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Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Jan Bradávka Characters in Alienated Environments in Films by Sofia Coppola Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph. D. 2011 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………… 2 Table of Contents 1. Introduction 4 2. The Virgin Suicides 2.1. Basic Information and Plot Description 5 2.2. Differences between the Book and the Film 6 2.3. Lisbon Girls in an Alienated Environment 8 2.4. Visual Aspects of the Film 12 3. Lost in Translation 3.1. Basic Information and Plot Description 15 3.2. Tokyo as an Alienated Environment 15 3.3. Social Criticism in the Film 18 3.4. Visual Aspects of the Film and the Use of Sound 19 4. Marie Antoinette 4.1. Basic Information and Plot Description 22 4.2. Alienated France 23 4.3. Allusions to Hollywood 28 4.4. Visual Aspects of the Film and the Use of Sound 30 5. Conclusion 33 6. Works Used and Cited 35 7. Resumé v češtině 38 8. Resume in English 39 3 1. Introduction As of 2011, Sofia Coppola, the daughter of the famous American director Francis Ford Coppola, has made four full-length films: The Virgin Suicides, a film adaptation of a book of the same name by Jeffrey Eugenides, Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette and Somewhere. This thesis will focus on the first three films. In these first three films, there is a recurring theme of a character (or characters) getting thrown into an alienated environment. First, in The Virgin Suicides, the Lisbon girls get to know the lives of teenage girls which include sex, smoking and drinking while, given their strict parents, they are totally unprepared for such experiences. Second, in Lost in Translation, Bob, an American actor, comes to Tokyo where he needs to focus on his work while he is jet-lagged, does not understand a word of Japanese and has nothing to help him get rid of the after-work boredom. Last, Marie Antoinette presents the harsh reality of a new home. Marie Antoinette comes to the French court as a stranger to all the customs and relationships while she is expected to be a perfect lady as she is the future queen of France. As the result of these placements, all these characters need to cope with the situations and deal with both inner and outer conflicts. Therefore I argue that in her films, Sofia Coppola, takes one or more characters and places them into alienated environments. Then, she presents the results of these placements like culture shock, revolt and giving-in while, in order to do this, she makes a clever use of music, sounds, lights and camera work. In addition, Coppola manages to translate the stories into criticism of nowadays society. In this thesis, I want to focus on these placements and the actions that the characters of the films take as the result of these placements. I want to look at the conflicts the characters face and how they deal with these. In addition, I want to explore how her films translate into criticism of society we live in today and how does she use 4 the medium of a film screen to underline the messages of her films. 2. The Virgin Suicides 2.1. Basic Information and Plot Description Sofia Coppola's first feature-length film, The Virgin Suicides, was released in 1999. It is an adaptation of Jefrey Eugenides' book of the same name released in 1993. The film was made and produced by American Zoetrope, the studio of Sofia Coppola's father, Francis Ford Coppola. The budget is estimated to have been six million USD. Sofia Coppola wrote the screenplay and directed the film while Edward Lachman was the cinematographer. The main roles are cast with James Woods and Kethleen Turner as Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon and Kirsten Dunst as Lux Lisbon and Josh Hartnett as young Trip Fontaine. ("The Virgin Suicides") The story follows a group of boy schoolmates at a suburban school in Michigan, who get obsessed with the Lisbon sisters, who are kept at home almost all the time. The story starts when the youngest girl, Cecilia, unsuccessfully attempts suicide and follows the boys who are trying to learn more about the strange, yet beautiful sisters. They are especially fascinated by, Lux, who starts to transform into a rebellious daughter, who starts to drink, smoke and have casual sex with boys from the school while she disregards any rules set by her parents. This leaves the parents very little choice and they forbid the girls to leave the house. The Lisbon sisters, unable to leave the house, use the telephone to call the boys and they play records trying to express the feelings they have at the time. The boys listen and play other records as replies. When the telephone privileges of the girls are taken away, the sisters use flash-light at night to converse with the boys. One night, they pass the message for the boys to come over. As Lux tells the boys to wait and as the boys grow impatient and start to explore the house, 5 they discover all the girls have committed suicide. The parents soon leave the house for good while leaving the boys never to forget their daughters. The whole story gets told in a retrospective and happens twenty-five years ago while the boys (now grown men) narrate the story as they remember it.(Coppola, The Virgin Suicides) 2.2. Differences between the Book and the Film While the story of the film remains faithful to the book, there are some differences. One of the most important difference is the role of the boys as narrators. In the book, the boys act as narrators and guide the reader through their story of collecting the puzzle pieces about the Lisbon sisters. However, the book also presents the boys as if they want to tell the story at once so while both the film and the book start with the suicide attempt of Cecilia and the boys think about the question “how Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon had produced such beautiful children” (Eugenides 8), the film, unlike the book, does not reveal that all the other girls commit suicide. (Eugenides 8) In the film, the boys are moved into the background and while they still act as the narrators in the story, they no longer come out of it as narrators of the story. Connected to the this change of narration is the second biggest difference which is the medium. In a way the boys lose their position in the film, in contrast with the book, because of the difference between the mediums of a film and of a book. In the book, the text follows what the author and hence the boys want to tell and the reader must use his imagination while the film shows what the camera captures. Perhaps the best example are the Lisbon girls. From the book, the reader gets the information about the girls' names and age: “The Lisbon girls were thirteen (Cecilia), and fourteen (Lux), and fifteen (Bonnie), and sixteen (Mary), and seventeen (Therese).” (Eugenides 7) In addition, the boys describe their looks as “short, round-buttocked in denim, with roundish cheeks that recalled that same dorsal softness.” (Eugenides 7) This description 6 gives the reader the possibility to imagine the girls as he or she wants them to look and underlines the fact that the boys see the Lisbon girls as perfect – the obsession that started the story twenty-five years earlier. However in the film the boys do not give this description, they only introduce the girls as they get out of a car and then skip right for the question of “how Mrs. Lisbon and Mr. Lisbon, our math teacher, had produced such beautiful creatures.” (Coppola, The Virgin Suicides) This difference between the text of the book and the dialogue in the films also shows the difference between the two media. The book gives its reader the idea while the film gives its viewer the picture. In concordance with the movement from the boys is also the movement of the film towards the story of the Lisbon girls omitting the boys' hunt for the puzzle pieces. For instance, the film completely omits how the boys question Uncle Tucker who was the only witness to see Mr and Mrs. Lisbon to leave early in the morning leaving the area for good. (Eugenides 241) On the other hand, the film presents the event with a description from one of the boys as that “Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon gave up any attempt to lead a normal life” (Coppola, The Virgin Suicides) which is accompanied with the Lisbon’s station-wagon leaving the driveway and going away. The film also changes the ending. While the film shows only the parents leaving the house forever in their station wagon, (Coppola, The Virgin Suicides) the book follows the story of the house as it gets bought by a “young couple,” (Eugenides 241) gets a new cover of Kenitex, (Eugenides 241) and slowly decays in the years to follow which is shown by the layer of Kenitex falling down from the walls. (Eugenides 242) Another difference is in the timing of the girl's suicides. The book presents one suicide at the time, starting with Cecilia and ending with Lux near the end of the book. However the film presents only two suicides.