RECORD 16
19 December 2023
A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE IN PINK WITH A THICK BOOK SPINE.
9:40 AM on Saturday, I arrived to The Hatchards (at Piccadilly) and by then was in a long-tail queue that led upstairs all the way to the third floor. We all were waiting to sign our freshly pink and thick copies of Sofia Coppola Archive, published by Mack earlier this year. I was excited, I got lucky to get a spot in a queue to meet Sophia in person to have my lovely copy signed with my name. I didn’t really have a Christmas spirit in me the whole week nor this rainy morning, but somehow while waiting in the bookshop something was awakening. To be honest, I almost forgot I had a ticket, it came to me when I flipped a story on Instagram announcing MUBI’s special screening of her latest film Priscilla (2023), that will be released in January by MUBI.
While I was waiting for 10 AM, and gazing at everyone and everything around, I spotted a gentleman in thick aviators climbing upstairs, it took me a minute and full-scale awareness of my neurones connecting in my brain to recognise these signature aviators as a staple of Roman Coppola, Sofia’s brother and F.F.’s son. As well as a producer and a screenwriter to a ton of films I enjoy. Whether it’s a family story about three brothers seeking a spiritual journey in Darjeeling Limited (2004) or a TV series with Gael Garcia Bernal that ran for 4 seasons about «sex and rock’n’roll» in the classical music world, Mozart in the Jungel (2014 – 2018), and this list includes his sister’s debut The Virgin Suicides (1999). My Christmas spirit level kept growing.
It wasn’t a long wait after that to see a petite and very put together lady being as shocked with the queue as her brother just a couple minutes before and she seemed to be excited. While steadily moving up, I was thinking how Sofia’s films not just about girls’ stories and perspectives. These stories appeal to expectations and society, the importance of sustaining and find oneself in case lost or in crisis. Which is a big okay, and reminds us to take as long as we need, just keep moving, the way Johnny and Cleo do in Somewhere (2010) or Laura in On the Rocks (2020). It’s okay to struggle, and her characters reminds us that there is always still hope to re-invent oneself again.
Her stories are not always epic, even if they are set in the epic time frame, as Marie Antoinette (2006) or Priscilla (2023). Studying the space and environment where the characters exist in very meticulous details, observing, as almost witnessing. Sofia is known for a tempo that she builds across a film, which is being created as a long-term collaborative work with a film editor Sarah Flack. Cinematography for Coppola is another extension to the dialogues of her characters, and at times it’s hard to divide the two. Studied photography, Sofia assembled her frames delicately to tell not just a story but also capture moments of the characters and scenes exisiting in their own cinema time, just as many artworks do. She is the autuer of a infamous risqué exposition straight from the opening of a close-up of Charlotte’s transparent pink underwear (that was actually a reference from a painter John Kacere) in Lost in Translation (2003), changing the gaze and the way a female story and a female body can be perceived in a film (which contributed to give a license to be free to creatives of the next generations, as a photographer and a director Petra Collins, i.e.). BFI’s YouTube’s channel has a brillaint Q&A with Sofia from 2023 LFF, interviewed by Richard Curtis.
Her stories are not always epic, even if they are set in the epic time frame, as Marie Antoinette (2006) or Priscilla (2023). Studying the space and environment where the characters exist in very meticulous details, observing, as almost witnessing. Sofia is known for a tempo that she builds across a film, which is being created as a long-term collaborative work with a film editor Sarah Flack. Cinematography for Coppola is another extension to the dialogues of her characters, and at times it’s hard to divide the two. Studied photography, Sofia assembled her frames delicately to tell not just a story but also capture moments of the characters and scenes exisiting in their own cinema time, just as many artworks do. She is the autuer of a infamous risqué exposition straight from the opening of a close-up of Charlotte’s transparent pink underwear (that was actually a reference from a painter John Kacere) in Lost in Translation (2003), changing the gaze and the way a female story and a female body can be perceived in a film (which contributed to give a license to be free to creatives of the next generations, as a photographer and a director Petra Collins, i.e.). BFI’s YouTube’s channel has a brillaint Q&A with Sofia from 2023 LFF, interviewed by Richard Curtis.
It is fascinating to see each other in that queue, all the girls (and not limited to) who do remember to ask themselves the intuitive questions to keep up with ourselves, our goals and passions. Each one of us has their own story, whether it’s about discovering Coppola’s films or themselves. Just as the girl in front of me confessed in our little chat that she hopped to London as she was in Paris on exchange writing her Masters thesis on French Baroque, which she picked as a major for her BA studies inspired by Coppola’s Marie Antoinette (2006) while having zero knowledge of French language as the time. As Sofia calls it, the scarpbook is pretty much a handbook to savour and keep coming back to the stories from the sets, Sofia’s photographs from these sets and her artefact-archival library of treasures: all the notes, clippers and journals. Almost guiding a reader and having a dialogue about ways and tools for working processes, to be inspired and keep going on your own terms.
Looking back, I’d ask her if I got a chance, what’s her favourite bag – or – and – which she wears most. You got me, the between-Tauruses (or Tauri) stuff.
Wishing great Christmas holidays everyone!
Yours,
5TO9 FC TEAM