Marie Antoinette Hitting DVD

Over at dvdtalk is an excellent 5 star review, written by novelist Jamie S. Rich, of Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette. I found that this review matched a lot of my own feelings about this film so I thought I would post the link below. It was easily my favorite film from last year and was a perfect ending for Coppola's extraordinary trilogy which she began with The Virgin Suicides and Lost In Translation.
I especially appreciated Jamie Rich noting that Sofia Coppola is one of our finest young auteurs, I would go so far as to say she is one of the last authentic American auteurs we have.
I am also including a link to Roger Ebert's four star review of the film which is one of the most unique critiques he has ever written.

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=26499

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20061019%2FREVIEWS%2F610190303%2F1023&AID1=%2F20061019%2FREVIEWS%2F610190303%2F1023&AID2=

Francis Ford Coppola's One From The Heart at Nostalgia Kinky

My look at one of the most controversial and debated films of Nastassja Kinski's career has begun over at Nostalgia Kinky. I will be posting on Francis Ford Coppola's ONE FROM THE HEART (1982) all though this next week with a variety of different posts, vintage articles, photos and more. I have just posted my main review of the film to kick things off. The picture just to the left is Francis, Roman and Sofia Coppola at the ill fated premiere of ONE FROM THE HEART back in 1982. I invite any Moon In The Gutter readers to join me throughout the week over there if you would like. The link is, as always, just over to the right.
My regular Moon In The Gutter posts will begin again tomorrow, thanks for continuing to read and comment.

Wallpaper of the Week: Kirsten Dunst in Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides (1999)

Artist and Muse #4

Sofia Coppola and Kirsten Dunst discuss a shot on the set of their first film together, The Virgin Suicides.

Cinema And The Great What If (Part 1) Mickey Rourke in The Godfather Part Three.

Shortly after completing the underrated Homeboy, which he had also scripted, Mickey Rourke received word that his old friend and mentor Francis Ford Coppola was casting roles for his finale to The Godfather series. The two hadn't worked together since the incredible Rumble Fish which had given Rourke one of his greatest roles in the doomed character of Motorcycle Boy.
Rourke flew out to the Coppola estate to read for the part of gangster Joey Zasa and was expected by nearly everyone to get the role. Something odd happened and when shooting began Rourke was left out in the cold and Joe Mantegna had the role of the flashy villain.
Godfather Part Three would open in 1990 to mostly positive reviews, solid box-office and received 7 Academy Award nominations including best picture. Rourke would appear lost for almost the next decade appearing in some of his worst films and subjecting his once beautiful face to his renewed stab at a boxing career.
Mantegna is certainly a talented actor and he is fine as Zasa but Rourke would have brought something to the role that no one else could have. I feel that the fine, if undervalued, Godfather Three would have felt a little more balanced with Rourke's presence and perhaps the role would have given Mickey back some of the confidence that he had obviously lost.
Coppola would be rumored to regret the decision in not casting Rourke and would gallantly give him a role in 1997's The Rainmaker when no other major studio filmmaker would touch him. Rourke would later be visibly moved, during an interview on the Angel Heart dvd, when re-counting Coppola's casting of him in The Rainmaker. That film and part marked Rourke's slow but substantial return to the great acting he has always been capable of.
Fans often point to Sofia Coppola as the casting mistake in the final Godfather film but to me her presence, despite her inexperience, gave the film an even more substantial claim as the greatest 'family' saga ever. Spiritually Rourke was a part of that family and his absence from Coppola's bravest film has always struck me as a notable omission.

Sofia Coppola's Somewhere: The Official Site

Sofia Coppola has opened up a striking site dedicated to her new film Somewhere and I wanted to supply a link for any interested. The site features a Photo Diary, Behind the Scenes Clips, Interviews and a very cool look at Sofia's original inspiration board for the film. I have celebrated Sofia's first three feature films numerous times here in the past (Lost in Translation was my number 1 film from the past decade and The Virgin Suicides is in my top ten from the nineties) and I can't wait to see Somewhere when it is released later this month. This little site Sofia has set up is a real nice preview and I am glad she has put it together.

