t r a i l e r s, p t. 7 [The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: G r e e n B a n d V.S. R e d B a n d ]

In the United States, Entertainment has been subject to careful censorship since the late 1920s. During the time of prohibition, rich conservative Christian groups banned alcohol because they thought it was the reason for society's depravity and crimes. People started looking at films and found that there were material cause enough to form a censorship group. The Motion Picture Commission, which oversaw all films before they were exhibited in theaters and cut out any material that didn't fit into Christian morality such as nudity, violent deaths, etc.

Today we have the Motion Picture Association of America. You might be familiar with their name from those green place cards in front of every trailer that is shown. They're simple notification for the audience to let them know that what they're about to see is deemed 'appropriate' by the MPAA for anyone who watches them. Those trailers are called green band trailers.



Sometimes, for marketing purposes studios like to release red band trailers. They include scenes of violence, nudity, sex acts, strong language, etc. If a film is guaranteed to be rated R by the MPAA and it is somewhat heavily speculated that it would be profitable at the box office, studios would cut two versions of a trailer and release it to promote the film. The Green band version is marketed to everyone and the Red band is placed to attract its core audience.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
Starring Rooney Mara, Daniel Craig, Stellan Skarsgård Christopher Plummer and Robin Wright.

Based on the Millenium trilogy novels by the late author Stieg Larsson, the books have already been adapted into films in its homeland of Sweden with actress Noomi Rapace (who is currently in production with Ridley Scott's new film).

The American adaptation lead by David Fincher (Seven, The Social Network) with most of the same team from his facebook film, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross on music, Jeff Cronenweth on cinematography and Angus Wall as editor. Columbia Pictures which released Fincher's last film, bought the rights to adapt all three novels and to distribute the films as well. Capitalizing on the popularity of the books and Fincher's notoriety for dark edgy thrillers, Columbia decided to release two versions of the teaser for the film.

The Red band trailer:

The red band trailer is shown before The Hangover 2 and internationally. Cut in the style of a music video with no dialogue from the film, shots lasting no more than 2 seconds each and to a cover of the Led Zeppelin song 'Immigrant Song' by Trent Reznor and Karen O (of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs!). It is easy to tell that David Fincher has a hand in the marketing of his films. Similar to the teaser of The Social Network, where it is played with a cover of Radiohead's 'Creep'. Fincher who came from the world of music videos and commercials, understands how to effectively place pop culture music into narrative images.

The red band trailer was bootlegged and released on Youtube.com by an unknown user over the Memorial Day weekend. It has since been removed due to copyright issues with Sony Pictures.

image taken from The New York Times.

The Green band trailer:
The green band trailer which debuted at Slashfilm.com today, is more toned down and appears to feel slightly longer. It is not as chaotic and loses some of the intensity of the red band version.



The Social Network trailer



Sources:
"Censorship in Hollywood", Montgomery College
"Arts Beat: Sony says, 'Dragon Tattoo' trailer..." The New York Times
Image of Rooney Mara as Lisbeth taken from Wmagazine.com