The Audience Dependency of Sofia Coppola’s Observational Cinema

The director’s best work is that which is most open to interpretation.

Sofia Coppola gave us the delicate moment of secrecy when Bill Murray whispers something completely inaudible into Scarlett Johansson’s ear at the ending of Lost in Translation. But this sense of observational interest (not the omnipotence some directors impose upon their audiences) permeates all her work.

Coppola’s interest in imperfection and malleability isn’t purely her own – it’s something she pushes on to us while we watch her movies.

This video by essayist Sofia Mendonça Cruz collects these moments and pushes them through the framework of observational cinema and a grander tradition of ethnographic and neorealist cinema.

Related Topics: Sofia Coppola, Video

Jacob Oller writes everywhere (Vanity Fair, The Guardian, Playboy, FSR, Paste, etc.) about everything that matters (film, TV, video games, memes, life).