Lost in Translation
-J.D. Lafrance, 2013-
-J.D. Lafrance, 2013-
In 1999, Sofia Coppola made her feature film directorial
debut with the spellbinding adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel, The Virgin Suicides. The film was a
modest hit and heralded the young director as an emerging talent. Her follow-up
was a much more personal project, written while she was going through a rough
spot in her marriage and inspired by time she had spent in Japan trying to
figure out what she wanted to do with her life. She poured out her feelings of
loneliness and confusion and the result was Lost
in Translation (2003), an independent film starring Bill Murray and
Scarlett Johansson as two lonely people who meet in a posh Tokyo hotel and bond
over insomnia and absent spouses. Coppola’s film is a fascinating fusion of the
chatty meet-cute between two people in a foreign country from Before Sunrise (1995) with the stylish
existential ennui of Wong Kar-Wai’s In
the Mood for Love (2000). It was a surprise hit, striking a chord with many
who identified with the romantic longing that developed between the two main
characters. Lost in Translation
received numerous awards and critical praise while also establishing Coppola as
a major talent.
With the first appearance of Bob Harris (Bill Murray),
Coppola conveys that disorienting feeling of arriving in a strange place while
being jetlagged. In this case, it is the neon-drenched urban sprawl that is
Tokyo. He’s making a whiskey commercial instead of being at home where his wife
is redecorating his study. Bob is also missing his son’s birthday and doesn’t
seem all that upset about it; or rather he’s resigned himself to it. One gets
the feeling that he’d rather be thousands of miles away than with his family.
He’s an aging action movie star who has probably spent most of his time on
movie sets.
Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) is staying at the same hotel
with her photographer husband John (Giovanni Ribisi). Much like Bob, she can’t
sleep and stays behind in the hotel while he runs off on photo shoots with a
band. We get some insight into how she’s feeling when the young woman calls a
friend back in the United States. They start with the usual idle chit-chat, but
pretty soon she’s choking back tears and blurts out, “I don’t know who I
married,” before quickly ending the conversation so she can cry. It is an
incredibly vulnerable moment that Scarlett Johansson conveys so well. All the
feelings that have been bubbling under the surface finally come out. We’re
never quite sure the source of marital strife between her and John, but it is
probably getting married too young and that he is always busy while she follows
him from job to job.
Bob bravely soldiers on through the commercial, but it isn’t
made easy by his translator who is not telling him exactly what the director wants.
Coppola doesn’t use any subtitles during this scene so that we are as
bewildered and frustrated as Bob. Like Charlotte, he is unhappy; tired of
pimping whisky and is eager to leave the country as soon as possible. That
night, he takes refuge in the hotel bar where the house band (an ex-pat. group
rather amusingly named Sausalito) performs a bad cover of “Scarborough Fair,”
much to his and Charlotte’s bemusement, who is there with John. She buys Bob a
drink and they exchange a nod of acknowledgement from across the room, but
don’t actually meet. This is the beginning of relationship that develops
between these two lonely people who feel lost in Japan and find solace in each
other’s company.
As the film progresses, we get additional insight into the
Charlotte and John’s relationship. Her feelings of estrangement are only
reinforced when she and John run into Kelly (Anna Faris), a popular American
actress in town to promote her latest movie (her press conference is a hoot as
she spouts all kinds of cliché celebrities dish out during these kinds of
junkets). John and Kelly engage in mindless banter (“Oh my god, I have worst
B.O. right now,” she says at one point), much to Charlotte’s bemusement and
thinly-veiled contempt. She has just graduated from college last spring and
isn’t sure what she wants to do.
In his own dry way, Bob has no illusions about his lot in
life as he tells Charlotte that is trip to Japan is basically, “taking a break
from my wife, forgetting my son’s birthday, and getting paid $2 million for
endorsing a whiskey when I could be doing a play somewhere.” Bill Murray
delivers a wonderfully nuanced performance that expands on the sad sack
businessman he played in Wes Anderson’s Rushmore
(1998). Much of the role in Lost in
Translation calls for his trademark charm and dry sarcasm, but it also
requires him to dig deeper the more time Bob spends with Charlotte, allowing
her past his façade. In doing so, Bob lets us in as well and we sympathize with
the actor because we get to know him as he reveals personal details to her.
Towards the end of the film, Bob’s relationship with his
wife gets more fractured as she tells him how their kids miss him, “but they’re
getting used to you not being here. Do I need to worry about you, Bob?” to
which he replies, “Only if you want to.” This is quite possibly the most
heartbreaking line in the film as one assumes that Bob is probably headed for a
divorce once he returns home. His self-destructive habits surface and we get
some insight into why he and his wife are so estranged. This also affects his
friendship with Charlotte and the temporary spell that was cast over them has
been lifted and reality rears its ugly head.
