The key question for me, approaching this soundtrack
to David Fincher's adaptation of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
was 'do I really have to?'. This question arose for various
reasons, namely: the fact that I have studiously avoided Stieg Larsson's
books because of the same hype filter than has seen me avoid all
Harry Potter novels; the fact that I will never go to see the movie,
largely again because of hype and because of Daniel Craig (plus
I didn't like the yawnfest that was The Social Network,
the last Fincher / Reznor collaboration, and because I only rate
Seven of Fincher's movies); the fact that I stopped listening
to Nine Inch Nails in about 1996 when, in a first year University
bout of rage / misery (caused by a girl) I began only listening
to that band (said girl was the one who told me it was dangerous
to focus my emotions using aggressive music, which prompted me to
rid myself of my entire NIN collection); the fact that this soundtrack
is three hours long, around forty-five minutes longer than
the film itself, making this yet another expansive release (cf Plastikman's
Arkives boxset) which that I find difficult to find the
inclination to approach. But review it I shall, since The Girl
With The Dragon Tattoo was released by Mute
in the UK and Europe.
Reznor described the soundtrack as having 'a really
interesting, organic, layered feel' and that's undoubtedly true.
If I cast my mind back to The Downward Spiral, Nine Inch
Nails's 1994 bleak opus, one of the most interesting aspects was
the addition of snatches of sound design in between the album's
tracks, arriving often unexpectedly as songs collapsed in on themselves.
There you would get snatches of what sounded like the reverberations
from a broken piano, atmospheric interruptions and skittering noise
loops. A lot of that same vibe permeates Reznor and Ross's work
here, as if they took those mysterious cues and stretched them inventively
into a soundtrack. The same feeling of hopeless desperation that
permeated The Downward Spiral is highly evident here, giving
this collection not only a sense of dark mystery but also an air
of anguished misery. The trademark Reznor elements are occasionally
enhanced by processed strings, breathy female sighs and a whole
array of more organic and often unidentifiable sound sources, all
of which support a somewhat tension-filled sound world.
Like all the best soundtracks, The Girl With
The Dragon Tattoo contains different moods according to the
scene in question; for this soundtrack that translates into sections
of near-emptiness, dominated by beguiling single piano notes or
bell sounds which provide the requisite air of mystery, whereas
tension creeps in through more frantically-worked pieces; those
pieces tend to take the dense, cloying style of Nine Inch Nails
- rising drums, layers of groaning feedback, whining guitar textures,
loops of noisy electronics, the general air of a nihilistic machine
operating wildly out of control (check out the bludgeoning bass
of 'We Could Wait Forever' - and creates a filmic body music suitable
for any chase scene you care to think of. I'm loathe to describe
this as 'industrial' or 'dark ambient', but the truth is that this
is at times both, and in general somewhere in between.
Again, as with all the best soundtracks, this stands
up well on its own, divorced of the scenes and context that these
cues are meant to augment (and goodness knows, some of those scenes
must be pretty violent judging by the music here). Quite how Fincher
took this expansive collection of dark pieces and whittled them
down into the film's on-screen soundtrack is unfathomable.
Three hours of this is a lot to take. This is an
incredible intense, even sometimes harrowing, listening experience
even without visuals and can leave you feeling drained. The endurance
test is potentially broken up by two vocal tracks - an incendiary
version of Led Zepelin's 'Immigrant Song' by Reznor and Ross with
Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman Karen O on vocals and 'Is Your Love Strong
Enough?' by How To Destroy Angels. somewhat unfortunately, these
bookend the album, giving no break or respite between those two
end points.
As if a triple CD soundtrack wasn't enough content,
Reznor's own Null Corporation (who handled this release in the States)
also released a six-LP boxset, in the tradition of the over-the-top
sets created for the likes of Nine Inch Nails' Ghosts album;
quite who would ever conceive of shelling out around £150
on such an artefact is quite beyond my comprehension, and why anyone
would want a razor blade signed by Reznor and Ross is similarly
something that doesn't make sense at all to me. Perhaps Nine Inch
Nails fans are just as slavish to the need for elaborate formats
as Depeche Mode fans have proven to be.
The video for 'Immigrant Song' can be viewed below.
6xlp/cd:
1.1 Immigrant Song
1.2 She Reminds Me Of You
1.3 People Lie All The Time
1.4 Pinned And Mounted
1.5 Perihelion
1.6 What If We Could?
1.7 With The Flies
1.8 Hidden In Snow
1.9 A Thousand Details
1.10 One Particular Moment
1.11 I Can't Take It Anymore
1.12 How Brittle The Bones
1.13 Please Take Your Hand Away
2.1 Cut Into Pieces
2.2 The Splinter
2.3 An Itch
2.4 Hypomania
2.5 Under The Midnight Sun
2.6 Aphelion
2.7 You're Here
2.8 The Same As The Others
2.9 A Pause For Reflection
2.10 While Waiting
2.11 The Seconds Drag
2.12 Later Into The Night
2.13 Parallel Timeline With Alternate Outcome
3.1 Another Way Of Caring
3.2 A Viable Construct
3.3 Revealed In The Thaw
3.4 Millennia
3.5 We Could Wait Forever
3.6 Oraculum
3.7 Great Bird Of Prey
3.8 The Heretics
3.9 A Pair Of Doves
3.10 Infiltrator
3.11 The Sound Of Forgetting
3.12 Of Secrets
3.13 Is Your Love Strong Enough - How To Destroy Angels