Antonioni: Eight Disciples

Just as the career of Brian Eno is often overlooked as completely altering the modern music landscape, the films of Antonioni are undervalued in how influential they have been. It would be impossible to even began to list the number of filmmakers who have name checked, copied and paid tribute to Antonioni in the past forty years but here are eight whose films would not have been the same without the master's work. I chose eight who are all very different from one another, who span five different countries, several different generations and many different genres.

With the exception of Mario Bava, no director has had more of an impact on the films of Dario Argento than Antonioni. His first feature THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE (1969) immediately springs to mind as a work that owes much to Antonioni's astonishing composition and color schemes but it is Argento's DEEP RED (1975) that plays as an almost valentine to Antonioni's works, specifically BLOW-UP (1966). Argento's obsessive and penetrating study of misplaced memories and fractured personalities seem to spring directly from Antonioni's towering works on alienation such as L'AVVENTURA (1960) and RED DESERT (1964).

The handful of films that Jack Nicholson has directed since his striking and hard to see debut DRIVE HE SAID (1971) have all be indebted to Antonioni's work. Nicholson, who would give one of his great performances in Antonioni's THE PASSENGER (1975), has been one of the master's biggest vocal supporters and presented him with his honorary Oscar over a decade ago. All of Nicholson's films, perhaps none more so than the carefully designed THE TWO JAKES (1990), share Antonioni's very specific ability of presenting a past that is deliberately and regretfully being disintegrated. The final moment in the THE TWO JAKES where Meg Tilly screams at Nicholson's defeated Jake Gittes, "Does The past ever really go away?" to which he responds with a broken, "It Never Does" could have been lifted from any number of Antonioni's greatest works.

Polish director Walerian Borowczyk might be one of the only filmmakers in history who managed to match the painterly and always awe inspiring compositional skill of Antonioni. They also both knew how to use music to often devastating effect. Pink Floyd has been used in a lot of films but watch the endings of Antonioni's ZABRISKIE POINT (1970) and Borowczyk's LA MARGE (1975) to see two of the bands most famous songs transformed into purely cinematic works for two of the great masters to manipulate and add unquestionable dimension to.

Would Travis Bickle have been possible without the films of Antonioni? I'm not sure but I am willing to bet that the despairing alienation that Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader were able to bring TAXI DRIVER (1976) would have been a lot less without Antonioni's early black and white work. Everything from the film's striking one sheet to the many shots of De Niro's fragmenting psyche recall many moments in Antonioni's canon, specifically Monica Vitti's astonishing turn in RED DESERT.

Like Argento's DEEP RED, Brian De Palma's masterful BLOW-OUT (1982) plays like a love letter to BLOW-UP. Perhaps more noteworthy is De Palma's acceptance of cinema as an art form where extremes are not only at times welcome, but necessary. Match up the final explosion in ZABRISKIE POINT or the final ten minute tracking shot in THE PASSENGER to some of De Palma's more elaborate and breathtaking set pieces, the ending of THE FURY (1978) and the Cannes sequence of FEMME FATALE (2002) come to mind, and suddenly it isn't the ghost of Hitchcock who most often occupies De Palma's films.

When he was preparing one of his final films, BEYOND THE CLOUDS (1995), Antonioni called in German born Wim Wender's to assistant him as a stroke had taken most of his ability to speak away. All of Wender's films are clearly directly descended from Antonioni. From the loneliness of ALICE IN THE CITIES (1974) to the simultaneously searching and running away Travis in PARIS TEXAS (1984), Wender's lonely variations on the road film are unthinkable without Antonioni.

Egyptian born Atom Egoyan's characters often seem trapped in a world they feel they can't inhabit while at the same time being indebted to the convenience of it. Outside of the obvious compositional comparisons to Antonioni's films, Egoyan's fascinating look at the strife and deceptions between family members seems more than just cinematically connected to the failing marriage in RED DESERT or the doomed affair in L'ECLISSE (1962). Egoyan's best films, such as EXOTICA (1994) and THE SWEET HEREAFTER (1997) possess Antonioni's ability to connect a seemingly simple gesture with a world threatening to fall apart.

