pullquote

Somewear

While teaching the Sofia Coppola section of my class, I've been dressing with each week's film in mind. Appropriate, right? Especially given Coppola's paratextual auteur persona as fashion icon. So, shlumpy button-down and Chuck lo-tops a la Charlotte, a cinched-waist knee-length black linen jacket whose shawl collar and peplum gestured toward Marie Antoinette's court silhouettes as its material recalled the simpler muslin garb at Petit Trianon. Never anything too extreme or on the nose, so stolen hoochy club couture for next week's screening of The Bling Ring is out. But today I am wearing the closest approximation of the above look, which accompanies an interview with Coppola about this week's film, Somewhere, that an Italo-Irish 40-something female employee of a state university could muster. It made me laugh all day.

Sometimes amusing oneself is the best way to approach the performative aspect of teaching. It also feels like an homage to Miriam Hansen, who we noticed dressed for the films she taught us in a way that's hard to describe, but I remember being unmistakeable when we watched Johnny Guitar with her. No one would accuse Hansen of frivolity.

Finally, from another Somewhere interview, an amusing exchange, one where the filmmaker reveals herself fully cognizant of the nepotism/female-informed construction of Sofia Coppola as auteur:

Q: You won an Oscar for writing "Lost in Translation." You were also nominated for directing it -- making you one of the few women in history to get a directing nomination. When Kathryn Bigelow won earlier this year for "The Hurt Locker," did you feel a sense of pride or kinship?

A: "I appreciate that she's doing her thing, but I don't relate to her work more than a guy's just because she's a woman. I was happy that she won because it was especially fun seeing her win against her ex-husband! (laughs)"

The Paratextual Auteur

One of the concepts I came across in my research on Wes Anderson for this course I'm teaching advanced the notion of Anderson as "dependent auteur," where his relationships with folks like Randall Poster and Mark Mothersbaugh and the materials in various Criterion extras somehow all contributed to his profile as an auteur, yes, but one who relied on folks like the aforementioned to realize his strong, singular vision.

Not surprisingly, I found as I moved on to Sofia Coppola a lot lot less in the way of scholarly articles. But I was seized with the idea of how her coverage in the fashion press (relationships with Marc Jacobs, Louis Vuitton, and other luxury brands) as well as the emphasis on nepotism (another luxury brand?) in profiles could themselves be considered as paratextual aspects of her auteur persona.

So I showed the kids Rumble Fish, featuring Domino. And then this week--because I also want to explore hotels across both makers' work--I showed them "Life without Zoe," the script a young Sofia co-wrote with her father, who directed the segment for inclusion in 1989's New York Stories.

I saw this film in its theatrical release, and hated it relative to the Scorsese and Allen contributions. I've since seen Six in Paris and other omnibus films that give this effort context. But now I focus on the paratextual.

The credit sequence is on a first-name basis, just like descriptions of the young Coppola's life have tended to emphasize. The Fieldston girls wear Chanel. And there's the Sherry Netherland, where young Coppola lived. What happens to a hotel when it becomes your home?

Anyway, it's still an infuriating fairy tale, but one I feel more people should watch before they write think-pieces about Coppola, privilege, The Bling Ring or whatever. Face it. Sofia Coppola is not like us. Not because of material advantage per se as much as sometimes she grew up in New York hotels and sometimes she went to school in Oklahoma, and sometimes she lived in the Philippines, and that is her normal.