Sofia Coppola to Direct Marie-Antoinette
Source: Columbia Pictures Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Oscar-winning screenwriter Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation), the first American woman to ever be nominated for Best Director, is set to direct Marie-Antoinette for Columbia Pictures, it was announced today by Amy Pascal, Chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group. Kirsten Dunst is attached to the film in the title role and Jason Schwartzman will portray Louis XVI. Production is scheduled to commence in February in France.
Written by Coppola, the film will be a stylized telling of the legendary and enigmatic Queen of France. Coppola and two-time Oscar nominee Ross Katz (Lost in Translation, In the Bedroom) will serve as producers through American Zoetrope. Fred Roos, Francis Ford Coppola, and Paul Rassam will serve as executive producers.
Sony will distribute the film worldwide with the exception of France and Japan, the rights to which Coppola has retained.
"Sofia has an unique and incredible vision for this film," said Pascal. "We have wanted to work with her for a long time, and couldn't be more thrilled about Marie-Antoinette."
"I've always loved the story of Marie-Antoinette and the decadence of Versailles on the brink of revolution," said Coppola, "and the fact she was just a teenager when circumstances forced her to play a significant role in history."
"The idea of seeing the world of Marie-Antoinette through Sofia's eyes is just about the coolest thing I can imagine," said Katz. "We are so happy to be partnering with Sony. Their passion for Sofia and this film is incomparable. This is a dream scenario for filmmakers."
Matt Tolmach, Co-President of Production for Columbia Pictures will oversee the title through production for the studio.
Coppola wrote and directed both Lost in Translation and The Virgin Suicides.
In addition to his Oscar nominations, Katz received a Golden Globe for Lost in Translation and was also a nominee for In the Bedroom. Katz began his career at the independent production company Good Machine.
Dunst, who most recently starred in Columbia Pictures' blockbuster-hit Spider-Man 2, previously worked with Coppola in The Virgin Suicides. She will soon be seen in the romantic drama Wimbledon and Cameron Crowe's drama Elizabethtown.
Schwartzman, who made his film debut in Wes Anderson's Rushmore and is set to begin filming Columbia Pictures' Bewitched with Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell, will soon be seen in I Heart Huckabees, opposite Dustin Hoffman, Jude Law and Mark Wahlberg, and Shopgirl, opposite Steve Martin. He and Coppola, both appeared in Roman Coppola's drama CQ.
if it werent for the odd casting i would say this sounds BORING!
i wish Sophia Coppola would have already had a 30 year career with many movies.
then maybe i could understand women more, because it seems like you get little valuable things about them in each of her movies.
i'm not familiar w/the story of Marie-Antoinette, so i have no clue about this one.
the odd casting continues...
Rip Torn in Coppola's Marie-Antoinette
Source: Variety February 28, 2005
Rip Torn will star in Sony's Marie Antoinette, directed by Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation). Variety says Torn will play Louis XV, father of Louis XVI, played by Jason Schwartzman. Kirsten Dunst is toplining as Marie.
The biopic about the 18th century Gallic queen recently started production in France.
Coppola wrote the screenplay for the film, which she is producing with Ross Katz through American Zoetrope. Fred Roos, Francis Ford Coppola and Paul Rassam are executive producing.
Torn most recently starred in Fox's Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.
Quote from: themodernage02the odd casting continues...
Shannon is lady of court for Coppola Source: Hollywood Reporter
Molly Shannon has signed on for court intrigue opposite Kirsten Dunst in Sofia Coppola's "Marie-Antoinette." Shannon will play a lady of the court, Anne Victoire, who also is Marie-Antoinette's aunt, with Dunst in the title role. The film is to begin shooting next month in Paris. Jason Schwartzman and Rip Torn already have signed on to join a mostly French cast. Coppola wrote the screenplay and is producing with Ross Katz via American Zeotrope. Fred Roos, Francis Ford Coppola and Paul Rassam are exec producing. Columbia Pictures is distributing. Shannon, whose feature credits include "Serendipity" and "Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas," most recently appeared in Kenneth Lonergan's "True to You."
This cast is so weird. I think Sofia must have something slightly different than the average period piece up her sleeve.
Argento is Du Barry in Marie-Antoinette
Source: Italian Daydreamer March 5, 2005
Italian magazine Chi spoke to Italian actress Asia Argento (XXX, the upcoming George A. Romero's Land of the Dead), who was promoting her new film The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, which she wrote, directed and stars in.
She told the magazine that she's preparing for her new movie, writer/director Sophia Coppola's Marie-Antoinette, in which she'll take on the role of the Countess Du Barry, favorite of King Louis XV (Rip Torn).
Kirsten Dunst stars in the title role with Jason Schwartzman playing Louis XVI. Molly Shannon is playing a lady of the court, Anne Victoire, who also is Marie-Antoinette's aunt.
The film is to begin shooting next month in Paris. Columbia Pictures will distribute Marie-Antoinette in the 4th Quarter of this year. Coppola previously won an Oscar for writing Lost in Translation.
cool, nudity.
Coppola's Marie Antoinette Starts Production
Source: Columbia Pictures March 8, 2005
Production begins this week on Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, about France's iconic eighteenth century Queen. The Columbia Pictures release is produced by two-time Academy Award® nominee Ross Katz, through American Zoetrope. In addition to serving as director, Coppola is also one of the film's producers and has written the screenplay, which is loosely adapted from Lady Antonia Fraser's noted historical account "Marie Antoinette - The Journey". Fred Roos, Francis Ford Coppola and Paul Rassam serve as executive producers.
Kirsten Dunst, who previously appeared in Coppola's drama The Virgin Suicides, portrays the young Austrian princess, who, as a teenager, becomes Queen of France. Jason Schwartzman portrays her indifferent husband Louis XVI.
Other members of the ensemble, portraying various members of the elitist court of Versailles include Rip Torn (in the role of King Louis XV), Judy Davis (as the Comtesse de Noailles), Steve Coogan (as Mercy), Asia Argento (playing the Comtesse du Barry), Marianne Faithful (Maria-Teresa), Aurore Clement (Duchesse de Chartres), Molly Shannon (Aunt Victoire) and Shirley Henderson (Aunt Sophie).
The director of photography for Marie Antoinette is Lance Acord, who previously collaborated with Coppola on Lost in Translation. Oscar® winner Milena Canonero (A Clockwork Orange, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou) is designing the costumes and KK Barrett (Lost in Translation, I Heart Huckabees, Being John Malkovich) is the production designer.
Marie Antoinette will be shot entirely in France, with much of the 11-week production schedule centered at the Palace of Versailles, which has granted the production unprecedented access.
Sony Pictures Entertainment will distribute throughout most of the world with Pricel and Tohokushinsha handling the territories of France and Japan, respectively.
Coppola "Furious with Deceptive Delon"
Oscar-winning filmmaker Sofia Coppola is "furious" with legendary actor Alain Delon - after the Frenchman reportedly used her offer of a role in upcoming movie Marie-Antoinette for his own publicity. Lost In Translation director Coppola is currently shooting her film in France and thought she'd found the perfect actor to play monarch Louis XV in screen star Delon. However, Coppola eventually settled on US actor Rip Torn after Delon turned her offer down - leaving Coppola upset. A source tells website Pagesix.Com, "Delon led her to believe she could talk him into accepting the role. He invited her to see him in a play, and she went backstage afterward where there were two photographers waiting to take pictures of her and Delon. Then they went out to dinner. The next morning, the photos of her and Delon appeared in the papers having been obviously pre-planned, with captions saying that Delon had refused Coppola's offer. He has gone on to say that he can't be in a movie where he has to wear a wig, but that he would do any contemporary movie she offered him. Obviously, Delon had staged the evening as publicity for himself. Sofia is furious." A spokesperson for Coppola says, "Sofia is too busy right now to be upset, and she is quite happy with Rip Torn in that role."
Quote from: themodernage02Coppola's Marie Antoinette Starts Production
Source: Columbia Pictures March 8, 2005
Oscar® winner Milena Canonero (A Clockwork Orange, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou) is designing the costumes.
She won an Oscar for Barry Lyndon's costumes, which were exquisite and painstakingly created. Barry Lyndon is also somewhat contemporaneous with Marie Antoinette, so this bodes well for Coppola's film.
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A lady should not be spied upon, themodernage02 :yabbse-angry:
Jason Schwartzman on Marie-Antoinette
Source: Edward Douglas September 10, 2005
Sofia Coppola, daughter of filmmaking legend Francis Ford Coppola, broke out as a filmmaker in her own right with 2003's Lost in Translation earning her an Oscar nomination, a first for a female director. Because of that, many people are anxiously awaiting her next project.
Jason Schwartzman, a long-time member of the "Coppola inner circle" having appeared in her brother Roman's film CQ, will star in the director's next film Marie Antoinette, playing the famous king of France, Louis XVI, opposite Kirsten Dunst as his wife in the title role. While in Toronto promoting Steve Martin's Shopgirl in which Schwartzman also plays a key role, the actor talked to ComingSoon.net about working with Sofia and her interesting choice for a third film.
Having known Sofia for much of his life, Schwartzman had a few insights into how she works on the set. "She's an incredible director," Schwartzman gushed. "One of her strengths is that she talks to each actor differently and works with them specifically. She is like Steve actually in that she's very precise in what she says and she's a great observer and connector of emotions and truths and memories. We have so much personal history and a well of things to reference that we were blessed for her to be able to come up and say 'It's kind of like that' and I know exactly what she's saying and no one else maybe would even understand it. It was helpful."
"She's very quiet," he continued. "I've noticed that being alone at home after work or on the way to work are really tranquil and then you get to set and it's a little bit crazy. I felt this to be almost the opposite. To be in a new foreign city like Paris, which I loved, felt a little bit scary because I didn't know where I was going. I was lost a lot, and going to work was a long drive, but getting there, she was just like a candle burning. She's just so calm. She is like a yoga teacher!" (The last comment was a joking reference to tie it back to Schwartzman's character in Shopgirl.)
A reporter asked Schwartzman whether Coppola's version of the 18th Century French royalty might be a bit more offbeat, especially having him play the king who was eventually beheaded for treason against his own people. "I don't know what "offbeat" means but I think it's going to be her version of it," he responded. "If you said to me when I was 11 that I might be playing a French king, I'd have said you were "kookoo." My life has been full of these crazy surprises that I guess would be called "offbeat" just because they're not on beat, but that's alright with me. I prefer that. I haven't seen the movie, but I know that what we shot felt to me like it was an individual take on it, so it won't be like the normal period movie that we might have seen or are accustomed to. I will say that it feels more intimate than epic. I feel it's more about the people."
You'll have to wait over a year to see how Coppola's Marie Antoinette, due for release on October 13, 2006, turned out, but in just over a month, you can see Schwartzman playing a less glamorous role in Shopgirl, opening in New York, Los Angeles and Toronto on October 21.
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i guess the name change really worked.... maybe he's a member of that elusive coppola inner circle cause he's their cousin! :elitist: do some reporting next time, reporter.
Jason Schwartzman spills the release date of Marie Antoinette during recent Shopgirl press...
CS: What is the status of your film "Marie Antoinette"?
Schwartzman: I know that it comes out in October, Friday the 13th in 2006. It's in postproduction editing right now.
CS: I understand that you play Louis XVI? How is it to play the role of a King?
Schwartzman: I tried to play the king. To have been cast in that part like that was just such an honor. I just hope it works.
Seems to me like it's stylistically going to apply Wes Anderson toward Barry Lyndon to heighten the pomposity of the aristocracy.
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well here's the trailer...interessant, if you ask me.
http://progressive.stream.aol.com//aol/us/moviefone/movies/2005/marieantoinette_023756/marieantoinette_trlr_01_fhywet_dl.mov
Quote from: mutinyco on November 30, 2005, 03:09:55 PM
Seems to me like it's stylistically going to apply Wes Anderson toward Barry Lyndon to heighten the pomposity of the aristocracy.
you were truly a week early prophet. the music in the trailer and some of those shots (especially dunst on the balcony). which thank god, cause if she was going to apply Stanley Kubrick stylistically to Barry Lyndon i would have to fall asleep again, but this trailer looks good. :yabbse-thumbup:
New Order "Age of Consent" with the youthful decadence of prerevolutionary France??!?! That's the weirdest/greatest trailer I've seen in a long time. It seems to really capture (or at least pretends to capture) the tone of the film.
I agree mutinyco was prophetic. But I think with music like that, it's supposed to emphasize the youthful nature of this aristocracy. also, that shot of Kirsten naked with the fan....FUCKING GORGEOUS.
I've been in the library reading about the French Revolution for four hours now, that trailer was just what I needed.
Quote from: Ultrahip Lobster Supper on December 08, 2005, 08:46:54 PM
http://progressive.stream.aol.com//aol/us/moviefone/movies/2005/marieantoinette_023756/marieantoinette_trlr_01_fhywet_dl.mov
all dunst. all good.
anybody know what the song is?
This was exactly the kind of self important horseshit I was expecting from Sofia. Awful trailer, but great leg shot of Kirsten. Maybe that will be part of the opening credit sequence which would, I think, really outdo the one for LIT.
Quote from: Sal on December 09, 2005, 01:02:29 AM
This was exactly the kind of self important horseshit I was expecting from Sofia. Awful trailer, but great leg shot of Kirsten.
+
I have low expectations. It looks like a contemporary piece dressed as a period piece. People running down stairs and smiling and shit. New Order.
Quote from: Gamblour on December 08, 2005, 09:31:31 PM
New Order "Age of Consent" with the youthful decadence of prerevolutionary France??!?! That's the weirdest/greatest trailer I've seen in a long time.
Agreed. I can't help but smile and be happy after seeing this.
Yep. I really liked the handheld shot of them running down the stairs.
Oh, and the poster font for the title card. Neat.
kirstin dunst doing her best Faye Wong.
That New Order song seemed really out of place. I didn't really like the trailer, but I still have hope that this could turn out to be good.
Quote from: Figure 8 on December 09, 2005, 07:11:54 PM
That New Order song seemed really out of place. I didn't really like the trailer, but I still have hope that this could turn out to be good.
i don't like it either. i don't like the use of that song. the lyrics maybe link up thematically with the film, but the music itself just .. doesn't. and no i'm not saying a period piece requires the use of music from that specific period.
also i don't get the 80s title card.
visually it's nice, though :?.
Quote from: Hedwig on December 09, 2005, 07:39:35 PM
Quote from: Figure 8 on December 09, 2005, 07:11:54 PM
That New Order song seemed really out of place. I didn't really like the trailer, but I still have hope that this could turn out to be good.
i don't like it either. i don't like the use of that song. the lyrics maybe link up thematically with the film, but the music itself just .. doesn't. and no i'm not saying a period piece requires the use of music from that specific period.
also i don't get the 80s title card.
visually it's nice, though :?.
That's what I like about it, this synthesis of the two. I like that Sophia's commenting on the period piece with this energy and vibe we all understand, and through the trailer alone, you know exactly what she's trying to do. she wants to humanize these people as kids like any other generation. i'm sure that wasn't lost on you, but that's why I like it. it's not the lyrics, it's the decade and generation it represents.
Quote from: Gamblour on December 09, 2005, 07:54:23 PM
Quote from: Hedwig on December 09, 2005, 07:39:35 PM
Quote from: Figure 8 on December 09, 2005, 07:11:54 PM
That New Order song seemed really out of place. I didn't really like the trailer, but I still have hope that this could turn out to be good.
i don't like it either. i don't like the use of that song. the lyrics maybe link up thematically with the film, but the music itself just .. doesn't. and no i'm not saying a period piece requires the use of music from that specific period.
also i don't get the 80s title card.
visually it's nice, though :?.
That's what I like about it, this synthesis of the two. I like that Sophia's commenting on the period piece with this energy and vibe we all understand, and through the trailer alone, you know exactly what she's trying to do. she wants to humanize these people as kids like any other generation. i'm sure that wasn't lost on you, but that's why I like it. it's not the lyrics, it's the decade and generation it represents.
right, but on ther other hand, i find it strange that a filmmaker who worked with subtlety so successfully on her last film would attempt to convey that premise in such a blatant, obvious way. you know EXACTLY what she's trying to do, like you said.
note--obviously, it's a trailer. i'm not pre-emptively attacking the movie. the concept is cool, but it's poorly executed.
Quote from: Sal on December 09, 2005, 01:02:29 AM
great leg shot of Kirsten. Maybe that will be part of the opening credit sequence which would, I think, really outdo the one for LIT.
NOTHING could outdo the opening credit sequence for Lost in Translation.
But this is going to be interesting. Good or bad, it's going to be interesting. I'm starting to think that maybe Sofia and Francis should have switched roles in Godfather III.
Quote from: Hedwig on December 09, 2005, 08:03:38 PM
Quote from: Gamblour on December 09, 2005, 07:54:23 PM
Quote from: Hedwig on December 09, 2005, 07:39:35 PM
Quote from: Figure 8 on December 09, 2005, 07:11:54 PM
That New Order song seemed really out of place. I didn't really like the trailer, but I still have hope that this could turn out to be good.
i don't like it either. i don't like the use of that song. the lyrics maybe link up thematically with the film, but the music itself just .. doesn't. and no i'm not saying a period piece requires the use of music from that specific period.
also i don't get the 80s title card.
visually it's nice, though :?.
That's what I like about it, this synthesis of the two. I like that Sophia's commenting on the period piece with this energy and vibe we all understand, and through the trailer alone, you know exactly what she's trying to do. she wants to humanize these people as kids like any other generation. i'm sure that wasn't lost on you, but that's why I like it. it's not the lyrics, it's the decade and generation it represents.
right, but on ther other hand, i find it strange that a filmmaker who worked with subtlety so successfully on her last film would attempt to convey that premise in such a blatant, obvious way. you know EXACTLY what she's trying to do, like you said. note--obviously, it's a trailer. i'm not pre-emptively attacking the movie. the concept is cool, but it's poorly executed.