When Sofia Coppola won her much deserved Oscar for her screenplay to LOST IN TRANSLATION (2003) she went out of her way to thank Antonioni. Watching her three features, THE VIRGIN SUICIDES (1999), LOST IN TRANSLATION and MARIE ANTOINETTE (2006) it seems clear that the thoughtful and powerful works of Antonioni are not going to disappear any time soon. LOST IN TRANSLATION'S final moments play like a promise that Antonioni's often ambiguous art house dreams aren't as dead as so many film goers and critics like to believe.

There are many others I could have singled out but these eight all seem particularly indebted and worth mentioning as I begin my tribute to Michelangelo. I can imagine if asked what they would say to him, they would all offer the one word he had for The Academy the night he won his honorary Oscar..."Grazie."

A Moon in the Gutter Q&A with Author Derek Hill on his Charlie Kaufman and Hollywood's Merry Band of Pranksters, Fabulists and Dreamers

Today I'm very excited to present another exclusive interview here at Moon in the Gutter for my readers to enjoy. This week I have the honor of sharing a Q&A I recently did with a writer I greatly admire named Derek Hill. Many of you will be familiar with Derek's work in print via publications like Video Watchdog and Videoscope, as well as his online activities which includes his terrific blog Detours.
This Q&A is mostly concerned though with Derek's new book, one of the first major publications centered on a very special and unique group of modern filmmakers. Entitled Charlie Kaufman and Hollywood's Merry Band of Pranksters, Fabulists and Dreamers, Derek's new book focuses on filmmakers like Sofia Coppola, Wes Anderson, David O. Russell and of course Charlie Kaufman among others. It promises to be an important work and I am thrilled to help promote it here. The book is already out in England and while the release date in the States wasn't supposed to be until September, it appears Amazon is already shipping it. Damn my luck for pre-ordering it from Deep Discount.
A big thanks to Derek for taking the time to do this. As I read over his answers, I realized we have a lot in common in our history of loving film as well as our shared admiration for this special group of filmmakers.

Moon in the Gutter: Derek, thanks for agreeing to do this. I greatly admire your writing and this is a real treat. Can you start out by giving us a little background on your life and work?

Derek Hill: Thank you very much for inviting me and thanks for the kind words. Briefly, regarding my background, I was until recently a resident of my native Portland, Oregon. Travelling has always been a vital element of my life, so I've uprooted again and I'm currently living in cloudy, rainy, rural Ireland. Hopefully, for the foreseeable future. As far as my writing background is concerned, I've been working in the trenches, so to speak, since 1989. Started reviewing books and movies (and getting paid) for small genre periodicals. But since 1999 I've written for a number of publications (print and online) such as Images—a Journal of Film and Popular Culture, The Third Alternative (a UK magazine now known as Black Static), Video Watchdog, VideoScope, among others. I was a regular DVD reviewer for the All Movie web site for a couple of years, and a book reviewer for Mystery Scene magazine. A little bit of everything, I guess. Oh, and then there's blogging, of course.

MITG: Who were some of the key influences that got you into writing, specifically writing about film. Was there a pivotal moment for you in your youth that captured your imagination?

DH: I wouldn't say there was one significant person who influenced me initially. I always wanted to be a writer and since films were ever-present in my life from an early age, I'd do things like "adapt" various novels into screenplay form. This was when I was eleven or twelve. At one point, I "adapted" a storyline from Creepy magazine into a script thinking if I could only get it into the hands of the right person, it would get made. My screenwriting ambitions sort of dimmed not long after that. My teens were pretty lost and reckless and for a time I didn't do much but get into trouble. I don't want to be melodramatic about this, but film became this sort of lifeline for me during a particularly bad couple of years in my late teens. I started engaging with films on a deeply personal level. Serious readers and music lovers do the same thing and it changes you, marks you, and there's no turning back after that.
In my early twenties I did what many film lovers (cineastes, cinephiles, obsessives) do, which is work at a good video store. It was either that or get a job at a good second-run cinema and I couldn't manage that. At the time, the store was one of the best, if not the best video store in Portland due to its extensive foreign, arthouse, and classic collections. I started filling in the gaps and furthering my own film education. Although I later took some extended studies film courses through Portland State taught by a great teacher (the film critic and writer Shawn Levy) that made me even more serious about writing film criticism, I soaked up more about cinema in those five years at the video store than anything else. Just to have access to so many different kinds of film was a great opportunity. Definitely a pivotal moment in its way.


