTVqeGJMw Hacking scene from Skyfall, ugh.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011 film) was an absolute shitfest. The critics gave it rave reviews. So was the book, and the critics gave that rave reviews.
I'm not sure how critical opinion shapes my evaluation of a film. (My decision of whether to go see it on the other hand, is so shaped; I generally won't go to see movies that have been universally shat on in the criticsphere.) Maybe I would have had less fun seeing TGWTDT had it not been so acclaimed?
I've been really frustrated by the "purchase only" digital options for movies lately. I want to watch the US remake of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" but I don't know if I want to watch it more than once.
Good job, but the data could use a little more refinement.
I'm in Portugal, and for instance The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is shown as being available for 3,99€. The movie page then lists the movie as being available for rent at $3.99 (SD) or $4.99 (HD).
When I open the iTunes store though, the movie is only available for purchase at 13,99€.
I take it that your movie page gets the data from the US store, but from a user experience point of view it should get the data from the user's country.
Everyone has seen Nmap used and might not even know it. It was famously used by Trinity in The Matrix, and has popped up in Die Hard, Bourne Ultimatum, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and more. http://nmap.org/movies.html
I wonder if Hollywood will upgrade.
> SOPA brought it to our attention that Hollywood is dying. They must be dying if they're resorting to such tactics. If movies and TV were growing rapidly, that growth would take up all their attention.
I'm not sure this follows. I'm guessing that Hollywood sees piracy and filesharing as vast amounts of unrealized profit for the work they're already doing -- "free money" essentially.
I think it's personal too; look how bent out of shape Scott Rudin got just because David Denby published a review for "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" a week ahead of a previously-agreed-upon embargo: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/dec/05/girl-dragon-tattoo-early-review
Hollywood seems to like having control over when and how their material is released, and on this level piracy offends them on a moral level.
I understand the argument about reforming patents in an accelerated age, but how exactly do copyrights stifle creativity?
How would the public benefit if all of a sudden Mickey Mouse was in the public domain? I can see a bunch of toy companies salivating, but how will it improve the public good?
How has Mark Twain's work been remixed or creatively remained since it entered the public domain?
Would publishers not have released "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" if "The Scarlett Letter" was still protected?
Again, patent reform makes some sense since increased access to core tech has proven to spark innovation in unforseen places, but I can't think of many examples where copyrighted material entered the public domain to the benefit of us all.
Also, copyright law seems to be pretty flexible with fair use provisions, limitations on what can be copyrighted (e.g. no recipes), etc.
As a case in point consider Avatar. It was widely mocked as being "Dances with Wolves with Aliens" and it is the highest grossing movie ever. How is that possible when the IP world is as muddled as the author suggests?