Hi, I’m Michael.
This is Lessons from the Screenplay.
It’s been over six years since "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" was released,
and it remains one of my favorite David Fincher films.
It’s an intriguing murder mystery,
as well as a story about two unfamiliar characters with a unique relationship.
But the film is also interesting from a structural perspective.
As Fincher said of the script:
“There was really no way to take what Larson had written
and get it into three acts.
And so we had to make our peace with the idea of a five act structure.”
In my last video on The Avengers,
I looked at the elements of a classical five-act structure.
But despite having five acts, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" doesn’t fit that model.
Instead, it’s full of abnormalities,
where the subplot is the focus of much of the film,
and at times feels like it swaps protagonists.
This is why it was the first film I thought of when I heard Fincher's recent quote,
where he implied that Marvel films are "lassoed and hogtied by three acts."
As I said in my last video, I have become obsessed with this statement,
and today I want to explore its deeper meaning.
To see how Marvel films are constrained by three acts and narrative conventions,
and how "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" subverts them.
To dissect the anatomy of an act,
examining how a film can break the rules and follow them at the same time.
...And reveal the effort put into setting up
the Fincher trilogy that never came to be.
Let’s take a look at The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
When David Fincher implied that the Marvel Cinematic Universe was
“lassoed and hogtied by three acts,”
he wasn’t talking about the literal number of acts.
He was referring to the fact that most Marvel films have to be essentially the same.
They need to be widely accessible
so they can reach a large enough audience to make money,
which historically means following certain narrative conventions.
I’ve identified three conventions in particular that I’ve found in almost all Marvel films,
and which Fincher likes to subvert.
The first convention is that nearly the entire film is about a single, clear protagonist.
Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange:
there is a single, clear protagonist driving the plot forward.
Subplots for love stories and supporting characters exist,
but they take a backseat.
Second, these subplots are resolved just before the climax or immediately after.
This allows all the loose ends to come together and be tied up nicely in the end.
Usually this means the subplots have their own climax
just before the protagonist journeys on to the final battle...
...or they resolve right after, but quickly so the film can end as soon as possible.
And finally, the third convention is that they closely follow
Syd Field’s three act paradigm.
We meet a hero who wants something but can’t have it.
They make a difficult choice to go after it.
The struggle turns out to be harder than they expected.
They make another choice to become the person they need to be.
They defeat the bad guy.
Movie over.
Almost all films follow these conventions.
A nd to be clear, a film isn’t automatically bad because it follows these conventions,
nor is a film automatically good just because it breaks them.
But as Fincher implies in his quote,
when you have to tick all these boxes there is only so much room to play around.
So what does it look like when you don’t tick all the boxes?
Well, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” does have a clear protagonist in Mikael Blomkvist,
but a significant portion of the film is spent on Lisbeth’s story.
The subplots of the film certainly do not resolve just before
or immediately after the climax of the main plot.
And while you could probably apply the three-act structure to the film—
as you can with almost all films—
it certainly does not fit tidily within the walls of Syd Field’s paradigm.
By breaking these conventions,
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” can tell a complex story with multiple plot threads,
letting us get to know a main character other than the protagonist in a much deeper way.
So does the film not have any structure whatsoever?
Of course it does.
Despite subverting the three act paradigm,
screenwriter Steven Zaillian made sure that each individual act
contained the essential elements of story.
In his book Into the Woods: A Five-Act Journey Into Story, John Yorke writes:
“Fractal theory dictates that every act will contain all the essential elements of story:
protagonist, antagonist, inciting incident,
journey, crisis, climax and, occasionally, resolution.”
Every act in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" has each of these elements,
telling a story unto itself while playing a unique role in the overall film.
So let’s dissect each act to see how they use the essential elements of story
to achieve this.
Act One: What will Mikael do now that his life is ruined?
This act’s function is to set-up the story.
We meet the characters and learn what the film is about.
The protagonist, Mikael Blomkvist,
has just been sued for libel and lost, so his desire/journey is to hide from the world.
"I'm going to go home. Crawl under the duvet for a week."
But then he gets a phone call—
the inciting incident—where he is enticed to meet Henrik Vanger.
