Xixax Film Forum

i'm watch PLATINUM on upn and i was surpised to see that sofia coppola created and wrote and is executive producer (along with francis ford coppola) of ths series.  i just thought it was cool!   actually PLATINUM is a lot like THE GODFATHER, the only difference is instead of the mafia it's a rap record label empire.

can't wait til LOST IN TRANSLATION comes out.  now i must buy THE VIRGIN SUICIDE dvd.

I kinda wanted to see Platinum before now...just looked a little interesting. But now I'll definitely have to try to catch it.

Ah, who am I kidding? I've never been able to keep up with a show for more than two or three episodes (not counting The Simpsons). But that's awesome that she'd doing a show on the subject. I hope there is a token character who promotes quality hip hop!

I loved the first half of The Virgin Suicides. I mean loved it ! But as soon as Hartnett came into the picture and turned it into a couple movie I lost all interest.

I enjoyed the way it was shot, though. I'll look for her future stuff.

Quote from: KeenerI loved the first half of The Virgin Suicides. I mean loved it ! But as soon as Hartnett came into the picture and turned it into a couple movie I lost all interest.

I enjoyed the way it was shot, though. I'll look for her future stuff.

I felt the same way!  :twisted:

i fucking hate josh hartnett but he was terrific in this. his half hour was the high point of the movie. same goes for kirsten dunst, i hate her so much, but she was perfect in this movie. i just saw it last night, its great, sofia rocks, i cant wait to see her follow up, whats it called, Lost In Translation? whats it about, does anyone know?

The second feature film from writer-director Sofia Coppola (The Virgin Suicides) is set in Tokyo, where two bored Americans — a fading TV star (Bill Murray) shooting an alcohol ad and a young married woman (Scarlett Johansson) with an ambitious, neglectful husband — become fast friends after meeting in a hotel bar. The two then spend an adventure-filled weekend together "finding themselves."


........that's all I could find

Quote from: Lesteri cant wait to see her follow up, whats it called, Lost In Translation? whats it about, does anyone know?

Release Date: September 19th, 2003 (LA/NY); expands to other cities at later dates

Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Bill Murray, Anna Faris, Giovanni Ribisi

Premise: This is the story of two Americans, a washed-up TV star (Murray) in town for a TV whiskey commercial shoot, and the (very) young wife (Johansson) of a photographer, who meet in Tokyo, Japan and end up spending a weekend hanging out there together on a "soul-searching mission."

that sounds fantastic, i really cant wait after hearing that. im glad ribisi's coming back, i always liked him a lot, hes was great as narrator for Suicides. And Murray and Scarlet, sheeeit...this is gonna be wonderful.

I love The Virgin Suicides...it's one of the most beautiful, most haunting films I've seen. And yes, I also hate Josh Hartnett...but he's pretty good in it. Everybody really is. I definitely have to buy the dvd. I need to see it again to really appreciate it to the fullest. Sofia is the best female director working today for what that's worth (there's so few!).

And yeah, Lost in Translation sounds awesome too...Murray is a genius, Scarlett is awesome. I hope Murray's character is like a burned out Peter Venkman after getting fired from his weird ESP, psychic show from Ghostbusters II...that would be damn funny. He's never been funnier than in the GB movies imo.

platinum is pretty flatinum. hahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaa

they play her B&W short on IFC sometimes.  she obviously has talent, and the Virgin Suicides was a great, haunting film.

This really isn't a Sofia Coppola movie (or part movie), but have any of you seen New York Stories?
Wasn't the Coppola one just bad?

I am a fan of all three directors, and Scorsese's was pretty good, and Allen's was funny, but the Coppola one was just bad bad bad...

The only reason I bring this up here is because Francis directed it and cowrote it with Sofia...

Bad bad bad...

Life without Zoe was...well, it was...ummm...tolerable ? Yeah, it wasn't as good as the other two but I could sit through it. With Four Rooms, the first two rooms had me wanting to slit my wrists (mind you, I would have just fastforwarded but the remote was across the room and suicide would have been so much easier).

First review of Lost In Translation:

http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=15498

This sounds so great.

Wow!  What a great review!!!  I'm going to go nuts waiting for this movie to come out.  It sounds fucking beautiful...."Bill Murray gives one of his best performances!"  And how can you go wrong with Scarlet!

has anyone read the BOOK of the Virgin Suicides? and can u tell me how it compares to the movie?

the conclusion in the film i agree was very haunting, SPOILER!!!!!!!! what with the little flames and all.. how is it all in the book? .. (without major spoilers unless it's the same as the movie)

I've read it, but unfortunately can't remember how they did they ending, so am useless to you... I think they may have just reported briefly that they made a memorial (it's narrated by an indeterminate collective of the boys). I think the last sentence was great though. On of those ones where you put the book down and sit there for a little while in silence.

I do remember it being good, and having a much more guy-centred approach than the movie - so you get even fewer glimpses of the sisters - which made it even more ambiguous and poetic in my opnion.

I saw the trailer for Lost In Translation today; it looks really good. Not nearly as surreal or moody as the Virgin Suicides, but more quietly comedic. Bill Murray's performance looks fantastic. I think there was some good music in it, too, but the audio was only playing through the center channel (theater's fault), so I could barely hear anything other than dialogue.

Quote from: GhostboyI saw the trailer for Lost In Translation today; it looks really good. Not nearly as surreal or moody as the Virgin Suicides, but more quietly comedic. Bill Murray's performance looks fantastic. I think there was some good music in it, too, but the audio was only playing through the center channel (theater's fault), so I could barely hear anything other than dialogue.

See for yourself here. (http://mediaframe.yahoo.com/launch?lid=rnv-56-p.1211973-110653,rnv-100-p.1211974-110653,rnv-300-p.1211975-110653,wmv-56-p.1211976-110653,wmv-100-p.1211977-110653,wmv-300-p.1211978-110653)

ooh, that looks good. that looks very very good.

I hope they don't play the whole "another language sounds different so it's funny" angle too often.  I really hate that

Quote from: tremoloslothI hope they don't play the whole "another language sounds different so it's funny" angle too often.  I really hate that

yeah man, sofia coppola is totally gonna do that.

Well damn, because I really hate that.

Sofia's above that you guys.  Lost In Translation is shaping up to be one hell of a movie, according to links posted on this board...I have a feeling it might be one of the best movies this season.... :-D

I can dig that.  :wink:

I just saw a trailer for Lost in Translation before Swimming Pool, and it looks great.  I'm so glad Sofia Copploa is directing a feature again.  I've always heard good things about her even though I've never actually seen any of her work.  I've wanted to see Lick the Star for the longest time, but I'd have no clue where to look to find it.  Anyway, yes, just wanted to add that, and say it's good to see Bill Murray in another film, and the woman he's cast with, Anna Faris, looks like she'll give a good performance as well.  So one reason to shell out $5-$7 for Swimming Pool is this trailer.  The actual movie that follows the trailer isn't all that great, but it's not a complete disaster.

Wow, that does look really damn good. Man, those shots of the city and the pool are gorgeous!

Thanks Mac, I've been needing another movie to look forward to, it's sucked big time lately.

I just saw the trailer.
It looks very nice. The Jesus and Mary Chain kick ass!

Looks interesting. I'm not sure about Scarlett Johannson though. I haven't found her to be a very convincing actress in the past and her delivery of the lines in the trailer were pretty bad. I'll go see it for Murray and Giovanni, even though he only has a small role.

Quote from: mindfuckLooks interesting. I'm not sure about Scarlett Johannson though. I haven't found her to be a very convincing actress in the past and her delivery of the lines in the trailer were pretty bad.

whatever!

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aint-it-cool-news.com%2Fimage%2FLostInTranslation1.jpg&hash=eac5c8a24c3e71e741864ffad9de9b00ba96f4fc)
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aint-it-cool-news.com%2Fimage%2FLostInTranslation2.jpg&hash=8a6cb13654b7dec6748b59116a48a8f6a49e2caf)

Quote from: mindfuckLooks interesting. I'm not sure about Scarlett Johannson though. I haven't found her to be a very convincing actress in the past and her delivery of the lines in the trailer were pretty bad. I'll go see it for Murray and Giovanni, even though he only has a small role.

Yeah, I've gotta agree with P on this one.  I think she's fantastic.  And not just because I want her to have my children.  I think what's so great about her is she reminds me of girls I've known, the kind that seem honest and not pretentious at all (i.e. the perky girl-next-door syndrome that drives me up a wall) and even though her delivery at times seems deadpan, it's also very appropriate.

i cant wait.  those posters are really cool.  its funny how you can almost tell what films are going to be your favorites of that year even before they come out.

saw it at the American Cinematheque... it's the best film of 2003 as of yet (of the films I've seen, anyway).  Billy Murray gives an, in my opinion, Oscar worthy performance.  He's fucking hilarious while at the same time showing his versatility as a dramatic actor.  He blends the exasperated actor/husband with that wild side sparked by his friendship with Scarlett's character so well; it's ridiculously good.  Scarlett Johansson gives a wonderful performance as well, countering Murray perfectly.  The chemistry the two have on screen is an absolute delight to see.  Giovanni Ribisi and Anna Faris both have extremely small but memorable roles... the film mainly revolves around Bill and Scarlett and their relationship.

Lost in Translation is probably one of the best celebrations of friendship and the bond between people I've ever seen, with some of the most incredibly humane, true-to-life characters ever committed to celluloid.  Sofia Coppola does an excellent job directing and has a killer sense of humor, on that reflects that of Wes Anderson's (juxtapositions, etc.).  The film also benefits from an EXCELLENT soundtrack and gorgeous cinematography.

Alright, stick comes out of the ass... this movie is fucking brilliant and I can't recommend it enough.  I may be overhyping the film but it's hard not to glow once you've seen a film like Lost in Translation.  I've been telling everyone about it and I suggest you rush out to see this one; it's a true gem.

Great man!  Thanks alot! You've got me frothing at the mouth lol

My interview with Sophia is now online. To read it go to:

http://www.movienavigator.org/sofia.htm

Damn, I cant wait for this. Still waiting for the uk release date.

Aah Scarlett...

Fantastic story on Coppola in Sunday's New York Times magazine....

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/31/magazine/31COPPOLA.html?ex=1062907200&en=d1893e5518ca8dfc&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

I am very stoked for this flick.

I was unimpressed with The Virgin Suicides.  I thought the atomosphere was interesting, but it was a forgettable movie.  I hope her new movie, Lost in Translation, is better.  I mean, Bill Murray rules, so I'm gonna see this movie as soon as I can.  Scarlett Johansson impressed me in Ghost World, so I can't wait to see how she is in Lost in Translation.

Quote from: that NY Times article[Scarlett] said. ''In the first scene in the movie, I am photographed from the back in sheer pink underwear. Now, I'm not a really physically fit type of person, and I was afraid to wear the underwear. [...] And we shot it.''

yep this is my favorite movie of the year.

I saw this a few hours ago and I still feel like I'm floating. The best thing I can say about it is that a movie hasn't left me this happy since the first time I saw Punch Drunk Love.

My full review. (http://www.road-dog-productions.com/lostintranslation.html)

I just read this on AICN, I wondered if it was you. Great review, GhostBoy. Soo pumped to see this film.

From The Los Angeles Times:

An upstart, casual but confident
Filmmaker Sofia Coppola lets intuition be her creative guide.

Sofia Coppola's latest film, the tender travelers' tale "Lost in Translation," opens enigmatically with a glimpse of a young woman's body curled up in bed, her bottom in peach mesh underwear turned against the audience. Framed and lighted by a soft glow that brings to mind the pinup paintings of midcentury American photorealist John Kacere, the title sequence establishes the tenor of the film — at once romantic, innocent and mysterious.

