Marie Antoinette

[grand theft sparrow]

http://xixax.com/index.php?topic=1180.0

[MacGuffin]

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

[pete]

wow, lets guess the skin color of that demographic.

[MacGuffin]

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.

[MacGuffin]

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.

[I Love a Magician]

Dunst looks like Billy Corgan.

[modage]

unfortunately the film could not help me overcome my dislike of white wig movies. 

[Pubrick]

unfortunately the film could not help me overcome my dislike of white wig movies. 

so basically you need a shrink.

[MacGuffin]

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).

[Chest Rockwell]

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.

[Redlum]

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.

[samsong]

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.

[w/o horse]

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.

[Thrindle]

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).

[MacGuffin]

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.''