Other than that, the most important film moment that happened to me was probably being taken to see Apocalypse Now during its original theatrical release when I was ten years old. I have no idea what my mom was thinking, but I'm glad she did it. I was changed from that moment on—or scarred depending on your viewpoint—and it was then that I realized that a movie could be more than a just a story, something to soothe you from daily reality. It completely warped me. I couldn't entirely go back to "kid movies" after that. It was like this weird rite of passage. Sure, I still watched what all the other kids were watching (The Muppet Movie, The Black Hole, Rocky II), but I was also supplementing it with stronger, more adult fare like Stanley Kubrick films and Mad Max and Monty Python films. So yeah, I can blame Francis Ford Coppola for my film-going degeneracy… as well as my mom.

MITG: Onto your upcoming book, first of all congratulations on it. I am greatly anticipating reading it as I think it's a fascinating idea and I believe that it's the first major book written on this important group of young American filmmakers. Can you tell us a bit about what inspired the book initially?

DR: Thanks. I just thought that there was a level of shared sensibilities at work. Defining these filmmakers under an "independent" film label or a "Sundance" label or what have you, seemed much too broad and erroneous for what I wanted to do. The through-lines connecting these filmmakers on thematic, character, and stylistic levels were more important to me. All of these filmmakers have distinctive approaches to storytelling and style, but I found that they were, for the most part, all attracted to angst-filled characters essentially in spiritual or existential conundrums. The majority of the films were essentially comedies, but there was a level of underlying seriousness or melancholy or philosophical soul searching that appealed to me that felt completely antithetical to everything else coming out of Hollywood… or anywhere else for that matter.



MITG: According to the reports I have read, the book is mainly concerned with the careers of Charlie Kaufman, Spike Jonze, Wes Anderson, Michel Gondry, David O. Russell, Richard Linklater and Sofia Coppola. It's an inspired group and I was wondering what the challenges were isolating this particular group at perhaps the expense of leaving out other modern major players like Paul Thomas Anderson?

DH: It was difficult. I wanted to add more filmmakers to the mix, but for the sake of some semblance of thematic consistency and the fact that I had a word count limit, I had to keep it focused. Certainly, filmmakers such as PT Anderson (Punch-Drunk Love is examined, though, in the last part of the book devoted to singular films by other directors that have similar angsty/surreal/comedic themes) and Quentin Tarantino could be legitimately argued for, I guess. Using Linklater as a bridge between the independent filmmakers of the 1980s and early 1990s and the post-Tarantino independent film scene, my intention was to localize it to a group of American directors (Michel Gondry excepted) that were blurring the lines between drama, comedy, fantasy, science fiction, what have you.



It made sense to me to focus on Charlie Kaufman as the center of it all, due to the impact his screenplays have had on audiences, critics, and other screenwriters. In the latter case, I wouldn't say that other screenwriters are necessarily influenced by him in an imitative sense--story construction or narrative themes, though that one Will Ferrell movie seems awfully Kaufmanesque in a blatant, watered down way--but Kaufman has raised the bar for what you can do within the constraints of a seemingly idea-barren Hollywood commercial system. Kaufman is perhaps not a household name (I'm not sure that could ever happen in this day and age) but he is the first real screenwriting "superstar" we've had since Robert Towne, judged for his actual talent and not for how much money he's being paid. And now that Kaufman is directing, we might see a fully-fledged great filmmaker emerge. I thought about putting Alexander Payne in the book, but again, I wanted to focus on filmmakers that had shared comedic sensibilities in many ways or who were latching onto similar strange thematic currents or tonal ones. So in that respect, having narrowed it down to those parameters, I was able to pare it down.

MITG: Of the main filmmakers the book covers do you have a personal favorite? I must admit that I love the entire group, with probably Coppola being the one I admire the most. Outside of a personal favorite, is there one that kind of stands out to you as being perhaps the most important culturally?

