Event: Film Screening and Critique
We showed some specific scenes from 3 films, discussed some recurring themes and had a 'show and tell' of our research books and material experiments in our studio.
Much of our analysis of the first two films came from Anna Backman Rogers' (2018) deliciously written critique of Sofia Coppola's work in 'Sofia Coppola: the Politics of Visual Pleasure', where she defiantly deconstructs different aspects of Coppola's maligned visual style to show a feminist reading of Coppola's films. Of course, the Rogers' also acknowledges controversial artistic licenses that Coppola, a very privileged white woman, has taken in films like 'The Beguiled' where the sole black character was removed from her adaptation. However, Rogers' also points to the different ways her films can be read as subversions to film patriarchy.
The Virgin Suicides (1999)
We begun with Sofia Coppola's coming of age film 'The Virgin Suicides'. As The Guardian writes
The film also looks at the violence that young adolescent women, like the Lisbon sisters, are put through even before coming of age by the way the young men fantasise and objectify them, without meaning to.
Marie Antoinette (2006)
We continue exploring Sofia Coppola's films with Marie Antoinette, a revision of the non-fictional character that was met with contempt in Cannes for the way it humanised and 'sympathised' with Marie Antoinette, a woman who has been (wrongly?) credited for the downfall of the French monarchy in the French Revolution. Highly aestheticised, the film shows the way Marie Antoinette is stripped of her Austrian identity, makes references to her young age (she was only 14 at the time of her marriage) and the different expectations that were put upon her body by the court.
Much of our analysis of the first two films came from Anna Backman Rogers' (2018) deliciously written critique of Sofia Coppola's work in 'Sofia Coppola: the Politics of Visual Pleasure', where she defiantly deconstructs different aspects of Coppola's maligned visual style to show a feminist reading of Coppola's films. Of course, the Rogers' also acknowledges controversial artistic licenses that Coppola, a very privileged white woman, has taken in films like 'The Beguiled' where the sole black character was removed from her adaptation. However, Rogers' also points to the different ways her films can be read as subversions to film patriarchy.
The Virgin Suicides (1999)
We begun with Sofia Coppola's coming of age film 'The Virgin Suicides'. As The Guardian writes
"At the centre of The Virgin Suicides, Sofia Coppola’s dreamy yet devastating adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenides’s acclaimed 1993 novel, is an unsolved mystery of the most troubling kind, a puzzle that will never be completed. The questions asked by those in the film, and by us the viewers, will never be fully answered. An attempt to figure out the hows and whys will only ever be that, an attempt. It’s what’s left behind when someone kills themselves, a fog of painful unsureness, a feeling that I filed away as other when I was 16, watching it for the first of many times. As is the case for many teens, the idea had briefly entered my mind at certain low points, but it still felt distant, like looking at something through a camera that isn’t in focus."
The film also looks at the violence that young adolescent women, like the Lisbon sisters, are put through even before coming of age by the way the young men fantasise and objectify them, without meaning to.
Marie Antoinette (2006)
We continue exploring Sofia Coppola's films with Marie Antoinette, a revision of the non-fictional character that was met with contempt in Cannes for the way it humanised and 'sympathised' with Marie Antoinette, a woman who has been (wrongly?) credited for the downfall of the French monarchy in the French Revolution. Highly aestheticised, the film shows the way Marie Antoinette is stripped of her Austrian identity, makes references to her young age (she was only 14 at the time of her marriage) and the different expectations that were put upon her body by the court.
Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
A film by Australian director Peter Weir. Also based on a book, the film is set in 1900, it is about a group of female students at an Australian girls' boarding school who vanish at Hanging Rock while on a Valentine's Day picnic, and the effects the disappearances have on the school and local community.
The film employs textural scenes and curt dialogues, and subtly brings up the tension between the 'wild Australian outback' and the 'civilised', highly artificially mannered young women in the boarding school.
It is a really languid, slow film. We enjoyed the costumes, and the soft diffused lens. It was also a film that inspired Sofia Coppola and it is quite clear to see especially in 'The Virgin Suicides'.
A film by Australian director Peter Weir. Also based on a book, the film is set in 1900, it is about a group of female students at an Australian girls' boarding school who vanish at Hanging Rock while on a Valentine's Day picnic, and the effects the disappearances have on the school and local community.
The film employs textural scenes and curt dialogues, and subtly brings up the tension between the 'wild Australian outback' and the 'civilised', highly artificially mannered young women in the boarding school.
It is a really languid, slow film. We enjoyed the costumes, and the soft diffused lens. It was also a film that inspired Sofia Coppola and it is quite clear to see especially in 'The Virgin Suicides'.
X A Stubborn Bloom X
Comments
Post a Comment