1
The Festival
Wistful & Wandering Hearts in the Films of SOFIA COPPOLA
Lingering Reflections Festival Catalog Š 2013 by Lingering Reflections Film Festival lingeringreflections.com Catalog Designer: Yu-Hsuan Jamie Chen Director of publications: Hunter Wimmer, Christopher Morlan All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner without permission. All images are Š the artists, reproduced with the kind permission of the artists and/or their representatives.
Lingering Reflections 6
Contents
The Festival
2
Schedule
6
Photography Event
6
About the Venue
9
Attractions & Hotels
10
The Director
12
Sofia Coppola
15
Filmography
20
Awards & Nominations
23
Films
24
The Virgin Suicides, 1999
27
Lost in Translation, 2003
32
Marie Antoinette, 2006
41
Somewhere, 2010
46
Words from Critics
53
Lingering Reflections 2
3
The Festival
The Festival
Lingering Reflections 4
5
The Festival
“For everyone, there are those moments when you have great days with someone you wouldn't expect to. Then you have to go back to your real lives, but it makes an impression on you.” —Sofia Coppola
Lingering Reflections—the first film festival that presents the films of Sofia Coppola. We are here in the city of New York, a place that has everything. However, surrounded by skyscrapers and neon lights, have you ever felt isolated and lonely? What are we really searching for in life? Are there people who you can really connect to and share everything with? In Sofia Coppola’s films, the search of bonding emotional connections is important for human. They can be a motivation that change or guide you even though they don’t last forever.
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Lingering Reflections
Schedule May 19 2:00pm
Opening Party
Photography Exhibit
Photography Exhibition (Ongoing) 3:00pm
Director’s Talk
4:00pm
Viewing: The Virgin Suicides
6:30pm
Viewing: Lost in Translation
8:30pm
Director’s Talk
May 20
In the languorously hip movies of Sofia Coppola, style often trumps substance and the visual takes precedence over the verbal. Scenes typically have an ethereal, not-quite-there feeling, as if recalled from memory. It should therefore come as little surprise that Coppola has a personal passion
2:00pm
Door Open for Photography Exibition
for art photography. Photography has long played a role in
4:00pm
Viewing: Marie Antoinette
Coppola’s career. She studied photography as a student
7:00pm
Viewing: Somewhere
and has taken a keen interest in fashion photography, hav-
9:00pm
Director’s Talk
ing once worked as a model.
10:00pm
Photography Exhibition Ends
In this festival, the photography exhibition of Sofia Coppola will be an ongoing event that opens to the public. Coppola's exhibition is to include still-lifes as well as images of children, animals and women.
7
The Festival
Lingering Reflections 8
9
The Festival
About the Venue The venue of the festival is Angelika Film Center in New York City. The original Angelika Film Center & Café opened in Soho district in 1989. The New York Angelika, which is located at the corner of Houston Street and Mercer Street, is the flagship cinema. The Angelika New York has been a hub for high-budget independent cinema since it opened. It does not screen underground or “no budget” films. It has six screens, all of which are below ground level, and its ground floor lobby houses a fully operational cafe accessible by people who do not hold tickets. From 1997 to 2005, the Angelika Film Center was used as the set for At The Angelika, a weekly TV series distributed by IFC Films. The show to the IFC Center on Sixth Avenue and changed its name to At the IFC Center when that venue opened in June 2005. The Angelika launched a blog where they post their own video and written interviews with directors and actors that are involved with the films they show.
Lingering Reflections 10
Attractions & Hotels SoHo Neighborhood
The New Museum of Contemporary Art
West Broadway to Crosby St
235 Bowery
Houston to Canal St
The New Museum building is intended as a home for con-
SoHo in New York City is the most unique shopping area of
temporary art and an incubator for new ideas.
the world. With everything from art stands on the street to high-end boutiques.
Children’s Museum of the Arts 103 Charlton St
The Little Singer Building
It is New York City’s only hands-on art museum for children.
561 Broadway
The goal is to create opportunities for children, aged 1 to
Ernest Flagg, a New York architect designed the “Little
12 years old, to reach their full potential in the visual and
Singer Building.” Its construction began in 1903, five years
performing arts.
before he would create the Singer Tower that for a short time was the world’s tallest building.
The Oddest Subway Map 110 Greene St
.The New York City Fire Museum
New York’s oddest subway map isn’t in a station: it is on
278 Spring St
Greene Street, in front of the SoHo Building. In 1986, Fran-
The museum houses one of the nation’s most important
coise Schein created “Subway Map Floating on a New York
collections of fire related art and artifacts from the late 18th
Sidewalk,” an 87ft concrete map embedded in the sidewalk.
century to the present.