DH: When I started on the book, I was partial to Linklater and Coppola. Still am. But I really fell in love with Wes Anderson's work. I had always liked his films, but I felt distanced from them to a degree, shut off from their emotional core until I saw Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou back in 2004.



Everything shifted after that point and I'm a great admirer of all his films now. I'm not sure if any of them will influence other filmmakers in the manner that the nouvelle vague or New Hollywood did for subsequent generations. Perhaps on a superficial level the influence is there, with advertising and other films (Napoleon Dynamite, Garden State, Juno, Stranger Than Fiction, Shopgirl) appropriating stylistic mannerisms and such. But I don't see anyone racing out to become the next Linklater, Anderson, or David O. Russell. What I hope is that young filmmakers will be inspired by their work and simply forge their own paths, find their own stories to tell. On that level, I hope that these filmmakers cast a larger role within the culture.



MITG: I strongly believe that time will someday recognize the mid to late nineties as a key period in American film history. Without giving anything away from your book how do you think this period compares with other already noted movements such as The French New Wave and the various independent movements in American cinema from the late sixties and early seventies?

DH: It's an unconscious movement to be sure, but I think there's a strong philosophical and thematic connection between these filmmakers and New Hollywood and to the earlier nouvelle vague. I think the playfulness, from either a narrative or stylistic standpoint, that shapes many of the films in my book is directly tied to the nouvelle vague. That sense of experimentation--albeit on a much more expansive and expensive level than anything Godard or Truffaut had access to—was a defining feature of the earlier French wave. The desire to ground many of the stories within the framework of gritty, "everyday" reality, but then shifting the parameters into something more theatrical, absurd, or outright fantastical seems to me linked with the French directors, specifically Godard. But it's definitely more of a "spiritual" influence, I think, than some kind of direct correlation. Same with the New Hollywood influence. It's there, obviously, especially in the sense that all of the filmmakers in my book (except for Linklater) are routinely working within the constraints of the Hollywood (either with the major studios or with one of their "independent" divisions) machine. There have certainly been problems, failures, missteps along the way, but they're still getting their visions out there intact. Film movements are a romantic notion. I'm not sure cinema is capable of moving us on the same expansive cultural level that it did decades ago. There are simply too many other distractions for our entertainment cash. But whenever you least expect it, another wave comes crashing down. A Dogma 95 emerges fully formed or a "mumblecore" or something strange and beautifully unintentional like the directors in my book. The medium is always changing, so I guess the expectations should as well.



MITG: The book is already out in Britain. How has the reception there been? Do you find, in general, that these filmmaker's more provocative works have been more accepted outside the states?

DH: The worst I know of was from some woman reviewing for a UK daily tabloid who hadn't read the book, didn't understand the title (which is a play on John Pierson's book Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes: A Guided Tour Across a Decade of American Independent Cinema, something she obviously didn't get) and asserted that I'd written the book as an excuse to trawl through my DVD collection. I only wish I'd thought of writing about films I already owned--it would have saved me a lot of expense and research time tracking down all the films! Then again, I guess making things up is part of the training for tabloid writers. But other than that the book is doing well over here and I've received some very nice email from readers who were familiar with one or two of the filmmakers but maybe didn't know anything about the others or the nouvelle vague. Now they're exploring the work of Godard, Truffaut, Rivette, Rohmer, and others. That's extremely gratifying, since those filmmakers are unjustly relegated, I think, to the pantheon of the unapproachable for many people… when they're anything but. So, I couldn't be happier. And the reviews have ranged from the good/decent (Total Film) to the great (Empire).

MITG: Can you tell me a bit about your research methods in writing the book? Is it a specifically critical guide or were there any interviews conducted for it?
Also, did you have any trouble securing a publisher for it considering this isn't a movement that has reached universal acceptance?

DH: I had no problems with my publisher. My editor at Kamera was immediately receptive to the idea and enthusiastic and supportive through the entire project, so I was left alone. There were interviews planned, but not everyone answered my interview requests and the ones that did eventually had to drop out due to their own work commitments. I was disappointed, but I honestly don't think it hurts the book. Hopefully, if I get a chance to do a revised version in years to come, we can finally get those interviews in there.