I'm completely with Hedwig on this.
I mean it's a bad idea to do that, we know this.
Hello:
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i thought the same, but sofia is doing it in an artsy fartsy way. i don't know what to expect about this movie , some of the shots in that trailer are too gorgeous to be disliked, and i'm glad someone actually remembers stanley kubrick did a movie called barry lyndon, even if it's to rip it off.
Love it. It beats the Jarhead trailer but The Fountain teaser still reigns.
Quote from: Hedwig on December 09, 2005, 08:03:38 PM
right, but on ther other hand, i find it strange that a filmmaker who worked with subtlety so successfully on her last film would attempt to convey that premise in such a blatant, obvious way.
that movie had the subtlety of an elephant humping a giraffe.
i loved the trailer!! as soon as i heard the new order song, a smile appeared on my face. i couldn't help not grinning while watching this trailer. sofia coppola is going to make this film hip and sexy which is very interesting for the subject matter. i loved the movie logo at the end and i can't wait to see the theatrical trailer.
Quote from: flagpolespecial on December 10, 2005, 07:32:40 PM
i loved lit and vs.
why are people knocking the trailer?
the people who don't like the trailer have specified why they don't like trailer, so why are you asking why people are knocking the trailer?
THIS LOOKS FUCKING GAY....[again, no offense to my homo peeps]...i hated the stupid song in the trailer i hate old englishy type bullshit...i hate dunst..i think she is ugly, annoyign ,and not worth shootign a load on her face when it comes to raunchy sex...the film looks well shot...its just not my thing...i would agree w/ the comparisions to 'a knightrs tale'....although i did like the title card...and its nothign against soppffia either.. shes ugly but i reall yliked lost in trans...an di was hoping that this woudl be worthj my time but its not....thats the good thign about trailers...you can spo tthe shit before you waste money/your life's expectancy on it
i liked the title card a lot. but i hate dunst. and i generally hate period pieces like this. i really liked LIT, but i wanna see sofia do something modern. she made japan look fucking beautiful. i'm sure it will be decent.
but one day coppola will do something great.
Quote from: pyramid machine on December 11, 2005, 09:57:46 AM
THIS LOOKS FUCKING GAY
Just stop saying this!!!! If you dont' want people to think you're a complete moron, stop saying this.
Quote from: pyramid machine on December 11, 2005, 09:57:46 AM..i hated the stupid song in the trailer i hate old englishy type bullshit...i hate dunst..i think she is ugly, annoyign ,and not worth shootign a load on her face when it comes to raunchy sex...the film looks well shot...its just not my thing...i would agree w/ the comparisions to 'a knightrs tale'....although i did like the title card...and its nothign against soppffia either.. shes ugly but i reall yliked lost in trans...an di was hoping that this woudl be worthj my time but its not....thats the good thign about trailers...you can spo tthe shit before you waste money/your life's expectancy on it
okay, maybe you DO want people to think you're a moron, but you should still chill out on the "Gay" shit.
Quote from: JimmyGator on December 11, 2005, 11:04:35 AM
but one day coppola will do something great.
Quote from: JimmyGator on December 09, 2005, 02:27:38 PM
she'll make a great movie one day if she sticks with it. we need this chick .
misogynist.
Quote from: RegularKarate on December 11, 2005, 04:56:44 PM
Quote from: pyramid machine on December 11, 2005, 09:57:46 AM
THIS LOOKS FUCKING GAY
Just stop saying this!!!! If you dont' want people to think you're a complete moron, stop saying this.
Quote from: pyramid machine on December 11, 2005, 09:57:46 AM..i hated the stupid song in the trailer i hate old englishy type bullshit...i hate dunst..i think she is ugly, annoyign ,and not worth shootign a load on her face when it comes to raunchy sex...the film looks well shot...its just not my thing...i would agree w/ the comparisions to 'a knightrs tale'....although i did like the title card...and its nothign against soppffia either.. shes ugly but i reall yliked lost in trans...an di was hoping that this woudl be worthj my time but its not....thats the good thign about trailers...you can spo tthe shit before you waste money/your life's expectancy on it
okay, maybe you DO want people to think you're a moron, but you should still chill out on the "Gay" shit.
:yabbse-sad: sorry, its just a reaction..like, if i touch something hot-i quickly move my hand away...i see this trailer and the stupid bitch starring in it...i think of "
that word"...i will admit in this overly pc world my choice of words would constitute certian people thinking that i am a moron..maybe i am :ponder:...i still think its a little too much to get bent all out of shape over it though....i see plenty of Christian hate going around and i dont get all crazy over it..fiddlesticks, i bet even gay people dont care about my choice of words..
but ........i dotn think that i am a moron for spotting a bullshit film...seriously, how could someone like this...is it cool b/c of the new order song over elegantly shot peices of period film..then its consider "hip" and "artsy"....i think it will be shit...which is a shame b/c lost in transn was fucking incredible..and her follow-up is this?????
the moron would be the person who goes to see this-not me :yabbse-wink:
Bring back NEON MERCURY!!!
weakest defense for saying dumb things--"maybe I'm not 'PC'..." like anyone really gives a fuck.
haha... totally... it's what Larry the Cable guy says. He's not PC, he's in your face and truthful!!!
"Just cuz I aint PC, don't mean I'm a homophobe"... "Just because I hate N*&&ers, don't mean I'm racist!"
I was more into the trailer than I expected to be. The New Order song is a ploy, of course, but who cares? This trailer will hype that crowd that seeks out early trailers and the official trailer later on will go for the masses. I think after the debate on this trailer, its a bad deal to critique trailers. I was guilty for Superman Returns but I'll never do it again.
i kinda love the trailer in the way that reminds me why i love and look forward to new movies. i just wish we could skip the next year of hype anticipation reviews waiting and see the film now. that would be ideal. teaser followed immediately by films release the next day.
Quote from: Gamblour on December 09, 2005, 07:54:23 PM
I like that Sophia's commenting on the period piece with this energy and vibe we all understand, and through the trailer alone, you know exactly what she's trying to do. she wants to humanize these people as kids like any other generation. i'm sure that wasn't lost on you.
isn't that the case with every single period film?
not really. they tend to be stately and blustery, and maggie smith is in them as some sort of long-beaked sea bird.
Quote from: pete on December 12, 2005, 07:14:33 PM
Quote from: Gamblour on December 09, 2005, 07:54:23 PM
I like that Sophia's commenting on the period piece with this energy and vibe we all understand, and through the trailer alone, you know exactly what she's trying to do. she wants to humanize these people as kids like any other generation. i'm sure that wasn't lost on you.
isn't that the case with every single period film?
yeah I agree with Ultrahip...it's really not the case. they get too caught up in the set pieces and costumes or the facts of it all.
maybe they seem that way without the the rock'n'roll soundtrack, but aside from oddities like Gods and Generals, period pieces are made with the intention of relating something from the past to the current audience, I think that much is obvious as well.
Quote from: pete on December 11, 2005, 08:31:28 PM
weakest defense for saying dumb things--"maybe I'm not 'PC'..." like anyone really gives a fuck.
well, you're right pete...i shouldnt use it as an excuse...truth is...i dont give a fuck about my use of the word "gay" ...but i dont want to keep pissing people off b/c i like you people here and xixax in general..so, if i use the word "gay" again...just ban me-no questions asked.... :|
Quote from: JimmyGator on December 11, 2005, 11:04:35 AM
but one day coppola will do something great.
Quote from: JimmyGator on December 09, 2005, 02:27:38 PM
she'll make a great movie one day if she sticks with it. we need this chick .
haha are u developing a new catchphrase?
It LOOKS great althouh I'm not a fan of modern music in a period piece. Maybe she'll pull it off, or maybe she won't even use it (this is just the trailer). That shot of Dunst nude is incredible. Maybe this will be a female version of Amadeus...babeadeus.
Quote from: SHAFTR on December 12, 2005, 11:14:10 PM
Maybe this will be a female version of Amadeus...babeadeus.
i think you're underrating F Murray Abraham :inlove:
Quote from: Pubrick on December 12, 2005, 10:39:34 PM
Quote from: JimmyGator on December 11, 2005, 11:04:35 AM
but one day coppola will do something great.
Quote from: JimmyGator on December 09, 2005, 02:27:38 PM
she'll make a great movie one day if she sticks with it. we need this chick .
haha are u developing a new catchphrase?
awww hell naw pubrick.
Quote from: Gamblour on December 11, 2005, 06:20:24 PM
Quote from: JimmyGator on December 11, 2005, 11:04:35 AM
but one day coppola will do something great.
Quote from: JimmyGator on December 09, 2005, 02:27:38 PM
she'll make a great movie one day if she sticks with it. we need this chick .
misogynist.
i'm sorry for interjecting my opinion in this thread which seems to be dominated by xixax giants, but I am very intrigued by the trailer for this movie because it is so damn pretty to watch. some of the shots are a bit wes anderson-ish (the pull back of Kirstin Dunst looking out the balcony) the trailer is just great to look at and the blend of image and music is very nice. I'm concerned about Dunst, who doesn't ruin movies but had not shown the abiltiy to star in a film in my opinion. I am also concerned about the potential use of accents in the film. I am kinda hoping that the actors talk in plain ole American english rather than try to talk with a french accent (which would undoubtedly sound like a british accent). Also, am I wrong in that the song title is "bizarre love triangle"? That would give it some importance besides just being a hip 70s song to put on the soundtrack. Anyways, I am highly anticipating this movie and Shwartzman is King.
Quote from: puddnanners on December 25, 2005, 03:21:40 AM
Also, am I wrong in that the song title is "bizarre love triangle"? That would give it some importance besides just being a hip 70s song to put on the soundtrack.
Quote from: Gamblour on December 08, 2005, 10:55:03 PM
Quote from: Gamblour on December 08, 2005, 09:31:31 PM
New Order "Age of Consent"
It's 80s.
and so is 'bizarre love triangle.'
Same director made all those live Bon Jovi videos back in the '80s.
I thought the trailer looked great. I am excited for this movie.
I really didn't have a problem with the New Order song. At all. As a matter of fact, I loved it.
Quote from: A Matter Of Chance on December 25, 2005, 10:25:53 PM
As a matter of fact, I loved it.
As a matter of fact or a matter of chance?
baazzing!
Dunst Film Going to Cannes
Kirsten Dunst's new period movie Marie-Antoinette has been selected to compete at the coveted Cannes Film Festival in May. The Sofia Coppola-directed film, co-starring Shopgirl actor Jason Schwartzman, sees a 19-year-old Viennese girl became the queen of France in 1744 - before being famously beheaded. Marie-Antoinette is one of the early contenders for the Cannes top prize - the Palme d'Or. Director Ron Howard's long-awaited The Da Vinci Code, starring Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou will open the 59th Cannes Film Festival, which runs between May 17 and 28.
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Eurgh.
Still my most anticipated.
Course, I've seen The Fountain and Science of Sleep.
International Trailer here. (http://www.allocine.fr/film/video.html?cfilm=57887)
Choose: Bande-annonce 2 - Anglais sous-titrée
Looks so good... I cant wait... hope it doesnt dissapoint
they stole the new order song from the life aquatic trailer for that one. the more kirsten dunst talks the less i believe in this movie working. (and i like her). but still looking forward to it.
whoa, isn't it so interesting that people from 16th century france sound just like TODAY'S KIDS!?
i like this trailer much more.
yes. the image right before the title appears.. the image of the crowd approaching. that is what i wanted to see.
I'm actually looking forward to this even more. Is the movie going to actually use New Order as the score? That would be awesome.
and pete...shhh!
Quote from: Gamblour le flambeur on May 04, 2006, 10:38:26 AM
and pete...shhh!
or as the french say, "chut!"
even if LiT was massively overrated, it was still a good movie and i hav no reason to expect otherwise from sofia.
Quote from: Pubrick on May 05, 2006, 01:20:37 AM
Quote from: Gamblour le flambeur on May 04, 2006, 10:38:26 AM
and pete...shhh!
or as the french say, "chut!"
even if LiT was massively overrated, it was still a good movie and i hav no reason to expect otherwise from sofia.
Mostly, that movie was very true about "the moment" between two people and all the little things involving that. That's what I'm looking forward to most...stripping away the artifice and mystique of a legend and humanizing Marie, which is apparent from the trailer, but the spirit of the 80s direction is the most exciting of all.
In Marie-Antoinette's head
Source: Les Inrockuptibles
JML/ When did you first think about doing a film on Marie-Antoinette?
SC/ After Virgin Suicides, I was looking for ideas, and one of my father's friend told me he was working on a period film that had to do with the pre French Revolution period, with Marie-Antoinette at the core of it. He told me that she was 14 when she first arrived in France, that her husband hadn1t touched her for about seven years. I didn1t imagine that she could have been that young. The idea that a 14 year's old girl could become, rather brutally, the Queen of France was a fascinating one to me. I then heard that Antonia Fraser had written a book devoted to Marie-Antoinette and I read it very quickly. I had been interested also by this period myself, the XVIIIth century in France, for quite a while, the atmosphere at Versailles, a place that functionned autarkically. I liked the idea of reconstituting that period, of doing a costume drama : to do that became then some sort of challenge for me.
JML/ Did you first try to do that film before shooting Lost in Translation?
SC/ I was working on MA's screenplay much before LIT. In fact LIT was at first nothing but a distraction from MA, a means for me to get away from a project that I knew was going to be rather Pharaonic. After LIT I decided to concentrate myself entirely to MA, it then became a sort of obsession for me. I really put myself to work on the screenplay of MA on the very day that followed the end of LIT's shooting.
JML/ Was it difficult to gather the sufficient budget to shoot MA?
SC/ The success of LIT helped me a great deal for that. But I was also very cautious for it not to become to heavy, I didn't want it to jeopardize (weigh) my creativity. Compared to many other Hollywood films MA is a rather low-budget film. Indeed, shooting in France, having a lot of walk-on actors, all that cost a lot of money, but I was very carefull that the film doesn't become a bottomless well (?). What was sure was that after shooting two films with modest (low) budget, MA was for me a «big-budget» film.
JML/ Could you say «Marie-Antoinette, that's me»? (a reference to Flaubert's «Madame Bovary, that's me», my note).
SC/ No, but I found it fascinating that there should be so many different «perceptions» of this character. When you look closely at the facts, she was a person who was sometimes hated, sometimes adulated. She never was ecumenical. And I must confess there truly are things with her that have «interpellated» me on a very personal level at times : the side of her that is the rebel teenager, her relationships with her family. But I honestly think these are all things any girl can identify herself with. That being said, between Versailles, the French Revolution and my personal life, there is evidently not that much in common. (laughs)
JML/ MA may resemble the girl characters we've already seen in your previous films, rather melancholic young girls in the end. And who live as a band, always together, at the same time. How (to what extent) this kind of character may resemble you?
SC/ Melancholy is more a topic I'm interested into than something I deeply feel. There's inded some form of melancholy in me, but I'm not the kind of girl who spends her all afternoon looking by the window with a sad gaze at all. As for the band of girlfriends, there again, that's something I want to film but that isn't in keeping with my life. I am more solitary a person than MA.
JML/ Do you think we can conceive MA as the third and last instalment of a trilogy that started with Virgin Suicides and was carried on with LIT?
SC/ I have never consciously thought about that. But with some distance, I think we can indeed conceive it this way. There are some similitudes between the three films, but also a certain evolution. Every time I try to push the reflection a bit further.I also know that each one of my films tells the story of a girl who tries to grow up a bit more. In Virgin Suicides, it's the story of a girl who tries to emancipate herself from her family backgrond. LIT, tells the story of a girl who lives her «first» life experiences, far away from her home. And in MA in the end, we follow the path of a teen girl who becomes a woman progressively : that could indeed be some form of conclusion.
JML/ The common denominators with these three films is also the idea of a young girl who is stuck in a specific social environment. Have you already felt that kind of pressure yourself?
SC/ I don't think I've ever been stuck that way. I have felt some difficulties to achieve my goals at times, to be the one I really wanted to be. But never to the extreme (extent) of the heroines in my films , this feeling was more measured with me.
JML/ Why did you choose not to show MA's death?
SC/ I didn't want to show the evasion, the arrest, the guillotine, I didn't want to ÇreconstituteÈ the whole story, that wasn't the goal of the film. I wanted to concentrate myself on the personal evolution of the character, up until the point where I could show how she eventually ends up accepting her ineluctable death, way before being confronted to it. I didn't picture myself shooting in a jail either, and even less so reconstituting it. And above all, I didn't want to show a decapitated head on the ground in a mix of mud and blood.
JML/ Why did you choose Kirsten Dunst?
SC/ When I read the first descriptions of MA, I instantaneously thought about her. MA was said to be spirited (sparkling wit) and have a great sense of humor, and that at the same time one could feel that she had a certain frailty. For me Kirsten incarnates (personifies) all that wonderfully. And then there's her German origins : she also had the perfect complexion (Sofia laughs). She was 17 when we were doing Virgin Suicides. She's now a woman, her acting has progressed immensely. We talked about the character, I gave her books, but she quickly identified which feeling, which idea of MA she was to personify. I really love working with her. She is always very quick at understanding what I want and on the set we don't have to talk that much.
JML/ Before the shooting started did you watch a lot of period films, Barry Lyndon for example?
SC/ I had watched lots of them even before considering doing MA. Like Barry Lyndon for instance which is indeed a tremendous film. But I didn't make the effort to watch them again prior to the shooting. I wanted to shoot my own period film, my own version of it, more influenced by contemporary things such as photography or music.
JML/ The typography you use in the credits (title and all) reminds us a bit of the one we could see at the time of Punk or New-Wave.
