[lit-ideas] Re: Lost in Translation
- From: John Wager <johnwager@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 04 Oct 2005 07:52:08 -0500
david ritchie wrote:
O.K. so at this point I would have written a note to Straker along
these line. Since he's not here, you all get to fill in. I have
just finished watching "Lost in Translation" on DVD. . . . I would
have said to Stephen something about having been completely sucked
into the movie, thinking that Hollywood had learned something from
French and Italian movies about how to consider relations between men
and women, and how to make a talky movie that isn't too talkative.
But then I am overwhelmed by these visuals from the extra piece. The
director, the person who brought this movie into the world, looked
like she had paid a hard emotional price.
I actuallly just watched this again last week, for the second time. I
too really enjoyed it. The second time around it seemed almost a modern
"Divine Comedy." Murry/Dante wakes up literally 'lost" half-way through
his life, in the brightly lit world of Tokyo. He doesn't know how to
make the translation into a more mature life; he's stuck in the past of
his stardom. Along comes Johanssen/Beatrice, who helps him find his way
back into hiis own life. Divine love always comes through other human
beings.
As far as the personalities of Murray and Coppola, you've got to
remember that Murray's background is in improv. He still likes to ham it
up live, without any script, just winging it talking to an interviewer.
But Sofia Coppola is the daughter of Francis Ford Coppola, the notorious
reclusive director. I suspect that she interited some of this
reticence. Look at the other members of the familly: Nickolas Cage
doesn't seem too talkative in interviews, and Sofia's aunt, Talia Shire,
also seems a pretty quiet person. I haven't seen the DVD "extras", but
I'd probably say that the director doesn't seem very comfortable in
front of the camera.
(As a completely irrelevant aside, I used to work with Bill Murray. He
made the pizzas at Little Caesar's and I deliverd them. This was back
before his Second City days in Chicago. He was working on improving his
improv skills. On slow nights, he'd pick up one of the phones and
randomly dial a local number. Sometimes this would be at midnight,
sometimes 11 p.m., sometimes 1 a.m. And then he'd just start talking,
trying to keep the other person on the line as long as he could, just
talking about anything that came into his head. He kept a mark next to
the phone of the number of minutes he'd been able to keep the last
person on the line, and he kept trying to beat his best time.)
--
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"Never attribute to malice that which can be
explained by incompetence and ignorance."
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John Wager johnwager@xxxxxxxxxxx
Forest Park, IL, USA
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