11
The Festival
The Mercer Hotel
The Bowery Hotel
99 Prince St
335 Bowery
The Mercer is Soho’s foremost luxury hotel. It’s a landmark
As the Lower East Side emerges as New York City’s most
Romanesque revival building in the heat of SoHo. The first
vibrant new boutique neighborhood, the Bowery Hotel sits
hotel to offer an authentic taste of loft living, The Mercer is
in the epicenter of the transformation in NoHo.
both home and hotel. Washington Square Park Crosby Street Hotel
1 Washington Sq E
79 Crosby St
It has served various roles for its community throughout the
There are seven hotels in London and one in New York. The
years. Well-known for its arch, honoring George Washing-
high standards of excellence and unique style of decoration
ton, the man for whom the park is named, and its fountain,
have over the years added up to a winning combination.
the arch’s elder by 43 years and a popular meeting spot.
Trump SoHo New York
Washington Square Hotel
246 Spring St
103 Waverly Pl
The 46-stories building was Inspired by the cobblestone
The Washington Square Hotel has provided a haven for
streets and the history of the neighborhood, the intimate
writers, artists and visitors for more than a century. Today,
yet dramatic two-story lobby combines natural design ele-
travelers enjoy stylish accommodations, warm service, fine
ments that offer contrast reflecting SoHo’s environs.
dining and easy access to the best of lower Manhattan.
Lingering Reflections 12
13 The Festival
The Director
Lingering Reflections 14
15 The Director
Sofia Coppola Sofia Coppola was born into Hollywood royalty, the daughter of one of the most applauded film directors of the 20th century, Francis Ford Coppola. From the beginning, it seemed she was destined, like her father, for a career in the movies. A few weeks after her birth, Coppola took on her first act-
Now is Francis Ford Coppola’s powerful look at the Vietnam
ing role: as an infant boy in her father's epic film, The God-
War (1954–75). Seven-year-old Sofia entertained herself for
father (1972). Throughout her life, she continued to live
hours by drawing elaborate pictures of palm trees and heli-
and work under her father's wing, but his wing often cast
copters and weaving the pictures together to form a story.
a long shadow. In 2004, Coppola finally stepped out of that shadow to claim her own celebrity. She became the first American woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director, for her movie Lost in Translation (2003).
When not on location the family settled in a small town in Napa Valley, California, away from the glare of Hollywood. Even at home, however, family life was far from ordinary. The Coppolas had summer creativity camps, where the
An Artistic Household
children were encouraged to write stories and plays, to
Sofia Coppola was born May 12, 1971, in New York City, dur-
design and experiment. Sofia’s parents inspired her, but
ing the production of The Godfather. She was the young-
Eleanor Coppola has also noted that her daughter was a
est child, and the only daughter, of director, producer,
very imaginative child from the beginning. According to
screenwriter Francis Ford Coppola and Eleanor Coppola, a
a now-famous story, Francis Ford Coppola claims that he
designer, artist, and documentary filmmaker. Sofia, and her
knew his daughter was destined to be a director when she
older brothers, Roman and Gian Carlo, grew up on the sets
was about three years old. As Coppola has told it, he and
of their father’s movies, with their mother close at hand,
wife were driving in their car, bickering back and forth and
often documenting the movie-making process.
not paying attention to Sofia, who was sitting in the back-
The youngest Coppola loved traveling to such exotic film
seat. Tired of her parents arguing, Sofia called out, “Cut!”
locations as Manila, located in the Philippines, where the
“I felt a little bit this time, a little bit, like people were able to
filming of Apocalypse Now (1979) took place. Apocalypse
see my movie without seeing my family.” Coppola not only
Lingering Reflections 16
visited her father’s movie locations, she also had small roles
the Best Actor Oscar for his performance in Leaving Las
in his films, including Rumblefish and The Outsiders, both
Vegas (1995). Sofia’s brother, Roman Coppola (1965–), is
released in 1983 and both based on the popular novels of
also in film and was a familiar face on the set of The Virgin
author S. E. Hinton (1948–), who writes books for children
Suicides and Lost in Translation. He served as his sister’s
and young adults. Coppola also appeared in The Cotton
assistant director on both movies.
Club (1984) and Peggy Sue Got Married (1986). Her biggest role, however, came in 1990 when her father tapped her to play Mary Corleone in The Godfather, Part III.
Sofia Coppola even married a filmmaker, director Spike Jonze (1969–), whom she met while a student at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). Some claimed that the
The Family Business
character of the flashy photographer husband in Lost in
Under the circumstances it is not surprising that Sofia Cop-
Translation was based on Jonze and that Coppola wrote
pola went into the family business; her family tree reads like
the story because she was having trouble in her marriage.
a who’s who of Hollywood. Grandfather Carmine Coppola
She denied the rumors, although she admits that most of
(1910–1991) was a flutist, conductor, and composer who
what she writes comes from her personal experiences. In
worked with a number of symphonies across the United
2003 Coppola and Jonze separated after 4 years of mar-
States. He found fame in his later years when he migrated
riage. When the movie was released, critics had a field
to Hollywood and wrote music for the movies, especially
day. Reviewers openly criticized Francis Ford Coppola for
those directed or produced by his son, Francis Ford Cop-
showing favoritism and casting his own daughter in such
pola. In 1974, he won an Oscar for writing the score for
an important role. His daughter, however, was never his first
Francis Ford’s The Godfather, Part II.
choice. Actress Winona Ryder (1971–) was originally cast,
Sofia’s aunt is actress Talia Shire (1946–), the sister of Francis
but backed out at the last minute because of illness.
