Week 9: Voice and the Auteur Theory

Sophia Coppola’s voice and visual aesthetics are clearly seen in all three movies I selected to watch.  I feel like I am peering inside someone else’s life watching all three films.

The first film I viewed was in class “Marie Antoinette.”  This film is visually beautiful with lush green woods, pastel palettes and the tiniest detail of embroidery on the beautiful fabrics.  The luxurious Versailles landscapes and cotton candy wigs, cakes and delicate macaroons are dreamlike.  The natural lighting is beautiful.  Kirsten Dunst was the perfect Marie, whimsical, charming child-like, decadent. 
Sophia seems drawn to stories that are centered on characters that are longing for acceptance.  Marie was trying so hard to please her mother, the Prince (her husband), the people and the court.   You can feel the emotions from the main character, especially when Marie had to be stripped down from all her Austrian possessions and her little dog Mops was taken away.   She had to brave and face the strangers/crowd and be strong and “perfect.”  She is left with nothing yet given everything.
There are frequent repeat shots in her work, like Marie looking outward from the coach’s window at the world passing by. Sophia is like Marie Antoinette.  She can identify with her role coming from a very strong Family.  Frances Ford Coppola is her father and I am sure she had to fight for her own identity and director style.



The second film, “The Bling Ring” was about coming of age within an entourage of woman as well.  The film is about a group of teens robbing from the excessively rich Movie Stars based upon a true story.  They desire to adopt the celebrity lifestyle from raiding and stealing from their favorite celebrity homes. Coppola makes a point of lack of moral while the group committed the crimes
 I was stressed watching this entire movie as they broke into Paris Hilton’s home again, and again and again.  I was waiting each time for the police to randomly show and shoot any or all of them.  I did notice Kirsten Dunst’s cameo as she appears in all three films I selected to watch.  This film again has dreamlike excessive opulence.  The teens obviously knew luxurious brand names (Birkin bags, Chanel).  From their selfies and Facebook posts, the teens broadcast their need for living in a world detaching effects from cause.  Money was found everywhere and carelessly thrown away on parties (similar to Marie Antoinette shots of eating cakes and macaroons, this group snorted cocaine and drank alcohol.) The similarity in musical selection is obvious in Coppola’s films.   The punk rock loud music is in both films seems to not quite fit in, yet she chose the music depicting aimlessness as drama unfolds around the oblivious teens.

My final selection was “The Beguiled.”  This film again had Kirsten Dunst.  This film centered around a boarding school for fine young ladies in the Deep South during the Civil War.  The film starts out with lush natural lighting in a Virginia forest as a young girl picking mushrooms stumbles upon a Union Soldier.  Amy “rescues” the soldier and brings him to the school.  The group of ladies decide to nurse him back to health “the Christian thing to do” before turning him in to become a Confederate prisoner.  They carefully and cautiously imprisoned in a small room as they bath him, shave him and try to make him healthier.  Soon their subdued desires overtake their rationality as he manipulates them with his charm as he recuperates.

With each relationship he pursues, jealousy arises between the women.  Coppola draws superb performances from Nicole Kidman, Elle Fanning and Kirsten Dunst.
The film seemed under-lit compared to Marie Antoinette, but it made the boarding house seem haunting and ghost-like.  I felt disoriented at times straining to see the actresses’ expressions under the candle-lit atmosphere.  This seemed like an authentic mansion, under lit and falling apart, while the war goes on all around them.  They all have primal responses to his presence and he pays for his manipulation.  The Beguiled delivers proper ladies who would rather murder the soldier then “share” him.