Contemporary Transnational Remakes. The Swedish "Män Som Hatar Kvinnor" (2009) and the Hollywood Production "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" (2011)

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2012 in the subject Film Science, grade: 2,0, Technical University of Braunschweig (Englisches Seminar), language: English, abstract: On the 20th December 2011 a new Hollywood film was released throughout North America. It was a remake, a film based on another one, starring Hollywood stars such as Daniel Craig and Christopher Plummer and attracting a bit more medial attention than usual. The reason was that the film was released quite soon after its predecessor. More specifically, only two years had passed since the global success of the original Swedish film "Män Som Hatar Kvinnor", directed by Niels Arden Oplev, which was released in 2009. As a result, ever since its announcement the remake with the title "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" triggered many discussions. People wondered why the world needed another American remake of a successful and critically acclaimed movie so quickly after its original release. Looking back, remakes have always been an integral part of the Hollywood film industry, which has been copying ideas from other film industries ever since its emergence in the beginning of the last century. European, Asian or even previous American films were remade whenever it seemed to be profitable and in this case it seemed very promising, given the great success of the movie outside the US. Basically, from the American perspective several reasons exist to justify a remake of a film, for example the updating of an old movie to present it to younger generations or the fact, like in this case, that a remake is allegedly “necessary” because people in the US do not like reading subtitles or listening to synchronized non-English movies. However, some people simply accuse Hollywood of desperately trying to show the world how to do it in a better way and hiding their lack of new ideas. Such transnational remakes are still in progress and have been going on for decades, not only in the US but also worldwide. Bollywood copies American films, Hollywood borrows narratives from Europe and European film makers get their inspiration from American productions. It is evident that such contemporary transnational remakes are a worldwide phenomena increased by the globalization which enables people to share and trade cultural goods and ideas all over the globe.