Marie-Antoinette
by Brian
So, it seems that the premiere of Sophia Coppola's Marie-Antoinette at Cannes was disastrous. Why am I not surprised?
Sometimes, you can feel critical resistance to a film building, and this was one of those times. I don't know how it happened, but somehow Lost in Translation turned out to be a very divisive film, and I get the feeling that the knives have been out for Coppola ever since the 2003 Oscar nominations were announced.
I'm not saying that the cold reception to Marie-Antoinette isn't justified - how would I know? - but I'm not taking this initial response very seriously, either. I did like Wells's review, though. It's a classic I'll-pan-it-now-but-lay-the-groundwork-for-changing-my-mind-down-the-road kind of piece.
Sometimes, you can feel critical resistance to a film building, and this was one of those times. I don't know how it happened, but somehow Lost in Translation turned out to be a very divisive film, and I get the feeling that the knives have been out for Coppola ever since the 2003 Oscar nominations were announced.
I'm not saying that the cold reception to Marie-Antoinette isn't justified - how would I know? - but I'm not taking this initial response very seriously, either. I did like Wells's review, though. It's a classic I'll-pan-it-now-but-lay-the-groundwork-for-changing-my-mind-down-the-road kind of piece.
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9 Comments:
This film may turn out to be bad, who knows, but I can't base that on A: The audience at Cannes, and B: Jeff Wells. As for Sofia Coppola's track record, I liked The Virgin Suicides, was iffy on Lost in Translation (didn't think it deserved the love that it got).
Yeah, that was a really well done review by Wells. Just can't believe he wrote that in a few hours. Really balanced all areas.
Liked Virgin Suicides a lot, and really dug Lost In Translation.
This criticism that Ms. Coppola has been under ever since Lost In Translation became a critical hit smacks of bitterness and spite. The same vultures crawling out of the woodwork that always come out whenever a former hip and hyped director's winning streak is ended by a not-as-fine film, with their raised noses and snobby 'ooh, anyone could see that he/she totally ripped-off this and him.' Fucking posers.
Still, sad to hear it apparently doesn't measure up to the previous works.
Her films seem to be more about mood and what is not said, which doesn't seem to fit well with the historical biopic...unless, that is, if MA is something like "The New World."
Well with a rock soundtrack and attempts to draw obvious comparisons between Antoinette and Paris Hilton, I hardly think this is going to compare to a Terrence Malick film. Oh, wait, you were making an ironic comment there, weren't you? ;-)
Coppola has enough goodwill for me to see this movie despite the bad buzz (same with Southland Tales).
Same here.
And I've probably said this before but the fact that Kelly's Donnie Darko came to Sundance as hyped as Southland, but was met with silence, then recut to the version infamously released that week in September, makes me take this current onslaught of bad press with a small grain of salt. He's trimming this one too, after all.
I hate that boredom/depression funk that apparenly passes for "mood."
Isn't a "boredom/depression funk" a mood? Feels like a description of the mood I am most commonly found in.
I'm glad this film was poorly received...it looked horrible...and jason shwartzman as french royalty and kristin dunst...i can't take it.
--RC of strangeculture.blogspot.com
The plot thickens: Roger Ebert on the boos.
Chris-frankly, I have a thousand different reasons to see a film. I don't expect to be enriched by every film I see. Sometimes I want to be challenged; sometimes, I just want to see things blow up. I react most negatively to a film when I think that the filmmaker didn't even try to give the film an identity- think "Toys." I have had angry reactions to films that have a premise that is so offensive as to keep me from connecting to it at all (True Lies). I think that there is room out there for films that know that their only reason for existence is to make you laugh, or to make you say "COOL!" While you may not like a character who fails to seek out what Tokyo has to offer, you can't deny that there are people who really would do that. I liked "Lost in Translation." I didn't think I was signing up for a travelogue, so the fact that I saw a very narrow view of Japan was not a surprise. And although the characters were self-absorbed, I didn't react angrily to them, so I was able to watch and enjoy.
I will confess that there have been films I hated simply because I deeply disliked the characters and found their actions to be totally illogical, but this wasn't one of them.
What? I thought surely by now someone would have stepped forward to defend boredom and depression....
I understand what you're saying about boredom, Chris, but at the same time I'm sympathetic to people who feel bored and frustrated with the culture and society that they're living in. That you believe that there is so much to do that there's absolutely no excuse for ever being bored is itself an indicator to me that there could be a reason for someone to feel bored--there seems to be a pressing need inflicted on us by the consumer culture to feel that we must be entertained at all times, we must be busy, we must be doing something--who cares if it's mindless and only distracts us from the things in life that are actually important and meaningful. Trying to break out of that while everyone around you seems caught up in it can lead to some very real boredom.
And what is this "depression is not a mood"? Not to be too pedantic, but I think you're confusing clinical depression with what can actually be a mood (if you do a quick search you will find depression as part of the definition of mood in an online text for psychiatric nursing students at the University of Michigan). I certainly would never have described myself as sad after walking out of a theater having seen the original Apocalypse Now--I felt freakin' depressed. And that was temporary and normal and not due to a chemical imbalance.
BTW, isn't it funny that in a discussion of Sofia Coppola's films and depression and boredom that I would completely coincidentally think of Apocalypse Now without even thinking about it having been directed by Sofia's daddy? Interesting....
Anyway, I completely agree with talentless glitterati poisoning our culture....
And I also agree with lora about Lost in Translation. I enjoyed that film, though I didn't think it was great, and while I did feel some frustration with Scarlet Johannson's character I didn't find it unrealistic, and I could understand Bill Murray's character's state of feeling a bit like a prisoner of his celebrity.
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