Henrik is the antagonist of this act, not because he’s a bad guy,
but because he’s the one blocking Mikael’s desire to hide from the world.
The crisis comes when Henrik asks Mikael to solve a forty-year-old murder mystery,
and the climax is when Henrik offers Mikael the one thing he wants most...
Henrik: “Hans-Erik Wennerstrom.”
...revenge on the man who has just ruined Mikael’s life.
The resolution is that Mikael agrees to try to solve Henrik’s mystery.
Act One is a pretty standard first act, like you would find in most films.
Act two, however, is where things get more complex.
Act Two: Can Mikael uncover something new about Harriet’s disappearance?
The second act has to keep the main plot engaging,
while also spending half its time on something completely unrelated.
So how does the screenwriter achieve this?
He makes essentially makes the second act have two protagonists,
with their elements of story running in parallel.
The protagonist in the main plot is still Mikael,
and his antagonist is now the mysterious past that holds the secrets he’s after.
The protagonist of the subplot is Lisbeth,
who is forced to report to a new guardian, Bjurman, her antagonist.
Mikael’s inciting incident comes when he speaks to the retired officer
who was assigned to Harriet’s case.
This sets up Mikael’s desire/journey: answer the questions the officer never could
by collecting new evidence and getting to know the Vanger family.
Lisbeth’s inciting incident comes when someone tries to steal her laptop and it ends up destroyed.
Her desire/journey is to be able to control her own money,
but as a ward of the state the only way to get it is through Bjurman,
who she soon learns is not shy about abusing his power in the most horrific way.
The crisis of Mikael’s plot comes when he flips through the old photos of Harriet
and realizes she was afraid of someone.
And the climax is when he realizes what the numbers and names in the diary mean.
Mikael has uncovered something new.
The crisis of Lisbeth’s plot comes when Bjurman takes his abuse to a new extreme.
And the climax is when she gets her brutal revenge.
Now that Mikael knows he’s not wasting his time with this investigation,
the resolution of the act comes as he asks for a research assistant.
This second act has two stories going on at once,
one that moves the main plot forward
and another that provides a detailed portrait of Lisbeth—our other main character,
who has yet enter the main story.
But in the third act, that will change.
Act 3: Will Lisbeth get along with Mikael and be able to help him?
In the Syd Field “paradigm” model of a screenplay, act three is where the story ends.
But in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,
the third act is where our main characters meet for the first time.
The protagonist is Mikael, and this time Lisbeth is the antagonist of the act.
She is the unknown quantity, the person who must be convinced.
The inciting incident comes as Mikael learns Lisbeth investigated him,
violating his privacy by doing so.
Mikael’s desire is to understand why Harriet was tracking the murders
of young women in her diary, and asks Lisbeth to help.
“I want you to help me catch a killer of women.”
His journey involves looking for more evidence,
as Lisbeth tracks down new information about the women who were killed.
And all the while, they are figuring out their relationship.
The crisis comes when Mikael is shot at.
Someone is trying to scare him away.
This leads to the climax, where Lisbeth stitches him up and they begin a sexual relationship.
This resolution signifies them becoming partners.
“I like working with you.”
“I like working with you too.”
Act Four: Is there a connection between the Vanger corporation and the murders?
The fourth act contains what would be in the third act of a normal movie—
the final showdown with the antagonist.
Protagonist: Mikael.
Antagonist: Martin Vanger.
Inciting Incident:
Mikael and Lisbeth get permission to search the Vanger company’s records.
Desire/Journey:
To find out if there is...
“Any connections between Vanger industries and the towns where the women were killed.”
The Crisis: Mikael discovers that Martin is the killer, and is captured.
The Climax: Mikael is saved in the last moment by Lisbeth,
who chases Martin, causing him to die in a car crash.
Resolution: In the aftermath,
Mikael realizes that Harriet is still alive, and she is reunited with Henrik.
This plays like the end of a normal film, where the act answers its own dramatic question,
as well as the dramatic question of the main plot.
It feels like the film should be over, because if it followed convention, it would be.
But there are still several loose ends that need tying up.
So instead, we move in to the weirdest act..