And it suggests audacity and a playful confidence on the part of Coppola, who wrote and directed the film — though her intention was not to toss ironic, possibly provocative winks at the indie crowd, or tick off cool art references.  
 
"I don't have a really good reason for it," she says with disarming frankness about the memorable shot. "It's just how I wanted to start the movie. I liked having a hint of the character — a sweet, young girl waiting around in her hotel room — and then go into the story."

It's this kind of spontaneous, guileless and visually bold approach that Coppola has cultivated since she joined the family business five years ago. Her work has earned her comparisons to that of Chekhov, no less; and the buzz-worthy sobriquet of "the most original and promising young female filmmaker in America," recently bestowed upon her in an article in the New York Times Magazine. The film, playing this week at the Toronto Film Festival, is being released by Focus Features, red-hot after last year's Oscar and indie successes "The Pianist" and "Far From Heaven."

It may all seem a bit out of proportion for an upstart director, except, of course, Coppola is a filmmaker in a dynasty of filmmakers that includes father Francis Ford, documentarian mother Eleanor, brother Roman and husband Spike Jonze.

And while the growing media din heralding the Sept. 12 release of "Lost in Translation" is not surprising given Coppola's thoroughbred pedigree, the elated response to the film so far indicate that critics and audiences have embraced the young director on her own merit.

"Lost" has the intimate, adolescent charm of a travel scrapbook assembled for the benefit of close friends. And on a recent sunny morning over breakfast at a Los Feliz café, Coppola calls her filmmaking approach deeply personal and "intuitive" rather than cerebral.

"Everything about it was very personal to me," she says about the picture. "It was a bit scary. I didn't know if anyone would really relate to it at all." In the film, Scarlett Johansson plays the wife of an obnoxiously trendy photographer, and Bill Murray is an American actor of certain fame shooting a lucrative commercial abroad on the sly. Sleepless and marooned in the same luxurious hotel in Tokyo, the two hook up to traverse the foreign night and comfort each other in that emotional limbo that the filmmaker herself has gotten to know all too well.

"I've had my share of jet-lagged moments," Coppola says. "Being in a hotel, and jet-lagged, kind of distorts everything. Even little things that are no big deal feel epic when you're in that mood. Your emotions are exaggerated, it's hard to find your way around, it's lonely."

This is not the first time Coppola has traced the contours of a specific locale through the lens of sentiment. Her praised 1999 debut, "The Virgin Suicides," was an erotic, feverish adaptation of a cult novel about five doomed sisters and the boys who adored them, set in the dreamy, mythical space of '70s Detroit suburbia.

But as she traded suburban for urban reverie in "Lost," Coppola's signature outlook has become more clearly defined: A visual style that is fluid but precise. A preference for the themes of melancholy, regret and boredom.

The main source of inspiration for the film was the time the director spent in her post-college years wandering around Tokyo, not knowing what she wanted to do for work, contemplating her options.

There was, she says, "a lot of driving around in my friend's car, listening to music and looking at the neon as we were going by. Tokyo is just such an exciting city — totally visually interesting, crazy and overwhelming. And just so foreign from your real life."

She found that once absorbed into the system, the metropolis was impossible to forget, with its sense of hysterical glamour, East-crashes-into-West artifacts and mishmash of misspelled, often hilarious pop-culture references.

The exorcism took place once she started parlaying her experiences into a script. Her protagonists, both mired in self-doubt and marital troubles — he from a midage vantage point, she perched insecure on the cusp of adulthood — sprang naturally into being. "The character of the girl is based on me when I was younger," Coppola says. "She has that early '20s crisis of 'What am I gonna do?' And Bill Murray's character is going through a breakdown over almost the same thing but from the opposite end."

Keeping her ears open

At 32, Coppola looks like a young gymnast, with hair gathered away from her face in a ponytail and thin, shapely arms. Today she wears sailor pants with whimsical gold buttons, a white tank top and ballerina flats — the get-up of a Parisian teen vacationing on the Riviera. Her only grown-up accessories are the navy Porsche Carrera she pulls up in, and her black Hermès bag, in which, you suspect, she always carries a chic leather-bound notebook to jot down impressions and overheard conversations.

In fact, for "Lost," Coppola cops to recycling a lot of spied exchanges into dialogue. "I like listening and overhearing things," she says. "I definitely get stuff from all over the place." On her script, she worked from snapshot observations she had collected over the years, weaving the narrative around amusing details that struck her.

Two such capsule moments notably anchor the film: One, a version of the "Scarborough Fair" canticle, is performed with ridiculously sultry aplomb by the cover band in residence at the fictional hotel's New York Bar. The other, a karaoke rendition of the Sex Pistols' anti-establishment yelp "God Save the Queen," is garbled by Coppola's own pal Fumihiro Hayashi, a.k.a. Charlie Brown. They were both lifted from real life.

"There was a performer at the Park Hyatt in Tokyo, which I had seen when I was there the year before," Coppola recalls. "She was singing that song, and I just thought, 'This is so weird — we're in Tokyo and this woman with red hair is singing Simon and Garfunkel!' And one time my friend Charlie and I were at karaoke and he did 'God Save the Queen,' and I was just like, 'Oh, wow, I wanna put that in a movie!" "I guess," she concludes, "that's why I make films: because I get obsessed with some idea and it won't stop until I actually listen to it and make something out of it."

That is the closest the filmmaker comes to untangling the impetus behind her delicate, gossamer work.

Unlike her Latin profile — frank, with full, prominent features — Coppola's manner tends to be vague. Her answers are elliptical. Most of her sentences start with a soft "yeah " delivered in the loopy cadence of Southern California teen speak, and trail off with a question mark. She has often been described as "shy," "wan," "quiet" and "not what you'd call a verbal person" by aggravated interviewers who seldom fail to point out that someone with Coppola's introverted demeanor would appear unfit to handle a film director's lot.

Dispassionate but hypersensitive, Coppola works from the surface, which is where her films make their biggest impact. In "Lost," the soundtrack and visuals tango in lock step to convey the arrested moments in which jet lag, insomnia, and the lack of communication with locals throw the protagonists off balance and open them up to emotion, maybe romance. The droll, sensual pace of the film brings to mind the kind of unexplained languor that sometimes overtakes one late in the afternoon, when the arms of a lover seem like the only appropriate refuge.

Shot guerrilla style last October on location, the keenly observed tableaux that make up the small-budget picture — Japanese teens hopped-up on energy drinks and bouncing around a video-game arcade, the Tokyo skyline pulsing and humming like a giant golden bumblebee, a formal wedding ceremony, a ride on the bullet train — may well achieve as memorable an impression on the audience as they make on Murray's and Johansson's characters.

Inspiration for the film also came in the shape of a somewhat portly male muse. "I tried to think of what I could do in Tokyo with Bill Murray," Coppola says with a smile about the actor, whose turn in the film has already sparked Oscar talk. "His character is really based on how I imagined him to be. He has something that's really sincere and heartfelt, but really funny and at the same time tragic."

In her creative world

Before Coppola blossomed into a filmmaker in her own right, she was, of course, better known for her association with attractive, creative elites: The novel from which she wrote and directed her first film was a gift from Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore. She has starred in music videos directed by Jonze, and in what is her most recent accomplishment, directed one of her own that features fashion muse Kate Moss writhing around a dance pole to the tune of a White Stripes song.

In her midteens, she was an intern at the Parisian headquarters of couture house Chanel and wore a creation of its designer, Karl Lagerfeld, to her high school prom.

She hosted a celeb chitchat show called "Hi-Octane" on Comedy Central and tried her hand at being a guest beauty editor for Vogue magazine.

She had Tom Waits perform at her wedding as she walked down the aisle.

She has posed in ad campaigns for perfume and purses by designer and good pal Marc Jacobs, who has often noted that Coppola's minimalist, jeune-fille style informs his creations.

"I figured, I'm gonna try everything once," she says about her trial-and-error approach. "When I was in my early 20s, I knew that I wanted to do something creative, but I didn't know in what area." After creating the costumes for two of her father's film productions fresh out of high school, Coppola went to CalArts to study painting. She soon switched to photography. "I started taking photos because paintings took too long and I could never get them the way I wanted," she says. "I realized I couldn't do any one thing very well but had a lot of different interests. It looked kind of flaky to do one thing, and then another, and then another — but I tried to be open to finding the right thing.

"Then when I did my short film [1998's "Lick the Star"], I felt like that's something that I really love doing. So I really love doing film. And I still love doing other small projects."

Throughout it all, media comparisons with her leonine father, along with the obligatory questions about her universally panned performance in "The Godfather: Part III," have never faded. Nor have the attempts to psychoanalyze her work as a byproduct of an isolated, itinerant childhood, which took her from the Philippines to New York and Oklahoma and finally Northern California's Napa County as the work of her father demanded; and an adolescence marked by the accidental death of an older brother, Gian-Carlo, which happened when she was 15.

As "Lost in Translation" is about to open, the clichéd connection between life and art is made again by tabloid reports that Coppola and Jonze, who have been married for four years, are traversing a marital crisis.

It all seems to have rendered her weary and guarded. "Sometimes people are a little challenging," she notes. "We should just be able to make a film and not have to talk about it."

After all, her cinematic universe, precisely built on the fragile artifacts of transitory emotion, happenstance encounter and daydreaming, is fascinating enough on its own.

"That's what I like when I see a film: that I can see somebody's world that I didn't know anything about," she says, noting that her next move will be to "get back to writing."

"Sometimes it's the only thing that you can try to do — express your experiences in a film — and hope that someone wants to see it."

Every article about her has basically said the same things -- some in longer format than others. I kept mine relatively short and to the point. I just hope that she and the movie don't get over-hyped or build up expectations too high.

lets not forget the world want GaGa over matty rich and now he only exsists because i talk about him, if his daddy made the godfather maybe he would still be around

but when his first film came out the hipster police were name dropping him even johnathin demme became a mentor ?????????????


so anyways i have said before that many people outside of america or in america and are to you dont rememember that sofia was a uglyier  paris hilton in the early 90's

ooohhh Paris and Nikki Hilton -- now THERE'S two gals I would like to make. Damn Damn Damn!!!!!

Quote from: SoNowThenooohhh Paris and Nikki Hilton -- now THERE'S two gals I would like to make. Damn Damn Damn!!!!!

sofia was like them she would hang out at every " hip" spot and have her picture taken and she tried to be a cool hipster and well so did drew barrymoore at the time, and lets put it this way it worked for drew and not sofia

but artsy folks will buy anything as long as its presented as anti mainstream

Like I said on the other thread, you're crawling up the wrong tree. Gonna get bark burns. You sound more jealous than anything...

Quote from: mutinycoLike I said on the other thread, you're crawling up the wrong tree. Gonna get bark burns. You sound more jealous than anything...

on this your right, yeah i have a 9 inch dick and with her nose she still could still satisfy my girlfriend better

i would do sofia coppola and her movies are ekzellent and she is a saint.

she's only mediocre...Pants I am hearing ya 100%.  Too many like her soley cause they are expected to.  Get rid of daddy warmovie and she is nothing.

I would love for her to change my opinion, but I doubt this new movie will do so, as after seeing the trailer...I have no desire to see this.  I am sure Murray will be good though.

That was everybody's opinion -- including myself -- until we saw the movie. There's a reason it's getting unanimous praise.

if I may throw in my two cents here:

sorry to my good PM pals who I usually agree with, but I think Virgin Suicides was a great flick. I also think Lost In Translation will be a great flick. I don't know about her personally, or how it happens, but these movies interest me.

