Letters to the Editor
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Captivating
What a well-written an intriguing review. I wasn't in the least interested in seeing this film before I read it; now I'm definitely going to!
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Sometimes A Shallow Director is Just a Shallow Director
There's an old and very true adage that the easiest way to please the pretentious is to produce an object that is unbelieavably shallow and blank; their insecure need to find something meaningful is greatly helped when they're working with a clean slate they can effortlessly project on.
Such is Sofia Coppola, a director who, a la Freud and his cigars, really IS just a bad director who makes simplistic, superficially shiny movies. Of course, since she passes for "stylish" in a Sex and the City middle-aged way and comes from a lordly pedigree, reviewers and pretentious film fans are all too willing to overlook the incredible juvenility and pausity of insight in movies like the risible Amos and Andy minstrel show Lost in Translation and assume that the cheesily cliche dialogue and themes are somehow allusions to something deeper and nuanced. The most obvious and well-supported allegation is the true one: Sofia Coppola is a spoiled, fashion-obsessed heirress who gives embarrassingly trite interviews and makes flashy movies that have all the sincere undergraduate depth of Safran Foer novels.
I mean, is there anything more criminal, artistically tone deaf, and indicative of her ditzy collegiate mindset than the fact that she aped the Sex Pistols Nevermind the Bullocks cover art in the advertisements for her hagiography of Marie f'n Antoinette. I mean, really?
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Shallow director or just unimaginative viewer?
That sounds much more antagonistic than I intended... but I'm guessing it got your attention ;)
Actually, my point is that Sofia Coppola seems to me to have her own distinctive voice as a director. With each new film it becomes more defined to the viewer. It's cetainly not for everyone, and if you think she has nothing to say, I agree. She has nothing to say - to you. There are plenty of lauded directors I avoid like the flu because - to me - their 'art' is like nails on a chalkboard. I'm not saying they have no talent. Simply that I don't get it and it's not for me.
Maybe I don't 'get' Coppola in the way she or the critics intended, but I see something in her films, and take away much more than initially seems to be in on the screen. How much is her & how much is me? I dont care.
It takes a skilled chef AND a discerning diner to make a great meal. I for one have liked what I've seen from Ms Coppola, and look forward to seeing her take on Marie Antionette.
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How anyone can accuse Sophia Coppola of being shallow...
is beyond me. I thought Virgin Suicides was gorgeous, everything about it was wonderful, from the score by Air to the slow dreamy narration. I can't wait to see Marie Antoinette. I loved Stephanie Zacharek's comment about the critics clutching their Mao jackets! Hilarious!
Coppola is a female director which almost always draws the wrath of the patriarchal film critics who prefer tortured heroin addicted transgender males or deep mysterious gay cowboys as the protaganists. Let's face it, most film critics have an agenda, and it's usually quite male-centric and to a degree Marxist. They hate anything that has a whiff of too much extravagance or femininity...they want the drab Marxist look of dark stiff wool and burlap, not silk, chiffon, and feathers.
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Way to go, tonia
Coppola is a female director which almost always draws the wrath of the patriarchal film critics who prefer tortured heroin addicted transgender males or deep mysterious gay cowboys as the protaganists
Ha! That's exactly it. Triteness is also rarely recognized in meaningless, dark and brooding male movies (think David Lynch).
As visually and aurally stunning pieces, just the presentation of Coppola's movies can be admired on the surface, and whatever you find below the surface is up to you.
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Gillo Pontecorvo Died Today
But that's a topic better suited to Salon's critic that handles the grown-up movies.
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Quelle atrocity.
This article is not only rambling, but completely lacking in substance, very much like the film itself. Perhaps the writer of this puff piece should consider their personal intake of sugar before sitting down to write this meaningless prose. Not to mention the awkardness of ending the piece with cliched rock music quotes that aren't just ill-fitted, but read sophmoric...at best.
Maybe this writer should consider another career, perhaps in baking.
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Let them eat cake!
I can't wait to see this movie next week up in the City.
Nice review.
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Marie Antoinette
Thankyou Stephanie Zacharek for a brilliant, perceptive review on this movie. Yours is the best I have read. You are without a doubt the best movie critic writing today. Many, many thanks.
Richard Crawford
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Okay, please, let's have some decency
Does the following review -- so garishly over-the-top and bordering on insane -- REALLY deserve to get an "editorial star" for insight and interest to the readership at large?
"Thankyou Stephanie Zacharek for a brilliant, perceptive review on this movie. Yours is the best I have read. You are without a doubt the best movie critic writing today. Many, many thanks."
Are you handing out stars like a teacher handing out red star stickers for the kid that is the most obedient brown nose? This is ridiculous.
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The people that complain the most...
rarely bother to pay for a subscription. These "letters to the editors" are the worst thing Salon has ever implemented. It invites trolls to post.
I look forward to seeing this film. I've enjoyed other Sofia Coppola films, even before I knew she was the daughter of someone famous (yes, I'm that out of touch). Fluff or not, I find them entertaining. Perhaps I'm not sophisticated enough to realize what crap they are, but I watch movies to be entertained first and foremost. If they make me think and want to learn more, all the better. As long as you don't go to Marie Antoinette expecting a historically accurate film you shouldn't be disappointed.
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Coppola Interrupta
Anyone who says Sofia and/or Francis Coppola have no depth is sadly mistaken. They are so deep, in fact, that within minutes of starting to watch any one of their movies I, too, am deep ---deep in slumber.