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They are provocations to those big-budget extravaganzas that explode their way into megaplexes across the world, showing so much but saying so little. If blockbusters are brightly shining names on a marquee, Coppolas films are handwritten notes, rolled up, placed into a bottle and thrown to the sea. She makes the statement that bigger isnt always better that inscribed to those moments in between, there are songs in silence imploring us to come closer and listen. The details in Coppolas films define the whole and in Somewhere, her latest project as writer and director, she explores the life of an aging actor in Los Angeles. Her subject is Johnny Marco, played by Stephen Dorff, a fading Hollywood actor who languishes his days away at the iconic Hollywood haunt, the Chateau Marmont. Johnnys life is soaked in contradictions. He speeds his Ferrari down L.A.s congested streets, always looking over his shoulder for paparazzi that arent there. Women throw themselves at him daily while phones buzz with angry texts from spurned lovers. Sex has lost its meaning, and Johnny even falls asleep during hotel room visits from twin strippers. Then, when his ex-wife drops off his 11-year-old daughter Cleo (Elle Fanning) for a week, his centerless life suddenly gains a focus. Like Coppolas Lost in Translation, this film revisits the stories of actors in hotels, but whereas that film about Tokyo was a landscape, Somewhere is a portrait. She reveals the bizarre world that actors occupy where their only conduit to the outside world is their professional entourage of managers and PR people who shepherd talent along as they sleepwalk through life. Across the spectrum of Coppolas work, it becomes evident that she is interested in states of rest. In The Virgin Suicides (and her first film,
1998s Lick the Star), she opened the door on middle class economic (not emotional) stability; Lost in Translation examined listlessness at a hotel set apart from Tokyos sensory storm; and Marie Antoinette presented a girl who had everythingincluding an empire. Coppola often seems to ask: What happens when people have everything they want? When material needs are fulfilled, does emotional fulfillment follow? For many, the world of wealth is as alien as Mars, and her films explore these far reaches of spiritual space. Coppola deftly creates a story that moves with inertia, not energy. Her films float along, a drop of oil that seeps across the water. She makes ordinary moments extraordinary by extending a scene to the point past where mainstream directors would have called cut. In these longer moments, she makes reflection unavoidable as the viewer is faced head-on with the question: What does this all mean? Films from Coppolas fathers heyday typically had no problem with taking their time, but most modern American cinema refuses to let audiences lavish in the moment, instead relying on sleight-of-hand tricksexplosions, computer graphics, quick cutsto distract its viewers with all-out sensory assaults of escapism. Coppola strips it all away, leaving a story naked and exposed, unencumbered by plot additions from studio execs who sacrifice art for the bottom line. Perhaps Coppolas extraordinary lineage gives her a modicum of freedom from the pressures of commercial success, but Somewhere proves that a famous last name isnt everything. As Somewhere received critical acclaim at the 67th Venice International Film Festival and Coppola earned the prestigious Golden Lion for Best Picture (shes one of the few women and only the fourth American to win), she has proven that shes never been simply a name to watch. Shes the new paradigm. 49 . FILTER
FROM LEFT: LOST IN TRANSLATION, THE VIRGIN SUICIDES, SOMEWHERE, COPPOLA ON THE SET OF SOMEWHERE.
Japan and France. I guess it just seems more exotic when youre far away. So, being in Paris after Marie Antoinette, my daughter was born and I took the year off and I think I was a little homesick for California. There were always L.A. movies that I loved that had good style and I think that we havent had one for the latest era of modern-day L.A. How long ago was it that you lived in L.A. and how has the city changed since then? I moved there in college, in the early 90s, and lived there for about 10 years. So I think of L.A. in the 90s. I feel like there are things that have changed about it and things that are still the same. I remember going to the Chateau Marmont a lot back then, before Us Weekly existed and when there werent paparazzi around. It just felt a little more innocent. Being in Paris, noticing how reality shows are such a big thing [in the U.S.]that is definitely something that doesnt exist in France, especially reality stars being in the center of pop culture. All of these things were on my mind when I was writing Somewhere. Los Angeles, as a city, lacks a center. At the beginning of the film, Dorffs character lacks a center or purpose in his life. Hes a centerless person in a centerless city, driving around but not going anywhere. Can you talk about this? Thats a good observation on your part. I didnt think about that connection, but it seemed right that he lives in L.A. in the Chateau Marmont and hes not very rooted. I felt like he was at a critical moment in his life where he could either have a family and a real life or be the old guy at the club. I was thinking more of an L.A. that people who want to be stars or whatever are drawn to, but its true that it is kind of spread out and vague.
The Marmont is like a purgatory: its only when you leave that you have to deal with the real world. You addressed the notion of hotels as places of stasis in Lost in Translation. But what does it mean here? I think I am interested in characters that are in transition and in crisis and not defined. A hotel is usually a good place because youre in limbo and its not permanent. It seems like the right setting for that kind of character. And its true that your real life is on holdsomeones taking care of you. Johnnys view of women is skewed, too. To him, theyre all PR flacks, strippers, ex-girlfriends and groupies. Is this decision to depict women as such meant to be taken literally or are these just archetypes? I wasnt trying to make a statement about women. I just know the PR people in my life are women and they have a more nurturing side, so theyre kind of taking care of him. Its not a well-rounded idea of women, its just a slice of this world that hes in, surrounded by groupies. His daughter is a contrast. His daughter then has to try to understand these women in his life and try to reconcile the fact that her father is a sexual being. What interests you about sexual politics? I was thinking that it must be complicated for him, a guy with a daughter whos on the verge of becoming a teenager and a woman, with the way that he relates to women. Shes aware. You see when theres some young girl flirting with him, shes aware. She kind of gives him a look and busts him. I feel like kids are more aware than people give them credit for. F
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