If there is one overpraised hack in the family, I would say it's her husband, whose wink-wink-nudge-nudge films can't come close to the emotion value of his wife's.

this is all stupid. ur judging her film #1 w/o even seeing it and b. u've deemed her unworthy just b/c she's the daughter of francis and the wife of spike jonze?

here's what u do. see the movie. luv it. come back and admit what a jackass u were/r. (this is directed to anyone and everyone, really)

Quote from: ©bradthis is all stupid. ur judging her film #1 w/o even seeing it and b. u've deemed her unworthy just b/c she's the daughter of francis and the wife of spike jonze?

here's what u do. see the movie. luv it. come back and admit what a jackass u were/r. (this is directed to anyone and everyone, really)

its poor bill murry who i feel will get the shaft some people still think he is a chevy chase buddy picture type and he is not

and sofia ive said enough about her

and yes i hope this movie is good, i hope all movies are good i wanted dumb and dumberer to be good because we were bored and that was the only thing playing , and i paid money to see it so yes i wanted to be good it wasnt

now im mad, but i hope this lost in translation movie is good, but most people here dont know her real track record all they know is the virgin suicides

and im basing my point on she spent the 90's career hopping untill she did the last desperate act of a failure she joined the family buisness

first she wanted to be a actress then a model then a tv host then a designer then a photographer, she tried to cure sars and acidentlly invented it............ ok that last one might be exagerating but all those other things she did ................poorlly

Which she's admitted, in interviews on this site and others, and which went a long way towards  inspiring Lost In Translation. Everybody knows about Godfather 3, and a lot of people know about her other career attempts. That still doesn't take anything away from her being a good director. You're arguing a moot point.

Quote from: GhostboyWhich she's admitted, in interviews on this site and others, and which went a long way towards  inspiring Lost In Translation. Everybody knows about Godfather 3, and a lot of people know about her other career attempts. That still doesn't take anything away from her being a good director. You're arguing a moot point.

fair enough point taken , i just hope this film is great and murry gets the oscar


as long as she fess's up to her past she is A ok with me , because most people dont rememember her past and i still think its a sign of a true failure when your last attempt at making it is joining the family buisness

but as a murry fanatic i hope this film will be great

all good points.

But does she have anything left to fail in if she were to have been a flop of a director?...

you can't tell me, that there aren't people wanting her to succeed so badly, that they aren't pushin' her in the butt along the way.  Sure, maybe my/others opinon is based on jealousy, but that is an easy excuse/cop out, being the alternative is that she is just a little rich kid director that daddy, hubby and all their friends will make sure succeeds.  

really, it seems like some of you are talking this a this a little personally.

It's not so much that we're taking it personally as that we've actually SEEN Lost In Translation and can attest to its quality.

well, I thought this was a DIRECTOR thread.... I just don't buy into her as being this creative genius.  And I have see suicides, so my opinion stems from that as well.  Sorry if I joined late and didn't realize this was solely about lost in whatever.

You're right, it is about her as a director...but the argument is a continuation of the one that was started in Alguien's thread about Lost In Translation, so that's why the focus on that is so prevalent.

just saw Lost In Translation.  wow.  this is one of those movies i just cant get out of my head.  been home for an hour, but the feeling of the movie is still hanging with me.  (i guess playing the soundtrack is helping with that too), but still.  this movie isnt a story so much as it is a feeling.  and you really feel something watching these people together.  and when it ends, its really sad to have to leave them.  this movie was my favorite of this year so far.  finally something worth watching.  fall is here.

I concur. It is, for me, the best movie of 2003 thus far. One scene in particular nearly brought tears to my eyes, it was so sad and beautiful all at the same time. And I'm not one who typically cries at movies. Not like a certain friend of mine who wept like a little bitch during Freaky Friday...

I'm so jealous!!!!!

This film isn't playing anywhere near me.  I'm fiending!!! :evil:

fuck. i too have no access to this movie and would obviously kill a man to see this.

Need any names and addresses?

Just for the people in the UK. (Maybe you'd be interested in this again, Budgie). Lost in Translation is playing at the London Film Festival this year on the 28th and 29th of october. I saw Punch Drunk Love there last year and PTA, EW, and DL attended. Great night.

http://www.lff.org.uk/films_details.php?FilmID=158

does Lost in Translation have any kind of webpage that shows when it opens in cities (like PDL did)?

i'm guessing i won't get to see it for a long time.......and i really want to now........i think i've read 4 articles on it in about a weeks time........they're really doing the interviews for this one so it's hyping it up for me

Quote from: bigideasdoes Lost in Translation have any kind of webpage that shows when it opens in cities (like PDL did)?

it opened on a wider level this weekend...well, least did so in California.  Check something generic like www.moviefone.com for yer listings.  If that doesn't help...gimme sum time and I will bootleg that shit to ya in no time!!...(just kiddin' bout the bootleg...damn internet cheapos)

What Else Was Lost In Translation

By MOTOKO RICH

IT doesn't take much to figure out that "Lost in Translation," the title of Sofia Coppola's elegiac new film about two lonely American souls in Tokyo, means more than one thing. There is the cultural dislocation felt by Bob Harris (Bill Murray), a washed-up movie actor, and Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), a young wife trying to find herself. They are also lost in their marriages, lost in their lives. Then, of course, there is the simple matter of language.

Bob, who is in town to make a whiskey commercial, doesn't speak Japanese. His director (Yutaka Tadokoro), a histrionic Japanese hipster, doesn't speak English. In one scene, Bob goes on the set and tries to understand the director through a demure interpreter (Akiko Takeshita), who is either unable or (more likely) unwilling to translate everything the director is rattling on about.

Needless to say, Bob is lost. And without subtitles, so is the audience. Here, translated into English, is what the fulmination is really about.

DIRECTOR (in Japanese to the interpreter): The translation is very important, O.K.? The translation.

INTERPRETER: Yes, of course. I understand.

DIRECTOR: Mr. Bob-san. You are sitting quietly in your study. And then there is a bottle of Suntory whiskey on top of the table. You understand, right? With wholehearted feeling, slowly, look at the camera, tenderly, and as if you are meeting old friends, say the words. As if you are Bogie in "Casablanca," saying, "Cheers to you guys," Suntory time!

INTERPRETER: He wants you to turn, look in camera. O.K.?

BOB: That's all he said?

INTERPRETER: Yes, turn to camera.

BOB: Does he want me to, to turn from the right or turn from the left?

INTERPRETER (in very formal Japanese to the director): He has prepared and is ready. And he wants to know, when the camera rolls, would you prefer that he turn to the left, or would you prefer that he turn to the right? And that is the kind of thing he would like to know, if you don't mind.

DIRECTOR (very brusquely, and in much more colloquial Japanese): Either way is fine. That kind of thing doesn't matter. We don't have time, Bob-san, O.K.? You need to hurry. Raise the tension. Look at the camera. Slowly, with passion. It's passion that we want. Do you understand?

INTERPRETER (In English, to Bob): Right side. And, uh, with intensity.

BOB: Is that everything? It seemed like he said quite a bit more than that.

DIRECTOR: What you are talking about is not just whiskey, you know. Do you understand? It's like you are meeting old friends. Softly, tenderly. Gently. Let your feelings boil up. Tension is important! Don't forget.

INTERPRETER (in English, to Bob): Like an old friend, and into the camera.

BOB: O.K.

DIRECTOR: You understand? You love whiskey. It's Suntory time! O.K.?

BOB: O.K.

DIRECTOR: O.K.? O.K., let's roll. Start.

BOB: For relaxing times, make it Suntory time.

DIRECTOR: Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut! (Then in a very male form of Japanese, like a father speaking to a wayward child) Don't try to fool me. Don't pretend you don't understand. Do you even understand what we are trying to do? Suntory is very exclusive. The sound of the words is important. It's an expensive drink. This is No. 1. Now do it again, and you have to feel that this is exclusive. O.K.? This is not an everyday whiskey you know.

INTERPRETER: Could you do it slower and ——

DIRECTOR: With more ecstatic emotion.

INTERPRETER: More intensity.

DIRECTOR (in English): Suntory time! Roll.

BOB: For relaxing times, make it Suntory time.

DIRECTOR: Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut! God, I'm begging you.

In an interview, Ms. Coppola said she wrote the dialogue for the scene in English, and then it was translated into Japanese for Mr. Tadokoro. The scene, she said, came out of her own experience promoting her first feature film, "The Virgin Suicides," in Japan. Whenever she would say something, she said, the interpreter would seemingly speak for much longer. "I would think that she was adding to what I was saying and getting carried away, so I wanted to have that in the scene."

In the scene, Ms. Coppola said, Mr. Murray never did learn what the director  was saying. "I like the fact that the American actors don't really know what's going on, just like the characters," she said.

Frankly, it's not clear that even if Bob-san had understood what the director said, it would  have helped.

Ms. Coppola said she purposely gave the director "lame directions," adding, "He wasn't supposed to be the best director."

GOIN TO SEE THIS TODAY
GOIN TO SEE THIS TODAY
GOIN TO SEE THIS TODAY
HEY.....
GOIN TO SEE THIS TODAY

Enjoy.  I would go back again tonight (after seeing it this afternoon) if I was able too.

Here's (http://kcrw.com/cgi-bin/ram_wrap.cgi?/tt/tt031001Sophia_Copolla) here is a interview from KCRW's The Treatment with her....(real player format.)

Article on Scarlett Johansson in a London Film Festival supplement, for Lost in Translation.

QuoteShe leaves me on the corner of 8th Street, slips on a pair of sunglasses and a set of headphones and sashays up Seventh Avenue. No one gives her a second glance. I manage to catch a glimpse of the CD she pops into her portable recorder. She is, listening, ironically enough, to those edgy New York hipsters, Simon and Garfunkel. I'm so unexpectedly touched, I nearly weep.

Ahh..
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,6870-845630,00.html

in the new issue of rolling stone Sofia names her top 5 romantic movies

Sofia Coppola on Burning Love
1. Breathless
2. In The Mood For Love
3. The Thin Man
4. Gilda
5. Harold And Maude

Quote from: themodernage02in the new issue of rolling stone Sofia names her top 5 romantic movies

Sofia Coppola on Burning Love
1. Breathless
2. In The Mood For Love
3. The Thin Man
4. Gilda
5. Harold And Maude

All wonderful choices from a cinematically insightful filmmaker...

Quote from: godardianAll wonderful choices from a cinematically insightful filmmaker...

and you could be too if you had daddy warbucks and the heir director patting your butt along the way... :wink:

Quote from: aclockworkjj

Quote from: godardianAll wonderful choices from a cinematically insightful filmmaker...

and you could be too if you had daddy warbucks and the heir director patting your butt along the way... :wink:

Not necessarily. I think Roman kind of sucks. At least C.Q. did, in my opinion.

Sofia Coppola, Spike Jonze to Divorce

LOS ANGELES - Filmmakers Sofia Coppola and Spike Jonze are splitting after four years of marriage.

Coppola, daughter of Oscar-winning director Francis Ford Coppola, filed divorce papers Friday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. She cited "irreconcilable differences" and said the couple separated in May. They have no children.

The couple reached the decision to divorce "with sadness," Coppola's publicist, Bumble Ward, said in a statement.

Coppola, 32, wrote and directed the recent "Lost in Translation," starring Bill Murray, and the 2000 drama, "The Virgin Suicides."

Jonze, 34, whose real name is Adam Spiegel, is the director of the 1999 cult classic "Being John Malkovich," and last year's "Adaptation."

That's somehow not surprising. From what I know about both of them, they wouldn't appear to have compatible or complementary personalities or sensibilities.

it must've been his fault. cos she's perfect in every way.

Quote from: godardianThat's somehow not surprising. From what I know about both of them, they wouldn't appear to have compatible or complementary personalities or sensibilities.

Really? What are they like?

I've read where people think Ribisi's character in Lost in Translation is supposed to be Spike Jonze and the ditzy blonde is Cameron Diaz (this is probably discussed elsewhere, no need for a redirect), but then Coppola denied this. Hmm...now I wonder.

Quote from: Gamblor du Jour
Really? What are they like?

