SOFIA COPPOLA

I watched three of Sofia Coppola’s, Marie Antoinette, The Virgin Suicides, and The Bling Ring.

In all three movies music was an important part of the work and set the tone from a lot of scenes. It helped communicate the moods and feelings of characters without using dialog. Like in The Virgin Suicides when the girls are stuck in there room and the boys call them and they play records back and forth to have a conversation without saying anything. She also uses a lot of extended silences that last a little too long and that make the viewer feel uncomfortable. The silences make the movies and characters feel realistic. We see they have inner thought but we don’t know what it is. A good example of that is in the The Bling Ring when Rebecca and Marc rob one of the houses and it’s a wide shot of the house and it’s silent for about a minute as you watch the house get robbed. It seem like you are watching a security tape. She also cuts to these dream like, unrealistic scenes that are not part of the story line, like in The Virgin Suicides When the sisters are in a field and the shots are hazy and are noticeably different from the rest of the movie. She also cast the same age range in all three movies the characters are in their teens. It seem like all of them don’t really know who they are and they are trying to figure it out, and get stucked into a bad place. Both Marie Antoinette and The Virgin Suicides Two look to the past makes that makes the viewer feel nostalgic. Marie Antoinette is a period piece of royalty, so the set, costumes and food is extravagant and makes the viewer wish they were part of that time. The Virgin Suicides was set in the 60s or 70s and the set and costumes in that movie make the viewer nostalgic too. The attitude of both Marie Antoinette and The Bling Ring are very similar, they are surrounded by partying and the characters are submerged in this extravagant high social living. It’s also about money, fashion, drinking and having a good time.