2023-10-21 07:14:39
Sofia Coppola presented at the Venice Film Festival in September ‘Priscilla’, her new feature film, inspired by the life of Priscilla Presley. It will be released in the United States on November 3 and here in early January. The arrival of his eighth film coincides with the 20th anniversary of one of his most important films, ‘Lost in Translation’ (2003), for which he won his first and only Oscar (in the screenplay category).
This same year, the London-based publisher MACK published the book ‘Sofia Coppola Archive’a luxurious volume of almost 500 pages that reviews her career based on the author’s personal material: photographs, collages, commented scripts, sketches, influences…And the Japanese clothing chain UNIQLO launched a collection of t-shirts inspired by his films in March to celebrate 25 years since the beginning of his career (with the short ‘Lick the Star’, from 1998).
This has also been the year that the filmmaker has found a way to share her work and the things she likes on Instagram (@sofiacoppola). It may seem anecdotal, and perhaps it is, but it is still curious that last year she opened a profile on a social network whose more artistic and friendly side seems to have been invented by her. Is not difficult imagine the Instagram profiles of the Lisbon sisters from ‘The Virgin Suicides’ or the princess of Austria in ‘Marie Antoinette’ (2006). If there is a director who has shone, who is shining, especially strongly this year it is Sofia Coppola.
Although they are two very different filmmakers, something similar happens with the director of ‘The Virgin Suicides’ (1999) to what happens with Wes Anderson. Today, no one needs to be convinced that they are two important filmmakers, essential to understanding the cinema of recent decades and very influential. But both generate equal passion and rejection. It is not a hostile rejection, and each one has their reasons for connecting or not connecting with a filmmaker. But in both cases, the arguments against their films usually have to do with the aestheticism of the universes they propose.
Since her first film, ‘The Virgin Suicides’, Sofia Coppola has relied on uncompromising beauty to tell her stories, no matter how hard they may be, she has defined a sophisticated and aesthetic style which on some occasions proudly caresses advertising. Let us remember that she has also directed spots for brands such as Dior, Calvin Klein, Marni o Marc Jacobs whose universes and aesthetics are not far from those he proposes in his films.
It is totally understandable that not everyone is willing to tolerate this shameless aestheticism, this celebration of beauty. Even less in such a gray present. Nor that many of her films take place in a world of the rich (although she has also been very critical of them: ‘The Bling Ring’, for example). But doing so – and enjoying it – means entering the universe of a filmmaker who twenty-five years ahead of many of the issues and concerns that determine the cinema of the present, especially (although not exclusively) directed by women. With the difficulty of finding a place for yourself as a woman (‘The Virgin Suicides’ is from 1999, if today there is no parity, at that time it was a utopia) and, on top of that, ‘nepo baby’: no matter how many facilities your lineage offers you , You have to be very daring to be the daughter of Francis Ford Coppola and dedicate yourself to cinema.
It is very difficult to synthesize the findings of a filmography that spans several decades. This is just an attempt. Coppola has never doubted the need, the obligation, to create female characters (from the teenagers in ‘The Virgin Suicides’ to the thirty-something in ‘On the Rock’s). Nor why there was tell them well, care for them and expose their complexities and what made them happy and unhappy on an intimate and structural level.
It is no nonsense to debut with ‘The Virgin Suicides’, the adaptation of the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides, a film that speaks at the same time, with great lucidity, of female desire and sexuality (themes that today’s filmmakers are returning to the screen) and a repressive environment that punishes and castrates them. The effects of this repression are a constant in his work, where they explode in different ways and are often presented through the idea of confinement: ‘The Virgin Suicides’, ‘The Seduction’ or ‘Marie Antoinette’. In the latter, furthermore, she set a precedent in a very concrete and imitated way. rereading history: breaking with idealized visions of historical female characters.
Sofia Coppola also has some pioneer of autofiction, a terrain that there are those who observe with condescension but has been key in recent years both in cinematography and in literature. The filmmaker has never said that her films are autobiographical, but you don’t have to put too many things together to see Coppola in the protagonists of ‘Lost in Translation’, ‘On the Rocks’ or ‘Somewhere’.
In the latter, one of his best films, he spoke of communication problems between an 11-year-old girl (Elle Fanning) and her father (Stephen Dorf), a Hollywood actor in crisis. He once again created a female character to remember, to explore the ideas of his filmography (including that of confinement, this time in the legendary Chateau Marmot hotel) and opened the door, thirteen years ago, to another topic of the present: the new paternity models. The surface of Sofia Coppola’s cinema is satin, but there are giant steps in it that have opened many doors.
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