SC/ That is a way for me to say, from the start of the film, that is my own interpretation of a period film. At some point in the film one can even see briefly a pair of Converse shoes next to a series of period shoes. That kind of shot allows us to say that we're not going to follow 100% the rules of the genre, to «cut» with the sometimes burdensome aspect some period films may have. Similarly I didn't try to imitate the XVIIIth century picturality at all. On the contrary, I did a collage book for the different teams that were in charge of the costumes, with contemporary photographs almost strictly. There were a lot of photographs from Helmut Newton for instance.
To go back to the topic of typography, it also evokes the one used by all the bands that were influencing me while I was writing, bands like Bow Wow Wow which curiously had a neoromantic quality and are also pretty much into XVIIIth century France. As for «Ceremony», the last song written by Ian Curtis from Joy Division, that became the first single of New Order, it seemed perfect to me for the party scene. The song is very hard and dazzling at the same time.
JML/ How do you work for the musical illustration in your films? Do you choose your music a posteriori or does it happen to you to conceive a specific scene for a scepicic song (music)?
SC/ When I write a screenplay, there's always music around me. It has already happened to me that a particular song generates a very precise idea. But generally speaking, the music is there more to create an atmosphere, to give an emotional color to the film. I work with someone in particular, Brian Reitzell, who does mountains of compilations for me. We then sit down together and think about the very songs (pieces) that will be the best.
JML/ Do you listen to music everyday?
SC/ Yes I do a lot, particularly when I am driving. But I am not addicted to it, I can live without music.
JML/ What song do you listen to the most lately?
SC/ I don't know. I came to Paris without my iPod. But anyway, let"s say that the LP I listen to the most at the moment is Phoenix's. (She laughs).
JML/ Marianne Faithfull plays MA's mother. Why this choice?
SC/ Because what one remembers of Marianne Faithfull in the first place is her voice, with such a particular tone. The character of MA's mother is very rare on screen, but on the other hand the reading (voice-over) of the letters she sends to her daughter is one of the film's key narrative drive. Hence my choice of an actress with a clearly identifiable voice.
JML/ Did you work a lot on the costumes?
SC/ Yes. I had the chance to have Milena Canonero on the film, who worked a lot with Kubrick, on Barry Lyndon for instance, or with my father on Tucker or Cotton Club. She really understood where I wanted to go : not to transform the set into a museum. I didn't want the costumes to «slow down» the film's rhythm, and I believe I've succeeded to do so thanks to her.
JML/ Your last two films take place in foreign countries - Japan and France - and Virgin Suicides, took place in an American suburb but was shot in Canada. Like your heroines who land in worlds whose codes they don't master, you put yourself, as a director, into the foreigner's situation.
SC/ Virgin Suicides took place in a small American town because it was the case in the original book by Jeffrey Eugenides. But due to financial reasons, we chose to shoot in Canada. After, it's the topic that determines the shooting location. The Japan for LIT, Versailles for MA. The location imposes itself logically according to the story. I think that I could shoot anywhere and I am not particularly attached to the idea of shooting in America, which is something I haven't done yet. This position of the «foreigner» in which I put myself when I shoot and of which you1re talking about, comes from my childhood for sure. I used to spend a lot time with my father on his shootings in places that were not familiar to me. Shooting abroad is surely a way for me to recreate that. But most of all it is something that is beyond cinema for me. I love to lose my reflexes, to discover new places.
JML/ What is the place you call «home»?
SC/ My flat in NY. But I really love travelling, changing places and trying to feel myself at home the as quickly as possible.
JML/ What do you do when you don't work on a film?
SC/ It's rather hard for me not to do anything. Doing a film takes a lot of time, a lot of energy. I devote a great part of my life to my cinema. Betwen two films, I like to devote my time to lighter projects, like doing a videoclip for the White Stripes (I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself, with Kate Moss.)
JML/ In your film, MA has a place to herself that she calls her «Trianon». Do you have one as well?
SC/ No, my own private «Trianon» would be Nature.
JML/ Which directors do you find yourself close today?
SC/ I am very good friend with Wes Anderson, I really love his work passionately. I adore Terrence Malick, and we had a joke with the crew on MA when we called the scenes where she finds shelter in her little farm at the Trianon, the «Terrence Malick sequences». I also love the films of Pedro Almodovar and Gus Van Sanr, even if I was slightly perplexed with Last Days.
JML/ Is your father's judgement on your films more important than any others?
SC/ It's important for me, but is it the most important of all? I don't think so. There are many other judgements that count a lot for me. But my father is a big support for me generally speaking, I was very much influenced by his way of working : he's always worked in «family» in all the senses of the word. My brother Roman worked with me on MA. There were moments when I was shooting in some parts of Versailles' castle and he was shooting in others at the same time. I knew that he knew exactly what I wanted. And it is fantastic to be able to work like that. I know how precious this is.
JML/ Do you have a project for your next film?
SC/ No, not for the moment.
ps - Manalo Blahnik made the shoes.
Also, some French reviewers have seen pre-showings and adored it - French Premiere gave it 4/4 - which is great because the French press is always very harsh, especially when Sofia and Kirsten both said the French probably won't like it. French press is definitely more stuck up than American press....so this is a good sign.
http://community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/6749567.html
this movie to me sounds very very interesting. especially because it pays recognition to barry lyndon, the best film of all time, and also because it looks like the ending of the story won't be in the guillotine, so it's gonna be about ma's taste and lowbrow extravaganza. even if this period of history sucked, i like the 'her vision' thing, sofia's already proven that her aesthetics and shit are very rich, her only strong quality as a director prolly. and i still want to be her husband very much.
edit: and i just saw it has steve coogan!!! by the way, he's getting a new series this year.
Quote from: cronopio on May 19, 2006, 11:00:15 AM
and i still want to be his husband very much.
Did you mean to put this line after the Steve Coogan line?
i've had this awkward problem before, but it's because in spanish we use a neutral adverb for these kind of situations instead of gender. lost in translation blah blah blah.
This looks like a movie John Hughes would have written if he'd minored in world history. My girlfriend will probably love it.
Royal lineage
With 'Marie Antoinette,' Sofia Coppola notes it's good to be queen.
By Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
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WHEN you are the third generation of a celebrated Hollywood family, when your father's an eminent director, people tend to underestimate you. It's been happening to Sofia Coppola all her life, and, frankly, it's fine by her.
"I think it's an advantage," she says, smiling. "If people don't expect much, even though you have to work harder to prove you're not a spoiled brat, if you just do OK it's considered good. I like being under the radar. I'd rather be the kid who got into the grown-up section at Cannes than one of the big, expected films. It's better to be an underdog and hope."
At first glance, it's easy to see why people might underestimate Coppola, whose Kirsten Dunst-starring historical drama, "Marie Antoinette," premieres here tonight. Dressed simply in jeans, white shirt and flip-flops, she looks younger than someone who celebrated her 35th birthday the Sunday before Cannes opened.
And unlike many of her hyped-up directing peers, Coppola projects an air of casual, unruffled calm and, refreshingly, is not stuck on herself. But the consideration that causes her to uncap a bottle of water for a visitor and allow a room service waiter to go on and on about his relatives in America doesn't prevent her from being determined as well as intelligent and thoughtful.
"You don't have to be a yeller to direct; you can still be strong and get what you need done as long as you're clear about what you want," she says, yes, quietly. "I guess I have a bossy side, but I'm polite about it."
Ready or not, Coppola's days of being underestimated are over. First she won a screenwriting Oscar and became the first American woman to be nominated for best director, for "Lost in Translation." Now, with the quietly exuberant "Marie Antoinette," costarring the wild mixture of Jason Schwartzman, Rip Torn, Judy Davis, Marianne Faithfull and Asia Argento, she has even bent history to her will, disarmingly blending her exquisitely modern sensibility with a potent re-creation of the salad days of the last queen of France. This is accomplished, impressive filmmaking on both an epic and an intimate scale.
Kind of like "The O.C." set in Versailles, "Marie Antoinette," which is based on Antonia Fraser's authoritative biography, reminds us that Marie and her husband, Louis XVI, were real people, ages 18 and 20, when he became king and they entered history's stage.
"I liked the idea that she was a real girl, someone who didn't like to do schoolwork, that there were all these teenagers running around in Versailles being in charge," Coppola says. "Now, looking back, I see my films [starting with "The Virgin Suicides"] as a trilogy about characters who are all trying to grow up and find their identity."
Coppola first thought of doing a film about Marie Antoinette when production designer and family friend Dean Tavoularis talked to her about Fraser's book, about the life of someone who went from Austria to Versailles when she was 14 and had a marriage that was not consummated for years. Coppola optioned the book, began a screenplay, took a break to write what became "Lost in Translation," then returned to this story that "kept nagging at me."
"I liked the idea just as a challenge to myself; I liked that it was so different for me," the director explains. "I'm not excited by huge crowds; I like more intimate stories. This was so big [a $40-million budget], with a couple of hundred extras where I'd never worked with any before, it was sort of daunting."
Also, Coppola says, she liked that "Marie Antoinette" was different in another way.
"This was something I hadn't seen a lot of in the movies of my contemporaries, who are shooting super-realistic scenes in 7-Elevens. This was kind of a reaction to that."
Coppola was also determined to do a historical movie "in my style, to make it my own film, something I wanted to see. That was the most important thing, not to fall into the habits of generic period movies, not to get pushed into 'this is how you should do it.' "
So the director settled on a seductive pastel palette inspired by the "sherberty colors" of the celebrated macarons of Paris confectioner Ladurée. And she "never thought twice" about her decision to use pop music on the soundtrack.
"Brian Reitzell, the music supervisor, would make me what we called 'Versailles mix' CDs," she says of the prep for a soundtrack that eventually included Bow Wow Wow's "I Want Candy" and songs by New Order, the Strokes and the Cure. "I wanted atmospheric, dreamy contemporary music, that kind of teenage girl spirit." And by playing a rousing Gang of Four anthem over the opening credits, the film effectively announces that this is going to be a historical drama unlike those we've seen before.
Coppola was also determined to shoot at Versailles, and she got unprecedented use of the palace, including being able to film at the Petit Trianon and its fragile theater, where the queen put on plays.
"I had more access, it was easier to shoot there than at the Park Hyatt in Tokyo," the director says, comparing it with the setting for "Lost in Translation."
Just as she had persevered in getting Bill Murray to star in that film, Coppola did not stop until she got what this film needed.
"I'm really determined; I won't take no," she says. "If people say it, I ask again in a different way. I can't imagine setting out to make a movie and not being clear about what you want; that's the point of doing it. That's why I want to make movies. I made 'Lost in Translation' to see Bill Murray in it. In life, there are compromises. In making movies, you get to have it exactly how you imagined."
Though their personal and moviemaking styles are poles apart, this passionate determination seems to be a legacy from Francis Ford Coppola, the director's father.
"Even if it seemed impossible, he'd find some way to do it," the younger Coppola remembers. "He seemed very heroic out in the Philippines, getting his movie made."
Now, looking back at all the time spent on her father's sets, including the Philippine staging ground for "Apocalypse Now," it seems to Sofia Coppola that "we were always, like, in training for film. I remember him talking to me about screenwriting when I was a little kid, telling me what made a good second act. Who talks to a 12-year-old girl like that?"
One father did, and one daughter remembered.
Sofia Coppola had a ball with "Marie-Antoinette"
Sofia Coppola is back in the Cannes limelight after debuting her first film, "The Virgin Suicides" at the Directors' Fortnight sidebar in 1999.
With the worldwide accolades for 2003's "Lost in Translation," Coppola clearly has stepped out of the shadow of her father, Francis Ford Coppola. Her follow-up, the $40 million period piece "Marie-Antoinette," marks her first contender for the coveted Palme d'Or prize.
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: WERE YOU ALWAYS INTERESTED IN MARIE ANTOINETTE?
Sofia Coppola: Not really. I was always interested in 18th century France and Versailles. It seemed so foreign, that people lived like that. I've never been a big history buff or studied much about that period. I was talking to my dad's friend Dean Tavoularis, who was reading about Marie Antoinette, who was only 14 when she was sent to Versailles. And her husband (King Louis XVI) didn't consummate the marriage for seven years. To compensate for that, she would go out partying and shopping. It was interesting to hear the personal side of a mythic figure. I had heard that Antonia Fraser was coming out with this book. Nan Talese, a friend of my mom's, helped me to contact the publisher and get an advance copy. After "Virgin Suicides," I optioned it and started working on the script. I was also working on "Lost in Translation."
THR: DID YOU FIND THE ADAPTATION DIFFICULT?
Coppola: It was a daunting task, adapting a huge book about a long, whole life. As I worked on it, I concentrated on the section at Versailles. It starts with her arrival at 14 and ends with the revolution, when she was in her early 30s. I took a few passes. There was so much editing to figure out what to include. I didn't want to do a standard biopic. I wanted to feel the vitality and freshness of these young people, so we feel like we're there with them for a few hours as opposed to looking back at history through varnish.
THR: WERE YOU FAMILIAR WITH OTHER HOLLYWOOD MOVIES ABOUT MARIE ANTOINETTE?
Coppola: I watched Norma Shearer (in W.S. Van Dyke's 1938 "Marie Antoinette"), then I turned it off because I didn't want to be influenced. There are similarities to (Josef von Sternberg's 1934) "Scarlet Empress," which becomes decadent, and (Zhang Yimou's 1991) "Raise the Red Lantern."
THR: HOW DID YOU CONVINCE A STUDIO TO FUND A $40 MILLION PERIOD DRAMA AND STILL LET YOU KEEP YOUR FREEDOM?
Coppola: When I finished the script and was ready to make the movie, I met with Columbia's Amy Pascal. She was very enthusiastic about the project. I approached it like a low-budget movie; I kept it as small as possible to keep creative control. We had Japanese (Tohokashinsha Film Co.) and French (Pathe) financing from the two companies on "Lost in Translation."
THR: YOU HAD WORKED WITH KIRSTEN DUNST ON "VIRGIN SUICIDES." WHY WAS SHE RIGHT FOR MARIE ANTOINETTE?
Coppola: As I read the book, I could picture Kirsten Dunst in the part. Her father was German, so she has a pale complexion. She can be bubbly, light and silly and have a serious deeper side. It's not common to be able to express both.
THR: YOUR OTHER CASTING, FROM YOUR COUSIN JASON SCHWARTZMAN TO COMEDIANS MOLLY SHANNON AND STEVE COOGAN, LENDS THE FILM A HUMOROUS TONE.
Coppola: I did not set out to make a comedy, but I like doing things that I find amusing and fun to watch. There are comedic elements in it. In this role, Jason is held back; he shows his sensitive side. People know his more comedic side. He was up for gaining weight, like 40 pounds. King Louis was known for being into food. We had an amazing staff of 18th century food experts who'd build these elaborate concoctions to re-create this over-the-top lifestyle.
THR: WHY DID AUSTRIAN EMPEROR JOSEPH II (DANNY HUSTON) HAVE TO GIVE HIS SISTER ADVICE ON HOW TO GET PREGNANT?
Coppola: This is a real story. His mother, the Empress of Austria, after learning that Louis hadn't wanted to consummate the marriage, sent Joseph to speak to Marie Antoinette and Louis about what was going on. They do consummate eventually, and she has his child.
THR: HOW DID YOU DECIDE TO HANDLE THIS HODGEPODGE OF AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN ACCENTS FOR A STORY SET IN FRANCE?
Coppola: I decided to let everyone have their own accent and not worry about it. I like the style of the European movies of the '60s and '70s with international casts. I didn't want a mid-Atlantic accent for the American actors. I wanted the least distractions, so you don't notice it, like "Amadeus," real people talking in a way you can relate to. The actors all toned it down a bit. I didn't want Dunst to be too Californian. There's nothing Texan about Rip Torn (as Louis XV). I wanted to try to make it feel contemporary and 18th century.
THR: DID THEY LISTEN TO BOW WOW WOW AT KING LOUIS' PALACE?
Coppola: I picked a mix of music from the period and related contemporary music with a teenage feeling. Bow Wow Wow has a girly playfulness and spirit. We use "I Want Candy" in a sequence when she's shopping for cakes and silk. It was a song for that indulgence, a young girl who has everyone waiting on her.
THR: WHAT FASCINATED YOU ABOUT THIS STORY?
Coppola: The fact that they were so young; they became king and queen at 18 and 19. These kids were in a crazy situation. I liked the idea of teenagers with Versailles as their playground.
THR: AND HOW FUN WAS IT FOR YOU TO USE VERSAILLES AS YOUR FILM PLAYGROUND?
Coppola: It was a spectacular, unique place to be able to film. I can't imagine trying to re-create that. We were able to shoot in the real places, to walk into Marie Antoinette's real bedroom, to go to the hall of mirrors. I met with the director of Versailles; he had liked "Lost in Translation." He heard my approach and liked that I was trying to get into the head of Marie Antoinette, to show what it was like being her at that time. We were so lucky to see the private apartment behind the public bedroom. When you see the private areas, you see the real people backstage.
THR: HOW LONG WERE YOU THERE?
Coppola: Our shoot was 12 weeks. We only shot in Versailles on Mondays, when it was closed to the public. On other days we'd shoot on the grounds, in the garden, we'd have to section off areas and work around the tourists. We'd redress other chateaux. We didn't build sets. It feels more authentic to use the real architecture, the real gardens of a real place.
THR: HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT TACKLING AN AMBITIOUS PERIOD MOVIE COMPLETE WITH SCENES WITH HUNDREDS OF EXTRAS?
Coppola: I'd never done anything on this scale: Big wedding ball scenes in the hall of mirrors with tons of extras, and a masquerade ball with big crowds all in hair, makeup and wardrobe, were overwhelming. It was exciting, but it was not my strong point. I had a strong team, and an AD (assistant director) coordinating all the extras. It was challenging and time consuming, I never worked so hard before -- to keep focus on the characters and performances and not get lost in all the other stuff. It's exciting to walk through a sea of people dressed by Milena Canonero in 18th century costumes. You feel like you're in that world.
THR: YOU HAVE A BACKGROUND IN COSTUME DESIGN; DID YOU WORK CLOSELY WITH CANONERO?