Act Five: What will happen with Wennerstrom?
Slash, what will become of Lisbeth and Mikael?
In the fifth act, there are again two stories happening at once.
The one that is front-and-center is Lisbeth,
the protagonist, taking down Wennerstrom, the antagonist.
The inciting incident is when she hears Mikael say that
Wennerstrom probably won’t get jail time for his crimes.
Her desire is to give him the punishment he deserves,
and her journey involves adopting a disguise, clever hacking,
and stealing billions of dollars form him.
The crisis comes when she successfully empties his bank accounts into her own,
and the climax comes when it’s announced that Wennerstrom was executed by his mob affiliates.
Lisbeth’s actions are fueled by her desire to see appropriate punishment be administered,
but it’s also an expression of her feelings for Mikael,
which I think is the more moving story of this act.
Lisbeth, protagonist,
realizes she has feelings for Mikael, antagonist,
during the inciting incident, when he agrees to lend her fifty thousand dollars.
“Ok.”
“Ok?”
It’s the most anyone has ever trusted her.
"You want a coffee?"
Her desire/journey becomes to tell him how she feels.
After taking down Mikael’s sworn enemy, she writes him a letter, and buys him a gift.
But the crisis comes when Lisbeth goes to give him the gift,
and sees that he’s with Erika.
The climax is when she chooses to turn around and throws the present in the trash.
And the resolution:
heartbroken, she gets on her motorcycle, and rides off.
Each act of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" serves a unique function in the overall story,
and several acts contain story beats not found in conventional films.
But by making sure that each act has the essential elements,
it ensures that it’s never just showing a series of events happening,
but rather, telling a story.
When reading the screenplay,
I noticed that the last line of the script was strangely prophetic,
when it explains that Lisbeth...
“climbs onto her Honda - starts it - and drives off -”
“Probably forever.”
The unconventional structure of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”
wasn’t there simply to provide interesting storytelling,
it had to set up important backstory for Lisbeth.
"Even though we're not getting into it in great detail in the first movie,
it has to inform everything that she does. We will get into it, eventually."
This is because everyone—the writer, the cast, even Fincher—
assumed this film was going to be part one of a trilogy.
The opening sequence contains imagery from all three of the stories.
Erika, Christer Malm, Bjurman, Armansky, Miriam, and Annika, Mikael’s sister,
all had to be cast and appear in small roles
knowing they would be an important part of the next films.
Players in a complex trilogy poised to challenge convention, that would ultimately never be.
This, I think, is the last key to understanding Fincher’s quote about Marvel.
When talking about signing on to do "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," Fincher said:
“I wasn’t that interested in making another serial killer movie as much as
the studio was committed to the idea of a hard-R rated adult franchise.
And I thought: ‘I’ve been waiting my whole career to hear this.’”
He wanted to turn the Dragon Tattoo trilogy into something
”thoughtful, adult, interesting, complex, and challenging.”
But when it was released, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo made “only” $102 million.
Five months later, The Avengers would make $600 million.
Certainly, more determines the success of a film
than the conventionality of its narrative structure.
But as an audience, we have become so programmed to expect a three-act structure
and a tidy resolution,
that we often get uncomfortable when a story breaks that formula.
But when a story isn’t beholden to narrative conventions,
and when we’re willing to be uncomfortable, we get to have new experiences.
Over the last decade, that kind of experimentation has been happening less and less in film,
and more and more in television.
And as long as fun, safe films dominate the box office,
that will continue to be the case.
My personal takeaway from all this
is that regardless of the medium you work in,
it’s important to learn the essential elements of story so your script is always compelling.
It’s important to learn the narrative conventions
so you can anticipate what the audience is expecting.
And it’s important to learn all the rules...
so you know the best ways to break them.
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Hey guys! I hope you enjoyed this video.
I’ve realized that if things keep going well,
it's possible that I might hit a million subscribers this year.
Which is crazy.
But, I thought it’d be cool to do something fun for if that happens,
so I want to put it to you guys:
What are some suggestions of a fun video I could do to mark a million subscribers?
Let me know in the comments below any suggestions you have.
Thank you for watching, and I will see you next time.