I've read where people think Ribisi's character in Lost in Translation is supposed to be Spike Jonze and the ditzy blonde is Cameron Diaz (this is probably discussed elsewhere, no need for a redirect), but then Coppola denied this. Hmm...now I wonder.

i hate when people do that

Quote from: Gamblor du Jour

Quote from: godardianThat's somehow not surprising. From what I know about both of them, they wouldn't appear to have compatible or complementary personalities or sensibilities.

Really? What are they like?

I've read where people think Ribisi's character in Lost in Translation is supposed to be Spike Jonze and the ditzy blonde is Cameron Diaz (this is probably discussed elsewhere, no need for a redirect), but then Coppola denied this. Hmm...now I wonder.

I don't know what they're like or if that gossip could possibly be true, but their images and work tell me that Coppola is more cerebral, reserved, and sensitive, while Jonze is gregarious, extroverted, and prankish. That's all I meant.

This is great -- my chances with Sofia just leap-frogged to a million to one!!

Quote from: godardian
I don't know what they're like or if that gossip could possibly be true, but their images and work tell me that Coppola is more cerebral, reserved, and sensitive, while Jonze is gregarious, extroverted, and prankish. That's all I meant.

Oh ok, I see.

Well, if I were twice my age I might go for Sofia. for now I'll just stick with an obsession over Scarlett moreso than Sofia. That'd be cool If I can meet either, though I'd be more anxious to meet Scarlett, sadly...though I think Sofia and I could have many an interesting conversation about...umm...y'know, film stuff. Whatever.

Coppola is on the Leno late night rerun that's started, well, right about now.  If you get it, that is.  Heh.

did Jonze and Diaz have an affair? it seems that people are hinting that Diaz is the cause of the split......or am i totally off base?

Quote from: bigideasdid Jonze and Diaz have an affair? it seems that people are hinting that Diaz is the cause of the split......or am i totally off base?

who is hinting that?

the broke up cos she was too good for him.

Quote from: Pthe broke up cos she was too good for him.

I thought it was because she stole Lance Acord and wouldn't give him back.

And now I'll pull my arms out with my face

well, i guess because everyone thinks that Sophia is the Charlotte character and Diaz is whoever Anna Farris plays........and it seems that Charlotte is quite annoyed with her and her husband's relationship

On page 15 of the new EW (02/13/2004), Sofia Coppola's twelve CD picks. Including some interesting stuff from My Bloody Valentine, New Order, Gang of Four, Roxy Music, One from the Heart sdtk.... She also seems to have a fondness for trendy stuff, which I won't get into here, you'll just have to read the mag. Full-length photo of Ms. Coppola herself amidst her picks.

Hey guys! I just saw Virgin Suicides for the first time tonight, and I really liked it. I love how moody, or airy, Sofia's movies are. They really give me a warm feeling when I watch them, though this one was certainly inferior to LIT in my opinion and was a tad more depressing (not saying LIT was at all). All in all I enjoyed it, and the acting was surprisingly credible from the kids and Kirsten and Josh. Oh, and I liked how mysterious it was (at least to the end that I can't really say why the girls suicided themselves), and also how the focus was less on the girls and more on the anxiety of the boys. A very nice film.

i dont think it was inferior.   i like them about the same.

I wonder how many big busget Hollywood Romantic Comedy scripts are being thrown at Sophia right now?

Do you think she will parle her success into a big Hollywood film next or is she more like PT Anderson, someone who has a vision of continuing to make personal projects, Hollywood be dammed. I mena, it's not as if she needs to make the move into big movies for financial reasons. She doesn't have to worry about how much money she makes and I think the success of LIT has secured her ability to get her next 2-3 films financed.
But is she the type to attempt a mainstream romcom?

Quote from: analogzombieI wonder how many big busget Hollywood Romantic Comedy scripts are being thrown at Sophia right now?

Do you think she will parle her success into a big Hollywood film next or is she more like PT Anderson, someone who has a vision of continuing to make personal projects, Hollywood be dammed. I mena, it's not as if she needs to make the move into big movies for financial reasons. She doesn't have to worry about how much money she makes and I think the success of LIT has secured her ability to get her next 2-3 films financed.
But is she the type to attempt a mainstream romcom?

i think the PTA route.  She seems in the auteur vein. She wrote and directed both of her pictures.  I think if she wanted to jump the blockbuster gun, she would have already.

I agree with SHAFTR. I think one more movie will really show us where she's heading. Though I don't see how writing her movies really matters...well...I guess that could show that she isn't relying on some low-key jerk's script when she can just write her own screenplays. But Anthony Minghella also writes his movies and I hate Minghella (besides Talented Mr. Ripley).

Quote from: Chest RockwellThough I don't see how writing her movies really matters...well...I guess that could show that she isn't relying on some low-key jerk's script when she can just write her own screenplays. But Anthony Minghella also writes his movies and I hate Minghella (besides Talented Mr. Ripley).

writing her own movies matters hugely because even if she fucks up, atleast it'll be from her, and not because she got restless waiting for the perfect script to come along and decided to settle for something in the meantime.  her writing her own movies means, it has to be worth telling for her to want to tell it.  what does minghella have to do with anything?

Quote from: themodernage02

Quote from: Chest RockwellThough I don't see how writing her movies really matters...well...I guess that could show that she isn't relying on some low-key jerk's script when she can just write her own screenplays. But Anthony Minghella also writes his movies and I hate Minghella (besides Talented Mr. Ripley).

writing her own movies matters hugely because even if she fucks up, atleast it'll be from her, and not because she got restless waiting for the perfect script to come along and decided to settle for something in the meantime.  her writing her own movies means, it has to be worth telling for her to want to tell it.  what does minghella have to do with anything?

I was just looking at the issue from two angles, both of which I addressed (and one of which you basically repeated from me). The first is

Quote from: Chest Rockwell...well...I guess that could show that she isn't relying on some low-key jerk's script when she can just write her own screenplays.

I'll admit, I didn't put enough into this thought, but what you said is basically what I meant to say.

The second is

Quote from: Chest RockwellBut Anthony Minghella also writes his movies and I hate Minghella (besides Talented Mr. Ripley).

in which I addressed the same statement from the angle that "well maybe SHAFTR's trying to say that anybody who writes/directs is cool" standpoint, so I showed my disdain for this particular viewpoint by pointing out Minghella.

Sorry I didn't explain this better in the original post.

or was there no discussion of Sophia and the Oscars.
Are people really more harsh on women directors?
And if not why is their more negative feedback and more gossip about her personal life in this thread.  I don't think Fiona Apple is mentioned Once in the PTA threads.

Quote from: leior was there no discussion of Sophia and the Oscars.
Are people really more harsh on women directors?
And if not why is their more negative feedback and more gossip about her personal life in this thread.  I don't think Fiona Apple is mentioned Once in the PTA threads.

http://www.xixax.com/viewtopic.php?t=647&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=fiona+apple

http://www.xixax.com/viewtopic.php?t=3940&highlight=fiona+apple

http://www.xixax.com/viewtopic.php?t=758&highlight=fiona+apple

Quote from: leior was there no discussion of Sophia and the Oscars.
Are people really more harsh on women directors?

Lost In Translation thread:
http://xixax.com/viewtopic.php?t=3446

Post-Oscar comments thread:
http://xixax.com/viewtopic.php?t=5604

Quote from: leior was there no discussion of Sophia and the Oscars.
Are people really more harsh on women directors?
And if not why is their more negative feedback and more gossip about her personal life in this thread.  I don't think Fiona Apple is mentioned Once in the PTA threads.

worst first impression award recipient.

in hindsight, does anyone feel lost in translation is way overrated?

there's a great thread...

http://www.xixax.com/viewtopic.php?t=3446

EDIT: And fuck, no!

Quote from: Stefenin hindsight, does anyone feel lost in translation is way overrated?

Nope.

Christopher Doyle (http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,6737,1384812,00.html):
"It's articulating the Bush doctrine of how to engage with the rest of the world. Let's all be Americans, that's what it's saying."

Quote from: peteChristopher Doyle (http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,6737,1384812,00.html):
"It's articulating the Bush doctrine of how to engage with the rest of the world. Let's all be Americans, that's what it's saying."

Yeah, I read that...and that's crap. How could a film as obviously personal as this be propaganda?

He doesn't mean it's an actual mouthpiece for the government.....

Still an absolutely idiotic comment to make.

nope.

Quote from: Pubricknope.

...and for the others that agree (with Doyle's statement), please explain to me why.

a film doesn't have to be "propaganda" in order to embody a belief.

Okay, wrong word...

People read into it what they want. She wrote about her own experiences in Tokyo. She's american and people in Tokyo happen to be asian. Sure there were some cheap jokes about language but I don't think that's what we're talking about, is it?

that is assuming her "American" perspective is a sensitive and innocent one (one that is inoffensive to the rest of the world that is weary of globalization and class differences).  That is also assuming that one's point of view cannot transcend above what is deemed an "American" p.o.v..
BTW, the "bush doctrine" is also a "personal" one, I mean, it's even named after the guy.

Okay, I can't argue with what you're saying, it's about different perspectives.
All I see is something deeply personal without judgment. But we all come from different backgrounds and relate to things differently. This one I do very much though not literally.

Even if the film is ethnocentric in some way (I personally don't think it is), I don't see how it promotes a uniquely American way of life. The most flawed characters in the movie (John and Kelly) are a fairly harsh critique of the American lifestyle.

again, that is assuming that "American lifestyle" is a singular entity.  The democrats are fiercely against a lot of "American" things and still remain fiercely American themselves, yet to the rest of the world (or parts of the world) Clinton was just as bad as George W..

Good point, but the American protagonists in this film have absolutely nothing in common with the "Bush doctrine" that Doyle is referring to. There's a big difference between being uncomfortable amidst another culture, and mocking it. I don't see anything in the film that mocks Japanese culture, but I certainly see things in the film that mock aspects of American culture.

hmm, maybe the Bush doctrine is a metaphor too?  I mean I'm sure Christopher Doyle doesn't really mean that the movie supports the idea of no nuclear weapons in any country other than the US.

Quote from: petehmm, maybe the Bush doctrine is a metaphor too?  I mean I'm sure Christopher Doyle doesn't really mean that the movie supports the idea of no nuclear weapons in any country other than the US.

yeah i think he was just talking about how the film creates an aura of asian culture being impenetrable, which inadvertently (or not) complies with the bush doctrine of america being the only thing worth caring about. doyle resents that cos he's way asian.

Sofia Coppola is not the first woman to be nominated for a Best Director Oscar.  Lina Wertmuller and Jane Campion were both nominated previously.

first american.

She was not the first American to be nominated either.

Quote from: RaviShe was not the first American to be nominated either.

I assume you're not talking about modage not mentioning 'woman' in his post. I know wou're not that stupid and unfunny.

So who was the first american woman to be nominated?

Quote from: kotteI know wou're not that stupid...

Quote from: POZER!

Quote from: kotteI know wou're not that stupid...

ouch!

This is a pretty freakin' adorable site: http://www.sofiamini.com

i wish kubrick had his soda.  :yabbse-sad:

Downsized champagne is all the rage.

Both The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation made me cry. Such well done beautiful films. Makes me extremely excited this upcoming year for her new one.