Ford. Shire is probably best known for her role as Adrian in
As a favor to her father, Sofia agreed to take the part. This
Rocky (1976), for which she received an Academy Award
was a big step for her because, although she had been in
nomination for Best Actress. Shire’s son is actor Jason
several movies, she was extremely camera shy. “I never
Schwartzman (1980–), who starred in Rushmore (1998).
wanted to be an actor,” Coppola told Karen Valby in Enter-
Sofia’s more famous cousin is actor Nicolas Cage (1964–),
tainment Weekly . “It’s not my personality.” Coppola was
son of August Coppola, Francis Ford’s brother. Cage won
not rewarded for her bravery. Instead, critics raked her over
the coals, poking fun at her accent and claiming that she gave a horribly wooden performance. Coppola was so upset by the harsh criticism that she gave up acting, appearing in only a few more films, including Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace (1999). The camera-shy young woman, however, had other interests. What’s A Girl to Do? While still in high school Coppola was already dabbling in fashion and design. She modeled for American designer Marc Jacobs (1964–) and interned at Chanel, a famous fashion house in Paris, France. As an intern, she mostly answered phones, made photocopies, and ran errands, but the experience, says Coppola, was remarkable. After graduating from Napa Valley’s St. Helena High School, Coppola briefly attended college in Oakland, California. She then enrolled at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in Valencia, California, where she studied painting for several years before drop-
17 The Director
“I never studied directing and I never really thought about doing it, and then I just found myself in that situation and tried it. I like to be observing everything else, and I get self-conscious in front of the camera.”
Lingering Reflections 18
“That’s the way I work: I try to imagine what I would like to see.”
ping out. By now, Coppola was in her early twenties. She
recalled telling his daughter “that she didn’t have to, that
toyed with the idea of going to film school in New York, but
she should pursue everything and anything that interested
school did not seem to be the place for her. Instead, she
her, that eventually they’d come together in something on
began to explore different career options. For a while she
their own.”
worked as a photographer, taking pictures for such fashion magazines as Paris Vogue and Allure. Eventually Coppola turned to fashion design when she and a longtime friend started a sportswear clothing label called Milk Fed. Coppola focused on design while her friend took charge of production. Over the years the venture grew, and eventually became quite successful.
Everything Comes Together Coppola tried her hand at painting, photography, fashion design, acting, and even hosting a show on television. In 1995, she appeared on Hi-Octane, a weekly show on Comedy Central that was geared toward teens and focused on movies, fashion, and celebrities. In 1998, everything finally seemed to come together. That was the year that Coppola
Coppola worried that she was going in too many direc-
wrote, directed, and produced her first film, a short comedy
tions, and that maybe she should focus her energies. Cop-
called Lick the Star. It was not the first time that she had tried
pola went to her father for advice, asking him if she should
her hand behind the camera. In 1989 she helped her father
settle with one thing and specialize. The senior Coppola
write the script for a short film titled Life without Zoe, which
19 The Festival
was part of the anthology movie New York Stories. She also
her to make The Virgin Suicides a success, especially her
designed the costumes for the movie. Lick the Star, how-
photographer’s eye and her flair for design.
ever, was Coppola’s first attempt at taking creative control of a film project, and, after making the movie, she declared that she had figured out what she wanted to do. Coppola lost no time in pursuing her dream.
A Story All Her Own The success of The Virgin Suicides led Coppola to try her hand at writing an original screenplay. She had been thinking about a story that would take place in Tokyo, Japan,
In 1999, only one year later, she released her first feature-
where she had spent a lot of time working on her clothing
length film, The Virgin Suicides. Coppola wrote the screen-
line and shooting ads for fashion magazines. As she did in
play, which was adapted from the 1993 book by American
The Virgin Suicides, Coppola drew on her background in
author Jeffrey Eugenides (1960–). The movie was produced
design and photography to create her own personal style
by Zoetrope, her father’s film company. This time, although
of filmmaking in Lost in Translation. According to David
some critics focused on the fact that a Hollywood kid was
Ansen, in Newsweek, “Coppola is a warm, meticulous
being given a boost by her famous father, most were not as
observer, with an intimate style that’s the polar opposite of
harsh as they had been in 1990 when Coppola appeared
her famous father, Francis Ford. He’s grand opera. This is
in The Godfather, Part III. Many of Coppola’s skills helped
chamber music.”
