Coppola knows how to capture a certain mental state… the feeling of being trapped inside one’s own head, which is kind of dreamlike and disconnected. She also knows how sad and empty it can feel to be in that condition, and this comes across in her films… in LiT, she brings it out by showing other peoples’ everyday lives as being profoundly alien and unfamiliar, which is something that’s bound to happen during cultural transplant. In MA, she shows the feeling of being trapped in a sheltered world of privilege and ritual when you’re a young girl whose biological mind and body are screaming for stimulation and change. Ultimately, it’s the same emotional state… just brought about by a different kind of isolation.
Sofia Coppola’s reliance on stereotype jokes in LiT was annoying at times, I admit… I think she could have captured the same feeling of alienation and strangeness without mocking the difference she was representing. However, I respect her for being the most accomplished director out there when it comes to capturing this kind of emotional limbo, and her movies really resonate with me.
I like the film.
Subtle emotion, subtle humor. In control the whole time.
Hated it – privileged people’s ennui. princess sofia.
Re: hipsters. They’re very real, and many of them live in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. They’re college students or grads that dress like they’re homeless, listen to indie music, are often pretentious in their tastes, and live in $500,000 apartments that their parents pay for them. Many hipsters have lived there for ages and have never worked a day. An article about the plight of the hipster can be found here, in a New York Times article.
Re: LiT. I am not a fan of this movie, and I really, really wanted to love it. I loved the Japanese setting, and the gorgeous locations, but the people inhabiting those wondrous places were bland and uninteresting. I was so emotionally disconnected from the entire thing, and I found myself not caring what would happen to either of them by the end of the film.
I’m with Susan M. on this one. My reasons are similar to hers: I’ve lived in Japan and experienced the frustrations of culture shock first-hand, but also the quirkiness and absurdity of certain situations – life in a small village offers many of these! Overall it was a very humbling experience.
I watched the movie one year into my sojourn and it had somewhat of a cathartic effect on me. A year later though, I watched it again with my (Japanese) girlfriend and she fell asleep midway through – perhaps the movie only works one-way?
nice article. “trustafarians.” ha! i laughed out loud at that one. its classic.
There’s no such thing as a hipster.
P.S. Those of you trendy nihilists denying that hipsters still exist are probably hipsters.
I take that P.S. was directed at me. I don’t deny there is a subculture that everyone refers to as “Hipster”. But I personally don’t buy into labels especially when they’ve already had a history that has run its course. Hipsters were jazz fanatics from the 1940s, so I think it’s silly that there are self-proclaimed hipsters or those who stereotype others as such. That’s just my opinion. Call it nihilistic. But colloquially, sure, yes I’ll use it. I know what kind of hipster you all are talking about.
P.S. I live nowhere close to Williamsburg. I loathe those hipsters and avoid them at all costs.
EDIT: wow, i got a little worked up with this post. All that I really needed to say was this last part.
Labels just suck. It’s the idea of crowd-sourcing. Everyone is expected to define themself in the length of a facebook profile. It really makes me sad. Not everyone is so insecure that they need to know there is a name for a group of people “just like them”.
Leah, the term “hipster” is not restricted to only those “jazz fanatics from the 1940s”. I think a “hipster” would be anyone who is intentionally following a trend merely for the reason that that is the current trend and not because it is something they truely believe or support.
I believe labels are unnecessary as well, but I don’t deny people’s need to verify their existence.
Promoted by middle aged white male film executives because it was something they could relate to, specifically the Bill Murray character, and his lust for Johansson. The movie-going public were led to believe this was a great movie made by an emerging talent. Neither could be further from the truth. A truly dull movie made by a young woman lucky enough to have a genius director as a father but with no great talent herself.
In reading through this thread:
the people that loved it relate to the characters.
the people that hated it think the characters were in essence spoiled rich folk.
Which begs the question why the need to relate to the characters in passing judgement on a film?
I couldn’t relate to the mentality of the characters in Goodfellas but I still think it’s a great film.
So you think the Scarlett character is a spoiled princess….how well does she pull that off though? Critique it on that level.
OP states: Is it just me or does anyone think that this movie is just a celebration of incredibly shallow people?
And what a celebration it is …
5/5
LiT made me a cinephile. Had no idea a film can capture a mood so precisely.
Love the film, Love the Characters, Love the music, Love the mood.
it’s as simple as that for me. perfect film.
(not to mention Lance Acord)
I finally saw the film a few moths ago. It was sort of a numbing experience. Nothing leaped out at me that said this was a great film. I enjoyed it for what it was, but I think it was a trifle.
At this stage I realize that I’ve now seen 3 of Coppola’s 4 films. Haven’t yet seen Somewhere but I’d be interested to. I think Coppola is talented. She does good with establishing a hazy mood, almost like a druggy cinema without the drugs. Not quite a full dream, more like a lazy daydream. I can’t say I’ve disliked anything she’s done and she probably has a great film in her waiting to come out. Now that’s she in her 40s perhaps she’ll move into a more mature phase rather than the spoiled rich girl exercises she’s been filming.
^If you thought LiT was a trifle, you’re not going to dig Somewhere.
For me, trifle does not necessarily mean “bad” by default. Slight maybe, but not unwatchable.
I gave Lost in Translation a second chance not while ago – still nothing… OK, maybe some scenes like Scarlett sitting in front of the window on the high floor hotel room like a princess locked in a tower, but that’s about all for me. I actually liked Somewhere much more.