The Coppolas Dream     
Source: Joblo

While we regular people have yet to see MARIE-ANTOINETTE (and despite that film's apparent less-than-overwhelming reception at Cannes), Sofia Coppola has already signed on to her next directorial project. The movie is called THE AMERICAN DREAM and it stars Colin Hanks and Bryce Dallas Howard as a young couple who immigrate to the United States from Poland in the late 1800s to persue their dreams of success. Coincidently, the movie is to be produced by a Tom, a Ron, and a Francis Ford, a powerhouse trio that doubles as the fathers of the stars and director. I surely am not accusing anyone of nepotism because I'm a fan of everyone involved and I don't doubt their talent and appropriateness for the project, but it's kind of funny that Hanks and Howard are playing a couple who have a hard time making a living because of Tammany Hall's corrupt system, which rewards friends and relatives of those with power with the most lucrative jobs. The movie is to be distributed by Universal which, on a related note (pun intended), has also signed a deal with Francis Ford Coppola to direct, Ron Howard to produce, and Tom Hanks to star in NOAH'S ARK, a film to be released in the summer of 2008. Francis also has YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH on his directing plate and is set to produce THE GOOD SHEPARD and an adaptation of Jack Kerouac's ON THE ROAD. MARIE-ANTOINETTE hits theaters October 13th.

Report: Sofia Coppola Expecting

Sofia Coppola has a new project in the works -- a baby, due this winter, People magazine reported Wednesday on its Web site.

The father is Coppola's boyfriend, Thomas Mars, a singer for the French band Phoenix, the magazine said. The 35-year-old filmmaker won a best screenplay Oscar for 2003's "Lost in Translation," which she also directed.

A call by The Associated Press to Coppola's representative, Robert Garlock, was not immediately returned.

Coppola is the daughter of Oscar-winning director Francis Ford Coppola. She played Mary Corleone in his 1990 movie, "The Godfather: Part III."

Her upcoming film, "Marie Antoinette," stars Kirsten Dunst as the 18th-century French queen. Coppola wrote and directed the movie, which drew wildly mixed reactions at its first press screening at the Cannes Film Festival.

Coppola was married to director Spike Jonze for four years; she filed for divorce in 2003.

Sofia Coppola Gives Birth!

Sofia Coppola gave birth today to a girl. The father is Coppola's boyfriend, musician Thomas Mars. No official confirmation just yet on the newborn's arrival, but it's told they have named her Romy.

Coppola and Mars met after she used his band Phoenix's song "Too Young" in the soundtrack of her 2004 film Lost in Translation, for which she won a screenwriting Oscar.

Coppola, the daughter of director Francis Ford Coppola, most recently wrote and directed Marie Antoinette, a biopic about the French queen starring Kirsten Dunst.

so i guess jonze didn't want kids. or he didn't want to officially legitimize their joint empires. or he didn't want to unleash such a nose onto the world. or he just wants a nice jewish girl.

Coppola To Stage First Ever Opera

Marie Antoinette filmmaker Sofia Coppola will stage her first opera in 2009, after reaching an agreement with France's Montpellier Opera House.. The Oscar-nominated Lost In Translation director's first foray into the operatic world will see her mastermind Puccini romantic tragedy Manon Lescaut during the venue's 2009-2010 season. Controversial tenor Robert Alagna has been lined up to star in the show - he stormed off stage during a performance of Verdi's Aida in Milan, Italy and refused to return.

Quote from: MacGuffin on February 13, 2007, 12:04:28 AM
The Oscar-nominated Lost In Translation director's

she won. i've noticed that a lot of articles forget who won/lost at the oscars since 2000. kinda like the rest of us.

you are correct in that, except that it may be interpreted as she was Oscar-nominated DIRECTOR, which she is.

She is an Oscar-winning screenwriter :)

has anyone heard any news as to her next project? the last i heard is that she was done for good but, considering i heard that on imdb, i wasn't sure if i should believe it or not.

Sofia Coppola books Marmont film
Director turns to Hollywood hotel for pic
Source: Variety

Sofia Coppola is checking into a new hotel for her next project.

The writer-director who shot her "Lost in Translation" at the Park Hyatt in Tokyo, practically making a character out of the antiseptic structure, will set her next film at the iconic Chateau Marmont in Hollywood.

Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning will star in the Focus Features dramedy "Somewhere," which Coppola penned.

Story centers on a bad-boy actor stumbling through a life of excess at the Chateau Marmont. With an unexpected visit from his 11-year-old daughter, he is forced to reexamine his life.

The filmmaker, who said she has been looking to make "an intimate story set in contemporary Los Angeles," received permission to shoot at the hotel, which has become notorious in recent years as a popular address for tabloid-friendly celebs. Film will lense in L.A. and Italy in June and July.

Project reunites Coppola with the film company with which she made the critical darling and box office hit "Lost in Translation."

"'Lost in Translation' remains among Focus' most beloved movies, so we have long looked forward to making another picture with Sofia," Focus CEO James Schamus said. "'Somewhere' will have all the witty, moving and empathetic qualities that characterize all her work."

"Somewhere" is something of a family affair. Coppola is producing with brother Roman Coppola ("The Darjeeling Limited") and G. Mac Brown ("Australia") through American Zoetrope. Father Francis Ford Coppola, Fred Roos and Paul Rassam are exec producing.

Pathe will have rights to the film in France, Benelux and Switzerland; and Tohokushinsa is taking Japan and select Asian territories. Medusa Film will have rights to "Somewhere" in Italy, while Focus will control rights in all other territories.

Project marks Sofia Coppola's fourth film. She also wrote and directed "The Virgin Suicides" and "Marie Antoinette."

Fanning most recently starred in "Phoebe in Wonderland."

Dorff will next appear in Michael Mann's "Public Enemies" for Universal Pictures.

Chris Pontius going 'Somewhere'
'Jackass' co-star cast in Sofia Coppola film
Source: Hollywood Reporter

Chris Pontius has booked a room in Sofia Coppola's "Somewhere."

The "Jackass" trouper will play Sammy, best friend of the character played by Stephen Dorff, a decadent, bad-boy actor living at the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood who begins to re-examine his life after a surprise visit from his 11-year-old daughter (Elle Fanning).

Coppola, who wrote, directed and produced "Marie Antoinette" and "Lost in Translation," is doing the same for "Somewhere." Francis Ford Coppola, Fred Roos and Paul Rassam are executive producers on the American Zoetrope/Focus Features production.

Pontius, repped by Gersh and Untitled Entertainment, had roles in "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" and "What We Do Is Secret."

Sofia Coppola and Kirsten Dunst To Re-Team On New Project 'Secret Door'
Source: The Playlist

With the film hitting DVD & Blu-Ray in the last week, the dust has firmly settled on Sofia Coppola's fourth directorial effort, "Somewhere." And we're sticking with our original view that, while the film wasn't a failure exactly, with Coppola seemingly achieving exactly what she set out to, what she set out to achieve was a shallow character study of an entirely vacuous shell of a human being, and that the finished project was one of the more painful viewing experiences we had last year (It should be noted, however, that the film has its defenders on staff, with our man in Australia naming it among his favorite films of 2010). But everyone's allowed a misfire once in a while, and as long time fans of the writer-director, we've got our fingers crossed that she'll bounce back on her next film. And indeed, like the big J.C, Easter Sunday has seen Coppola roll back the stone, step out into the light and announce a new project—and one that's set to reunite her with her most frequent muse, no less. The twitter account of American Zoetrope, the production company run by Sofia's father Francis Ford Coppola, which has backed all four of her pictures, announced a few hours ago that Coppola's got a new film in the works, entitled "Secret Door," and that Kirsten Dunst, who starred in both "The Virgin Suicides" and "Marie Antoinette" for the director, has signed on to appear in the film. The exact tweet reads: "Happy to announce that Kirsten Dunst has agreed to be in Sofia Coppola's new film 'Secret Door'. Script is still being finished. Stay tuned!" There are no further details on the film at this stage—"Secret Door" doesn't apply to any obvious existing property that she could be adapting (there's an Enid Blyton book, and an Arctic Monkeys song, but a link with either is unlikely), and the only unmade Coppola project that we're aware of was a "European vampire" tale derailed by the success of the "Twilight" series, so this would appear to be something entirely new. It's probably safe to speculate that the film could be set up at Focus, who've been behind Coppola's last three films, while the title seems to suggest something genre-tinged, which at least promises something different from her 'celebrity' trilogy—but again, this is, at least at this stage, educated guesswork. With Coppola still writing away, this isn't going to be moving forward immediately, even with the usual brevity of her scripts ("Somewhere" came in at a not-exactly-whopping 44 pages), but we'll report more details as and when they appear.

Updated: Sofia Coppola and Kirsten Dunst Won't Re-Team On New Project 'Secret Door'
source: The Playlist

Update: Sorry, Coppola fans, looks like we've been had by a hoaxer. When we ran the story yesterday, the account looked genuine enough, but subsequent tweets were more suspicious, in particular 8 pages of script 'leaked' onto the account, 8 pages of some of the worst writing we've ever seen (Sample: "It was he, I pondered most of"). With the legitimacy looking increasingly fishy, we have now confirmed with Kirsten Dunst's reps that this project is indeed a hoax. We're not quite sure who has the goddamn time to write a script pretending to be Sofia Coppola, but there we go. Apologies.

Mod's definitely getting fired this time.

Quote from: cinemanarkissed on April 25, 2011, 04:10:08 PM
We're not quite sure who has the goddamn time to write a script pretending to be Sofia Coppola

Sofia Coppola does

Quote from: cinemanarkissed on April 25, 2011, 04:10:08 PM
Update: Sorry, Coppola fans, looks like we've been had by a hoaxer.

At this point, I think it's safe to say that any film that isn't aimed at Sofia's target audience (her and her celebrity friends) is a hoax.

Sofia Coppola Getting Married in Great Grandfather's Hometown
She will wed Thomas Mars, the lead singer of French rock band Phoenix.
Source: THR

Filmmaker Sofia Coppola will marry in Italy on Saturday in the remote town of Bernalda where her great grandfather was born, according to the Associated Press.

Coppola, who has directed Lost in Translation and most recently Somewhere, wed lead singer of French rock band Phoenix, Thomas Mars, who is also the father of their two young children. The ceremony took place in the garden of a palazzo that her father, director Francis Ford Coppola, renovated in the town's center, mayor Leonardo Chiruzzi said. The family plans to turn it into a luxury hotel, a 12-room Palazzo Margherita.

Bernalda was home to the elder Coppola's grandfather Agostino; he emigrated to the U.S. in the beginning of the 20th century.

Lost in Translation, the 2003 film starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson, brought Sofia Coppola's first Academy Award for an original screenplay. She was also the third woman ever to be nominated for directing.

This marks Coppola's second marriage. She was previously married to director Spike Jonze, with whom she divorced in 2003.

Another marvel of journalism. This story manages to set this wedding in the past, present, and future.

Past:

Quote from: MacGuffin on August 27, 2011, 01:26:29 PMCoppola, who has directed Lost in Translation and most recently Somewhere, wed lead singer of French rock band Phoenix, Thomas Mars

Quote from: MacGuffin on August 27, 2011, 01:26:29 PMThe ceremony took place in the garden of a palazzo

Present:

Quote from: MacGuffin on August 27, 2011, 01:26:29 PMSofia Coppola Getting Married

Quote from: MacGuffin on August 27, 2011, 01:26:29 PMThis marks Coppola's second marriage

Future:

Quote from: MacGuffin on August 27, 2011, 01:26:29 PMFilmmaker Sofia Coppola will marry in Italy

Sofia Coppola Recruits Emma Watson for 'The Bling Ring'
Coppola signs up the "Harry Potter" star for an ensemble picture about a group of celebrity-obsessed teen thieves.
Source: THR

Emma Watson, best known for playing Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter movies, will star The Bling Ring, Sofia Coppola's latest picture.

Based on true events that took place in Beverly Hills, the movie will tell the story of a group of fashion and fame-obsessed teens who broke into the homes of celebrities.

With the movie, Coppola wants to reflect today's culture of celebrity and reveal "reveal a sobering view of our modern culture," according to the project's producers,  which include Coppola, Roman Coppola and Youree Henley.

Watson will topline what will be an ensemble cast.

The movie will shoot this spring on location in Los Angeles.