Lingering Reflections 20
Filmography Director
Writer
2010
Somewhere
2010
Somewhere
2006
Marie Antoinette
2006
Marie Antoinette
2005
VOID (Video Overview in Deceleration)
2003
Lost in Translation
2003
Lost in Translation
2003
Platinum (TV series)
1999
The Virgin Suicides
1999
The Virgin Suicides
1998
Lick the Star (short)
1998
Lick the Star (short)
1996
Bed, Bath and Beyond (short)
1989
New York Stories
Producer
Actress
2010
Somewhere
2001
CQ
2006
Marie Antoinette
1999
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
2003
Lost in Translation
1994
Ciao L.A. (video short)
2003
Platinum (TV series)
1990
The Godfather: Part III
2002
High Octane (TV series)
1990
The Spirit of ‘76
2000
Beastie Boys: Video Anthology
1987
Anna
1998
Lick the Star (short)
1986
Peggy Sue Got Married
1994
Hi Octane (TV series)
1986
Faerie Tale Theatre (TV series)
1994
Ciao L.A. (video short)
1984
Frankenweenie (short)
1984
The Cotton Club
1983
Rumble Fish
1983
The Outsiders
1974
The Godfather: Part II
1972
The Godfather
21 The Director
Lingering Reflections 22
23 The Director
Awards & Nominations Academy Awards
German Film Awards
2004 Nominated Best Director
2004 Won Best Foreign Film
Nominated Best Picture Won Best Writing, Original Screenplay
Golden Globes 2004 Nominated Best Director
American Screenwriters Association
Won Best Screenplay
2004 Nominated Discover Screenwriting Award Gotham Awards BAFTA Awards
2006 Nominated Best Film)
2004 Nominated Best Film Nominated Best Screenplay
Independent Spirit Awards
Nominated David Lean Award for Direction
2004 Won Best Director Won Best Feature
Bodil Awards
Won Best Screenplay
2011 Nominated Best American Film 2005 Won Best American Film
New York Film Critics Circle Awards 2003 Won Best Director
Boston Society of Film Critics Awards 2003 Won Best Director
Satellite Awards 2004 Nominated Best Director
Cannes Film Festival
Won Best Screenplay, Original
2006 Won Cinema Prize Nominated Golden Palm
Seattle Film Critics Awards 2003 Won Best Director
Central Ohio Film Critics Association
Won Best Screenplay, Original
2004 Won Best Screenplay, Original Toronto Film Critics Association Awards Chicago Film Critics Association Awards
2003 Won Best Screenplay
2004 Nominated Best Director Won Best Screenplay
Venice Film Festival 2010 Won Emerging Cinema
Florida Film Critics Circle Awards 2004 Won Best Screenplay
Won Emerging Cinema 2003 Won Lina Mangiacapre Award
Lingering Reflections 24
25 The Festival
Films The Virgin Suicides Lost in Translation Marie Antoinette Somewhere
Lingering Reflections 26
27 Films
The Virgin Suicides, 1999 Based on Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel, The Virgin Suicides relates the story of five girls–Cecilia, Lux, Mary, Bonnie, and Therese Lisbon–growing up in Michigan in the mid-1970’s who commit suicide for no apparent reason.
Producers
Writers
Francis Ford Coppola
The film is related in retrospect by an anonymous male nar-
Julie Costanzo
rator who stands in for the brotherhood of boys who were
Dan Halsted
and continue to be fascinated by the aura and mystery sur-
Chris Hanley
rounding these girls. Yet, the overt narrative only serves as
Sofia Coppola
a pathway to the exploration of the film’s real message: the
Jeffrey Eugenides (Novel)
violence of the adolescent rite of passage and finally, the
Narrator
Giovanni Ribisi
Stars
James Woods Kathleen Turner Kirsten Dunst Josh Hartnett A. J. Cook
Music Cinematography Editor
refusal to progress into the adult world. In the film, the rituals associated with established institutions such as the church and the medical profession are seen to fail due to the hollow and ineffective nature of their actions whilst the various archetypal American ‘high school’ and adolescent rituals that are enacted throughout the film– e.g., the homecoming dance, a first party, the first kiss, and
Air
losing one’s virginity–are marked out as the site of disaster.
Edward Lachman
The boys venerate the girls because they are seen as hav-
Melissa Kent
ing already made the passage into adulthood and are thus
James Lyons
believed to be wise beyond their years. This is made clear when the narrator states that the Lisbon girls “understood
Studio
American Zoetrope
Distributed
Paramount Classics
worshipping these girls, the boys are arguably looking for an
May 19, 1999
initiation into adulthood, an initiation that is frustrated by the
Release date
life and even death but we couldn’t fathom them at all.” In
Lingering Reflections 28
girls’ collective suicides. Ultimately, like the girls, the boys
world. This failure to progress is demonstrated by the fact
enact their own refusal of patriarchal society by remaining
that, although the film is narrated from the present day, the
entombed in the past and refusing existence in the present.
action is firmly rooted in the past. Only one scene exists as
Arguably, with its attractive, ‘white picket fence’ suburban setting, The Virgin Suicides fits well within a group of Ameri-
an actual, present moment. The rest is submerged in a virtual world of provisional, falsifying description.
can films that have exposed the latent rottenness within
The links between Coppola’s cinema and that of a European,
lifestyles that seemingly fit the archetype of the American
Deleuzean æsthetic are more fully realized here than in her
Dream. In this film, the undefined disease that is wiping out
short film. There is a striking correspondence between the
all the perfectly-aligned elm trees along the Lisbons’ street
male characters in The Virgin Suicides and Gilles Deleuze’s
is a symptom of this rottenness, whilst the inefficacy of cer-
definition of the ‘seer’ in modern cinema. According to
tain well-worked institutional rituals is a further marker of this.
