The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The 2011 adaptation, by David Fincher, a director known for making fast pace thrillers prefers to convey the important parts of the movie through silence.
For describing the locale and scenes
In the book every scene and locale is explained thoroughly through the means of words. But in the movie the Director chooses silence over words and gives the viewer opportunity to frame things in his mind on his own way.
Right at the beginning of the movie silence is used to show the locale of where the events of the story take place. The scene of winter season, snow all around, the sound of the freezing wind blowing was enough to tell about the locale.
The decorated houses, the happiness prevailed spoke for the Christmas season and the on goings of the millennium.
When Blomkvist visits Henrik’s house for the first time there is a considerable pause in the scene just to give the audience a view of the place where Blomkvist was about to go. The silence explained his feelings, his perplexion at that moment.
In a similar fashion the happenings of the bar where Lisbeth goes at the beginning were explained just like that.
Henrik’s flashbacks were a great source of information. They spoke a lot about the island, its inhabitants and the happenings of the past. Through those flashbacks the entire Vanger family was introduced.
Blomkvist’s early morning strolls, Lisbeth’s wanderings also proved helpful in adding a different prospect to a scene’s use.
To give an insight into the Characters It’s always said “actions speak louder than words”. And so was that that the director used the character’s actions to define itself rather someone telling about it.
To start with, in the beginning when Lisbeth’s entry takes place, there were very few words spoken (none by Lisbeth).Her employer says “she is different” and at the same time she is shown with that “different” look. Her way of walking, dressing, handling things were all shown precisely without the use of any words. The view of her apartment, the place where she works, her visit to Wennerström’s place and the bar tells a lot about her living style and the working style. The scenes of the bar, hospital showed two different traits of her character.
In a similar fashion Martin’s, Dirch Frode’s, Anita Vanger’s characters were also explained without words.
Blomkvist being the “Detective” and the protagonist in the movie probably was totally defined through this element. In the beginning itself he speaks nothing regardless of the turbulence around him. Most of his expressions are portrayed through his actions. He hardly speaks much in the movie (only when required).
The entire life and the character of Henrik Vanger were portrayed through his flashbacks.
Henrik’s flashbacks actually used silence in a very clever way. All of his flashbacks were silent. Everything was explained just on the basis of their actions. Many characters (and their details) in the movie were introduced (and shown) through those flashbacks. The entire Vanger family was introduced through it.
Similarly the flashbacks of Harriet and the inspector told the audience a lot of thing without actually telling anything.
Characters Benefited
The character that was benefited the most by the use of silence has to be Blomkvist (Daniel Craig in 2011 adaptation).
Daniel Craig is of those kinds who don’t speak much. He is more of an actor who speaks through his actions. He is an audience proxy guy who just keeps doing what he is supposed to without using dialogues to explain his actions. He is intensely serious, moody and deep with an imminent explosion in his demeanour. So silence suits him the best.
The character of Lisbeth Salander in the movie is a silent one. She doesn’t speak much but her actions do. So her work in the field of expressing herself through dialogues has been cut down a lot because of silence. She just did what she is good at and that was being herself. In the 2009 adaptation silent flashbacks were used to show her past character.
Henrik was benefited a lot as his flashbacks did all the work of explaining his life and character.
Many other characters like Martin, Anita, and Erika were also benefited in a similar way.
It also benefited all those characters that played the part of Vanger family in Henrik’s flashbacks. It cut down the trouble of writing and speaking dialogues.
On the whole everyone (Director, crew) is benefited a bit from the fact that this is a thriller.

Quote:
“Silence with pictures reaches us through different channels in the brain than sound with pictures. It’s not a gimmick, just neurological reality, much like a black screen with sounds forces its way into our heads in a different way than if both are represented simultaneously.”