I'd be the first to admit that I wouldn't watch one of Sofia Coppola's films if I wanted to feel warm and fuzzy inside or to have a giggle, but that doesn't mean that they aren't enjoyable. Her films tend to leave me with a feeling of... emptiness, for lack of a better word.
Coppola's films are far more real than some of her contemporaries. She doesn't pacify the viewer by adding some saccharine Hollywood ending just because it will draw in more money at the box office. I suppose that you could class Lost in Translation as 'her' film (The Virgin Suicides and Marie Antoinette are both adaptations of books). Instead of making it a sentimental romance she creates a raw drama.
Not only are her films emotionally wonderful but they are visually stunning. She has a trademark shot of sunlight through leaves - it may sound really simple but it's brilliant.
The Virgin Suicides
The Virgin Suicides, based on the book of the same name by Jeffrey Eugenides, was the first Sofia Coppola film that I saw. I didn't really know what to expect when I sat down to watch it, but the surprise was certainly a good one. The Virgin Suicides tells the story of five girls, the Lisbon sisters. The youngest, Cecilia, is by far the most intriguing of the bunch - I found it slightly disappointing that she didn't have more screen time. Kirsten Dunst is heavenly as the raunchy yet vulnerable Lux, a firecracker of a girl who listens to Aerosmith and writes her crushes' names on her underpants. The other sisters, Bonnie, Therese and Mary play the more reserved older sisters of these two strong girls.
The Lisbon parents are just as interesting, if not as waif like, as the sisters. Mr. Lisbon is a highly strung maths teacher, his wife a keen Christian who is prepared to do anything to 'protect' her children.
I know that using voice overs is considered to be somewhat 'tacky' in Hollywood, but it really works here. Copolla allows the events to be explained to the viewer by a narrator, one of a group of young boys in the neighbourhood who obsess over the beautiful and damaged siblings. She uses the lyrical prose of Eugenides' novel to show the viewer the quality of his storytelling:
We felt the imprisonment of being a girl, the way it made your mind active and dreamy, and how you ended up knowing which colors went together. We knew that girls were our twins, that we all existed in space like animals with identical skins, and that they knew everything about us though we couldn't fathom them at all. We knew, finally, that 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.
Lost in Translation
I think this film is cinematic Marmite - people either love it or hate it. I think that the 'haters' are the people who went to the cinema to be entertained. They may have wanted a comedy, or they may have wanted a soppy romance. Or they may have just not liked it. But all the same, I think that they are people who watched this film expecting something.
Now I must confess, I didn't pay to see this film. Well, I suppose I did in a way - it was on Film 4 last year and I sat and watched it with my Mum as there was nothing better on TV. It had me hooked immediately though. I think it may have been Scarlett Johansson's character, Charlotte, the bored wife of a busy photographer. She's a natural beauty and the camera loves her. Charlotte is such a lonely girl. Although she is in Japan with her husband, she spends her days alone, splitting her time between her hotel room and the tourist attractions of Tokyo. The lost soul in this big city is Bob Harris, an actor who is separated from his wife and family whilst he promotes various products and goes on crazy Japanese talk shows. Although the two of them appear to be two islands, isolated from the rest of society, they manage to form a strong friendship.
Now this is where the majority of viewers have an issue with this film - one could say that really, nothing happens. There isn't any specific thread to the plot. It's not your average 'boy meets girl' film with the stereotypical 'will they or won't they?' storyline.
Bob: Can you keep a secret? I'm trying to organize a prison break. I'm looking for, like, an accomplice. We have to first get out of this bar, then the hotel, then the city, and then the country. Are you in or you out?
Charlotte: I'm in. I'll go pack my stuff.
Bob: I hope that you've had enough to drink. It's going to take courage.
Copolla's dialogue is enchanting. She manages to create such natural conversation between her characters. I think that the more alien the culture is to the characters in a film, the more difficult it must be to ensure that the speech sounds 'right'. The 'out and about' scenes in Japan are amazing - I love the part in which Bob and Charlotte go to have lunch in a traditional Japanese restaurant and joke about 'What kind of restaurant makes you cook your own food?'.
So yes, I could rant and rave about this film all day, but I won't. All I can say is that people should give it a chance.
Marie Antoinette
Words can't describe how upset I was when this film came out. I was at university in the North West and there were no cinemas in my area that were showing it. So I had to wait until it went to DVD.
The wait was worth it. It wasn't what I expected at all - I thought that it would be quite humorous from the trailers I'd seen, but it was more like a docu-drama. Of course, being a Copolla film it wasn't your average period drama. Not only does she use modern music in her ballroom scenes, but Marie and her closet courtiers can be seen trying on shoes and picking out material for dresses. There is a scene in which the young queen celebrates her 18th birthday - instead of a dreary banquet, the viewer is reminded of your average teenage party. Too much wine, plenty of cake and early morning drunken wandering on the lawns.
As a fan of costume drama I was delighted with this film. There is a scene in which the flamboyant Duchesse de Polignac (played by the gorgeous Rose Byrne) asks the camp and fashionable Léonard 'I love your hair. What's going on there?' to which he replies 'Everything!'. The dresses and such were just beautiful, the attention to detail was amazing. I don't know how they managed to keep all that hair up though, I wonder what they used for hairspray!