Deleuze, the classical cinema’s character of action has been
The impotence of this initial level of ritual forces the boys
replaced by the protagonist who only sees and hears where
to resort to their own invented forms of ceremony in order
he cannot act. He writes: “the character has become a kind
to try to understand the girls and their plight and, finally,
of viewer…the situation he is in outstrips his motor capaci-
to remember them. Their obsessive act of returning to the
ties he records rather than reacts. He is prey to a vision,
past and trying to find meaning within memory also signals
pursued by it or pursuing it, rather than engaged in action.”
a deeper need to understand their own childhood and to
(6) Here, the male protagonists are in awe of the Lisbon girls
recapture the ineffable emotions of first love. Ultimately,
and their generic blonde femininity to the extent that they
though, the failure to find any token that would make sense
are incapacitated by it. At the outset of the film, the boys are
of the mystery which the girls embody results in a profound
seen sitting on the pavement opposite the Lisbons’ home
inability to fully integrate with the present, modern day
watching the girls get out of the family car; in this sequence,
29 Films
they are akin to the cinematic viewer who is placed in front of a phantasmagorical projection and whose movement is limited. The analogy with a shifting, virtual world is made stronger when the girls’ figures are freeze-framed with their names superimposed onto the frame in an adolescent scrawl. Whilst this short sequence promotes the idea that the girls are merely fantastic images of the boys’ imaginations (images that they create and control and are thus, inherently erroneous, it also is representative of Laura Mulvey’s famous characterisation of the passive female on film who stultifies narrative continuity. As representatives of the Playboy fantasy-girl of the 1970s era, the girls are objects of beauty that prompt contemplation and inhibit movement both within the narrative context and the central male protagonists. As a result of this lack of movement, the appearance of purely optical and sound situations that have little narrative justification proliferate. Where comprehension and action are prevented, a plethora of virtual, oneiric images tends to fill the screen, replacing a conventional narrative.
Lingering Reflections 30
“We knew the girls were really women in disguise, that they understood love, and even death, and that our job was merely to create the noise that seemed to fascinate them.” —Narrator
31 The Festival
Lingering Reflections 32
Lost in Translation, 2003 Coppola’s third feature, made on a relatively small budget of $4 million, is the tale of two American tourists in Japan who are both experiencing a kind of life-crisis. Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) has recently graduated from Yale with a degree in philosophy. Producers
Francis Ford Coppola
She has accompanied her fashion photographer husband
Sofia Coppola
on a business trip to Tokyo; she does not know what her
Ross Katz
role in life is and seems to be very unhappy in her two-year-
Writer
Sofia Coppola
old marriage. Bob (Bill Murray) is an ageing film actor who
Narrator
Giovanni Ribisi
Stars
Music
Cinematography
is past his prime; he is in Tokyo to star in a lucrative television advertisement endorsing Suntory Whisky. Like Char-
Bill Murray
lotte, Bob seems to be having marital problems, conveyed
Scarlett Johansson
through the subtle acrimony of his long distance phone calls
Air
to his wife. In addition to his marital crisis, he is dealing with
Brian Reitzell
a crisis of identity. He is no longer the successful film star
Kevin Shields
he was in his youth and he is continually confronted with a
Roger Joseph Manning Jr.
plethora of images of himself, none of which he seems to
Lance Acord
fit with entirely. Both of these characters are undergoing a phase of transition in their lives that could be likened to a
Editor
Sarah Flack
rite of passage. Charlotte is learning how to deal with adult
Studio
American Zoetrope
life and find a niche for herself outside the submissive role
Tohokushinsha Film
she has unwittingly ended up with in her marriage whilst
Distributed Release date
Focus Features October 3, 2003
Bob is experiencing a sea change in both his career and his home life. Clearly he is no longer the actor who was famed for ‘doing his own stunts’ in ‘action movies’ and he is also no longer the man whom his wife, having become a full-time
33 The Festival
Lingering Reflections 34
35 Films
mother, needs (a fact which Bob admits to Charlotte rather ruefully). Whilst ritual is a traditional device for aiding the passage from one state to another, its use in Lost in Translation only serves to alienate further the protagonists from their environment. Yet this sense of disconnection is merely an extension of the detachment that the characters already feel in their quotidian lives. Their status as foreigners in this strange, dreamlike landscape heightens pre-existing emotions and forces confrontation with their particular crises. The fact that the Japanese ritual ceremonies concretise the status of the outsider is shown most explicitly when Bob first arrives at the hotel. Here, he is met by the hotel staff and the Suntory personnel who give him gifts and bow their heads. This welcoming ceremony which is designed partially to integrate an outsider into the environment, clearly makes Bob very uncomfortable as he adopts a facetious tone and tries to show that he has some insight into their culture by resorting to hackneyed assumptions about the Japanese with statements such as: “short and sweet, very Japanese, I like that.” Coppola also employs a number of visual jokes to exacerbate Bob’s status as a foreigner: his tall stature when compared to a Japanese people or his inability to fit into the hotel shower cubicle, for example. Charlotte’s isolation is portrayed less directly. She frequently sits on her own in her hotel room where she stares out of her window at the cityscape below her;
Lingering Reflections 36
even when she is surrounded by other people she does
Coppola ensures that these characters are entirely removed
not seem to engage with them. Arguably, as a philosophy
from their daily routine through changes in space and time.