In her post-Potter career, Watson, repped by WME and Markham, Froggatt & Irwin, is attached to a Beauty and the Beast project to be directed by Guillermo del Toro and the drama Your Voice in My Head, which would reunite her with director David Yates, who helmed many a Potter movies.

Coppola said that she's looking forward to filming. "I'm excited about the young cast we're assembling and I'm looking forward to shooting on location here in Los Angeles," she said.

Emma Watson is represented by WME and Markham, Froggatt & Irwin.

Quote from: Jeremy Blackman on August 27, 2011, 01:51:50 PM
Another marvel of journalism.

Quote from: MacGuffin on February 29, 2012, 04:38:33 PM
...and reveal "reveal a sobering view of our modern culture,"...

...David Yates, who helmed many a Potter movies.

Written by an ESL student?

well at least she's putting her celebrity connections to good use.

can't wait to see what will likely be the least interesting heists ever put on film.

at this point she should just release soundtracks.

The Bling Ring will be in theaters June 14, 2013

Lost and Found
via Directors Guild of America
By Carrie Rickey

As much as any contemporary director, Sofia Coppola has captured the feeling of young people adrift in a seductive world. With The Bling Ring, she continues her intimate exploration of lives in transition.

Some show business folk claim to be born in a trunk. Sofia Coppola was baptized on a movie set: she is the infant christened in the penultimate sequence of The Godfather (1972), directed by her father Francis Ford Coppola. Over the past 14 years, she has delivered two daughters of her own, as well as five feature films that have won acclaim; including a DGA and Oscar nomination for directing Lost in Translation; for her nuanced portraits of teenagers and young adults losing and finding themselves.

Coppola's academic training is in photography. It took roughly a decade for her to evolve organically from still pictures to moving ones. Her latest film, The Bling Ring, follows the nocturnal adventures of starstruck L.A. teens that steal into the homes, and closets, of celebs such as Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. Based on "The Suspects Wore Louboutins," an improbable-but-true tale published in Vanity Fair, the film is a social satire in the spirit of To Die For (1995). It looks askance at these fashion felons who walk, quite literally, in the (stolen) shoes of their style idols.

"I thought it was such an interesting story and the quotes from the real kids really made an impression," Coppola says, reflecting on her reaction to reading the story about teenagers who dreamed of having their own fragrance lines and reality TV shows. "I thought the story said so much about our culture today and how it can affect young people."

Coppola adds, "I was curious about these kids growing up always aware of their audience, constantly posting pictures online." Her intimate film captures the electronic collage of contemporary teenage life. "For visual references, I borrowed the cell phones of my actors and studied their Facebook and Myspace pages." Many shots in the film look like "selfies," those cell phone auto-portraits taken from arm's length. "This world isn't as visually beautiful as some of my other films," Coppola notes. "It's more Pop." As in Pop Art.

Mastering the small canvas rather than the big screen was Coppola's original goal. As a teenager she set her sights on becoming an artist. In the 1990s, she enrolled at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). "I wanted to be a painter," she recalls over tea at a West Village cafe near her Manhattan digs. "They told me I wasn't." When she transferred to Art Center College of Design, her photography instructor, Paul Jasmin, was more encouraging. "He told me my point of view was worth exploring."

Colleges don't give degrees in POV. In any event, by the time Coppola enrolled at Art Center she was already in possession of a doctoral equivalency. "I didn't realize it at the time," reflects the filmmaker, 41, poised and watchful. When it comes to the language of film, Coppola says, she was home schooled.

"Dad always included us," recalls the soft‑spoken Coppola referring to herself and brother Roman, also a director. "We were always talking about and looking at film. I didn't even realize I was learning."

Still, there are significant stylistic differences between father and daughter. Where the elder Coppola is attracted to larger-than-life characters, employing tracking shots for epic scope and sweep, the younger works on a more intimate scale. Her mantra is "less formality." From Coppola's preference for a handheld camera that gets into her subject's personal space to her painstaking use of ambient sounds to create a you-are-there experience, "it's about getting close and closer to the character."

To create her signature shot, shadowing a character from behind, she likes to use a handheld camera or a dolly shot. Whether her camera stalks Scarlett Johansson exploring a Buddhist temple in Kyoto in Lost in Translation (2003) or Kirsten Dunst entering Versailles in Marie Antoinette (2006) or Emma Watson, teenage celebrity stalker in The Bling Ring, Coppola gentles you into their drifts and their dreams.

Hers is not the traditional first-person point of view. In Coppola's films it's as though the camera is a balloon invisibly tethered to the nape of the protagonist's neck, bobbing and floating in her wake as she threads through space. This shot, which requires only one camera, is an umbilical cord attaching the viewer to the character. It creates the effect that you're not watching a Sofia Coppola movie; you're inside of it.

She developed this distinctive shot on her 1999 feature debut The Virgin Suicides, an adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenides' 1970s‑era novel about teenage boys obsessed with a quartet of sisters whose overprotective parents have them under a kind of house arrest.

"It wasn't just showing boys looking at and spying on girls," Coppola says, recalling her conversations with cinematographer Edward Lachman. The challenge was how to convey the boys' fascination with Girl World. "I wanted to be very clear about translating their perspective, how to get up close to them as they entered these girly spaces." Unlike so many films about boys spying on girls, in Suicides the camera is focused on the boys' self-consciousness rather than on the girls' bodies. A brief moment of drollery in Coppola's elegy to adolescence involves one boy's encounter with a cache of sanitary napkins in the bathroom shared by the sisters.

From The Virgin Suicides to The Bling Ring, Coppola mines visual means to express the psychological states of enclosure and exposure. What you remember about her films are the microclimates of feeling and longing. As she puts it, "My movies are not about being, but becoming." Her protagonists are almost all teenagers or adults-in-transition (the latter would include Bill Murray in Lost in Translation and Stephen Dorff, estranged father of an 11-year-old daughter, in Somewhere [2010]).

Apart from teenagehood, the dominant themes of Coppola's movies are that of outsiders looking (and wanting) in and insiders looking (and wanting) out, imagining alternative lives. The most trancelike passages in her films are dialogue‑free sequences of the curious peering into the lives of others (The Virgin Suicides, The Bling Ring) and the entrapped gazing out to perceived freedom (Suicides, Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette, Somewhere). Such shots present challenges.

"The biggest shock about Suicides was how hard it is to shoot from inside a car," she says with a hearty laugh. "I always forget how hard. You don't think about that when you're writing it. And I write it again and again."

Although oblivious to much of her cinematic home schooling while it was happening, Coppola now acknowledges how decisively it has influenced her choices in preproduction, on set, and in post.

In The Godfather: Part III (1990), Coppola plays Mary Corleone, the gosling‑like almost-grown daughter of Al Pacino and Diane Keaton. She was a last‑minute replacement for Winona Ryder and The New York Times panned her performance as "flat" and "uneasy." Coppola, who was much more relaxed on screen as Kathleen Turner's kid sister in her father's Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), would turn that rotten tomato into ragu.

"Having been in front of a camera, knowing how vulnerable that can be, I am sensitive to that vulnerability in my actors," she says. Clearly performers as stylistically diverse as Kirsten Dunst, James Woods, Kathleen Turner and Bill Murray feel secure enough to reveal their defenselessness.

"I was open to Bill being himself," she observes of Murray's Oscar‑nominated turn in Lost in Translation as an emotionally‑naked actor sleepless and adrift in Tokyo. To help shape the performance she wants, Coppola applies lessons she learned from studying with the acting and dialogue coach Greta Seacat (daughter of acting guru Sandra Seacat). "By going to her classes when I was younger, I learned how to talk to actors. Instead of saying, 'Act tired in this scene,' I'll say, 'You've been up all night and you want to go home,' to set the mood for them."

Coppola says she casts less for looks than for simpatico. "I feel like there has to be a connection, you have to find the same things funny. That way, you're on the same channel and you'll be able to communicate more effectively."

On The Bling Ring, she says, "I worked with a lot of first‑timers. They're so enthusiastic...and they don't have bad habits." The performances by newcomers Israel Broussard and Katie Chang mesh seamlessly with that of Emma Watson, the Harry Potter alum who spent months perfecting Valley Girl dialect for the role. "She worked really hard," Coppola says, "like the good student she is."

Coppola, too, worked hard at being a good teacher, guiding her cast away from acting and toward natural behavior. The rehearsal period is key for her. "I get ideas for dialogue and the actors form relationships so they're comfortable together. By the time we're shooting you might believe they're people who really know each other. On The Bling Ring, the kids hung out and did stuff together; they formed a group and had inside jokes."

Perhaps because she experienced filmmaking as a family affair growing up, or maybe just because it just makes creative sense, Coppola tries to create a family atmosphere among the actors. To reinforce the parent-child bond before shooting Somewhere, she had Dorff pick up Elle Fanning, his screen daughter, from school every day. Before shooting The Bling Ring, she sent her young actors on recon missions to shopping malls and clubs. "That way, during the club scenes when they are partying, they're really partying," she says.

But before directing, there has to be a script, which is her blueprint on the set. Here, the elder Coppola was more intentional with his daughter's home schooling. Sofia was 16, fresh from a Paris internship with couturier Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel, when her father asked her to collaborate on the script for Life Without Zoe, his contribution to the anthology film New York Stories (1989) that also included short films from Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese.

"That was about Dad teaching me to write, creating an opportunity for us to do something together," recalls Coppola. "It's more his story than mine," she observes of the fairy tale about a teenager longing for her absent father. What she remembers most about the experience; for which she received screen credit for costumes and screenplay; is selecting the Chanel ensembles and hats worn by the middle‑schoolers in the film. As she tells it, the takeaway wasn't so much about how to structure a script, but about being party to the process by which an idea is developed, tweaked and ultimately executed as the director.

From the start, all of Coppola's films have been image rather than dialogue‑intensive. "I don't want my movies to feel like movies," she says. "I want them to feel like life." If there's less smart talk than small talk in her films, it's because she believes that's how life is. "People don't really express themselves that articulately in real life." When she constructs a scenario, Coppola says she's thinking in images. To get more of the in‑the‑moment feel, she encourages improvisation from her actors.

"Remember Scarlett [Johansson] perched in the window ledge in Lost in Translation, looking out over Tokyo?" she asks. "You project your feelings on her. That's what I'm going for. I want the visual ways to tell the story rather than have the characters talk." What's unsaid speaks volumes.

For Coppola, "The scripts are notes to let cast and crew know what I want to do. I don't make a shot list. There's no sense in that until you see the actors rehearse the scene. So, I'll say, 'In this scene I want to show X.' I feel camera placement is really intuitive. It helps to have a script supervisor who keeps track of what I want to accomplish in each scene."

She breaks down the script while writing it. "I see the movie in three acts and have a sense of how I want each act framed. With Bling Ring I knew I wanted the early acts to be in wide shots and gradually proceed to tighter shots."

Her visual aesthetic and preference for shooting with available light whenever possible was shaped by her training at Art Center. Then in 1998, Coppola co‑wrote and directed the short Lick the Star. The angsty film about youth and death anticipates the themes of The Virgin Suicides, set in the leafy suburbs of Detroit circa 1974.

Working with her DP Lachman to determine the look of the film, she took a page from her father's preproduction playbook: watching movies and thumbing through books with Lachman. "We prepped by looking at '70s movies and photographs; Terrence Malick's Badlands, [photographer] Bill Owens' Suburbia." William Eggleston's influential dye‑transfer color photos of the '70s were also influential in establishing the palette and mood. Even now, Coppola does extensive color tests before shooting. "In general, I like things low‑contrast and adapt to the project at hand," she says.

With some embarrassment she recalls her rookie mistake of exceeding her budget for film stock. "To create a natural mood for the girls in their bedroom I would just keep the camera running."