I definitely think that this film relies heavily on its visuals. The dialogue, where present, was strong, but there were periods of silence that felt a bit heavy at times. Although some could think that this is bad, it does reflect the oppressive environment that the young Marie would have found herself in. Altogether, a very beautiful film, but not for all.
Coppola's films are far more real than some of her contemporaries. She doesn't pacify the viewer by adding some saccharine Hollywood ending just because it will draw in more money at the box office. I suppose that you could class Lost in Translation as 'her' film (The Virgin Suicides and Marie Antoinette are both adaptations of books). Instead of making it a sentimental romance she creates a raw drama.
Not only are her films emotionally wonderful but they are visually stunning. She has a trademark shot of sunlight through leaves - it may sound really simple but it's brilliant.
The Virgin Suicides
The Virgin Suicides, based on the book of the same name by Jeffrey Eugenides, was the first Sofia Coppola film that I saw. I didn't really know what to expect when I sat down to watch it, but the surprise was certainly a good one. The Virgin Suicides tells the story of five girls, the Lisbon sisters. The youngest, Cecilia, is by far the most intriguing of the bunch - I found it slightly disappointing that she didn't have more screen time. Kirsten Dunst is heavenly as the raunchy yet vulnerable Lux, a firecracker of a girl who listens to Aerosmith and writes her crushes' names on her underpants. The other sisters, Bonnie, Therese and Mary play the more reserved older sisters of these two strong girls.The Lisbon parents are just as interesting, if not as waif like, as the sisters. Mr. Lisbon is a highly strung maths teacher, his wife a keen Christian who is prepared to do anything to 'protect' her children.
I know that using voice overs is considered to be somewhat 'tacky' in Hollywood, but it really works here. Copolla allows the events to be explained to the viewer by a narrator, one of a group of young boys in the neighbourhood who obsess over the beautiful and damaged siblings. She uses the lyrical prose of Eugenides' novel to show the viewer the quality of his storytelling:
We felt the imprisonment of being a girl, the way it made your mind active and dreamy, and how you ended up knowing which colors went together. We knew that girls were our twins, that we all existed in space like animals with identical skins, and that they knew everything about us though we couldn't fathom them at all. We knew, finally, that 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.
Lost in Translation
I think this film is cinematic Marmite - people either love it or hate it. I think that the 'haters' are the people who went to the cinema to be entertained. They may have wanted a comedy, or they may have wanted a soppy romance. Or they may have just not liked it. But all the same, I think that they are people who watched this film expecting something.Now I must confess, I didn't pay to see this film. Well, I suppose I did in a way - it was on Film 4 last year and I sat and watched it with my Mum as there was nothing better on TV. It had me hooked immediately though. I think it may have been Scarlett Johansson's character, Charlotte, the bored wife of a busy photographer. She's a natural beauty and the camera loves her. Charlotte is such a lonely girl. Although she is in Japan with her husband, she spends her days alone, splitting her time between her hotel room and the tourist attractions of Tokyo. The lost soul in this big city is Bob Harris, an actor who is separated from his wife and family whilst he promotes various products and goes on crazy Japanese talk shows. Although the two of them appear to be two islands, isolated from the rest of society, they manage to form a strong friendship.
Now this is where the majority of viewers have an issue with this film - one could say that really, nothing happens. There isn't any specific thread to the plot. It's not your average 'boy meets girl' film with the stereotypical 'will they or won't they?' storyline.
Bob: Can you keep a secret? I'm trying to organize a prison break. I'm looking for, like, an accomplice. We have to first get out of this bar, then the hotel, then the city, and then the country. Are you in or you out?
Charlotte: I'm in. I'll go pack my stuff.
Bob: I hope that you've had enough to drink. It's going to take courage.
Copolla's dialogue is enchanting. She manages to create such natural conversation between her characters. I think that the more alien the culture is to the characters in a film, the more difficult it must be to ensure that the speech sounds 'right'. The 'out and about' scenes in Japan are amazing - I love the part in which Bob and Charlotte go to have lunch in a traditional Japanese restaurant and joke about 'What kind of restaurant makes you cook your own food?'.
So yes, I could rant and rave about this film all day, but I won't. All I can say is that people should give it a chance.
Marie Antoinette
Words can't describe how upset I was when this film came out. I was at university in the North West and there were no cinemas in my area that were showing it. So I had to wait until it went to DVD.The wait was worth it. It wasn't what I expected at all - I thought that it would be quite humorous from the trailers I'd seen, but it was more like a docu-drama. Of course, being a Copolla film it wasn't your average period drama. Not only does she use modern music in her ballroom scenes, but Marie and her closet courtiers can be seen trying on shoes and picking out material for dresses. There is a scene in which the young queen celebrates her 18th birthday - instead of a dreary banquet, the viewer is reminded of your average teenage party. Too much wine, plenty of cake and early morning drunken wandering on the lawns.
As a fan of costume drama I was delighted with this film. There is a scene in which the flamboyant Duchesse de Polignac (played by the gorgeous Rose Byrne) asks the camp and fashionable Léonard 'I love your hair. What's going on there?' to which he replies 'Everything!'. The dresses and such were just beautiful, the attention to detail was amazing. I don't know how they managed to keep all that hair up though, I wonder what they used for hairspray!
I definitely think that this film relies heavily on its visuals. The dialogue, where present, was strong, but there were periods of silence that felt a bit heavy at times. Although some could think that this is bad, it does reflect the oppressive environment that the young Marie would have found herself in. Altogether, a very beautiful film, but not for all.
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