Coppola: It was incredibly fun to work with a master like that; I could express what I wanted. It's amazing what she can do. The costumes were all historically based on that period, but we took artistic license. We're not renting some costumes from museums. Everything is fresh and new, based on the colors I saw in Marie Antoinette's private room, the turquoise and pink fabrics she chose. I wanted it to be her girly fresh young world.
THR: DO YOU RELATE MARIE ANTOINETTE TO HER MODERN COUNTERPART, PRINCESS DIANA?
Coppola: There are definitely things relative to life today. I have no fascination with Princess Diana, but there are similarities to a girl in this situation.
THR: ARE YOU SEEKING TO REVISE THE LONG-HELD "LET THEM EAT CAKE" PORTRAIT OF MARIE ANTOINETTE?
Coppola: Because of the politics of the time, things were exaggerated and she was made into a scapegoat. I think she's a flawed character, but I also hope my film shows another point of view.
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Cool French reaction to Sofia Coppola's "Antoinette"
Sofia Coppola has brought Marie Antoinette to the big screen, using rock music in a visually sumptuous portrayal of a misunderstood young queen, but viewers at the Cannes film festival were less than impressed.
Kirsten Dunst plays the title role as an amiable and naive teenager who is lost in the constraints of the French court, having been brought there from Austria at the age of 14 to marry the heir to the throne.
The reaction to the film in Cannes, where "Marie Antoinette" is one of 20 films in the main competition, was largely negative at a press screening on Wednesday ahead of the official world premiere in the evening.
Several viewers booed and hardly any clapped, although such a reaction is not unusual for the notoriously fussy Cannes press corps.
"I didn't know about the boos at the screening," Coppola said, when asked about the early reaction. "That's news to me ... that's disappointing to hear."
The compere at the press conference dismissed it as the actions of the "petit bourgeois." Coppola put on a brave face.
"I think it's better to get a reaction. Either people really like or really don't like -- I think is better than a mediocre response, so hopefully some people will enjoy it and it's not for everybody."
MISUNDERSTOOD QUEEN
The film is based on Antonia Fraser's 2002 biography, which challenges the once popular interpretation of Antoinette as callous and extravagant as the population of France went hungry.
"Let them eat cake," the infamous phrase that has been attributed to her in reference to an impoverished populace, is portrayed as a malicious invention in the film, which some historians believe was actually the case.
"To me, before I worked on this story she was a symbol of decadence and frivolity," Coppola, watched by her director father Francis Ford Coppola, told a news conference.
"It was very interesting to read and research more about Marie Antoinette and find out more about the human experience of this young girl who went to Versailles when she was 14, and how she developed in the court of Versailles."
Coppola's is a costume drama made with a modern eye, with striking bright pinks and yellows lighting up the screen and, most notably, New Romantic tracks interspersed with opera and chamber music from the 18th century.
When Antoinette and her entourage sneak out of Versailles to attend a masked ball in Paris, people dance to a pop soundtrack as if at a modern day disco. One of the songs featured is Bow Wow Wow's "I Want Candy."
Coppola focuses almost exclusively on the queen's life at court rather than the social upheaval going on around her. The only point when the two worlds meet is a scene where Antoinette appears on the Versailles balcony before an angry mob.
The 35-year-old director mercilessly mocks the conventions of the French court, with a crowd of noblewomen there to greet the queen from the moment she wakes up and looking on as she undresses.
She also takes a sympathetic view of Antoinette's passionless marriage, which the French blame on her and not the king, played in the film by Coppola's cousin Jason Schwartzman. The movie ends before her imprisonment and execution in 1793.
"Marie Antoinette" is Coppola's third feature film and her biggest to date with a budget estimated at $40 million. Her first two movies, "The Virgin Suicides" -- which also starred Dunst -- and "Lost in Translation" were critically acclaimed.
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'Barbie' Antoinette booed at Cannes
CANNES, France (AFP) - "Marie Antoinette", the long-awaited movie from Oscar-winning US director Sofia Coppola, was booed, dismissed as a kind of Barbie meets "Desperate Housewives" romp.
Despite being beautifully filmed in the Versailles palace, and backed by a rollicking sound track with the likes of 80s bands The Cure and Bow Wow Wow, the film largely failed to live up to expectations.
More than two centuries after France's last queen was beheaded in 1793, Marie Antoinette still raises opposing passions here. And although many critics enjoyed the luscious feast for the eyes, they said the tale failed to convince.
The 40-million-dollar movie starring Kirsten Dunst is light years from the beautifully understated "Lost in Translation" which won Coppola an Oscar in 2004 for best original screenplay.
"I feel in my three films, there's a kind of a connection, a theme of young women trying to find their way and their identity, and to me it just feels like the last chapter of these three films," Coppola told journalists.
Marie Antoinette arrives aged 14 at Versailles for her marriage to the dauphin who becomes Louis XVI on the death of his father.
But she is quickly lost and stifled by the court's rigid etiquette. The couple's ignorance of sex means the marriage is not consummated for seven years, causing concern in both the French and Austrian courts desperate for an heir to secure the alliance.
To relieve the boredom, the teenager gives vent to her natural, youthful exuberance, seduced by fabulous clothes, opulent balls and mountains of cream cakes.
The film is as fluffy and light as the many macaroons consumed by the courtiers, with sumptuous costumes, and delightful shoes provided by the shoemaker to the well-heeled Manolo Blahnik.
But as eye-pleasing as it is, it never manages to overcome its MTV video clip feel, as attempts to redeem Marie Antoinette as she matures and becomes a mother, including having her read French philosopher Rousseau, come over as shallow.
Coppola's cousin Jason Schwartzman, who plays Louis XVI, is also like a nervous rabbit caught in the glare of the camera.
At the end, as Marie Antoinette and Louis are seen leaving Versailles after the storming of the palace, the film received some applause but that was drowned out by the boos.
"It's a bit of a Barbie Antoinette," said Sophie Torlotin from the French radio RFI, who said overall she had liked the film. "It's a beautiful object, but I was not touched."
Jean Luc Wachthausen, heading up the team from the French daily Figaro, said: "We would have liked a more polished script, it lacks a bit of depth. It's a beautiful film, but not statisfying."
Asked if her film was a bit like "Desperate Housewives," Coppola said she had never seen the prime time soap about the secret lives of housewives.
"But yeah, I thought there's this lonely wife whose husband is not paying any attention to her so she's staying out partying and going shopping," she said.
"We've all heard that story before. I thought it was interesting to see what this search for all this frivolity was really coming from."
Told about the hostile reaction, Coppola admitted that it was disappointing but said: "I think it's better to get a reaction that people either really like it or don't like it, than a mediocre response."
"For the first half an hour, I really enjoyed it, and then I found it that it wasn't uninteresting, but it wasn't very interesting either. But I was surprised that half, or a third of the theatre, booed," said Lisa Nesselson, a critic from Variety.
It is only the third feature length movie by the 35-year-old Coppola, whose famous director father Francis Ford Coppola took a back seat at the press conference.
"For me the biggest challenge was making something on this scale, with a much bigger crew than I've ever worked with, extras and so many costumes," she said.
But with several strong movies among the 20 in competition already touted as possible contenders for the Palme d'Or, it would seem unlikely that Coppola's offering will knock Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar's "Volver" off the critics' top spot.
that's a shame.
Quote from: MacGuffin on May 24, 2006, 11:33:45 AM
We use "I Want Candy" in a sequence when she's shopping for cakes and silk.
that sounds a bit cringe-worthy.
Quote"I think it's better to get a reaction that people either really like it or don't like it, than a mediocre response."
Oh good, so she got what she wanted? That's a weird response. This sounds very disappointing. But I guess I will have to see it.
Coppola, Dunst Find Life After 'Suicides'
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Sofia Coppola sees far beyond the perky persona Kirsten Dunst shows on the surface. Dunst feels more like herself on screen when Coppola directs her.
The two, who previously collaborated on Coppola's first film "The Virgin Suicides" reunited for "Marie Antoinette," a costume drama with modern trappings that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.
It was an unusual choice for both, who had been grounded firmly in today's world.
After "The Virgin Suicides," a nostalgic tale of lost innocence set in the 1970s, Coppola won an Academy Award for the screenplay of "Lost in Translation," a quirky tale of kindred souls connecting in a foreign land.
Dunst scored a hit with the peppy cheerleading comedy "Bring It On" before joining the blockbuster ensemble as girl-next-door Mary Jane Watson in the "Spider-Man" movies.
Yet Coppola, 35, and Dunst, 24, brought an inventive contemporary air to "Marie Antoinette," in which Dunst's animated American voice mixes with British and French accents and pop tunes by Bow Wow Wow blend with authentic 18th century music.
Dunst plays the young French queen as a woman in late 1700s aristocratic gowns, but with an up-to-date party-girl attitude.
"I would do anything with Sofia," Dunst told The Associated Press. "She really gets me as a woman and an actress, and she captures who I am more than anybody else I've worked with."
"Marie Antoinette" is competing for the Palme d'Or, the top honor at Cannes, a prize the director's father, Francis Ford Coppola, won in 1979 with "Apocalypse Now." A win for "Marie Antoinette" Sunday would mark the first time in the festival's 59 years that a child of a past recipient won the Palme d'Or.
Coppola wrote the screenplay from Antonia Fraser's biography "Marie Antoinette: The Journey." She said she had Dunst in mind from the start, seeing similarities between the superficial way Marie Antoinette has been perceived and the open-book personality that Dunst can project.
"She has this bubbly, young-girl, outgoing personality, but then she also has kind of a more serious side, substantial depth to her. There's more going on than she shows sometimes," Coppola told the AP. "That worked for the character, because people didn't take Marie Antoinette seriously. It's the blonde, the bubbly blonde. But she had this substantial dignity that in the end really comes through, and I think it's hard to find both of those in the same person."
The film centers on Antoinette's years at the French palace at Versailles, where she was dispatched at age 14 from her native Austria to wed Louis XVI (Jason Schwartzman), heir to France's throne.
"Marie Antoinette" co-stars Rip Torn as King Louis XV, Judy Davis and Steve Coogan as key figures in Antoinette's personal staff, Danny Huston as her brother, Marianne Faithfull as her mother and Asia Argento as Louis XV's brazen lover.
The modern pop tunes underscore the dying gasp of decadent palace life that preceded the French Revolution and eventually led to Antoinette's beheading. The title character is presented not as a villain or a martyr, but a flawed young woman whose profligate ways arise from boredom with the royal court's stifling ways and her pleasant but inattentive husband.
In Coppola's movies, Dunst is not so much playing a character as playing a piece of herself, the actress said.
"I've noticed in roles, why I hate watching myself certain times is because I know that I'm not being honest. It's not me, and somebody is putting their views on how they think a woman should be, how they view me as a person. Maybe they don't always get you, so it doesn't feel honest when I'm watching it, so it's uncomfortable for me," Dunst said.
"When I watch myself in Sofia's movies, it's scarier, because I feel more vulnerable, but it's closer to who I am. It's more than closer to who I am. It is me."
At its first press screening, "Marie Antoinette" drew wildly mixed reactions, earning solid applause from admirers and sharp boos from many French critics.
Coppola and her cast shrugged it off, saying "Marie Antoinette" was not a film for all tastes.
"It's better to have that than to have a sort of bland, uniform response to something. It shows that Sofia is being true to her voice," co-star Coogan said. "People who love Sofia Coppola films will love this one, and the people who don't, won't."
Coppola Defends 'Marie-Antoinette'
Director Sofia Coppola has hit back at critics who mauled her new movie Marie-Antoinette as an attempt to Americanize French history. Coppola's film chronicles the life of the tragic French queen during the revolution in the 1790s. It has been criticized for its American pop video feel, but Coppola insists she wanted to accentuate the youthful slant to the story. She says, "I wasn't making a political movie about the French revolution, I was making a portrait of Marie-Antoinette and my opinions are in the film. We modernized certain things that were relate-able to me and a modern audience. The story is about teenagers in Versailles, so I wanted it to have that energy of youth and teenage feeling to it."
French Star Said American Should Not Direct Film About Marie Antoinette
Director Sofia Coppola had originally hoped to cast legendary French movie star Alain Delon to portray Louis XV in Marie Antoinette, which screened at the Cannes Film Festival this week. "I had a meeting with him and he told me he didn't want to be in the movie," Coppola told the newspaper Metro. "He thought it was not a good idea for an American to make a movie about a French story. Everyone's entitled to their opinion and I was not going to let him stop me from making the movie."
Quote from: MacGuffin on May 27, 2006, 01:20:16 AM
"He thought it was not a good idea for an American to make a movie about a French story. Everyone's entitled to their opinion and I was not going to let him stop me from making the movie."
I think it's obvious that this is why the audience booed, even though I have no idea about the makeup of the audience's nationalities (just assuming that a Cannes audience has a lot of French people). I don't disagree with Delon, I think proprietary relationships of nationalism and cinema stories are valid reasons for not liking the way a film is made (eg von Trier and Manderlay (still haven't seen Dogville)). But I'm sure this flick is still good.
I think it's more obvious that this is how they're going to play it--that it was booed because of the politics and the french. it's easier to live with yourself when you think people don't like your movies only because they don't get it, due to their own frenchness.
http://movies.aol.com/movie_exclusive_marie_antoinette_trailer
http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/marieantoinette/trailer1/
unusually crappy quality for a quicktime
I'll still see it. I'm not one for nationalism.
I didn't realize that Kirsten Dunst wasn't doing an accent at all for this. So the movie has an odd blend of English, French, and American accents.
It's just as well, though. It's not as though people speaking English with French accents is any more or less accurate. I just think that Kirsten Dunst as just Kirsten Dunst threw me a bit.
Well Marie Antoinette wasn't French. But anyhow, I'd rather they don't try accents; it becomes distracting unless it's a French actor speaking English (i.e. non-acted accents). I think transplanted accents are more patronizing, like how ancient Greeks and Romans are always given British accents and the lesser-civilized peoples given Cockney or something.
some shakesperian scholar once told me that the british people sounded a lot like people in the American South back in the days.
Quote from: pete on August 03, 2006, 02:54:02 PM
some shakesperian scholar once told me that the british people sounded a lot like people in the American South back in the days.
This is what I've understood to be true. The british accent as we know it now was invented to make them sound cooler.
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Dunst poses as Marie Antoinette in Vogue
Madonna struck a pose as Marie Antoinette in a performance of her "Vogue" video at the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards. Now, Kirsten Dunst is doing it — in the pages of Vogue magazine.
Dunst, who plays a young Antoinette in Sofia Coppola's upcoming film, was photographed by Annie Leibovitz at the Palace of Versailles — where many of the scenes for "Marie Antoinette" were shot — for the September issue of Vogue, on newsstands Tuesday.
The 24-year-old actress, whose screen credits include Coppola's "The Virgin Suicides," wears a series of dramatic floor-length gowns by designers such as Alexander McQueen and John Galliano, and by Milena Canonero, the costume designer for the film.
"You breathe differently in those dresses; you move in a special way," Dunst tells the magazine.
Coppola's costume drama with modern trappings premiered earlier this year at the Cannes Film Festival. It opens in theaters Oct. 20.
The queen's love of fashion particularly interested her, says Coppola, who won a screenwriting Oscar for her 2003 movie, "Lost in Translation."
"You're considered superficial and silly if you are interested in fashion," the 35-year-old writer-director is quoted as saying. "But I think you can be substantial and still be interested in frivolity."
"The girl in `Lost in Translation' is just about to figure out a way of finding herself, but she hasn't yet. In this film, she makes the next step. I feel that Marie Antoinette is a very creative person."
The photo spread for Vogue includes Dunst in a pink-and-gray taffeta gown by McQueen and a sweeping dress of black aluminum foil, covered in organza, by Galliano for Dior Couture.
She is featured on the cover of the magazine wearing a white wig and a pink satin dress by Canonero.
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Sofia Coppola's film Marie Antoinette, covering the nineteen years that fabulous and tragic woman spent at Versailles, created a sensation when it opened earlier this year in France. It was filmed largely on location in the palace, with unswerving support from the directors of the museum. For the two leading actors—Kirsten Dunst as the young queen and Coppola's cousin Jason Schwartzman as King Louis XVI—it was a transformative experience to walk in rustling silk and tapping heels through halls filled with ghosts. For Dunst, exquisitely but unstuffily costumed by Milena Canonero (who deserves an Oscar for this work), it was a very sensual role. "You breathe differently in those dresses; you move in a special way," Dunst says. To prepare herself, on the night a scaled-down crew was filming her in the emotionally charged balcony scene, she walked alone through the palace in the dark. "I could look in those mirrors," she says. "Be still in myself. Feel my place in that house."
It is Coppola's third full-length film, after The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation. With a $40 million budget, it is by far her most ambitious project. She was aware that her subject is controversial—that people, especially in France, either see the queen as a saint and martyr or really, really hate her. But Coppola forgot about all that and brought her own Marie Antoinette to life. In her film, history is seen from a very feminine young woman's point of view. In the director's mind it forms a trilogy with the previous two films, exploring the theme of young women discovering who they are. The queen's love of fashion particularly interested her. "You're considered superficial and silly if you're interested in fashion," Coppola says. "But I think you can be substantial and still be interested in frivolity. The girl in Lost in Translation is just about to figure out a way of finding herself, but she hasn't yet. In this film she makes the next step. I feel that Marie Antoinette is a very creative person."