In her films since Suicides, Coppola has adapted a visual shorthand from her days as a fashion entrepreneur (she was a co-founder of MilkFed, a label that sold street fashion in Japan). She compiles a "lookbook," an album of found images that establish the film's texture and tone, and shares it with her cinematography, art and costume departments.

And she doesn't storyboard. Like her father, Coppola plays music on the set, frequently the same cuts she listened to while writing the screenplay. She thinks it helps establish mood. She favors actual locations over shooting studio sets because a location; Tokyo in Lost in Translation, Versailles in Marie Antoinette, Hollywood and Milan in Somewhere, Los Angeles in The Bling Ring; has an energy and authenticity that can't be replicated in a studio. "I like a small crew," she says. "I like to keep it as lean and simple as possible."

Coppola is quick to credit her many collaborators, some of whom, such as film editor Sarah Flack, sound editor Richard Beggs and music producer Brian Reitzell, she's worked with since her first film. "You rely on the people you work well with." Roman Coppola has been a producer on two of her films as well as an occasional second unit director. "It was like having my clone working on another scene."

Speaking on a panel in March 2013, Lachman offered insight into how she works with her team. "The best director," he said, "is one that gives everybody the feeling that they are really helping to make the film in partly their own vision, but it's really the director who is engineering it. Sofia makes everybody feel like they are the really important one."

Such was the case on The Bling Ring. Working with her DP, the late Harris Savides, for the second time, they came up with a unique setup for a shot. One of the robberies takes place in a glass‑clad modernist house high up in the Hollywood Hills. Savides suggested shooting from an abandoned house across the street. From this perspective, Coppola found a wide-angle shot so that as the teenagers break in, enter, and turn on the lights, they resemble dolls in a dollhouse. The startling angle both underscores a sense of child's play and suggests the aphorism that people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. "I loved how the twinkling city lights below looked just like the jewelry the kids were stealing," Coppola says, obviously pleased with the results.

Coppola shot The Bling Ring on a RED camera, her first digital feature, but because of her photography background, she said she feels more at home shooting on film. What she liked about digital: "It feels more immediate, and since you're not limited by the film in the camera you can go on and on and have really long shots."

What she didn't like: "I spent more time watching the monitor than being on set. It felt passive. I see how it can distance you from the action. I had to keep reminding myself to get back on the set. I'd shoot on film again, if it's still available."

From her father, Coppola learned that "a movie is never as bad as the first rough cut." Still, the rough of Suicides crushed her. Fortunately, she had sound designer Beggs on board as well as Reitzell, one-time drummer of Redd Kross. Reitzell has suggested the musical cues on four of her five films, including anachronistic punk tunes such as Gang of Four's "Natural's Not in It," that opens Marie Antoinette, announcing its central character as an 18th‑century riot grrrl.

Working in the editing room with Flack, "I explain what I want it to feel like, she shows me alternatives, I respond and we find it together," says Coppola. "You find the rhythm in the edit." For her, the film's pace is almost always guided by the movement inside the frame and by the tempo of the soundtrack, which in The Bling Ring is louder, and in Coppola's description, "more obnoxious" than the dreamy music in most of her films.

"I'm more rigid than my dad is about editing," she says. "He moves things all over the place; I stick to the script. He finds the movie in the editing room; I find the movie after the sound mix. The sound adds so much to make you feel you're really there."

Her first experiments wedding image with sound were for music videos for The Flaming Lips and The White Stripes. Usually the soundscape in Coppola's films, a layering of ambient noise and musical score punctuated by a pop track and punched up with augmented effects, such as the birdsong that opens The Virgin Suicides, enhances the you‑are‑there environment. She likes using songs that the characters would listen to, like M.I.A.'s "Bad Girls" in The Bling Ring, which the characters sing along to on the car radio.

Coppola made The Bling Ring on a still-modest $20 million budget. Lost in Translation, her biggest hit to date, cost only $4 million to make (and grossed $120 million worldwide). Except for Marie Antoinette, which had a $40 million budget and an arduous 12‑week shoot mostly in France, Coppola prefers to keep things smaller and more intimate.

Having completed her fifth feature, Coppola says she feels at home in what she perceives as her niche; character-driven films mapping the moves of people lost in transition. "I don't make the kind of movies that lend themselves to wide releases," she concludes.

Source (http://www.dga.org/Craft/DGAQ/All-Articles/1302-Spring-2013/Sofia-Coppola.aspx)

The Suspects Wore Louboutins - Vanity Fair (http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/03/billionaire-girls-201003)

sofia's interview both rocked and shocked my heart <33 phew, so good, so thoughtful. just -- ugh, so good

Sofia Coppola: The Trials, Tears and Talent
via The Hollywood Reporter
by Stephen Galloway
5/8/13

The Oscar-winning director is back on the Croisette with "The Bling Ring," seven years after "Marie Antoinette" famously was booed. Now the one-time "it" girl is opening up at last about filmmaking, her father, her first marriage and the childhood tragedy that still haunts her.

Think of Sofia Coppola, and an image comes to mind -- of a globe-trotting hipster whose iconic last name has propelled her to fame; who is best friends with designer Marc Jacobs, has modeled for photographer Mario Testino, guest-edited French Vogue, had her own fashion label and now is married to Thomas Mars of ultracool French rock band Phoenix. All of which makes this reporter slightly hesitant as he waits in a small neighborhood restaurant close to Coppola's home in New York's West Village. Then she enters, and any skepticism vanishes.

The Oscar winner hovers quietly by the doorway, without makeup, dressed in jeans and a simple cream sweater. Rather than being larger-than-life, she appears almost embarrassed to take up too much space.

"I remember my mom saying, 'People aren't going to like you because they'll think you're a snob,' " she says, later. " 'You have to go out of your way to show them you're not a jerk.' "

She is surprisingly a bit old-fashioned: She doesn't tweet, doesn't have a Facebook page, hasn't watched most reality TV (Keeping Up With the Kardashians is an exception) and reads books like Edith Wharton's The Custom of the Country -- though she's only halfway through. "I'm a very slow reader," she explains, blushing slightly.

There is sweetness to her, and subtlety. There's also sadness -- just a hint, but it's there.

"Everyone thinks I'm like that," she says of her projected melancholy. "I have that part of myself, but it's not [everything]."

At 41, Francis Ford Coppola's youngest child has made five films, including the soon-to-be-released The Bling Ring, lived in Los Angeles, Paris and New York, won a best screenplay Oscar for Lost in Translation, been lambasted for her role in The Godfather: Part III after Winona Ryder dropped out, dated one celebrity director (Quentin Tarantino) and divorced another (she says of Spike Jonze, "I didn't marry the right person").

But perhaps the defining moment of her life came at age 15, when she lost Gian-Carlo, 22, one of her two older siblings.

In 1986, Sofia was with her mother, Eleanor, a former set decorator and the maker of award-winning documentaries including Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991), when her father called from Washington, D.C., where he was shooting Gardens of Stone. Gian-Carlo had been killed in a horrific speedboat accident in Annapolis, Md., from injuries sustained after a towline connecting two other vessels tore into him. His fiancee was two months pregnant with a baby girl, who would be born the following year; Ryan O'Neal's son, Griffin, was steering the boat at the time and later would be prosecuted for manslaughter. (He eventually pleaded guilty to negligent operation of a boat.)

"Those weren't carefree years for me," says Sofia. "I felt, when my brother died, my teenage years got interrupted. I was going through a trauma. Therapy helped -- it was really important for me to be healed -- but it becomes a part of who you are."

Who Coppola is now will be on full display at Cannes, where The Bling Ring will screen May 16.

"She's not how most [people] would perceive her to be," says Kirsten Dunst, who played Marie Antoinette in Coppola's 2006 film and starred in her first feature, 1999's The Virgin Suicides. "She's not precious. She's real."

Coppola is returning to the scene of one of her career low points, seven years after the $40 million Marie Antoinette polarized audiences, leading to a standing ovation from some and boos from others.

"After Marie Antoinette, I was over movies," she says, noting she was drained from the huge six-month shoot. "Then I met [cinematographer] Harris Savides, and he gave me a new outlook. He was really into doing things small and as simple as possible. He got me excited about making movies again, in a small-scale way."

The $8 million-plus Bling Ring is set in modern-day Calabasas, Calif., and tells the true story of a group of teens that embarked on a robbing spree, stealing money, jewelry and designer clothing from the likes of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan before they were caught and then, in some cases, given prison sentences. The film mixes a cast of unknowns -- including Israel Broussard, Taissa Farmiga and Katie Chang. Leslie Mann and Harry Potter's former teenage witch, Emma Watson, were exceptions.

Watson, who spent weeks perfecting a Valley accent, was struck by her director's spontaneity during a six-week shoot that got under way in March 2011. "Once you are on set, she lets you be," she says. "She is very loose and free and calm."

While not shooting or with her two girls (Romy, 6, and Cosima, almost 3) or accompanying her husband on tour, Coppola spends much of her time in an office near her apartment, writing when the mood strikes, responding to e-mails when it doesn't. She acknowledges that writing is "difficult," even though she never has directed a movie with a screenplay by someone else.

She follows film but not avidly (she singles out the documentary The Queen of Versailles and Denmark's A Royal Affair as recent favorites, while lamenting, "It hasn't really been an exciting era for movies"); she listens to music, usually chosen by her husband, though she retains a special affection for Elvis Costello, Roxy Music and Chopin's "Preludes"; and she watches a smattering of television -- from 30 Rock to Mad Men -- while avoiding reality TV.

She also collects photography and has works by William Eggleston, Lee Friedlander and Tina Barney on her apartment's white walls along with a treasured photograph of Charlotte Rampling, given to her by the late Helmut Newton.

"I met him the day he died [in 2004] -- that morning, in the elevator of the Chateau Marmont," she says. "He's one of my heroes. I had written about [the Rampling shot], I think for Vogue, and he sent me the photograph. I couldn't believe it. It's one of my most-cherished possessions. I was able to thank him and told him how much I love it." Hours later, Newton crashed his car right outside the hotel, and Sofia saw the smashed vehicle when she returned later that day, paying an oblique homage to it with the ruined car one glimpses in her 2010 film Somewhere.

She remains close to her parents and at the time of this interview was about to join them in New Orleans to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary at Jazz Fest. "The actual date was Feb. 2, but this was the first time all of us could get together," she says. They e-mail regularly, but, she adds, "I'm not one of those people that talk to their mom all the time."

Francis remembers his daughter once asking "if I felt she was a dilettante. I said, 'No, do all the things you love and eventually they will be useful for whatever you choose.' When I saw her first film, a short titled Lick the Star, I knew it had all come together and she was a filmmaker."

Indeed, for Hollywood royalty (relatives include Nicolas Cage, Jason Schwartzman, Talia Shire and her brother Roman, 48), she has very carefully carved out an identity of her own, influenced by her parents but still separate from them.

"My demeanor is more like my mom," she observes, referring to Eleanor's quieter manner. But like her father, "I have strong opinions. I have a desire [to stamp them on film]." Some part of her likes that element of control, she acknowledges: "In real life, you can't do that. You can't create a world exactly how you imagine."

The Bling Ring takes a real-life story then filters it through Coppola's lucid and luminous eye. She was drawn to the subject when she read Nancy Jo Sales' Vanity Fair article "The Suspects Wore Louboutins." At first, she optioned the underlying material for her family's company, American Zoetrope, without planning to direct. But the more she learned about the case -- helped by transcripts of interviews with the teenagers and police records Sales sent her -- the more intrigued she became.

"It seemed to say so much about contemporary culture and just how this trashy pop culture has become so dominant," she says. "That can be fun, and you can peek at it, but these kids are obsessed with the idea that anybody can be famous and everybody should be."

