Paparazzi Ethnography

Tonight, we caught a free screening of the Swedish version (with English subtitles) of the movie, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, the film adaptation of the third novel in Stieg Larsson‘s Millenium Series. The trilogy includes the bestselling novel, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

The feature film was followed up with a question and answer period with filmmaker, the Swedish director Daniel Alfredson. The program was organized ably by Amanada Doxtater of UC Berkeley’s Scandanavian Department and Laura Horak of UC Berkeley’s Film Studies Department.

Did I just say the word “ably”? In fact, Amanda and Laura were fabulous! As you can see from the photograph — as hosts, they shone with every bit of the star quality as their guest. And the hall was packed to the gills.

Everyone enjoyed the film, even though for many it was not the first viewing. I had already seen the film previously, but I wanted to catch it once more — to get into the mood of the evening prior to when the director would be commenting on his work.

There is an interesting story here for those of you who are not familiar with the book trilogy or the movie sequels. Apparently, the Swedish production that created the three movies also created a parallel television series which was shown in Europe. Both the movie and television versions have some overlap but are separate films.

Also, what I did not know, is that Daniel Alfredson directed the two sequel films (The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest).

Niels Arden Oplev, directed the first of the trilogy The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

To the enjoyment of everyone attending, Daniel Alfredson was articulate, charming, charismatic, well-dressed — and all without compromising an edgy artistic glow. He patiently and thoughtfully answered all the questions we posed to him  – over the period of one hour! Of course, I couldn’t hold back and asked him three questions, so star struck as I was about the artist and especially the artistic process.

Did he feel any pressure stepping into a sequel film project? No, in fact, he pointed out that the sequel production was already underway before the first film even opened in the theaters. So the sense of expectation typically associated with a sequel was absent. What did he think about Daniel Craig playing the role of Michael Nyqvist in the American version of the film?

That was my question.

On this point, Daniel was gracious to a fault, expressing only support over the upcoming attraction.

A question about the musical score set him to pause and we could all see that here was a topic in which he had struggled over to get just right, since much of the last film deals with facial expressions without dialogue.

I usually work alone, writing. So I wanted to know: what is it like to film on a set, organizing all those actors, what’s going on in your head??!!

His answer came as a surprise:

eh, not really a big deal. He suggested that filming is a military excersize, in which organization and timing are key, and where the action sequences are about


technique while the emotional sequences are about capturing silences, mood of expression and keeping the tension.

By the way, since I work in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Iceland, AND, since I’ve always been interested in carrying out an anthropology of film direction — yes, you guessed it


— I couldn’t stop myself and had to ask him outright, whether I could contact him for a follow-up discussion about conducting an anthropology of Scandanavian movie production.


And what do you think Daniel’s reply was?

Well, let’s just say that we’ll catch you on the set of the next Daniel Alfredson movie production, as












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