In 1770, the fourteen-year-old Archduchess Marie Antoinette left her home in Austria and traveled to meet her fifteen-year-old fiancé, the dauphin, heir to the throne of France. She was an attractive little thing, with blonde hair, blue eyes, a fine pale skin, and the pouting Hapsburg-family lower lip. She was the fifteenth child of a formidable mother, the Empress Maria Theresa, who led her huge empire so efficiently that she went on reading state papers while she was giving birth. At the last minute it had been discovered that the future bride (who liked dancing and playing with children and dolls) could barely read and write. Her mother arranged for a crash education and a makeover, including cosmetic dentistry, a less provincial hairdo, and a complete new wardrobe of French-style clothes. Then the girl rolled through the forest in a special gilded coach with gold roses (symbol of the Hapsburgs) and lilies (symbol of the Bourbons) nodding in a topknot on the roof. Behind the huge glass windows she was like a jewel in a padded case. From now on, her mother had warned her, all eyes would be upon her, and she should do what she was told. Maria Theresa had anxious premonitions; her girl was lively and affectionate in nature but had the attention span of a flea.
The journey went like clockwork; the Austrian court followed her in 56 other vehicles. To pull the carriages in relays, 20,000 horses were posted along the route. In a temporary pavilion on an island in the middle of the Rhine, the Austrian princess said goodbye to her mother's courtiers. In another room, highborn ladies from the French court of Versailles stripped her of every stitch of clothing and dressed her in clothes that would make her a dauphine. Her new trousseau was distributed as perks among her well-born attendants. They even took her little lapdog, Mops, out of her arms. (Some kindly soul arranged for them to be reunited after she was settled in her new home.) At a prearranged place in the French woods she met the bridegroom and his grandfather King Louis XV, a lazy, indecisive man, proud of his prowess at hunting, bedding young women, and cutting the top off a boiled egg. The king was very flirtatious with her, but the future Louis XVI was painfully shy and gauche. He kissed her on the cheek but could think of nothing to say. All his life he kept a journal in a firm copperplate hand. Mostly he recorded the number of stag and boar he had killed while hunting—a pastime (like messing about with locks and mechanical things) he enjoyed. "Met the dauphine," he wrote now.
The palaces where Marie Antoinette grew up had thousands of rooms, and she had experienced plenty of grand court ceremony, but there were times of intimate and almost bourgeois family life with her mother and father (the easygoing, pleasure-loving Francis of Lorraine) and her siblings. However, nothing could prepare an outsider for living with the rigid etiquette of Versailles. In a strictly hierarchical system of absolute monarchy, all power derived from the king, who was next in line to God. Everything at the palace was designed to awe. The facade with its huge balconied windows was a quarter-mile long, and its famous mirrored gallery was more like a stage or a street for deities than an ordinary room. An emasculated nobility had to hang out, cap in hand, in hopes of catching the king's attention (or that of his official mistress) and begging for favors and pensions. Power was reflected in the smallest ritual and gesture. The presence at the humblest human activities of the monarch—dressing, undressing for bed, eating a meal, using a candle or the chamber pot—was an honor for the courtiers and a chance for them to be rewarded for their subservience. Young Marie Antoinette found herself shivering in the cold while princesses of the blood fought over the right to pass her the royal undergarments. Like box hedges on the move, the ladies squeezed into her apartments in panniered skirts to watch circles of quite unnecessary rouge applied to her pink-and-white cheeks.
As her mother had foreseen, the debutante first lady of Versailles was watched by a thousand eyes for the first signs of a faux pas. Gossip, humiliating mockery, and intrigue were the principal court occupations. A lady in court dress in the halls of Versailles was prey to many hazards: catching her skirt in some other lady's heel, or falling foul of dog poo or food scraps. "Remember," one nobleman told his daughters who were about to be presented at court, "in this place vice has no consequence. But ridicule kills." No one could fault Marie Antoinette on her grace of movement; she sailed down the halls and up the stairs as if she were weightless. Almost immediately the teenager made a fashion statement that was a serious violation of etiquette: She tried to jettison the particularly uncomfortable corset, the grand corps, worn by the most important ladies. Under maternal pressure she gave in; the look the corset gave (and a style of court dress unchanged in seven decades) was an integral part of a ceremonial curtsy.
Before she arrived, Marie Antoinette had enemies ready-made: the factions opposed to a recent Franco-Austrian alliance arranged by her mother and favored by Louis XV's politically powerful mistress the Marquise de Pompadour. (She had subsequently died and been replaced by a glamorous former prostitute, the Comtesse du Barry.) "L'Autrichienne," they called Marie Antoinette, first in whispers and then as years went by in louder and more sinister hisses. The xenophobia was silly, really, for all royal houses were intermarried. (If her father was French, her bridegroom's mother had been German, his grandmother Polish.) There was a constant hostage-like trade in barely pubescent princesses across the borders of Europe; they were the slender human seals on international treaties.
She had one job ahead of her, really: to secure the power of the French state (and the alliance with her native land) by giving birth to a future dauphin. But here there was a problem more fatal to her life story than any other: For seven years, her marriage to Louis was unconsummated and she remained a virgin. On their wedding night, the teenagers were dressed in their nightclothes and then climbed into the great state bed in the presence of the king, the archbishop, assorted foreign dignitaries, and every courtier who could wangle entry, before they were finally left alone behind the curtains. But there were no secrets at Versailles, and the whole court soon knew that nothing had happened. "Rien," the young prince wrote in his journal. "Nothing."
After his grandfather died and he became king in 1774, this impotence and lack of an heir became a real danger for the couple. His younger brother the Comte de Provence, who was hungry for the throne, embarked on a lifetime of intrigue against them. As with many aspects of the tale, historians have conflicting opinions about Louis XVI's sexual difficulties. Some say there was a technical fault with the royal foreskin that was finally corrected by an operation. Others believe the problem was psychological; he had never expected to be king and was traumatized as a boy by the deaths of his seven-year-old brother and both his parents. He was left in the care of a tutor who had filled his head with the evils of Austria. Louis XVI was an intelligent, widely read man, thought not to be opposed to reform of the worst abuses of the system. (The greatest burden of taxes fell on the poorest people.) "In my heart, I think he was interested in progressive ideas," says Schwartzman. "But if you're also a king, you'd be conflicted. He's so interested in gears and motors and well-built machinery. But his own gears weren't working. He's unpickable. He's not a well-built machine." The king and queen were two lonely young people thrown together by fate. "I think they ached for each other," the actor says.
Louis XVI was so socially inept that people thought him rude. He had a huge appetite for food and drink and soon became enormously overweight. He liked going to bed and getting up at an early hour. He was clumsy and ungainly: They said he walked like an old peasant waddling along behind his plow. His wife, a sprite who picked at her food, loved to dance and stay up late, was his opposite in every way. But they grew fonder of each other with each passing year. He discouraged her from taking an interest in politics but indulged her in every other pastime. When Marie Antoinette and his libertine, handsome younger brother the Comte d'Artois ran late-night gambling parties, the king paid off their debts. In 1775 Louis made her a gift of the Petit Trianon, a jewel of a neoclassical château with intimate, perfect proportions, set in the park of Versailles, a fifteen-minute walk from the palace. The interior was light, bright, and comfortable, with boiseries of wildflowers, ears of corn, and roses. "You who love flowers, I give you this bouquet," he said. His grandfather had commissioned it for la Pompadour, but she died before it was completed, and it was used by du Barry, her successor as royal favorite. That Louis XVI, a king who never had a mistress, gave the royal love nest to his own wife was to work against her in the public mind. Who could believe her secluded gatherings there were innocent?
In compensation for the failures of the marriage bed the queen had developed a taste for worldly, amusing people and fashionable things. Like Princess Diana in another age, she found an increasingly confident personal style to use as a weapon against her enemies at court. In alliance with creative people—her architects, landscape designers, and most notably the couturier Rose Bertin and the hairdresser Léonard—she made the Trianon and her own person as exquisite as could be. "She had a great passion," said the memoirist the Comtesse de Boigne, "and that was for fashion. She dressed to be in fashion, she got into debt for fashion, she was witty and a flirt—all to be in fashion." She liked to dazzle with the very best outfit at her own costume balls; she enjoyed the buzz about her tall hairdo when she appeared at her box in the theater in Paris. She and her friend the Princesse de Lamballe were the talk of the town when they appeared in the Bois de Boulogne for a winter sleigh ride—two blondes, all in white, with diamonds and furs. She learned to ride astride a horse (after early experiences with a donkey, which she kept falling off) and had her portrait painted as an equestrienne in the fashionable English redingote and cutaway vest, accessorized by lace cravat and tricorne. It was the rage for aping the country-house life of the English aristocracy as well as the chic new sensibility of Jean-Jacques Rousseau that led her to create a miniature arcadia around the Trianon, complete with rolling meadows, a little lake, an artificially meandering stream, a romantic grotto, and a classical temple of love on a tiny island. She invited chosen friends to join her for pleasure parties straight out of Watteau or Fragonard: picnics, boating, blindman's buff, or gathering the hens' eggs at her miniature farm. She built a private theater and played (in spectacular costumes) the parts of milkmaids and shepherdesses.
The queen's coterie, called the Private Society, caused much bitterness among the courtiers who were excluded. Her First Girlfriend, the Comtesse Jules de Polignac, was always there with Diane de Polignac, her sister-in-law, accompanied by her lover the Comte de Vaudreuil and her sister, the mistress of Artois, the king's playboy brother. The strikingly handsome Swedish count Axel von Fersen, a great success with the ladies, was often at the queen's little soirees. They had met at a masked ball on one of her daring outings into Paris café society. He was by all accounts the love of her life, though no one can know whether they were actually lovers. "At Trianon," she said, "I can be myself." The king was amused by it all, and by having to wait for an invitation to join the Private Society at luncheon.
Silks and velvets for court dresses, muslin and lawn for the new informal gowns that went so well (with Gainsborough hats) with the English garden. Fans, laces, silk flowers. The wheel of fashion, spun by the queen and Mlle Bertin, her "minister of fashion," was whirling faster and faster. The modern fashion world was born in this era. Bertin (whose story resembles that of Coco Chanel in her business acumen and her rise in society) was the first couturier; Léonard was the first of the superstar hairdressers. Of Gascon peasant stock, he rode to his ladies in a lordly carriage and (like Bertin) was given to making snobbish pronouncements. ("The great Léonard does not dirty his hands with the heads of the middle classes.") Other women, seeing the newfangled fashion magazines and with no choice but to follow the queen's example, were in danger of bankrupting their husbands. The coffers of France herself were empty after she had fought against the British in the American War of Independence. It is by now definitively proved that Marie Antoinette never said of the starving peasantry, "Let them eat cake!" but she may just as well have done, and people had begun to call her "Madame Deficit."
At last, in 1777, Marie Antoinette finally was able to write to let her mother know that the marriage had been consummated, that she had experienced "the most essential happiness of her entire life." Her brother Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, had been dispatched on a mission from their mother to find out what was happening. He asked the most detailed anatomical questions (it must have been embarrassing to a sister who had enough modesty to take her bath in a muslin gown or colored water) and wrote home to say he wished he could whip his brother-in-law into ejaculating, like an angry donkey. Joseph's instructions seemed to work. In 1778 the queen gave birth to a daughter, and in 1781 to the requisite dauphin. In 1785 she produced a second son (who was her favorite child because he was pretty) and in 1786 a second daughter, who died as an infant. She survived the experience of giving birth surrounded by courtiers jammed so close into her bedroom that she nearly suffocated. She was a tenderhearted mother, closely involved with the welfare of her babies.
But her new status as a mother came too late to save her reputation. Rumors started by her in-laws and other enemies at court and fueled by an ever-increasing tide of pornographic and political pamphlets, more vicious even than today's tabloids, fed a fevered public imagination. There were orgies at the Trianon; she was having lesbian affairs with Lamballe and Polignac; it was really Artois who was the father of the dauphin.
When the Bastille fell, on July 14, 1789, the queen was strolling in her idyllic garden and Louis was out hunting. "Rien," he wrote in that day's journal. The king, like many, thought that change to the system was due, but he was not anticipating revolution. The previous month, at a turbulent moment with the Estates General and negotiations over a constitution, the seven-year-old dauphin had died a lingering death of tuberculosis of the bones. The king and queen, by now devoted to each other, as well as to their children, had gone into seclusion. "Are there no fathers among the deputies?" asked the king in anguish. The venom of the pamphlets against the queen increased once freedom of the press was declared in 1789. When a mob arrived from Paris and stormed the palace, its members almost succeeded in murdering her. They reached the door of her bedroom, baying that they would tear out her heart and fry her liver. She escaped half-dressed, with her stockings in her hand, and ran down the secret passage to her husband's apartments. The rioters, frustrated, smashed up her mirrors and slashed the luxurious bed with their weapons. For her remaining time on earth she lived in constant terror of assassination. That last night at Versailles was one of many occasions when military might failed to protect the royal family. The corrupt system of handing out commissions as political treats had left an army with timid and incompetent officers, so unfamiliar with their soldiers that they had no idea whether they would obey an order. Napoleon would later say that had he been in charge, Louis XVI would still be sitting on his throne.
The royal family was forced to go to Paris. The queen's hair turned white on the journey. Their carriage was surrounded by a screaming, jostling mob, and the head of a dead bodyguard bobbed outside the window. They were installed in the disused palace of the Tuileries and soon resumed some semblance of the old court ritual. For all the fright she had endured, the erstwhile airhead found extraordinary reserves of will and character. Her husband had kept her out of state business, but now, when he seemed incapable of deciding what to do (once, he didn't utter a word for ten whole days), she found herself acting for him. She became, they said, the best man he had. She consulted with their ministers, spent hour after hour writing letters to people who might help them. She turned out to be her mother's daughter and quite good at political intrigue. She used her charm to turn several revolutionary leaders, including Comte de Mirabeau, into the king's secret agents.
At length in 1791 it was resolved that the family should try to escape—not into exile like most of their friends and relations but to a fortified palace not far from the border. The queen remained enough of a fashion plate to send for Rose Bertin and order trunkloads of new dresses for the journey. With the queen disguised as a maid and the king as a sort of valet, they sneaked past the guard to join their two children and the royal governess, who were waiting in a hackney cab driven by Axel von Fersen. He saw them safely transferred to a roomy coach loaded down with luggage, including a silver dinner service; her traveling case for her beauty supplies and porcelain teacups; several chamber pots; and a smart red uniform the king planned to wear to review the still-loyal troops he hoped to find at the end of the journey. It was, said one wag, a miniature Versailles, lacking only a chapel and an orchestra. They rumbled at a snail's pace through the leafy countryside. The king, ever the geographer, followed the route on a map. He had been to the sea once, and she had come from Vienna, but otherwise it was for both the farthest they had ever traveled. Even Léonard had been given a part to play—to carry the queen's jewel box and meet up with the young duc in charge of the cavalry escort. But it was in every way a star-crossed expedition, managed by impractical people. Léonard got separated from the jewels and scampered into exile to join his ladies after being given away by the look of his silk stockings. ("Oh, Léonard!" Coppola says. "I love that character. He could have his own TV series!") They were later than anticipated; the fresh post horses were not where they should have been; the cavalry had given up, gone on ahead, and started drinking. At Varennes, tantalizingly close to freedom, the king was recognized, and once again the despairing, exhausted family was returned to Paris.
They were imprisoned in modest but comfortable apartments in the thick-walled Tower of the medieval Temple. For the first time in their lives they were an ordinary family. The queen and her sister-in-law Elisabeth sat sewing; the king gave Latin lessons to his son and read (in the space of a few months) a couple of hundred books. He was eating as much as ever. They all played backgammon and billiards. One day they could tell from the sounds outside that the city was in an uproar. Mobs broke into the prisons and massacred all the inmates, including the unlucky Princesse de Lamballe. They mutilated her fair-skinned body and dragged its trunk through the streets before waving the blonde head on a pike in front of the window of the queen, who promptly fainted. (Many years later, in Sweden, the "angelically" handsome and ultraconservative Fersen met a similarly violent death when he was beaten with walking sticks and umbrellas by an irate revolutionary mob in Stockholm.)
The king, who had already been stripped of his powers, was now stripped of his name and title. He went to his trial and his execution as "Citizen Louis Capet." The guards separated Marie Antoinette and her little boy (whom she called Louis XVII). For days she heard him sobbing from the floor below her apartment, then singing revolutionary songs he had been taught by his drunken jailer. (He died at the age of ten, still in prison, of the same disease as his brother.) In her childbearing years the queen had grown quite plump, but now she was a skeletal, white-haired old crone of 37, suffering each month from uncontrollable hemorrhages. The authorities moved her in the dead of night to a tiny, dank cell in the Conciergerie prison. She was forced to dress, undress, and change her sanitary linens in front of guards who also took bribes from people curious to see her. Mlle Bertin sent some new mourning clothes and a supply of chemises, stockings, and bonnets. But the Widow Capet was forbidden to wear black as she was paraded on a cart, through packed streets, to the guillotine. She had dressed herself all in white, as carefully as she could in her circumstances. She faced death with absolute self-control and dignity, and stepped gracefully, even with tied hands, to the scaffold.
Her remains were tossed near her husband's in what had become a crowded mass grave for victims of the "national razor." Today that place, once the cemetery of the Church of the Madeleine, is a secluded garden, with symbolic white roses bowing and nodding their heads in the chirp of birdsong. At the restoration of the monarchy in 1815, the perfidious Provence, now Louis XVIII, built a fancy expiatory chapel over the spot where they exhumed the remains of his brother and the unhappy queen. All of Marie Antoinette that was found was a skull, a handful of bones, and a pair of garters.
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Did they take that photo at one of those booths in the mall?
she looks drunk, and not in an appealing way.
Sofia is pushing that MTV'ish twist of Antoinette a little too hard. Drunken indeed modage, I just hope Roman Coppola's studio wasn't behind that poster...
Quote from: modage on September 06, 2006, 08:45:41 PM
she looks drunk, and not in an appealing way.
I was thinking more French Rev. meets Porn. And yeah drunk.
Quote from: MacGuffin on September 06, 2006, 08:33:18 PM
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Marie Antoinette Will Rock Hard
Soundtrack to Sophia Coppola's latest is chock full of classic modern rock tracks.
For her third feature length film, Marie Antoinette, director Sophia Coppola once again continues to utilize the vast expanse of popular music to accentuate her vivid visual imagination.