graduate, she has been taught to think through abstraction
In this setting, Bob and Charlotte literally cannot find their
from the real world by dealing in metaphysical concepts
way around their environment and standard scientific,
rather than direct and physical engagement. By presenting
chronological time must be subsumed in favour of the tem-
her as someone who literally sits above things, Coppola
poral mode of the sleepwalker. Coppola’s film is a foreign
translates her cool aloofness into visual terms. Charlotte is
portrait of Japan because of this. She adopts an overtly styl-
a character who often judges things from a distance and
ized approach to her landscape through the use of height-
her tone is mordant when she is forced to speak. Yet, for all
ened pastel colors and languorous panning shots. Echoing
of her distance, she is clearly craving some real role in the
Pier Paolo Pasolini’s concept of ‘free indirect subjectivity’,
world as a mark of her identity. It is her chance encounter
the protagonists’ dreamlike viewpoints are also those of the
with Bob and her status as a foreigner that affords her this
filmmaker who is equally lost in this environment.
path into the world.
One of the main sequences that effectively translates this
By placing her protagonists in a foreign land, where they
more immediate way of being in the world is the scene in
cannot speak the language and experience severe jet lag,
which Charlotte and Bob are driven back to their hotel after
37 Films
a night out in Tokyo. In this scene, different speeds of cam-
is open to continual change. Both characters had arrived
era movement, blurred pastel lights, and the distortion of
in Japan jaded and disenchanted with their lives, but leave
the My Bloody Valentine song “Sometimes” which plays in
more aware of the possibility of change and the effect that
the background of the scene, converge to seductive effect
a chance encounter can have on the course of one’s life.
for both protagonist and viewer. Here, the viewer sees Charlotte smile for one of the first times in the film.
There is nothing pre-destined about Bob and Charlotte’s meeting; it was the result of being removed from routine
In being removed from their daily routines and concerns,
and standard ways of thinking and existing that allowed
Bob and Charlotte are thrown into a world of fluctua-
for the creation of their relationship. In the last sequence
tion where things are not viewed in terms of usefulness
of the film, Charlotte is seen immersed in the busy Tokyo
for the realization of achievement. Rather, they become
street life, no longer set apart from life, but experiencing
more aware of life’s vibrancy and continual possibility, or
it imminently and immediately. Arguably, this is the lesson
to what Deleuze would term the plane of becoming that
that both protagonists are taught by their fortuitous meet-
underscores the plane of being. That is to say that every-
ing: that identity is not found when one is conceptual and
thing which makes up one’s relatively stable, quotidian exis-
aloof but when one is open to the world’s changeability and
tence is actually underpinned by potentiality and therefore,
its power to affect and change us.
Lingering Reflections 38
“The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you.” —Bob
39 The Festival
Lingering Reflections 40
41 Films
Marie Antoinette, 2006 Coppola’s first foray into the genre of costume drama, which premiered at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, was feverishly anticipated. Set in the 18th century, the film relates the story of the infamous last queen of France, Marie Antoinette (Kirsten Dunst). Producers
Francis Ford Coppola
However, by focusing solely on Marie Antoinette’s arrival at
Sofia Coppola
Versailles through to her departure for Varennes and choos-
Ross Katz
ing to refer to the queen’s final beheading metaphorically
Writer
Sofia Coppola
rather than literally, Coppola courted controversy from the
Stars
Kirsten Dunst Jason Schwartzman Judy Davis Rip Torn Rose Byrne
Cinematography
outset. Indeed, rumors that Coppola was planning to take a calculatedly anachronistic and irreverent approach to her regal subject matter abounded on internet sites before the film had even gone into production. Moreover, Coppola’s decision to use Antonia Fraser’s newly revisionist biography of Marie Antoinette as her source material, instead of Ste-
Lance Acord
fan Zweig’s detailed and coolly analytic assessment of the
Editor
Sarah Flack
monarch, ensured that the project was shrouded in scandal
Studio
American Zoetrope
Distributed Release date
from its inception. This was not to be the studied and historically accurate approach commonly expected of reputa-
Columbia Pictures
ble costume dramas. Furthermore, by allowing the (mainly
May 24 , 2006
American cast) to speak in their own accents, sharply editing the film to a Punk and New Romantic soundtrack, taking an interpretive approach to costume and, most audaciously, leaving the lives of the starving Parisian crowds and the court’s final ignominious demise out of the film’s narrative, the film was bound to enrage some critics. Yet
Lingering Reflections 42
Poirier’s virulent dislike of the film was tempered by praise
ridiculous and otiose. One of the film’s most comic mo-
for the director’s deliberately colorful mise en scène and
ments comes when the queen is forced to stand naked in
a narrative that did not purport to be historically accurate;
front of her courtly subjects whilst they decide who should
notably, Jean-Michel Frodon, the editor in chief of Cahiers
dress her depending on the social rank of those present in
du Cinéma, wrote a very positive review of the film, viewing
the room. Marie Antoinette’s own protestation that this cer-
it as part of Coppola’s personal trajectory as a director and
emony is “ridiculous” is met curtly by the Comtesse de No-
a further elaboration of her established style and concerns
ailles (Judy Davis) who says that this is simply the way things
(the female figure as an outsider and the youthful rite of
are done at Versailles. The brusque and repetitive rumble
passage). Indeed, once one looks beyond the ostentatious
of baroque strings that accompanies this sequence as well
pomp of the mise en scène, it is clear that Coppola is not
as the rites surrounding the dining ceremonies undercut all
content merely to champion the mores of the socially privi-
pomp and circumstance.
