Ms. Coppola acknowledged that she was more interested in moods than plots, and that she was especially drawn to unformed characters. “I’ve always found that a more interesting state,” she said. “You’re learning something about yourself, or trying to.”
In “The Virgin Suicides,” based on Jeffrey Eugenides’s novel, the five beautiful sisters who mysteriously kill themselves remain forever frozen on the cusp of adulthood. Ms. Coppola’s subsequent films can be seen as metaphors for adolescence, a condition — at once enjoyable, confounding and traumatic — that they associate with the out-of-body dislocation of jet lag (“Lost in Translation”), the absurd rituals of the Bourbon court (“Marie Antoinette”) and the surreal overstimulation and mortification of modern celebrity culture (“Somewhere”).
With “Somewhere” Ms. Coppola assumes, more fully than ever before, a male perspective. “One of the challenges was to make something from a guy’s point of view that was emotional,” she said. In Mr. Dorff — the kind of unlikely casting choice that has enlivened many of her films (the “Marie Antoinette” ensemble included Rip Torn, Asia Argento andMarianne Faithfull) — she had someone with an aura of “the bad-boy actor,” she said, but who also brought an unexpected quality: “this really sweet, sincere side.”
The watchword for “Somewhere,” Ms. Coppola said, was “minimal” — a reaction to the excesses of “Marie Antoinette,” which required a small army of costumers and a cake department. The new film is basically a two-hander, and Ms. Coppola directed the actors to hold back. “I kept saying, “Don’t do anything, do less,’ ” she said. “I wanted it to be sweet and genuine but without being sappy.”
“I didn’t really think about it before,” Ms. Coppola said of the autobiography question, which came up when “Somewhere” was shown in Venice. “Of course it makes sense that people would bring it up.” Her films may be reflective, but she would rather avoid reflecting on her work. When she started writing “Somewhere,” she said, it didn’t even occur to her that it would be another film set in a hotel.
Whether this lack of awareness is blissful or protective, Ms. Coppola’s tunnel vision likely accounts for both the strengths and the limitations of her delicately self-contained films.
“I try to go with what I’m interested in and not think too much about it,” she said. “There are enough ways of talking yourself out of doing something.”
SOMEWHEREThis is exactly why, despite the fact that I respect her work, I enjoy absolutely ZERO of her movies. Lost in Translation makes me want to put a stick in my own eye.
In my own artistic sensibility, “unformed” means you haven’t decided. Part of art is making a decision - often, a series of decisions. Sorry, Sophia.
Jenna articulated everything that was flying around in my brain when I read the initial post better than I ever could. I agree 100%.