Joining her on her quest for the perfect marriage between sight and sound was Music Producer and Music Supervisor Brian Reitzell, who also worked with Coppola on her two previous films, Lost In Translation and The Virgin Suicides.
While writing the script for the film Coppola turned to Reitzell and the two discussed in depth both the tone of the film and the music she was looking for. The result was that Reitzell went for a combination of vintage New Wave (Bow Wow Wow, Adam Ant), Opera, and contemporary music.
"We decided early on that our approach would be a collage of different kinds of music," says Reitzell. "The soundtrack is a double disc, a post-punk-pre-new-romantic-rock-opera odyssey with some 18th century music and some very new contemporary music."
The accompanying album is broken into a 2-Disc set featuring classics from the likes of Gang of Four and New Order on one disc and lush score elements on the other disc.
Marie Antoinette Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Track Listing
Disc 1
1. "Hong Kong Garden" - Siouxsie & The Banshees
2. "Aphrodisiac" - Bow Wow Wow
3. "What Ever Happened" - The Strokes
4. "Pulling Our Weight" - The Radio Dept.
5. "Ceremony" - New Order
6. "Natural's Not In It" - Gang of Four
7. "I Want Candy (Kevin Shields Remix)" - Bow Wow Wow
8. "Kings Of The Wild Frontier" - Adam & The Ants
9. "Concerto in G" * - Antonio Vivaldi / Reitzell
10. "The Melody Of A Fallen Tree" - Windsor For The Derby
11. "I Don't Like It Like This" - The Radio Dept.
12. "Plainsong" - The Cure
Disc 2
1. "Intro Versailles"* - Reitzell / Beggs
2. "Jynweythek Ylow" - Aphex Twin
3. "Opus 17" - Dustin O'Halloran
4. "Il Secondo Giorno (Instrumental)" - Air
5. "Keen On Boys" - The Radio Dept.
6. "Opus 23" *- Dustin O'Halloran
7. "Les Baricades Misterieuses"* - Francois Couperin / Reitzell
8. "Fools Rush In (Kevin Shields Remix)" - Bow Wow Wow
9. "Avril 14th" - Aphex Twin
10. "K. 213" * - Domenico Scarlatti / Reitzell
11. "Tommib Help Buss" - Squarepusher
12. "Tristes Apprets.." - Jean Philippe Rameau / W. Christie
13. "Opus 36"*- Dustin O'Halloran
14. "All Cat's Are Grey" - The Cure
wow, lets guess the skin color of that demographic.
Sofia Coppola
The Oscar-winning Lost in Translation made her the most powerful woman director in Hollywood and icon of cool for her generation. As her new movie, Marie Antoinette, is released, Sofia Coppola talks to Sean O'Hagan about the challenge of costume drama, the family dynasty -and her latest fan, Harold Pinter.
Source: The Observer
Sofia Coppola could easily be a character in one of her own films, a day-dreamy, slightly disconnected but immaculately stylish waif who seems all at sea in a world of extraordinary privilege. She is tiny and speaks quickly and quietly, her sentences sometimes petering out as if from the sheer effort of formulating them.
'It's kind of uncomfortable having to do this stuff right now,' she says, referring to the fact that she is promoting her new film, Marie Antoinette, while heavily pregnant. 'It's hard to, um, sit right.'
If her vagueness and her sulkily beautiful Mediterranean face combine to make the 35-year-old Coppola seem like a slightly out-to-lunch teenager, I suspect this may be a way of keeping the world at bay. And keeping control. No other young female film director possesses her kind of clout in Hollywood, and this is not just to do with her dynastic name. Marie Antoinette is a lavish but flawed historical drama, a huge leap in scale for her, and an even bigger leap of faith by Sony studios who gave her $40 million and total artistic control.
'That's the most important thing for me,' she says, 'It's a very personal thing, making a film, and I need complete freedom. I have to be able to create an atmosphere and everything else flows from that.'
Marie Antoinette is all atmosphere. Based loosely on Lady Antonia Fraser's revisionist biography of the Austrian-born queen, it was shot on location in Versailles with a stellar cast that includes Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman and Steve Coogan, as well as several hundred extravagantly dressed extras. It is a gorgeous-looking soufflé of a film whose perceived lack of a political subtext or even point of view has already caused an unholy row in France. 'It's kind of like a history of feelings,' Dunst said recently, 'rather than a history of facts.'
Perhaps for this very reason, it was booed by some sections of the audience at the Cannes' Film Festival earlier this year, and more recently dubbed 'a scandal' by Liberation's film critic, Agnes Poirier. 'History is merely decor and Versailles a boutique hotel for the jet set, past and present,' fumed Poirier, 'All we learn about Marie Antoinette is her love for Laduree macaroons and Manolo Blahnik shoes.' Sofia can't see what all the fuss was about.
'It's very French', she says, shrugging, when I bring up the catcalls at Cannes, 'Afterwards, I had a lot of French journalists saying, "I like your Marie Antoinette but I still hate the real Marie Antoinette". I guess she's still kind of a loaded subject there. All I can say is that I set out to challenge myself with each movie, and having to do a period film was a huge challenge. How to do it in a fresh way, and from the point of view of a strange girl in a strange world. If you attempt something new, it's always a risk.'
Was she surprised, though, by the vehemence of the reaction? 'Well, there was a standing ovation, too,' she says calmly, as if the continuing controversy is just water off a duck's back. 'I think the booing was not really that loud. It was picked upon and reported because, you know, it's a better story than a standing ovation.'
Lady Antonia Fraser, who has become friends with Coppola since the director purchased the rights to her myth-puncturing biography, can't see what all the fuss is about either. 'I love it,' she trills, 'It doesn't deviate from the story, but nor does it copy the book slavishly. It's Sofia's vision of Marie Antoinette. My vision was within the covers, hers is in the images on the screen. I enjoyed it enormously and so did Harold [Pinter].'
This is indeed the case. 'He liked the film. He wrote me a sweet letter,' says Coppola, smiling. ' That meant a lot. I mean, he's so honest. I don't think he'd write a letter if he didn't mean it. It's like, if it turns out that nobody else likes it, I can still say, "Well, at least Harold Pinter did".'
Given the times we live in, Marie Antoinette could well become a box-office hit, too. While not quite as shallow as Poirier paints it, nor as visionary as Lady Antonia insists, it is an oddly empty film. Having moved away from the cool contemporaneity of her previous mood piece, the lauded Lost in Translation, Coppola seems adrift in the ancien regime. The result is a historical drama for the Wallpaper* generation, all sumptuous interiors, dresses to die for, and an oh-so-ironic Eighties glam-pop soundtrack. As Bow Wow Wow's trash classic 'I Want Candy' blares out its blatant message of self-gratification over yet another baroque party scene, you wonder what happened to Coppola's signature style, the hazy, impressionistic, understated languor of her two previous outings.
Her debut, The Virgin Suicides, was also an adaptation, in which Jeffrey Eugenides' contemporary gothic novel was given a terminally narcotic hue, even if the virgins of the title looked like they had been created by Coppola's fashion buddy Marc Jacobs. It was followed by Lost in Translation, another meditation on dislocation, that became an unlikely mainstream hit, grossing $44m. It, too, was melancholy in tone and perfectly caught the singular loneliness and creeping enervation of hotel rooms in strange cities. It made Scarlett Johansson a star and kick-started Bill Murray's ongoing late career as Hollywood's favourite ageing hipster, a title he inherited from the equally deadpan Harry Dean Stanton. Along the way, Coppola became an arbiter of a new kind of cinematic cool in which, as Vanity Fair recently put it, 'youthful naivety and impeccable taste reign supreme'.
There is a sense that all Coppola's films to date have in some way been autobiographical. Or, as as she puts it, 'they tend to be someone who's lost in the world, the girl who has to find her way'.
The young Sofia Coppola was that very girl, and the world she inhabited in her formative years, though gilded, could have suffocated a lesser talent. She was born Sofia Carmine Coppola on 14 May 1971, into a Hollywood dynasty where her father, Francis Ford Coppola, reigned supreme. Her mother is Eleanor Coppola, a documentary film-maker; her aunt, the veteran Hollywood actress Talia Shire; and her cousins the actors Nicolas Cage and Jason Schwartzman. The likes of Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Marlon Brando were regular dinner party guests.
'I guess I was lucky because I was always surrounded by interesting adults,' she says now. 'People like Warhol and [Werner] Herzog. It wasn't a regular childhood, whatever that is, but family was everything to my father. It's an Italian thing, I guess. We were always there with the adults, playing, talking, listening.'
The family moved west in the Seventies from New York to California's Napa Valley, where her father now owns a famous vineyard. It produces a champagne called Sofia, which is described on the label as 'revolutionary, petulant, reactionary, ebullient, fragrant, cold, cool'. The real Sofia once described it simply as 'embarrassing'. Before he moved sideways into wine production, her father lived and breathed movies. 'Everyone in my family is in the film business,' she once said, 'and that's all we talked about... I had a 20-year tutorial on film in my own home.' Her earliest childhood memories are of sitting on Andy Warhol's knee and helicopter rides over the Philippines jungle, where she lived for nearly two years while her father almost killed himself and bankrupted a major studio while making Apocalypse Now in the early 1970s. 'It was fun,' she smiles. 'I didn't really think of my father as a famous film director. He was just, you know, my dad.'
Sofia is the youngest of three children. The oldest, Gio, also a budding director, was killed in a speedboat accident in 1985, aged 22. 'Death shifts everything,' she once said, and you sense that the Coppola clan have grown even closer in the years since - whatever sibling rivalry there once was is now replaced by a support network that has surely benefited her immensely. Her surviving older brother, Roman, seems to have stepped into Gio's shoes as the male heir apparent. He, too, directs, and has lent a hand as an assistant cameraman on Sofia's films.
While her father famously sweated, shouted and swore his way through his epic films, his daughter is a Zen-calm presence on set, the still centre of the organised chaos that is a film shoot. 'I'm not a yeller,' she says, smiling. Her cousin, Schwartzman, whom she cast as Louis XVI in Marie Antoinette, said recently of the experience, 'I never saw her freak out once. She's totally calm, she's like this lighthouse.'
Off set, too, these seems to be the case. 'She's really one of the most original people I've ever met,' says Lady Antonia. 'Outwardly, she's very gracious and sweet. What you see is this lovely, rippling stream, but inside I suspect it's a deep, raging torrent.'
Given her father's long shadow, it took Coppola some time to find her creative footing in film. In her twenties, having graduated from the California Institute of Arts, she dabbled in fashion and photography, for Karl Lagerfeld and French Vogue respectively, blessed by her family's name and social connections, but unable to excel in either world. She studied painting, too, then briefly and disastrously tried acting, unwisely appearing as Al Pacino's daughter in The Godfather Part III, a bad performance in one of her father's most disappointing movies. The critical mauling she received meant that even the casually cruel world of fashion seemed preferable, and she returned to that milieu, creating her own label called Milk Fed which still exists as a lucrative Japanese franchise.
'I was kind of lost and unfocused,' she says now of that uncertain time. Then, in 1998, with her father's encouragement, she made Lick the Star, a short film set in a girls' high school. 'I just loved the way it looked,' she says, smiling, 'and it kind of helped me find my way. With the acting thing, everything was so public. I don't really think of it as a big mistake, it was more a way of finding out what I didn't want to do. I'm much more comfortable behind the camera.'
This is where she has remained ever since, and with considerable success. At 35, she has an Academy Award and three Golden Globes under her belt, all for Lost in Translation. The same film made her only the third woman, and the first American woman, ever to be nominated for an Oscar as Best Director.
Interestingly, that film was made during a period of personal turmoil, and the events that unfolded onscreen seem to have echoed the fracturing of her marriage to the hipper-than-thou director Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation). When I ask her about Jonze, she shifts in her seat and says, 'We're, um, not that in contact any more.'
For a time, Coppola was linked to Quentin Tarantino, who namechecked her in the credits to Kill Bill Vol. 2 in 2004. Right now, though, she is settled and expecting her first child next month with Thomas Mars, singer with the French electronic rock band Phoenix. Her hip credentials are impeccable. She has become something of a muse for her friend, the fashion designer Marc Jacobs, who once named a bag after her and employed her as the face of his eponymous perfume. She hangs out with Sonic Youth and makes videos for the White Stripes. Her style and quiet, almost childlike air have made Coppola an icon of contemporary cool for a generation who seem to have some difficulty growing up. Among her Zeitgeist-defining cinematic contemporaries are her friends Wes Anderson (Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic) and Zoe Cassavetes, daughter of director John, who is currently shooting her first feature film. According to Vanity Fair, 'they're not a Brat Pack; they're a Play Group' whose collective grooviness is supposedly predicated on 'sojourns in Paris, the best new bands, 1970s songs that no one has ever heard, the perfect shoe'. Film-making, then, as fashion, with Sofia as the queen of the catwalk.
Unsurprisingly, this kind of cultural reductiveness irks Coppola. 'Yeah, yeah,' she sighs wearily, when I mention the play group analogy. 'People have to find these scenes to fit you into, really. It makes it easier to write about you, I guess.' So the sense that there is a shared aesthetic - a kind of collective ironic cool - is wrong? 'Oh, I wouldn't say it's wrong,' she drawls, unfazed, 'I mean, you can look at things any way you want, slant them to suit your point of view. I guess it is an aesthetic more than a movement, but, you know, I do have my own aesthetic too, the people I look to and admire.' Could she elaborate? 'Well, um, when I was growing up, it was Godard, Truffaut, the French New Wave. The style was so cool to me.' So, your own aesthetic is essentially about style rather than, say, story or drama? 'Um, I guess. I mean, I've always been drawn to individuals really, people with their own distinctive but identifiable style that no one else has. That's all I try to do, find my own distinctive way of doing things.'
So far, she has succeeded on her own terms and in her quietly confident way, defining some kind of hazy-youth cultural drift, the somnambulance of a generation raised on style, ironic pastiche and disengagement. How long that moment will last is anyone's guess but, thus far, Sofia Coppola is its most distinctive arbiter.
'If you did not know who her father was,' says Lady Antonia Fraser, 'you would never guess from her work.' And yet, Sofia Coppola is a film-maker for our times just as surely as her father was for his.
Sofia Coppola's French Revolution
Source: ComingSoon
Marie Antoinette is only the third feature film that Sofia Coppola has directed and the highly stylized and visual Oscar winner is proving to be bolder and more invigorating as a filmmaker with each project she takes on.
In the Columbia Pictures film, Coppola daringly portrays a controversial look inside the personal and private life of the Queen of France during her rein throughout the French Revolution period, and features inimitable images of Versailles with a stylish Kirsten Dunst as the memorable historical figure.
Instead of ridiculing the 18th century Austrian born royal for the selfishness of her chronic spending habits and lavish lifestyle, her opposition to reform, and her inability to connect to the people of France, Coppola takes a much different stance and shows how a misunderstood 14-year-old girl was trapped and forced into a life of a controlled spectacle.
ComingSoon.net talked to Sofia Coppola at a recent press day about what it was like to shoot the film at the Château de Versailles and her motivations for portraying such a contentious side of Marie Antoinette.
ComingSoon.net: Congratulations on the baby. Are you having a boy or a girl?
Sofia Coppola: A girl. I'm seven months along. Two more months to go. My dress is bigger.
CS: How did the scenes of Marie Antoinette and her kids resonate when you become pregnant and would you approach them differently now?
Coppola: I don't know how I'd approach things differently but I wasn't pregnant while I was working on the movie so I just took all that from what I read about her and how unconventional and close she was with her children, so I wanted to show her maternal side which was unusual at that time to be involved with raising of children. So I don't know how it changed my perspective. We'll see.
CS: What was your biggest worry in telling this story?
Coppola: My biggest worry? You just hope that it all comes together because you've talked all these people into coming and helping you make something. You're responsible for a lot of money and hard effort, so you just hope that it all comes together in what you were picturing in your head.
CS: Why shoot in the real Versailles?
Coppola: I always like going on location and you get immersed in another world and culture. I feel like being in the real Versailles affected everyone working on it and the actors. I just think there's more authenticity than if we built it. I mean, even the fact that you were seeing the real gardens outside the windows I think feels less artificial than if you built everything. It would have been really difficult to recreate the hall of mirrors and all these real places.
CS: How did that affect shooting choices and the camera placement?
Coppola: Yeah, there's restrictions. And the hall of mirrors was actually under construction half of it so we had to cheat, reverses and things like that, but I think what we got in return was the Château de Versailles becomes a character in the movie and I think we couldn't have recreated on that level. It would have been more fragmented. I'd seen a little bit of the movie with Norma Shearer, "Marie Antoinette," which has a very kind of Hollywood artificial feeling to it. I wanted this one to feel as naturalistic and authentic as possible.
CS: How did you get access to Versailles?
Coppola: Yeah, we went and met the director of Versailles and I explained my approach for the film. I think he read the script. They were very positive and encouraging. He liked that I was attempting to tell the story from her point of view and really opened Versailles to us, so I feel lucky. I thought it would be more difficult but the people that worked at Versailles were very open to our production.
CS: What was your backup plan if you couldn't have shot the film at Versailles?
Coppola: Someone asked me the other day what our plan B was and I thought I never have a plan B. I always have something in mind and then just you're determined to convince people to let you do it, so I'm not sure. We weren't able to shoot there every day because it's open as a museum, so on the days we couldn't, we got chateaus that were of that same period and dressed them, so I guess we could have done more of that. So we faked it a little bit.
CS: Can you talk about the contradiction of using anachronistic music and dialogue?
Coppola: Yeah, I guess what I was trying to do was make it impressionistic of what it would feel like to live there at that time, so I wanted it to be a style of acting and the setting is as natural as possible and that that's the real place as opposed to an artificial movie set. So in that way it was the style we were working from. But then we take artistic license in altering things to convey more what it would feel like at that time, using music that gives the emotional quality that I wanted the scene to have. A combination to create the impression of what it might have been like.