leged. Although the film certainly tries to extenuate some of the mistakes of the young monarchs by focusing on their youthful naïveté, it is not wholly tendentious. The mixture of intimate close-ups and point-of-view shots that beckon the spectator into this gilded world are strongly contrasted with the use of montage, flamboyant music and tabloid-like slogans demonstrating that Coppola is all too aware of the often flippant and parochial nature of the aspects of this lifestyle which she has singled out.
Through the use of a modern soundtrack, an interpretive approach to costume and a strikingly modern vernacular spoken in a variety of accents, Coppola unites what Deleuze would term “the sheets of the past” and “the peaks of the present.” When time is no longer shown through movement and plot resolution, the true character of time is revealed: as that which disrupts the traditional concepts of truth and exposes the body as, to use Heidegger’s term, a “being-towards-death.” Two criticisms of Marie Antoi-
The presentation of certain ceremonies and their rites forms
nette were commonly voiced. First, that Coppola portrayed
part of the ironic stance Coppola takes towards her subject
disparate events that happened over several decades too
matter. There is an abundance of ritual in this film, but those
fluidly through huge ellipses or extended periods of dead
associated with the morning routine of waking and dressing
time so as to defy the common sense view of time; and,
the queen, as well as those surrounding scenes of worship
second, that the film contains long sequences where little
and commensality, are shown as being the most overtly
happens and what is shown is rather ‘boring’. However, the
43 Films
Lingering Reflections 44
film details a world in which one day is akin to the next and where people’s concerns do not change. Given that ritual is shown to be a pointless device for perpetuating the existence of something that itself serves little purpose, the long periods of waiting and dead time actually reflect the inevitable dissolution into decay and death that is the film’s governing theme. These episodes in the film are made to seem repetitious, languorous and impermeable to the passing of time because they describe a world that passes itself off as traditional, timeless and inflexible but is actually on the cusp of disintegration. Further scenes that intimate demise are those surrounding Marie Antoinette’s 18th birthday party in which she is seen freely playing with her friends in the palace grounds. In this latter scene, natural light is used, whilst the film stock closely resembles that of 16mm, a material often used to evoke a sense of nostalgia and memory that lends bodies contained in the camera’s frame a grainy, luminous and ghostlike quality. In this way, Coppola manages to overlay scenes of jubilance and decadence with a melancholic, quietly foreboding quality.
45 The Festival
“Letting everyone down would be my greatest unhappiness.” —Marie Antoinette
Lingering Reflections 46
Somewhere, 2010 A black Ferrari circulates on an otherwise empty desert speedway, driving in and out of the stationary camera’s range as the noise of its engine oscillates. The opening shot of Somewhere prepares you for what is to follow in a characteristically oblique and subtle manner. Producers
Francis Ford Coppola
The car completes a few more laps than would be neces-
Sofia Coppola
sary if the point of the scene were traditionally expository—
Fred Roos
if all Coppola wanted to convey was the fact that somebody
Roman Coppola
(we don’t yet know who) was driving around in a circle. But
Paul Rassam
what she is really saying is: pay attention; keep looking for
G. Mac Brown
longer than you think you need to; suspend your expecta-
Writer
Sofia Coppola
tions and see what happens.
Stars
Stephen Dorff
What happens is something marvelous: a film that never
Elle Fanning
raises its voice (its loudest and most assertive sound is that
Michelle Monaghan
Ferrari) or panders to your emotions, but that nonetheless
Chris Pontius
has the power to refresh your perceptions and deepen your
Simona Ventura
sympathies. As it proceeds from one careful, watchful, slow
Music Cinematography
Phoenix
shot to the next, a sad and affecting story emerges, about a father’s loneliness and a daughter’s devotion. But the
Harris Savides
experience of watching “Somewhere,” shot in lovely tones
Editor
Sarah Flack
of Southern California haze by the great Harris Savides, is
Studio
American Zoetrope
like reading a poem. The scenes play off one another like
Distributed Release date
Focus Features September 11, 2010
stanzas, producing patterns and echoes that feel like the camera’s accidental discoveries, even as they are the surest evidence of Coppola’s formidable and subtle art. The driver of that car is Johnny Marco, a movie star played, right at
47 The Festival
Lingering Reflections 48
the boundary between restraint and catatonia, by Stephen
description, after all. But Coppola illuminates the bubble of
Dorff. Johnny is living at the Chateau Marmont, a storied
fame and privilege from the inside and maps its emotional
Hollywood hotel that is either a paradise of easy wish-ful-
and existential contours with unnerving precision and dis-
fillment or a purgatory of celebrity anomie. Or maybe both.
arming sensitivity.
