Sofia CopPOLLa

i didn't expect this film to have any psychological depth or anything as its sofia coppola and i deeply respect her for that but i was very disappointed by how boring looking it was. it felt designed for a small screen, very little detail in the design. Lots of the scenes were so visually underwhelming, in particular the shot of elvis on stage in Vegas, the bit where they played bumper cars (?) and the LSD scene. Also the bible study scene. (when i read that list of scenes the film feels more garish and fun than it was). the guy they got to play elvis was some 00s abercrombie model and was essentially the wrong shape. The look was very smoothed over with no sense of period strangeness to set your teeth on edge. All the beehives were a bit subdued - 'relaxed' rather than lopsided. I could have used some grotesqueness. the music was bland (i didn't know the elvis estate refused to license his music but this was not my issue, i thought it was good that the music was often incorrect for the period and that it skipped being an elvis greatest hits package but the choices were so pat and/or dull). i sort of enjoyed how it shuffled through all the classic 'My life with X' clichés without pandering to prestige concepts like 'developed character' etc though ive felt that SC is going to make the film she's been promising any minute since the virgin suicides and she seems to be drifting further and further away with each film. I enjoyed the sense that the behind the scenes of fame was less professionalised and slick, genuinely domestic, but the people seemed too modern. The bits where they were hanging around the pool - the whole attitude and vibe felt very 'people who work in tech'. I appreciate that SC is big on anachronisms but I felt like it kept failing by its own standards (in particular the swim shorts Elvis wears). it essentially felt uninterested in most of the things it promised - domesticity, drugs, clothes, sunshine, interiors.

How did I not know she had planned (and had to shelve) an adaptation of The Custom of the Country?

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/01/29/sofia-coppola-profile

Whether set in a luxury hotel in Tokyo, like “Lost in Translation,” or in suburban Michigan, like “The Virgin Suicides,” Coppola’s films are sumptuous but also slightly clinical. One of her œuvre’s visual hallmarks is a protagonist gazing out a window, sealed off from the world beyond. “You know I can’t resist a trapped woman,” she said. Yet, even when her female characters are confined, they achieve a degree of self-definition through adventures in style. No filmmaker has so astutely depicted the cloistered atmosphere of teen-age girlhood or the expressive power of its trappings. She is a master of the messy-bedroom mise en scène: piles of clothing and impractical shoes, poster-plastered walls, vanities cluttered with perfume bottles and porcelain figurines. The director Chloé Zhao, who won Best Director at the 2021 Oscars for her film “Nomadland,” told me that she admires Coppola for “world-building that isn’t just based on facts but on emotions.” She added, “There’s a receptivity to her work. To have a commitment to that kind of femininity is hard.” The director Jane Campion, who counts “The Virgin Suicides” among her favorite films, told me that Coppola’s light touch with actors and her attention to surfaces can be deceptive. “Her work is very powerful to me, because it’s got deep roots,” she said. But Coppola’s films have sometimes struck critics as longer on style than on substance, and too close to the privileges they depict to effectively critique them. A few months ago, Coppola sent me an e-mail, unprompted, in which she took issue with a notion that has resurfaced throughout her twenty-five-year career: “I don’t understand why looking at superficiality makes you superficial?!”

Finally got to watch PRISCILLA and it was...OK, but it mostly reminded me that there's never been a truly successful film portrayal of Elvis and there never will be. No mere actor can be what he was. But the lighting and set decoration were pretty incredible. The opening shot of Priscilla's bare feet against the red carpet was amazing, and I loved the scene where they were all shooting off fireworks at night, and the shot where she had a different gun for each outfit. Lana Del Rey fucking wishes.

so interesting that ppl loved Marie Antoinette as much as i did! what a beautiful piece of film. and Judy Davis!