CS: Was Kirsten Dunst the only actress you wanted to have play Marie Antoinette?
Coppola: She was the one that came to mind when I was reading the Antonia Fraser biography. When they described her personality I thought this was something that Kirsten could portray. She has the bubbly, silly, not serious side but then she has the real depth and substance for when she evolves, so I felt like she had both and also that she could carry the whole film. And being German, she looks like how they described her.
CS: Why do another take on an existing story?
Coppola: I thought it was a challenge and a new way for me to do a portrait of this iconic character in history that we only know as the decadent evil queen. What drew me to it was to start to read about the real human girl behind all the myths and then how to create a portrait.
CS: When did the challenge of your first historical piece occur to you?
Coppola: When I was reading the book I thought it would be interesting. There hadn't been a film about Marie Antoinette since the late '30s and it's such a visually interesting world I think to create in a film, I like to see a movie where you get lost in another world and 18th century France with the wigs and the costumes is so different than our daily life I thought it would be interesting to show that. So just when I was reading the book, I thought about it as a film and also for me it was a challenge personally, how do I make a period film that isn't in the genre of period films but in my own style, so that was a challenge for me.
CS: How did you decide where you were going to end her story?
Coppola: In the early draft, I wrote to the end of her life and then I realized that I was really rushing it and that's a whole other movie. We weren't making a miniseries, we only had two hours so I had to focus on what I want to tell. So then I decided to just focus on her time in Versailles and start the film with her arrival in Versailles, end it with her departure at the Revolution. For me, the end of the story is her personal evolution and the scene on the balcony of her coming into her own and implying what happens, but it's a really long story of her in prison and a trial and I felt like it was another movie.
CS: Is there value in just looking at the historical story?
Coppola: I don't know. I was more interested in seeing what we could relate to about it and just on the human level, that oh, people still go through these things. I know what it's like to go into a new family after you've been married. Whatever, just on a human level. But then I think it's interesting to look at how differently they lived and how that time, all the rituals that went into their lifestyle. That to me is interesting also. I tried to show the differences and some similarities just to be relatable. I think it's interesting to look at both.
CS: Can you talk about the scene where Kirsten Dunst is on the balcony facing the people of France for the first time?
Coppola: I think, we always said that scene was the kind of culmination of her becoming a queen and becoming a woman sort of implies what happens down the run so it's sort of a loaded scene. I think being on the real balcony where that actually took place had an emotional quality to it. Here we were on the real balcony where Marie Atoinette really faced the mob and I think - what we talked about I think was just too that this was the moment where she really becomes a queen.
CS: There is such a sparse dialogue at first. Can you talk about that decision?
Coppola: I always in that first section wanted to kind of feel the atmosphere and get the impression of her emotions just by her expressions and have this sort of intimate feeling and not explain things through dialogue, but just to kind of be with her and be experiencing it through what she's seeing and then her emotions. So I just like telling things in that way, more in a visually driven way.
CS: Can you talk about the different costumes?
Coppola: Yeah, definitely. It was amazing working with Milena Canonero. It was so much fun to go to her costume shop and there were all these Italians selling these dresses and feathers. It was important to me to build a lot of the costumes that just weren't the standard ones that they use for everything. So yeah, it was always fun to come to set and see how they all came together.
CS: Did you have a favorite costume?
Coppola: Oh, I had certain costumes that I loved from the fabrics and the colors and everything but there are so many of them, it was a fun element.
CS: There seems to be a celebrity parallel. Would you agree?
Coppola: I wasn't trying to make a statement about that but I definitely see parallels with our culture today and she was definitely a celebrity of that time. The pamphlets that made so much misinformation about her, like the tabloids today. There's definitely correlations and there's definitely bored wives that you see shopping in Barneys when their husbands are ignoring them. There's correlations.
CS: What was it like working with your cousin Jason Schwartzman?
Coppola: We've always gotten along and I've known him since he was a baby. We did a play together when we were younger. Mostly I just love his work in movies. I think he's so talented that I thought it would be fun to work together. And I know that he's such a sincere person and works hard that he would really put his heart into it so I wasn't worried that we'd have a big conflict.
CS: And what about casting Molly Shannon in an uncharacteristic role?
Coppola: Yeah, I just think of who would be interesting to me in that role and I work with casting people but Molly Shannon, I just love her work and she's so funny that I thought these characters, the aunts could be this scene with these weird characters and I thought she would bring something fun to watch. With all the characters I was just thinking, you know, Asia Argento I could picture her as just the opposite of Kirsten, this sort of badass from the streets kind of girl. I think it's just fun to not always pick the first obvious thing. It's just fun.
CS: I loved the opening shot where you're telling it us this is the way I'm going to show you my interpretation.
Coppola: Oh good, that's exactly what I wanted it to do and I had that in the script from the beginning. I wanted to show here's what we think of Marie Antoinette and then tell you that this is the real story.
CS: Do you have DVD plans?
Coppola: We're just working on that. It's going to have, my mom shot a behind the scenes documentary, so it'll have that on there and a few deleted scenes.
CS: What were the challenges of working with a big studio?
Coppola: Yeah, I'd never worked with a studio on the production level and I was surprised. I think for them it's probably a smaller film compared to the others but they were really just 'go make it your way.' They didn't get involved in the casting or on the set. I've heard stories of that.
CS: What kind of budget did you have to work with?
Coppola: Our budget was around $40 million but I tried to keep the budget as low as possible with what we needed to accomplish just so I could have that creative freedom which is important to me. I wouldn't have gone into a situation where I didn't have creative freedom.
CS: What's the next film you're going to work on?
Coppola: I'm not sure yet. I feel like I've been working on this for so long that I'm looking forward to taking a break and focusing on the baby and then eventually get back to writing. I'm not sure what I want to do next but I definitely would like to work on a smaller scale after this. It was daunting working on such a big scale which I enjoyed but it was hard. I think I'd like to go back to doing something on a smaller scale.
CS: Do you ever consult your father?
Coppola: Not when I'm filming. I'm not calling him going, "What do I do?" No, he's like a mentor to me so a lot of times in the preproduction, I'll talk to him about the crew I'm putting together and ask his advice or when I'm editing, I'll show him an early cut and get his advice. So in that way, he's available to me. He just always encouraged me to make the movies much in my personality and do it in my own unique way, so he always pushed me to make it as personal as possible.
Dunst looks like Billy Corgan.
unfortunately the film could not help me overcome my dislike of white wig movies.
Quote from: modage on October 13, 2006, 11:46:33 PM
unfortunately the film could not help me overcome my dislike of white wig movies.
so basically you need a shrink.
Interview: Sofia Coppola
The Marie Antoinette director talks about making a post-modern period piece.
As the daughter of venerated filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, Sofia Coppola faced a sizable challenge establishing her own identity as a director when she first started making feature films in 1999. Since then, she has not only emerged from the shadow of her famous father, but become a standard-bearer for quality and integrity in the moviemaking industry. Following The Virgin Suicides, she helmed Lost in Translation, an intimate portrait of friendship that made an epic (and Oscar-nominated) impact, and this month, she tackles one of history's most infamous females with her post-modern period piece Marie Antoinette.
IGN recently spoke to Coppola during the Los Angeles press day for Marie Antoinette. In addition to talking about the challenges of mounting her most ambitious project to date, Sofia discussed developing her own cinematic voice and creating a body of work that stands on its own -- even when she's reluctant to talk about it.
IGN: Some people consider this the third film in a trilogy of movies about young women coming of age. How do you perceive this film?
Coppola: When I finished this movie I definitely looked at the... that there's a connection between the themes of my films. I feel like this is sort of the final chapter of something I was working on -- it's the next step of a girl's evolution from Lost in Translation [where] she's on the verge of trying to find her identity. I feel like this story is her going from a girl into a woman. So for me, there's a connection.
IGN: So will your next film feature a female character who's already a woman?
Coppola: No, I mean for me it feels like the three films fit together in something I was thinking about in that phase of my life. And, who knows? Maybe I'll keep making the same movie. Some people do, but no, I feel like now I'd like to go in another direction -- but I have no idea what that will be.
IGN: Talk about making this character a human being as opposed to just an historic figure.
Coppola: When I read Antonia Fisher's biography, what was interesting was to read about the real human being behind all of the myths and just the sort of icon that we've heard about as the frivolous, evil French queen. I wanted to show a portrait of the real person, based on the research and her letters, and do more of an intimate portrait of this woman. I wasn't ever setting out to make a historical epic. I wanted to show the insulation of her life.
IGN: How did you decide to use modern vernacular for the dialogue?
Coppola: Yeah, I mean it's not a documentary or a history lesson, but I wanted to be impressionistic and be as close to what it might have felt like to be there at the time. I felt like when I saw Amadeus and they were just speaking in their regular accents, they felt like real people to me as opposed to someone living in some other era I couldn't relate to. So I was trying to take away as many kind of period-film-genre cliches and simplify it in a way that could be relatable on a human level.
IGN: Is that where the music comes in?
Coppola: Yeah, that also came from wanting to show the emotion of the scene as close as I could. I felt like when she goes into a masked ball for the first time there would be a feeling of excitement and sort of pick a song that gave that feeling as opposed to... I don't think a quartet of that time would give it the same rush. So it was all meant to give the impression.
IGN: This film recalls other period movies like The Leopard and Barry Lyndon. What influences or cues did you borrow from and how tough was it to keep the focus on character in these lush settings?
Coppola: To me it was important to keep the focus on the main characters, the acting and the emotions, and not just get carried away with all of the grandeur. But, of course, that was one of the really fun elements was being able to work with Milena Canonero on the costumes and to be in Versailles. That was one of the things that drew me to that period -- it's so unusually beautiful and lavish. Also, to see a movie that you get to go into such a different world as opposed to... I don't want to go to a movie to see what I see driving outside. I wanted to see something, to go to a different world, and what it might have been like to live at that time. Now I'm rambling, what was the question?
IGN: What were some of your inspirations for the look of the movie?
Coppola: Oh, visually? I mean, definitely looking at movies of that period, but also I wanted it to have a kind of vitality and a freshness that they were teenagers, so I wanted it to have its own palette. When I went and saw the real private bedrooms of Marie Antoinette, you see all of the fabric that she really chose, which was bright turquoise and pink and usually when I think of that period, I've seen it in museum portraits or in the clothes of that time that have been faded and it's not as bright. I was surprised at how bright the colors were and I thought, 'Yeah, a 14-year old girl, of course would want turquoise and pink.' So to make this kind of palette of French pastries and this really girlie French world came from what I saw in her apartments and then, you know, being in France and seeing lingerie pastries, just felt like the right setting to start her world.
IGN: Marie Antoinette received a mixed reaction at Cannes that was later blown out of proportion. Do you feel the need to rebuild confidence in the movie as it opens internationally?
Coppola: I really watched that turn into a whole exaggerated story, like any way you see a rumor or something grow and spread, and I thought it was really a shame that the first question asked at the press conference... that guy was unfair. I thought it was a really lame way to start a press conference, and if I had been prepared or thought about it I would have kind of deterred that until later because it just set a bad tone and it got exaggerated. But yes, I got all of these condolences when I got back, like, 'Oh, I'm so sorry.' And I thought we got a standing ovation and I thought it went really well and we were on the cover of Cahiers du Cinema, so I thought it had gone well. So I have been asked a lot, and it was really distorted and I've just tried to put it in perspective and a lot of people liked it, some people didn't. Cannes is such a volatile place, not like a regular audience, but in a way I think it's interesting that people have heard there's been... not controversy, but debate that some people like it and some people don't. I feel like that's more interesting if you've created a dialogue, and it would make me interested to see a movie if there's different opinions going around.
IGN: Do you feel like you have a fresh start now?
Coppola: Yeah, well, for me it was just enjoyable for me to watch it with the audience here because people laughed at the parts that I think are funny and the audience just seemed to go with it, where at Cannes it felt more tense and people weren't reacting in the scenes or were laughing. It was maybe also because there were subtitles, but I don't know. But definitely it felt different, it was more... maybe it was more nerve-wracking watching it in Cannes.
IGN: You are an American in Cannes making a movie about the French.
Coppola: Yeah, exactly. So in California it's going to have a different view, so for me it was fun to see it with an audience that was more kind of open and laid back.
IGN: Why did you choose to reunite with Kirsten Dunst for this movie after doing The Virgin Suicides together?
Coppola: I enjoyed working with her then and I feel that she kind of understands the way I like to work and portrays something that I'm looking for. But just when I was working on this and reading about Marie Antoinette, the way they described her personality, Kirsten just came to mind because I felt she had a lot of the qualities, that she could convey the character -- and she's part German and has this look to her. But I feel she has the kind of playful silly side and then also the substantial, deeper side and I wanted the character to have both. And also to be able to go from 14 to 30, I didn't want to have different actresses, and I felt like she could really do the whole range.
IGN: Critics are already debating what the movie is about - celebrity culture, etc. What did you particularly want to explore or what was the underlying theme of the film when you first decided to direct it?
Coppola: I never try to make a statement or anything when I'm going into a film; usually it's kind of trying to learn something or I'm curious about something, and I was just drawn to how different the real person was from the myths that we know about her. I was struck by the way that they were acting then, you still see today. And I thought it had some relevance to how we live today and also just on a human level, that people went through things that people still go through -- competitions between the women in the Court and being in a new family, just on a basic level, you know, the things that are still relatable.
IGN: How did you make sure that contemporizing the story didn't overwhelm the believability of rendering that historic world?
Coppola: I think I was using artistic license to create the impression the best I could of what it might have been like to be there. I wanted it to be set in the 18th century and it's all based on a lot of research and everything's based on the real story. So I made all of the choices based on what would tell the story as a film, based on the real thing as best I could and it wasn't like I said a documentary.
IGN: Can you talk about your family's involvement in this film?
Coppola: I grew up on my dad's film sets and he always worked with a lot of his family or the crew that he worked with for a long time, so it's a nice atmosphere. My brother Roman is really talented and on all of my films he's come and helped shoot the second unit, just to help me out. Also, because he knows me so well, there's a short hand; he can go shoot things at the same time and know how I would want them. But it's just an extension of when we were kids -- Jason and Roman and I would make little movies together. And you try to approach it the same way as a professional, but you're still doing it for the same reasons and try to approach it as something fun.
IGN: Did you ask Jason to put on weight for the role of Louis XIV?
Coppola: I can't remember, but I had asked him to beef up a little to be Louis, and I was glad that he went for it.
IGN: Why did Roman include a pair of Converse tennis shoes in the "I Want Candy" sequence?
Coppola: Why was that? Yeah, he shot the whole "I Want Candy" montage and he just saw that there and put it in for me for fun. He just shot a bunch of stuff and left that in for fun because he thought I would like it, and then when I was editing we decided to leave it in.
IGN: Do you feel like you've created your own identity as a filmmaker and are no longer sort of under the shadow of your family?
Coppola: Yeah, definitely I feel like I have my own voice, and I feel like, you know, I come from this heritage that I'm proud of, but I really approach my work in my own way.
IGN: But at the same time with the support of your family.
Coppola: Yeah. My dad's always been really encouraging -- our whole family, so it's nice to have that support. But then my dad's always encouraged me to make things in my own way and my point of view is a feminine point of view and much different than someone else's or his.
IGN: There are a lot of fun, girlie moments in the film, especially the shopping. How much fun was it to work with the costume designer to put together the wardrobe for the film?
Coppola: I put together a reference book for her -- for Milena Canonero and the production designer and the cinematographer -- about the visual look I wanted the movie to have. I was very specific about the colors and then Milena came and worked from that. Of course, she proposes things that fit into how we make her look.
IGN: Was it fun?
Coppola: Yeah, it was really fun to see her and this big team go into the costume warehouse where they had rows of feathers and shoes. And definitely your girlie side fantasy dress-up [comes out].
IGN: Where did you first start when you were putting this idea together visually?
Coppola: I always like to start with the atmosphere and the tone and the look kind of first, and the music, and tell the story as much as I can without dialogue. I like just trying to tell the story as much as you can with the expressions and the emotion; I even thought about doing it as a silent film at one point.
IGN: But then you realized people might not want to see that?
Coppola: No, I just thought about that. But I am not really dialogue-driven. I like to kind of express as much as I can in the visuals. I like working with Terrence Malick because we kind of referenced him for our nature montage, and I like when you take time and can be told a story with the visuals as opposed to explaining everything.
IGN: Do you think becoming a mother will change your perspective on filmmaking?
Coppola: I don't know. Yeah, I don't know because I don't know what to expect. I'm sure it changes your perspective.
IGN: Do you know what you want to do next?
Coppola: I have little inklings of ideas but I feel like I've been working on this for so long that I'm looking forward to taking a break and watching other movies and reading books and thinking about [other things]. The only thing I feel is I'd like to do something on a smaller scale because this was overwhelming, and I'd like to go back to working with just a few characters.
IGN: How easy or difficult was it to put together this cast, and how did you know or find the people you felt were right for each part?
Coppola: When I was writing I pictured Kirsten and Jason and other than that I don't think I had specific actors in mind, but it was a lot harder for me to cast a bigger group because Lost in Translation was really two characters and then all of the small parts. This was such a making of a family, it was such a balance of who was cast here and then with the different nationalities, trying to kind of sort all of that out. But I really liked working with Asia Argento and Rip Torn, people I had never worked with before, and Judy Davis, so it was really fun for me to have all of these great actors from all over the world and to have a colorful cast.
IGN: There seems to be a debate whether Marie actually had an affair or just a flirtation. It seems to make a better movie if she actually has an affair. Was that your take?
Coppola: You know, after reading everything I read, there's different opinions and no one knows for sure. But I asked Antonia Frasier, who was my guide through this, and I said, 'What do you think?' And she said, 'Well, I hope she did.' I thought that's a good answer because I hope that she has every element, and it seemed from all of the letters over the years that there was something there.
