Sofia Coppola is known for an aesthetically gorgeous certain kind of film about people in some sort of life transition, wanting to become something else. As Coppola herself says in the Spring 2013 profile of her in the DGA Quarterly, “I don’t make the kind of movies that lend themselves to wide releases.”
Coppola’s films are intimate experiences–whether it’s peering into the interior lives of the teen girls in The Virgin Suicides or following Marie Antoinette into Versailles. This is partly from Coppola’s signature shot, following a character from behind, which she achieves from using a handheld camera or a dolly shot. This shot she used in her directorial debut with The Virgin Suicides in 1999 helped differentiate the group of boys from merely spying on the girls in the film to focusing more on their own self-consciousness about the girls. As she said in the interview:
It wasn’t just showing boys looking at and spying on girls. I wanted to be very clear about translating their perspective, how to get up close to them as they entered these girly spaces.
She talks at length about her upcoming film, The Bling Ring, which will hit theaters in June. Based on the Vanity Fair article, “The Suspects Wore Louboutins,” Coppola’s film chronicles the true story of a group of teenagers who spent over a year robbing celebrity homes. Here’s why she was interested in the topic:
I thought it was such an interesting story and the quotes from the real kids really made an impression. I thought the story said so much about our culture today and how it can affect young people.
Coppola’s world for The Bling Ring, she says isn’t as visually beautiful as some of the others in her films. However, for visual references, Coppola studied Facebook and MySpace — so many of the shots in the film look like ‘selfies’ which in the context of Coppola’s intimate directing style, is just as intimate as you can get for getting into a character’s inner world.
Coppola also speaks about working with actors, musical choices and her visual references. It’s a great, must-read profile of a fascinating director by Carrie Rickey.
Check out the newly released poster for The Bling Ring below.
Lost and Found (DGA)