MITG: What are your hopes for the book and are you happy with the way it came out?

DH: Yeah, I'm happy with it. There are perhaps things I would do differently now, but I think it reflects what I set out to accomplish. I wish it could have been longer… though maybe no one else does.

MITG: Finally can you tell us about some of your future plans?

DH: Well, I'm writing a book on Alex Cox's film Repo Man for Wallflower Press' Cultographies series, though it won't be out for a few years. Also, I'm hoping to write another book for Kamera on contemporary dark filmmakers—directors such as David Fincher, Christopher Nolan, Darren Aronofsky, Guillermo Del Toro, Michael Haneke, Gaspar Noe, and Park Chan-wook. I have a couple of proposals with publishers at the moment for other books, one being on a specific director and another on a specific film. And I would certainly never say no to working on a longer book focusing on any of the directors I just dealt with. I get a feeling that I haven't yet heard the last of them. I'm also working on a crime novel while waiting for one or more of the above projects to come through, so I'm trying to keep busy.

MITG: Thanks so much Derek for taking the time to do this...I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.

DH: You're welcome, Jeremy. Thanks again for inviting me to your great site. Cheers!

Guest Post: Derek Hill on Sofia Coppola's SOMEWHERE

Today I am so happy to welcome one of Moon in the Gutter's oldest friends and greatest inspirations back, the incredible Derek Hill, author of the essential Charlie Kaufman and Hollywood's Merry Band of Pranksters.  This guest post is a particular treat as Derek's book, which included a large section on Sofia Coppola, was published before the release of her Somewhere so finally getting to read Derek's thoughts on the film is really exciting.  Enough of my rambling though...let's get to the good stuff!

                                                         Nowhere Man by Derek Hill, 2013

 

 

An actor aimlessly roams through the affluent, insular rooms and hallways of an upscale hotel, searching for any kind of stimulus to relieve him of his emotional stasis, some kind of diversion to occupy his time before he is whisked away to yet another press junket, another photo shoot, another interview that he glides through with practiced charm and ease. The actor is bored. Although comfortable within his cocoon of luxury and unreality, he is starving for a real emotional connection with someone. Anyone.

 

 

 

You wouldn't be reprimanded for thinking I was talking about Bill Murray's character from Sofia Coppola's extraordinary second feature Lost in Translation (2003). Coppola's underrated fourth movie, Somewhere (2010), also contains a similar character, action star Johnny Marco, played by Stephen Dorff. Stylistically and thematically, both movies are fascinating compliments to one another, although the earlier movie is more incisive about human nature, dreamy, and quietly poignant. Lost in Translation also contains one of Murray's finest moments on screen and a (so far) career-best performance by Scarlett Johansson, two difficult acts to follow. But regardless of the similarities between the two movies, and there are many important ones, Somewhere is its own distinctive, vital creation and not an artistic regression. It's also the first time that Coppola attempts to burrow into the male psyche for the majority of the movie, establishing the story's point of view through Marco's eyes. For a director whose movies tend to billow with images and emotional states that can conveniently be contextualized as delicately feminine, this change is significant.

 

Viewers invested in the three-act structure, clearly delineated plot points, and in characters that must undergo some form of dramatic change, will only be frustrated with Coppola's movies. That's not to suggest that Coppola's methodology is superior to classic Hollywood storytelling (it's not), but for her, the rudiments of commercial screenwriting 101 don't interest her. Not all movies need to chart a direct path through the wilderness of narrative. For some adventurous filmmakers, the detours from narrative are the most worthwhile moments of the trip, and it's in those strange, seemingly unnecessary deviations from the throughline and tyranny of plot when the cinematic poet blossoms. It's when the cinematic poet relates how the world really appears through their eyes, offering us a moment of reality beyond the artificiality of the screen.

 

Coppola, so unlike her father Francis, doesn't approach story in broad strokes. She is interested in the subtle nuances of character and visually lyrical epiphanies, allowing her actors to reveal the nature of their roles through the slow accretion of significant details. In Somewhere, we go roughly 15 minutes before any real dialogue is spoken, and even then, what is heard is banal and hardly illuminating. However, what we see is provocative and precisely revelatory. It's in the visual where Coppola and her cinematographer, the late Harris Savides, get down to business.