IGN: She deserved a little action after six years.
Coppola: I sort of hoped she had every experience.
IGN: What's your theory why she stuck by her man?
Coppola: I was touched by their relationship from what I read about it. They started as these awkward kids that didn't relate at all and it really seemed to grow into a friendship and then towards the end of their life when there were more hardships, they really bonded together. In the story that happens after the film ends on them in prison and everything. You felt that they really loved each other and bonded together. But they were always trying to get her to leave and she always wanted to stay with him. I felt like she was raised with a dignity and character that came through later on.
IGN: When you take on multiple roles as writer and director and producer is it tough to indulge your creativity and keep an eye on the bottom line?
Coppola: I feel like for me, it's not a conflict. They work together for me because I want to keep the budget as small as possible so I have creative freedom as a director. If I just got carried away with a huge budget, I wouldn't be able to have the same creative freedom and to me that's essential. I look forward to finding ways that we can do everything for as cheaply as we can, but still make it as beautiful and lavish on screen.
IGN: So it seems like the answer is yes.
Coppola: Yeah, but you know you've got to put it all on screen and then we carpooled to the set together (laughs). You have your priorities.
IGN: For the DVD will there be a lot of deleted scenes or a commentary?
Coppola: I haven't done a commentary; I never have. But we have a few deleted scenes and my mom shot a documentary sort of behind the scenes, so that footage will be there.
IGN: Why don't you do commentaries? Are you afraid of overexplaining yourself?
Coppola: Yeah, it seems... I mean, maybe when I'm an older woman or something. I just feel like when you make something, then I've said what I was saying. I just never thought about it. I feel like that is the "master filmmaker" role and I don't feel comfortable doing that.
IGN: Kirsten joked that Marie's time in prison would be 'Part Two.' Did you give any thought to shooting that part of the story?
Coppola: I think in my first draft -- definitely an early draft -- I wrote to the end of her life. I tried to write that whole section that happens after the film ends. I just realized that I was rushing it; it's really a long story of her in prison, and the trial and her escape. So in my first approach I thought about including it and then I realized that it was a whole other movie and we didn't have time. We weren't making a mini-series.
IGN: Do you think you would return to this or make a sequel?
Coppola: I don't want to say never, but for now I think I'm done with this period.
IGN: Your producer said he felt a presence when he was in Marie's bedroom. Were there any strange things that happened on any of the locations while you were shooting?
Coppola: I think being in the actual places you feel that there's a lot that happened there -- you feel a lot of the history of the place. And I remember at night we'd be filming and there would just be a few of us left behind to record the room tone or something so it's just two of you in the King's bedroom in the real Versailles and it definitely had a thrill to it that you feel like you're in the real place where so much went on. But we didn't see any ghosts, no (laughs).
IGN: You yourself are considered a sort of style guru through your films and your personal style. How do you feel about that?
Coppola: I never really thought about it. I mean, I enjoy the whole visual aspect of films, and the costumes was a strong part of this movie so I was glad that people in fashion respond to it. But, otherwise, I think it's sort of a novelty because most director guys dress pretty nerdy, so it's just a novelty (laughs).
Saw it tonight and just wrote this "brief review" of it, which wasn't meant to be formal...
It's been a long time since Sofia Coppola stunned me with her magnificent Lost in Translation (y'know, that one that should have received the awards Return of the King did), and based on that as well as her haunting Virgin Suicides I could only be but enthusiastic about her latest, Marie Antoinette. The notable difference from her previous two efforts is obvious - why, this is a period piece, which are typically characterized by just about everything not characterized by Coppola's two previous credits. Whereas courtly period dramas typically relish in their decadence and flamboyancy, Sofia's style is more simplistic that in itself adds layers of beauty without the visual flair; period pieces love the long shot and still frames to evoke the likeness of a painting, but Coppola keeps her camera moving and probing. So it turns out this new period drama is actually more of a combination of these two distinct styles, and both are used effectively. The period style is used for scenes of pomp and courtly ritual, showcasing the distance between the Austrian-born girl and her newly imposed way of life as a French dauphine. "Private" scenes with the girl, when we see her perspective more or less, is when the camera resumes its intimate contact, allowing us to personally connect. As the trailer has made well known, throughout the movie is flamboyantly modern period clothes that sometiems scale proposterous proportions, as well as music from the 80s (though never in the diegesis, as A Knight's Tale attempted). While these elements could have become gimmicky or silly, Coppola chooses her music to fit the atmosphere--no surprise there--and the extravagant costumes and desserts actually fit this obscurely fanciful setting well.
The movie stars Kirsten Dunst, who carries the weight of the movie, as well as pounds and pounds of wig, on her shoulders fantastically. Without every saying too much dialogue she is able to convey all the range of emotions that Coppola needs from her extravagant, unhappy queen. Jason Schwartzman of Rushmore fame plays Louis XI with timidity, but as the movie progresses Coppola and Schwartzman turn the oft-ridiculed king into a surprisingly likable, pathetic character.
I'm glad Coppola did not try to turn this into a political statement about the French Revolution; in fact she never shows a glimpse of "common" life at all, but only shows a mob of stereotypical angry villagers cast in shadows as a conclusion to periodically and sparcely given information of the political situation. [SPOILERS AHEAD] I'm also glad that Coppola chose to end it where she did, when many directors might have chosen to go to the beheading and it as a tragedy. While it is clear throughout that the queen is losing popularity among both the upper- and lower-class, the point of the movie is in its portrayal of the young girl as she grows up in the public eye and struggles to please both her French and Austrian families, not the queen. The end leaves us in the position of uncertainty despite knowing what will happen from our history classes, and with the more important maturing of Marie Antoinette, who finally seems to show responsibility--to her subjects, to whom she finally shows herself at the end, and to her husband by deciding to stay by him during the tumultuous final days of the monarchy. [END SPOILERS]
It was a beautiful end to a beautiful movie, and a worthy addition to the career of one of the brightest American directors working today.
The further I get from having just seen this the more I start to like it but I am certain that is a result of the memory of 20/30 minutes of tedium starting to fade.
This film is really successful at making you feel what it must have been like at that palace to the point of being quite dizzying. As Chest says, the film doesn't care for the politics of the time and as such it doesn't get bogged down by any of the usual trappings (for this films main objective) of typical period films. However, I think it squanders the gains from this freedom on a few too many shots of Marie draped over chaises longues and dreamily falling back against duvets/pillows/grass. It's not just how tedious I found these shots and sequences of her excessive boredom that disappoints me but how unneccessary I thought they were when compared to some of the transcendent shots of Marie dwarfed by the weight of her surroundings. That was when the beauty of the cinematography really had some weight to it.
The final set of scenes really pulled the film out of its slump and finally started to make use of it's refreshing design. The relationship between Marie and Louis was something that always fascinated me at school and it is probably the strongest element here.
So while I don't think this film is as successful at creating the dream like atmospheres and moods of Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation - it definately adds something new to Sofia Coppola's repetoire that is very promising for the future.
love it.
i speak only in coldstone sizes.
beautifully but more importantly thoughtfully rendered images, arranged and presented in a way that, when at its best, reminded me of The New World--Marie Antoinette is lesser but similar cinema-as-poetry, a romantic vision of history that's equal parts mesmerizing and tragic. this is the first time i've ever found kirsten dunst remotely attractive, inconsistently at that, but that's completely irrelevant. the use of music ranges from great (ceremony) to questionable, if only because of personal preference (i want candy), but is always fascinating in the way that it, like the seemingly redudant/superficial images, create the character. whatever. this'll be on my top ten at the end of the year.
It was haunting in an overtly subtle kind of way. If I saw it again I could probably check off certain scenes with certain specific intentions and in that way it felt restricted and encumbered. Then, they call it hyper modern, but without the music and colors and they wouldn't, because I found the pacing well done and effective. It achieved a feeling of the time and the consciousness of its character, and it did so in a way that felt new and progressive. I like it for those reasons.
I don't like it because the method needs to be refined. I can see where she's going, but it wasn't boldly confident in regards to its narrative. I could sense her concessions.
Sorry guys, but "setting unrealistically high expectations since 2003", is the right phrase for this one. I love Sofia Coppola, but I felt that her nuanced style did not fit such an in-your-face type of presentation. There were certain shots that were classic... for example, when she is first riding in a carriage to France and there's that gorgeous shot of the sun through the trees... stunning... but that wasn't enough.
But at some point, I really wished there had been more PASSION. There is nothing wrong with that. But as I write this, I realise that this movie was not meant to be your average dramatic period piece... so perhaps I missed the boat altogether... (will decide after a good night's sleep).
Sofia's Choices
See how New Order, ''Amadeus'' and ''Badlands'' influenced Coppola's idea to re-create the French queen's life, with a twist by Gregory Kirschling
Marie Antoinette has ''Sofia Coppola'' written all over it. ''There's a lot of period films that you watch, and you don't know who made them,'' says the Lost in Translation director, who wasn't about to fall into that trap for her third movie. Her one-of-a-kind punk twist on the French queen's life, she says, comes from when she was a kid. ''My introduction to 18th-century France was from New Romantic music, from the imagery of Bow Wow Wow and Adam Ant, and Vivienne Westwood, and the whole scene that was going on post-punk, when I was an adolescent,'' Coppola says. ''That was probably my first impression of that period, through their take on it.''
In this gallery, we've lined up a few of the album covers, films, and artists that Coppola says influenced her vision of Marie. Coppola first got the idea to do a biopic after a friend told her about how Marie was just a teenager when she took the crown. The conversation inspired her — after she made her first feature film, The Virgin Suicides — to read Antonia Fraser's biography of Marie Antoinette, which, she says, played up Marie's human side. ''I was thinking of this story from a teenage point of view,'' she explains. ''I wanted the movie to have a playful nature, because it's really a kid's world, and I wanted it to have a kid's spirit.'' One might even look at Marie Antoinette as part of a trilogy alongside Suicides and Translation. Coppola does. ''I see them as connected, and there's a theme that runs through them about girls finding their identity, and transformation,'' she says. ''I feel that this is the final chapter of the series.''
Amadeus
''What I loved about Amadeus,'' Coppola says of the 1984 Mozart drama, ''was the way that the characters feel so human and relatable. And I really liked the way that the actors didn't do accents, that they just spoke in their own [voices]. That was what gave me the reassurance just to go with my actors' own [voices] in Marie.''
Darling
''I love its style,'' Coppola says of the 1965 Julie Christie movie, ''and the way it's a portrait of this one girl over a long period of time, but it jumps around and doesn't explain everything in between. And my approach here came from that, because we were telling a lot in a short amount of time.''
Bow Wow Wow
''The Bow Wow Wow album cover is a spoof on a famous painting — Le déjeuner sur l'herbe, by Manet,'' Coppola explains. ''They re-created it, but with Vivienne Westwood bondage boots and stuff, and I thought about this image when I was working on Marie.... That was the spirit of the movie. I thought it was a little punk to tell the story from a young girl's point of view, because it's sort of rebellious, and it hasn't been done before.''
Lisztomania
Ken Russell's crazy 1975 biopic of Franz Liszt starring Roger Daltrey is ''really cool, really far-out,'' Coppola says. ''My brother [Roman] showed it to me, just to say, 'Here's an extreme, there's no rules, do what you want.' It's really like a pop version of Franz Liszt, but it tells the story, you know?''
Vivienne Westwood
The English designer is known for mixing punk fashion with stuff out of certain long-gone historical periods, including the 18th century. ''She was looking back, but with a fresh spirit,'' Coppola says. ''I wanted to have some of that in my movie, to take some license and make it appealing to a modern audience.''
New Order
''To me,'' Coppola says, ''New Order has a certain feeling — a young, melancholic, romantic feeling — that is specific to their music. I listened to it a lot on Marie.''
Badlands
Some of the outdoor scenes in Marie were ''definitely an homage to Terrence Malick movies,'' Coppola says. ''They all have that quiet look at nature.''
I loved it.
Marie Antoinette Graces DVD
Sofia Coppola's film heads home in Feb.
On February 13, 2007, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will release Marie Antoinette on DVD and Blu-ray. The remake of the smash hit from the 1930s is showcased by a stunning performance from Kirsten Dunst, and will feature tons of bonus materials and extra features over two discs. It will be available for the MSRP of $26.98.
The Marie Antoinette DVD will feature the following bonus materials:
Deleted Scenes
Making-of Featurette
"Cribs Featurette" - Jason Schwartzman gives the viewer a tour of Versailles in the vein of the MTV show
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fdvdmedia.ign.com%2Fdvd%2Fimage%2Farticle%2F751%2F751671%2Fmarie-antoinette-2006-20061219022339153-000.jpg&hash=139999869115ff431df6af3b6f3ac6bd2625ec02)
Remake?
"Tons of bonus materials"?
Quote from: Chest Rockwell on December 21, 2006, 10:33:13 PM
"Tons of bonus materials"?
"Cribs Featurette" will be over four hours long.
Quote from: MacGuffin on December 21, 2006, 11:14:19 AM
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Why didn't they just use the poster? That cover is u-u-ugly.
I don't remember the poster being much better.
Quote from: for petes sake on December 22, 2006, 01:55:00 PM
Quote from: MacGuffin on December 21, 2006, 11:14:19 AM
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Why didn't they just use the poster? That cover is u-u-ugly.
Quote from: MacGuffin on September 06, 2006, 08:33:18 PM
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Eh.
cover's better.
Quote from: picolas on December 22, 2006, 03:40:29 PM
cover's better.
I'm with picolas on this one. I like how the color blends in the poster a little better but that poster-pose is just hideous.
This is what they should've done for the dvd and the poster
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi46.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Ff149%2Fsquints06%2FMarieAntoinette.jpg&hash=978836b847b2ec734bbfb1e50a5dd702676823fe)
good one.
...
Finally saw it last night. I thought it was great. The decor, costumes and cinematography were impeccable, as I expected, but I was fully emotionally engaged for the entire time. The acting was wonderful. The use of anachronistic music (Adam and the Ants, Bow Wow Wow) actually worked. I suppose the conceit behind it is that whether we're in the 18th or 21st century, rituals and customs change, but the human heart remains the same.
Coppola shows us an alien world with peculiar rituals, through the eyes of an innocent girl who just wants to be happy.
In some ways, Marie Antoinette is similar to Lost in Translation, in that both films deal with young women who are isolated in a strange country, longing to make a connection with somebody.
Sofia Coppola has a wonderful eye for details -- both in decor and in human behavior, in rituals, processions and natural idylls. Like Kubrick and Malick, she is patient and is expert at capturing the telling detail.
The use of natural light, in actual 18th century settings, and what I assume to be hand-sewn costumes, was a marvel to behold. It is no accident that Coppola employed Milena Canonero, who created the costumes for Barry Lyndon.
In sum, the harsh critical reaction to this film seems unjustified to me.
Quote from: flagpolespecial on December 26, 2006, 07:36:19 AM
i see a little bit of influence from malick in this film.
I absolutely agree with this. Especially the part where she first retreats into her Garden estate, I remember thinking that that whole section felt like one big montage, much like The New World.
Quote from: for petes sake on January 03, 2007, 05:58:37 PM
Quote from: flagpolespecial on December 26, 2006, 07:36:19 AM
i see a little bit of influence from malick in this film.
I absolutely agree with this. Especially the part where she first retreats into her Garden estate, I remember thinking that that whole section felt like one big montage, much like The New World.
You guys must have missed:
Quote from: MacGuffin on October 25, 2006, 01:29:42 AMBadlands
Some of the outdoor scenes in Marie were ''definitely an homage to Terrence Malick movies,'' Coppola says. ''They all have that quiet look at nature.''
...
was this your second viewing? in your first negative review from the end of december, you said you would wait for the dvd, so i was just curious.
...
oh. i disagree completely, but oh.
...
oh, i've never seen the film.
brilliant.
I saw it twice, and I loved it both times. I thought Dunst did a great job, as did Schwartzmann. Also, I thought there was sufficient narrative drive. In Robert McKee parlance, MA is an "education/disillusionment" plot. Most costume dramas don't engage me on on emotional level, but MA did.
There's a great review of MA in a recent issue of Film Comment.
Eleanor Coppola's documentary on the DVD is short but really good.
Also, I guess I'm one of the few people who thinks that the original poster was better than the DVD cover -- that washed out grainy image and slightly hung over drunken leer was just marvelous.
having seen the movie i think the poster is a better representation. (i liked the movie quite a bit).
I've been watching it all day, and realizing that I really love it, much more than I though I did after I first saw it. I think it's better than Lost In Translation, even. I think time will probably be very kind to it
Yeah, it was my favorite of the year by far. I meant to talk about this earlier, I swear.
While the Malick similarities are obvious (dropping in on conversations, floating camerwork, spiritual connection with nature, college panty raids, etc.), I still thought it was a brilliant movie.
Quote from: Ghostboy on February 13, 2007, 11:52:20 PM
I've been watching it all day, and realizing that I really love it, much more than I though I did after I first saw it. I think it's better than Lost In Translation, even. I think time will probably be very kind to it
i really loved it too. i'd say ALMOST as much as lost in translation. there is practically NO dialogue for the first half of the movie which is quite nice. yeah, the malick and lyndon comparisons are legit, but something about it (referring to the minimum dialogue, giggles and facial expressions mostly) can't quite place what it is, but something makes it sofia's own.
I have to agree with the critical consensus on Marie Antoinette. The film is beautiful, but overall it is pretty empty. I think the critical problem is that it takes a look at the least interesting part of Antoinette's life. I think Revolution > Execution would have resulted in a better film, and historically it is at this point that she starts to show some real character. I understand that we are supposed to understand that life for a teenage girl is similiar now then it was in the past, but when we are watching Marie play hide and go seek well into her 30s, it is embarassing.
I don't want it to sound like I disliked the film, I just thought it was a wash. It has some great moments, but ultimately it is sunk because of how uninteresting the main character is portrayed.