He seems to be finishing work on one movie while publicizing another—from time to time, he is whisked from the Chateau to a junket or a special-effects prosthetic-making session—but mostly Johnny hangs out, smokes cigarettes, drinks and has sex with one of the women who seem to be at the hotel for just that purpose.
Johnny is, in part, a prisoner of his own fantasies and aspirations, and he drifts through his days in a state of dazed, weirdly polite bafflement. The only thing keeping him from utter ruin is his professionalism, which expresses itself in an ingrained habit of courtesy. It turns out that he has an 11-year-old daughter, who at first comes for a brief visit and
The tricky feat that Coppola pulls off is to convey the empti-
then, because of an unspecified crisis in her mother’s life,
ness of Johnny’s situation without denying its appeal, and
for a longer stay.
also without giving him more spiritual depth than would be credible. He lives in a world where his desires are so instantly and easily gratified that they hardly even count as desires, since no longing or effort ever enters into the picture.
To some extent, Cleo mothers Johnny, but she also watches him with the nervous, open adoration of a child. Watchfulness is her defining trait, and Fanning can do more with her eyes than performers many times her age. She conveys
“Somewhere” is partly a wry and knowing comedy of show-
jealousy, concern, curiosity and need, and above all the
business life, a life Coppola, who comes from a tribe of
wisdom and half-intact innocence of a person who has wit-
filmmakers, composers and actors, surely knows firsthand.
nessed too much adult misbehavior, partly by dint of having
But to overemphasize the autobiographical dimensions
a father who has never quite grown up. The waters of this
of “Somewhere” would be to stop short of identifying its
film are not only still and deep but also bracingly clear, and
extraordinary insight and originality. There is, after all, no
the most remarkable thing about it may be how much it
shortage of movies about celebrity dissolution, and in the
implies while saying so little.
age of “Entourage” and we probably don’t even need feature films to bring us the old news that movie stars are pampered, narcissistic and promiscuous. That’s part of the job
49 Films
Lingering Reflections 50
51 The Festival
“I’m fucking nothing.” —Johnny
Lingering Reflections 52
53 Films
Words from Critics “As the daughter of venerated filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, Sofia Coppola faced a sizable challenge establishing her own identity as a director when she first started making feature films in 1999. Since then, she has not only emerged from the shadow of her famous father, but become a standard-bearer for quality and integrity in the moviemaking industry.” —Todd Gilchrist
“If you can swing with Coppola, if you watch the film with an understanding that it’s as much about what you don’t see as what you do, if you recognize that these are the moments that usually happen offcamera but which reveal more than what is usually shown—well, you’re in for a rich and haunting treat.” —Marshall Fine
Lingering Reflections 54
“So far, she has succeeded on her own terms and in her quietly confident way, defining some kind of hazy-youth cultural drift, the somnambulance of a generation raised on style, ironic pastiche and disengagement. How long that moment will last is anyone’s guess but, thus far, Sofia Coppola is its most distinctive arbiter.” —Sean O’Hagan
“Sofia Coppola directs the scenes of Lost in Translation with the lightest of hands, and gives us a film so poignant, so funny, so free of self-satisfied bravado, that one can’t help but look forward to her next work. She’s not only a gifted filmmaker but also a wise one.” —Edward Guthmann
55 Films
Lingering Reflections 56
References
www.biography.com/people/sofia-coppola-10434307 www.tribute.ca/people/sofia-coppola/5248/ www.indiewire.com/article/decade_sofia_coppola_on_lost_in_translation www.imdb.com/name/nm0001068/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1#Director sensesofcinema.com/2007/great-directors/sofia-coppola/ www.takegreatpictures.com/photo-tips/tgp-choice/apc-lost-in-translation-by-jonathan-brady www.moseisleycinema.com/analysis-of-visual-motifs-used-in-lost-in-translation/ latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/11/sofia-coppola-robert-mapplethorpe-show-paris.html movies.nytimes.com/2010/12/22/movies/22somewhere.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1& touristoftourism.blogspot.com/2008/12/film-analysis-of-lost-in-translation.html www.notablebiographies.com/news/Ca-Ge/Coppola-Sofia.html www.jadoresofia.com/index.php?page=photographer.php www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/s/sofia_coppola.html www.theyshootpictures.com/coppolasofia.htm focusfeatures.com/article/the_music_of_sofia_coppola?film=somewhere