The best that can be said about SOMEWHERE is that Stephen Dorff is frequently shirtless in it.
LOST IN TRANSLATION doesn’t even have that going for it. Useless. Boring rich people lounging around whining. Worth watching once, maybe, to see how fine an actor Bill Murray really can be — even Sofia Coppola can’t entirely dim his brilliance — but without a better script and director, there’s just nothing here.
Again, all the criticism I’m reading are about the characters themselves and not the film. If you want deem the film boring because it’s pacing is slow and plot sparse, fine.
But to judge that the characters are being shallow because they are unhappy with presumably fat bank accounts….what does that have to do with the film itself? Why base your criticism on whether or not you think the characters have a right to be feeling a certain way.
It’s not the characters, it’s the filmmaker behind them. Bourgeois angst has a right to be criticized. Coppola makes films that sing the “rich girl blues”. Whether they are good films or not is a different story but that’s a piece of the puzzle regardless.
I rate Goodfellas 4/5. Think it’s a great film.
But I also think the characters are awful human beings. I don’t relate to their mentality. I think they are glorified thugs. They act out on misplaced anger. They are unable to see beyond their own simple minded reality. They bully law abiding citizens. They are materialistic. I didn’t share in any of the joys that the characters did (ie. the spoils of their exploits).
I didn’t take any of that into consideration when critiquing the film. The director is showing you these characters. His/her purpose isn’t to get you to want to hang out with them. If the director allows you to understand the characters, whether or not you agree with their views, that’s a job well done.
So sure go ahead and criticize bourgeois angst. But to hold it against LiT is missing the point of the film. Sofia wouldn’t even disagree with that accusation. Neither would Scarlett’s character for that matter.
It’s not about agreeing or disagreeing with a character. When you critique a film you have to critique characterization. It’s a key aesthetic trope, unless we’re dealing with structural or abstract film. Whether a filmmaker agrees with criticism or not is completely irrelevant.
i think its so personal movie and that is why i did not hate it .. but i don’t feel it ,even tried hard to finish it
but i did understand why someone like sofia did the film
i think its good film for some people who feel same as sofia’s because its too too personal , kind of no-story
It’s not about agreeing or disagreeing with a character. When you critique a film you have to critique characterization. It’s a key aesthetic trope, unless we’re dealing with structural or abstract film. Whether a filmmaker agrees with criticism or not is completely irrelevant.
But it IS relevant. Sofia wasn’t trying to make Scarjo’s character out to be some hard knocks down on her luck character. She has it easy. She is coasting through life. And yet she finds happiness illusive. That’s the point! She shouldn’t be feeling like she is. She has the money to go out and explore a wonderful city. But she calls her friend, and I use that term lightly, back home sobbing about not feeling … spirituality. Sofia and Scarjo’s character are well aware of the privileged ennui being portrayed.
As to your characterization comment, I can only think of two things as it relates to LiT:
You either don’t like it because
A. Scarjo’s character was not to your liking (ie. spoiled princess)
B. Sofia didn’t convey the type of character she wanted to (ie. Sofia was attempting to avoid any appearance of privileged ennui)
I don’t mind movies about rich people struggling, they have feelings too. Like any other drama it varies on how they are presented.
What bothered me about Coppola movies when I saw them early on, and I haven’t really followed her since so I don’t know how this plays out in her later work, is that she has a distinct to even mocking anticonformity vibe in her movies that to me doesn’t stand up to snuff. In Lost in Translation and The Virgin Suicides she features quips and comments against characters for acting conformist without ever really taking the time to think about or consider why they act that way, or at least within the movie. I forget a lot of The Virgin Suicides but it’s important that I note that I don’t mean in terms of the overall theme of the girls driven to suicide, but more like some of the actions of the high schoolers and side scenes of dialog. In Lost in Translation, the key scene I remember is when Johanssen’s new hubby meets his old friend, and Johanssen’s character is all rolling eyes and, ‘Psht, she’s so banal and superficial, look, she mistakenly misused some intellectual reference.’
To me I got the sense from Coppola’s movies that she has never really considered what drives people to actual conformity and the underlying issues of self-esteem, stress, expectations and social anxiety, despite the fact that she features that question as a big part of both of her early movies. In other words, she thinks she’s asking, “What drives people to conformity?” but she’s actually stating, “Psht, why are people all conformist, gawd.” It strikes me that as an upper class woman nurtured into a creative family to feel free and enabled to express herself, she doesn’t know what it’s like for other people who don’t have that support system in place to reward ‘nonconformist’ thought.
I do find, however, that people are very vicious to her, and hold her family and position against her a lot regardless of what she does. So whereas I feel she could use some growth as a filmmaker, I am a little taken aback by critical treatment of her (sometimes, I’m not saying everyone’s not playing nice), and I worry that that will cut her off from opportunities to really make the possibly really good movie she has it in her to make. I could see her start over time to become very embittered and reactionary in her movies, which would make them truly awful.
—PolarisDiB
<insert name here>
LiT has been something of a guilty pleasure of mine for a while, and I’m ambivalent about Sofia Coppola in general. Her works lean toward solipsism are often deepest on the surface. The best part about Marie Antoinette was the teaser trailer (a masterpiece, if trailers can be masterpieces) that encompassed the best aspects of the film’s sensibility and about half of its ideas. Similarly LiT can be best appreciated for its new wave (the music one) ambience, with the rest of the movie held together by the soulful presence of Bill Murray.