Interspersed throughout Lost
in Translation are little visual interludes, like a nice shot of Charlotte
sitting on the windowsill of her hotel room with the city surrounding her in
the background, that suggest solitude. There is also a montage of sights and
sounds when she leaves the hotel to experience Japanese culture, but finds
navigating public transportation a bit disorienting and overwhelming, which
Coppola conveys through hand-held camerawork that puts us right in the thick of
the city’s hustle and bustle. We see Japanese culture through Charlotte’s eyes
and Coppola does a nice job with these snapshots, gradually immersing us in
this world so that we identify even more with Bob and Charlotte.
The centerpiece of Lost
in Translation is when Bob and Charlotte go out for a night on the town and
meet a few of her friends. This sequence not only allows us to see more of
Japanese culture, but it also gives Murray a chance to riff on the situations
and people Bob and Charlotte encounter. Coppola immerses us fully in the sights
and sounds of the city, like the nightclub that is decorated with huge white
weather balloons that allow images to be projected on them.
If, early on, Coppola seemed to be falling back on Japanese
stereotypes of their people and culture (most notably the prostitute who wants
Bob to “rip her stockings,” which is particularly cartoonish and awkward,
temporarily breaking the hypnotic, dreamy spell that Coppola casts), it is here
she goes deeper and we see that Charlotte’s Japanese friends are just like any
other twentysomethings. There are all kinds of nice touches, like the conversation
Bob carries on with a young Japanese man in French, or the playful image of
Bob, Charlotte and their friends running through the streets while someone
shoots at them with a BB gun. The night culminates in the best moment where
they all hangout at someone’s apartment and end up singing karaoke. Charlotte
(wearing an adorable pink wig) serenades Bob when she sings a cover of “Brass
in Pocket” by The Pretenders while Bob sings “(What’s so Funny ‘Bout) Peace,
Love and Understanding,” before working his way through a surprisingly moving
rendition of “More Than This” by Roxy Music.
It is this scene where Bob and Charlotte forget their
troubles and lose themselves in the moment. We see them smile, laugh and have a
good time. The looks they exchange during this scene suggest a growing
attraction between them. It is rather telling that she is able to sleep for the
first time since she arrived in Japan after the special night they had
together. He is even able to doze off in the taxi ride back to the hotel. What
I find interesting is how their second night out is in sharp contrast to the
first one. Charlotte meets Bob in a cavernous nightclub populated by
unattractive-looking topless dancers gyrating to “Fuck the Pain Away” by
Peaches. They don’t stay long, head back to the hotel where they stop briefly
at the bar, but after spotting Kelly singing “Nobody Does It Better” horribly
off-key they call it a night. Only insomnia keeps them both awake and
eventually she hangs out in his room. They talk deep into the night and
Charlotte eventually confesses to Bob that she’s “stuck” in her life and asks
him, “Does it get any easier?” to which he replies, “The more you know who you
are and what you want, the less you let things upset you.”
Charlotte doesn’t know what she wants to do. She tells him
that she tried writing and photography, but was unhappy with both. Charlotte
asks Bob about marriage and if it gets any easier to which he replies, “That’s
hard,” and speaks wistfully about how he and his wife used to have fun, but
everything got complicated once they had kids. It’s a wonderful scene where we
see these characters at their most vulnerable. Murray drops all his shtick and
conveys an honesty that is surprising. What is so magical about it is how these
two characters are able to coax all of this personal stuff out of each other.
Once they are removed from all the noise and chaos of the world around them are
they able to speak honestly to each other and let down their guard. By this
point, we’ve grown to care about them and have become invested in their
relationship.
Lost
in Translation came from a very personal place, so
much so that Sofia Coppola was worried that very few people would be able to
relate to it. The film was inspired by the time she spent wandering around
Tokyo after graduating from college. A friend of hers was doing a fashion show
in Japan and asked for help producing it. Once there, she met Fumihiro Hayashi
a.k.a. Charlie Brown (who plays himself in the film), who ran a magazine and
hired her to take photographs. She spent a lot of time driving around in her
friend’s car, listening to music and taking in the sights. “Tokyo is just such
an exciting city – totally visually interesting, crazy and overwhelming.” She
also wanted to capture the feeling of being jetlagged in a strange city: “I’ve
had my share of jet-lagged moments. Being in a hotel, and jet-lagged, kind of
distorts everything. Even little things that are no big deal feel epic when
you’re in that mood. Your emotions are exaggerated, it’s hard to find your way
around, it’s lonely.”
