This week we were assigned to watch Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation. I thought it was an interesting movie that had a slow build to it. It was hard for me to get into at first, but as things started to build up with the main characters, I found myself getting more interested in the film. Coppola did an excellent job directing and I think she picked a great cast for this film. One of my favorite parts of the film was that it was shot in Japan, so that was something unique that I have never seen before. I have never seen a film written by Sofia Coppola, so it was interesting to see how her style of film compares to other film directors' styles of film.
I think that it was cool to see Bill Murray play such a different role than we saw him play in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. The film portrays Murray as this movie star that travels to Japan to do a whiskey commerical. He seems like this lonely guy, just lost because he not only is he all alone but he does not understand anything anyone is saying because it is all in Japanese. I feel bad for Bob because he tries to talk to his wife about things and she kind of just ignores how he is feeling and get of the phone as soon as possible. Then Bob sees this women in the elevator, and he stares at her so she smiles at him.
Bob decides to go to the bar, and the women named Charlotte is there and she smiles at him and sends him a drink. I think that Charlotte and Bob both are experiencing the same problems, since their both are alone in this foreign city. Charlotte and Bob meet again at the bar for the first time and have their first conversation, which seems very easy for just meeting each other. Bob and Charlotte run into each other at the pool, and Charlotte decides to invite Bob to come out with her and her friends. They develop into really strong friends throughout the film constantly hanging out with each other. I thought that they were starting to develop feelings for each other because times throughout the film, it looked that way but they weren't. My favorite scene that symbolizes their friendship was at the end when he jumped out of the cab on the way to his flight because he saw Charlotte, he hugged her tightly, whispered something in her ear, then the two shared a quick kiss, which was sweet. I thought Coppola ended the film perfectly.
Something interesting about this film was that both Bob and Charlotte are shown constantly looking out their windows throughout the film. This reminds me of Rear Window because in that film, L.B. was constantly looking out his window as well. To me, the window symbolizes how both characters of Charlotte and Bob want to be free, but they trapped in this foreign country alone, where they don't know what is going on because they do not speak Japanese. Coppola also uses the reflection of the window in the scene where they are talking in Bob's room, so you can still seem them just through a different lens. The concept of the window created a deeper meaning to the plot, so I thought that was cool that Coppola incorporated it into this film.
Some people thought that Coppola was not a true auteur but she was just famous because her father was a well-known filmmaker. Sofia won an Oscar for writing "Lost in Translation" and a New York Film Critics Circle award for directing it. She is a true auteur because her protagonists in her films were generally strong-willed women. Growing up as Hollywood royalty, Coppola had access to the rich and famous, which allowed her to use cool places for her film sets, including Paris Hilton's house.
I liked how Coppola brought two characters together that really needed a friend in their time of loneliness. They were both struggling to find their purpose in their life and relationships and simply needed someone who would understand. I believe the way Coppola formed this relationship was perfect.
Even though I didn't really like this film that much I will agree, it was interesting to see Bill Murray in a role so different from Wes Anderson's film. I think I liked his character idea more in this film. He was a bit more relatable and it was cool how it was reflective of Bill Murray's real life as an actor getting older and getting fewer roles.
I do wonder if Coppola have connections to the film industry due to her father allowed her to have an advantage in film making therefore allowing her to have a quicker rise to fame and auteurism. Whereas a woman of color or someone without connections to the film industry wouldn't have survived or made it that high to a level of auteurism.
This week for class we were to watch the horror film, Get Out. I was nervous about watching it because I do not like scary movies at all. I thought that Get Out was a good movie. When watching Get Out, there was so much suspense throughout the film, that I was on the edge of my seat. It starts out slowly, but as things unfold it builds up, which I liked and thought was interesting. One thing that I liked about this film was the shocking things that you did not expect to happen. One element of the film that I thought that Peele really did well was the music. He chose songs that really set the mysterious element throughout the course of the film. Something that Peele did with the music that I thought was cool was he used the same song in the beginning of the film and at the end of the film. I think he did this because he wanted to tie the whole movie together, which I thought was great. The music helps shifts in the storyline, which helps add to the overall plot of the movie....
This week in class we continued working in our groups on our films. On Monday, we did not have class because we were to work on our project. My group met this day to find a new location because our original location was not going to work out because there was always a class in the spot where we wanted to film. We decided to try Merner and it actually worked for us. I feel like it made our film even better because of some of the different spots in Merner helped added that mysterious vibe we wanted for our film. We ended up getting our entire movie filmed, so that was great. Then, we went into Wednesday's class with our clips taped, but we still had to edit our film together. In class, we learned how to use Adobe Express, which is a pretty easy editing tool to use. Something that we went over was how audio and video are on different tracks when we are editing them. We worked on putting our clips that we shot into Adobe Express. My group struggled a little bit with how to inser...
I liked how Coppola brought two characters together that really needed a friend in their time of loneliness. They were both struggling to find their purpose in their life and relationships and simply needed someone who would understand. I believe the way Coppola formed this relationship was perfect.
ReplyDeleteEven though I didn't really like this film that much I will agree, it was interesting to see Bill Murray in a role so different from Wes Anderson's film. I think I liked his character idea more in this film. He was a bit more relatable and it was cool how it was reflective of Bill Murray's real life as an actor getting older and getting fewer roles.
ReplyDeleteI do wonder if Coppola have connections to the film industry due to her father allowed her to have an advantage in film making therefore allowing her to have a quicker rise to fame and auteurism. Whereas a woman of color or someone without connections to the film industry wouldn't have survived or made it that high to a level of auteurism.