 

Although still gruffly attractive, movie star Marco wanders through the legendary Chateau Marmont like a hollowed-out relic of his better days. He's still on top of the Hollywood food chain, but only for the moment. Age is slowly settling in and it doesn't take a fortune teller to point out that the golden boy is going to show signs of rust within a year or two. But he still goes through the motions for his fans, colleagues, and entourage. Marco the party boy lazily roams through a late-night party, lazily flirts with women (his pickup lines consist of either "Hi" or "Hi, I'm Johnny"), and lazily watches two twin pole dancers listlessly perform their routine for his arousal. He falls asleep and they in turn pack up their gear and exit to entertain another happy customer. Later, Marco pathetically (and hilariously) conks out with his face buried between the thighs of his latest conquest. The man is psychologically and physically spent. He's an emotional zombie.

 

It would be easy for Coppola to eviscerate her characters, lampooning them for their absurdities and plunging the venomous blade of satire deeply, then twisting it for maximum audience ridicule. This world of hermetic affluence is one Coppola knows well, but she holds off tormenting her characters. She is not filled with self-hate. Instead, she observes her characters and their milieu with a sharp, cool perspective, but never at the expense of their humanity. Humor undercuts many scenes, particularly when examining celebrity culture, and there is a strong sense that Marco's inner life is non-existent, or at least deadened, from his steady diet of nothing. Coppola, however, is not a moralist. Her observations aren't jaundiced, even when she does poke at the pretensions of celebrity.

 

Although their approach to filmmaking and storytelling are very different, she does share with Antonioni and Fellini that ability to dissect the world of privilege without murdering it. It's no accident that Coppola has referenced Fellini's brilliant La Dolce Vita twice. In Lost in Translation, Murray and Johansson watch the movie on television. In Somewhere, Marco puts his daughter Cleo (Elle Fanning) on a plane after their night in Las Vegas and yells to her that he's sorry he's been absent from her life, she unable to hear his confession because of the roar of the plane's engine. The scene is reminiscent of the finale of La Dolce Vita, when a haggard Marcello Mastroianni slumps on a beach in the morning sun after a long night of debauchery and engages a young girl he met earlier in the movie. Her agonizingly touching expression of love for him goes unacknowledged because he can't understand what she's saying over the crashing waves and he's too bleary-eyed to comprehend the look on her face.

 

Coppola does not elevate the scene between Marco and Cleo to the profound emotional heights that Fellini went for, instead opting for her usual low-key preciseness. Later, when Marco self-pityingly calls up a woman and cries on the phone to her, she cuts him off and our wonderboy is literally left spending the night floating in a pool alone.

 

But Coppola does opt for a happy ending of sorts, albeit tinged with ambiguity and a trickle of Hollywood sentimentality. Marco has the hotel pack up his belongings and he hops into his sports car, taking off for the open road. What gives some advantage to reading this moment as optimistic for Marco, is that stylistically Coppola and Savides shoot Marco's car rigidly in the center of the frame as he drives further away from Los Angeles, our perspective always moving in a straight line… forward, forward, forward. Jump cuts accelerate the passage of time as Marco heads out into the desert. This is in direct opposition to the provocative opening shot of the movie, which is a long uninterrupted take observing Marco driving his car in a loop at a desert racetrack for several minutes, the camera stationary and only picking up a portion of the roadway. The shot selection at the end, with Marco breaking free from that interminable endless circle, and his life in Hollywood, feels exhilarating.

 

The question remaining, however, is whether Marco is truly up for the challenge. Marko finally pulls his car over to the side of the road. The desert surrounds him. He looks tentatively aware walking away from his abandoned car. But it feels like a movie moment, as the music slowly gains piercing urgency. It feels like a moment from a Johnny Marko movie, instead of the dead end it really is.   

 

***Thanks again Derek!***

(Operation Screenshot) Sofia Coppola's LOST IN TRANSLATION (2003)