Coppola started off writing different little impressions she
had of her time in Tokyo. From that, she wrote a bunch of short stories and
collected pictures for the visuals. She then used that as the basis for her
screenplay. When writing it, Coppola based the character of Charlotte on
herself when she was younger and faced the dilemma of “What am I gonna do?” The
character of Bob Harris was written with Bill Murray in mind and came out of
her imaging what he would be like in Tokyo. She said, “He has something that’s
really sincere and heartfelt, but really funny and at the same time … tragic.”
She was a fan of his movies and always wanted to work with him. Several moments
in the film came from things she had observed in real life, like the hotel bar
band covering “Scarborough Fair,” and seeing her friend Fumihiro Hayashi
performing a karaoke rendition of “God Save the Queen.” After seeing her friend
in action, she realized, “I have to put this in a movie.” She also wanted to
specifically set it at the Park Hyatt hotel because she had stayed there during
her press tour for The Virgin Suicides
and was familiar with it. Coppola spent six months writing the script and
during that time she got stuck after the first 20 pages and went back to Tokyo
to remember the parts of the city she liked.
To help out with the music for the film, Coppola enlisted
the services of Brian Reitzell, veteran member of the Los Angeles band Redd
Kross and who had worked with her on The
Virgin Suicides. Coppola told him the kind of mood she wanted to convey
and, having spent time in Japan as well, he understood what she wanted. Per her
request, Reitzell compiled three mixes, homemade CDs that contained ambient
tracks with artists as varied as Brian Eno and The Jesus and Mary Chain. She
listened to these mixes while writing the script and then played them while
scouting locations. When it came to score the film, Reitzell licensed several
tracks from his mixes and also enlisted the help of My Bloody Valentine
frontman Kevin Shields to help compose some original music. Reitzell said, “I
knew he could capture that droning, swaying, beautiful kind of feeling that we
wanted.”
Coppola saw Scarlett Johansson in Manny & Lo (1996) and thought she was “a cute girl with that
husky voice.” After a brief lunch meeting in a Manhattan diner Coppola cast the
young actress in her film. The director said, “She can convey an emotion
without saying very much at all.” With Murray, Coppola spent eight months
tracking down and trying to convince the notoriously elusive comedian to star
in her film by sending him letters, leaving voicemail messages and asking
mutual friends, like filmmaker Wes Anderson, to put in a good word. All of this
hustling paid off as Murray finally agreed to do the film. However, the actor
had his doubts: “The whole thing felt slight, which was a little troubling,”
but she was persistent and convinced him that this was a passion project for
her.
Coppola did very little rehearsing before filming; just once
with Johansson and Giovanni Ribisi so that they could convincingly play a
married couple. Leading up to principal photography, Coppola was still unsure
if Murray was actually going to show up, but a week before it was to start he
arrived in Japan, much to her relief. The shoot lasted 27 days in Tokyo on a $4
million budget with the cast and crew staying in the Tokyo Hyatt where much of
the film was set. Johansson met Murray in Tokyo and the next day they started
filming so the chemistry that develops between their characters mirrored the
actors in real life. With very little money and shooting permits, Coppola and
her small crew shot a lot of the film guerrilla style, utilizing hand-held
camerawork on the streets and sneaking shots on public transportation.
Much like many of the protagonists in Wong Kar-Wai’s films,
Bob and Charlotte connect for a brief moment in time. It may be fleeting, but
that does not diminish its significance. They were there for each other when
they needed human contact the most, someone to connect with at a low point in
their respective lives when they felt alone and adrift in life. We’ve all felt
this way at some point in our lives, which makes Lost in Translation very relatable. There is a yearning, not just
by the characters, but we are meant to feel it too because we want to see Bob
and Charlotte together despite their marriages to other people. Coppola sums up
this wistful feeling of unrequited love best in the final scene that is scored
to “Just Like Honey” by The Jesus and Mary Chain. Bob hugs Charlotte and
whispers something unintelligible in her ear when the opening drumbeat of the
song kicks in. It is a sublime moment that is rich with emotion because we’ve
been on a journey with these characters and are invested in them. Bob and
Charlotte head back to their respective lives, much like the main characters at
the end of Before Sunrise, with the
knowledge that their lives have been enriched by the brief time they spent
together. Coppola ends on a series of shots of the city, but they look
different because of the journey we’ve been on with these characters. We now
see things in a different way.
***Thanks again to J.D. for this fabulous piece!***