Coppola spent a year writing the script and negotiating for some of the real characters' life rights, at the same time as a rival project, also titled The Bling Ring, was in the works at Lifetime. She says she watched only five minutes of that 2011 telepic, unwilling for it to influence her work. "I was glad it came and went, but it was everything I wouldn't want my film to be," she says.

Meanwhile, she reached out to the teenagers involved in the crimes. "I spoke to [Alexis Neiers and Nick Prugo] and the detective, Brett Goodkin," she recalls. "Alexis still claims to be innocent and that she wasn't involved in anything. She just stuck with her story."

(Neiers, who served time in prison for her crime, since has tweeted that the finished work is "trashy and inaccurate"; Goodkin, a technical adviser on Coppola's film, is awaiting the verdict of a disciplinary panel on whether his participation violated LAPD rules.)

As is her wont, Coppola kept a "reference book" of pictures and documents that she later could show her cast and crew, including snapshots of Hilton's shoe closet, images of Los Angeles' sparkling skyline and photos she found on the Facebook page of castmember Claire Julien.

While she developed the screenplay, fellow producers Youree Henley and her brother Roman (along with Coppola's agent, ICM Partners' Bart Walker, and FilmNation's Glen Basner) cobbled together funds from foreign distributors, then sold domestic rights to U.S. distributor A24, which will release the film June 14.

Watson was intrigued by her director's manner when shooting began. "Sofia was never really explicit," she says. "Her laughing or getting excited about the take was what I got confidence from. And just the fact she believed I could do it in the first place."

To Coppola's surprise, Hilton agreed to participate, taking a cameo and allowing her to shoot in the actress-model's Beverly Hills home. Coppola had met her there when Somewhere star Stephen Dorff invited her to a party. "That's when I first saw the 'Paris pillows,' " she recalls, referring to pillows that bear Hilton's image, one of the more startling examples of Hollywood narcissism that appear in her movie. "It felt very Entourage."

As to shooting in Hilton's house: "For a while, we weren't talking about it," she says, "because they don't allow filming in her neighborhood -- we had to sneak in and not look like a film crew." Hilton herself surprised her. "She has a sense of humor, and she was really nice."

It is hard to imagine two public figures more different than the socialite and Sofia, one all surface, the other with so much hidden behind her words.
Coppola speaks with candor and a lack of pretense, and yet a sense of mystery remains. It explains why the public and the famous friends she has made are so drawn to her.

She rarely sees Tarantino, her former boyfriend. "I'm friendly with him, and I'm surprised I'm not in touch with him, but that was a different time in my life," she says. Nor is she in contact with Jonze, whose relationship with her inspired Scarlett Johansson's uncomfortable dealings with the photographer spouse played by Giovanni Ribisi in Lost in Translation.

"I was trying to figure it out when I was writing that," says Coppola of the marriage, which ended after four years in 2003, the very year Lost in Translation was released. "My friends said, 'Finish the script and you'll know what to do.' " Looking back, she admits: "I think I had doubts, but I didn't listen to them because I was young. Spike didn't end well."

Her personal life is settled now, she says, and she has gained recognition in her own right. "Sofia has what we call in the wine industry 'terroir,' " says her father. "This means, all you need to do is see a few moments of film, and you know she made it."

She is thinking of teaming with her Somewhere discovery Elle Fanning for a film with her sister Dakota; and she says she is open to doing a studio movie, even though she didn't enjoy the unwieldiness of Sony's Marie Antoinette.

She has one foot in the contemporary world but one foot decidedly out. "There are aspects I enjoy about pop culture -- music and fashion," she says, "but reality TV and the tabloids -- I don't relate."

Her family is what she relates to most ("She's become a truly great mother," notes Francis), possibly even at the expense of her own work. She can't write late into the night as she once did and must tailor her hours to theirs; nor can she readily embark on a months-long shoot, unless she brings the kids, as her father did on Apocalypse Now. That, she recognizes, is the reality of being an adult.

"It's weird being a grown-up," she says, a smile illuminating her face. "I think I'm just getting used to it."

you're posting great interviews

she's in such a battle with gus over who's my fav usa director

Cannes interview (http://www.allocine.fr/video/emissions/festivaldecannes/episode/?cmedia=19512539)

Sofia Coppola To Co-Write 'Fairyland' For American Zoetrope
via Deadline

EXCLUSIVE: American Zoetrope has acquired screen rights to Alysia Abbott's Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father, with Sofia Coppola set to adapt it with Andrew Durham. She will produce with Roman Coppola. The memoir was published by W. W. Norton & Co  last June. The book is a coming of age story set against San Francisco's vibrant cultural scene in the 1970s and '80s, both before and after the AIDS epidemic, a crisis that would later claim the life of Abbott's father, Steve Abbott, a widowed poet and gay activist.

"I love the book Fairyland; it's a sweet and unique love story of a girl and her dad, both growing up together in 1970′s San Francisco," Coppola said. "I think it will make an engaging and touching movie on a subject I've never seen before."

Said the author: "I'm delighted that Sofia Coppola and Zoetrope are going to create the film version of Fairyland. Sofia's understanding of the feminine perspective and the artistic vision that she shares with Andrew Durham make them ideal partners to make this movie. I could not be happier."

Abbot is repped by Gersh's Brandy Rivers, attorney David Davoli and David Patterson at Foundry Literary + Media. Zoetrope was represented by ICM Partners and attorneys Hirsch Wallerstein Hayum Matlof + Fishman.

Sofia Coppola To Helm 'The Little Mermaid'
via Deadline

EXCLUSIVE: Sofia Coppola is negotiating to direct The Little Mermaid, a live-action version of the classic Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale for Universal Pictures and Working Title partners Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner. Caroline Thompson of Edward Scissorhands fame is rewriting the script, about the mermaid willing to make a Faustian bargain to live on land after she falls in love. Previous drafts were done by Fifty Shades Of Grey scribe Kelly Marcel and Shame scribe Abi Morgan, and Joe Wright was at one time eyeing this to direct.

The intention is to move quickly. This is a departure for Coppola in that her projects are usually focused on adult themes. She's got kids and it wouldn't be shocking if she wanted to please them with a movie they can see and understand. Working Title is currently in production on Everest, the drama about the climbing disaster. The director is repped by ICM Partners and attorney Barry Hirsch. ICM also reps Thompson. Coppola last helmed The Bling Ring.

TV: Bill Murray Reteams With Sofia Coppola For Christmas Special
via The Playlist

Murray has revealed he's reteaming with "Lost In Translation" director Sofia Coppola for a holiday project that's still coming together. "It's not going to be live," Murray told Variety. "We're going to do it like a little movie. It won't have a format, but it's going to have music. It will have texture. It will have threads through it that are [being] writing. There will be prose." There are no details yet on when it will air, but presumably it will be this holiday season.

George Clooney, Miley Cyrus to Play Themselves in Sofia Coppola Christmas Special
via The Hollywood Reporter

The lure of working with Lost in Translation collaborators Sofia Coppola and Bill Murray has proved too powerful to resist for the likes of George Clooney, Amy Poehler, Miley Cyrus and Maya Rudolph, who, like Murray, will play themselves — with some even singing carols — on a Coppola-directed 2015 Christmas project.

Sources say a deal still is being worked out for distribution on the special, which follows the notoriously agent- and manager-less actor as he evades the advances of a shark dying to sign him. Angelenos will relish a subtler cameo: Sunset Tower host Dmitri Dmitrov missed a few nights at the Tower Bar recently to play the role of valet to Murray, who in his SNL days frequented L.A.'s Diaghilev, Dmitrov's former home.

Netflix has dropped a promo for the appropriately titled "A Very Murray Christmas." George Clooney, Amy Poehler, Miley Cyrus and Maya Rudolph are also involved and the story will involve Murray playing himself and trying to avoid a Hollywood figure who wants to represent the actor who famously forgoes having a manager or agent. And somewhere in there will be rooms for Christmas carols to be sung by the actors (everyone is playing themselves) and probably more bits and pieces of holiday cheer.

Sofia Coppola Exits 'The Little Mermaid'
via The Playlist

In a way, it seemed almost too good to be true. When Universal couldn't secure Joe Wright to direct their long brewing, live action take on "The Little Mermaid," they snagged Sofia Coppola. And it was a potentially promising endeavor, with Coppola making her first big studio picture, doing something unlike anything she's done before. But alas, it won't happen.

Deadline reports that Coppola has exited the movie over, you guessed it, "creative differences." The movie has had a few different pens on it so far, with Abi Morgan ("Shame") and Kelly Marcel ("Fifty Shades Of Grey") previous tackling it, and Caroline Thompson's ("Edward Scissorhands," "The Nightmare Before Christmas") rewrite looking like the one that will stick. But even with Coppola's departure, the project isn't dead, with Universal apparently pushing forward, but no word yet on who they are eyeballing for the gig.

Sofia Coppola Directing 'The Beguiled' With Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning
via The Playlist

We're going to have to chalk this up to an unconfirmed rumor for the moment, but a) this is terrifically exciting if it's true, b) we recently posted are own corroboration that points to its validity. Earlier this month we spoke to Kirsten Dunst on the "Midnight Special" press tour and the actress said she would not only reteam with her "The Virgin Suicides" and "Marie Antoinette" director Sofia Coppola, but that she would shoot a new Coppola movie this year.

Coppola's last project was "The Little Mermaid," one that she eventually left due to creative differences with the studio and no follow-up project was announced. It seems Dunst may have been hinting at tonight's news? The Tracking Board reports that Coppola is making "The Beguiled," a remake of the 1971 Don Siegel Civil War-set romance starring Clint Eastwood about a Union soldier who cons his way into each of the lonely women's hearts of a Confederate girls boarding school.

It gets better. Coppola apparently has Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst and Elle Fanning lined-up to star. The story will apparently be a new take on the premise of the original film which is based on the Southern Gothic novel by Thomas P. Cullinan. A Good Reads synopsis describes the book not dissimilar to the movie's logline: "A wounded Union soldier is taken into a Southern girls' academy, and his presence sets in motion a tragedy of jealousy, hate and lust."

Producers are evidently eyeing a Chris Pratt-like male lead for the Clint Eastwood role. Kidman will play the Head Mistress of the school, Dunst a teacher and Fanning, who starred in Coppola's "Somewhere," will reportedly take on the role of one of the girls residing at the house.

Sofia Coppola And Bill Murray To Reteam For 'On The Rocks', Apple & A24's First Film
via Deadline

Sofia Coppola will direct Bill Murray again after their Oscar-winning 2003 film Lost in Translation in the upcoming feature On the Rocks, which marks Apple and A24's first film partnership.

The movie follows a young mother who reconnects with her larger than life playboy father on an adventure through New York.  Rashida Jones will star with Murray. Production starts this spring in New York. Coppola won an original screenwriting Oscar for Lost in Translation and was nominated for best director. Murray nabbed a best actor Oscar nom, and the movie earned a best picture nom. Coppola also directed Murray in the 2015 Netflix holiday special A Very Murray Christmas.

Coppola will produce with Youree Henley. A24 previously worked with Coppola on The Bling Ring. She is repped by ICM and attorney Barry Hirsch. Murray is repped by Ziffren Brittenham. Jones is represented by United Talent Agency and Schreck Rose Dapello Adams Berlin & Dunham.

Coppola made history at the 70th Cannes Film Festival as the second woman ever in the event to win best director for her remake of The Beguiled.

A24 and Apple announced a multi-year feature slate deal back in November.

Yesterday Sofia Coppola had an hour long conversation with Annette Insdorf (https://youtu.be/JKj92etN7fw), author of Double Lives, Second Chances: The Cinema of Krzystzof Kieslowski and several other books on film

Didn't know Sofia had her own thread here.  I stumbled upon a 2-part "Directors Series" about her recently.  (Cameron's series on PTA was excellent.)

https://vimeo.com/359668714
https://vimeo.com/408947030