Sofia Coppola and So-Called "Feminism"
Added 2021-05-07 19:30:46 +0000 UTCI'm getting annoyed by the new wave feminists saying Sofia Coppola is a misunderstood artist. What is misunderstood about her? She makes films often emphasizing the pastel feminine aesthetic, but they are rather empty headed emotionally and thematically. Personally, it's these kinds of characteristics I'd like to move away from. Let's move away from the obsession with mise en scene and focus more on the content. It has nothing to do with whether you are a female or not. Who gives a shit? Sofia Coppola is not misunderstood. She has a great eye, but lacks the depth of greater artists out there. Her talent is more in the visuals, and I see a lot of the rest of her success stemming more from nepotism. I get so sick of the gimmick where being a woman automatically means you deserve some sort of credit or merit from the academy. Nah....just be good. Enough with the identity politics.
Comments
I was skeptical of Barbie when it was announced but I’m happy to give Gerwig the benefit of the doubt after her first two movies.
Jim Barnes
2021-05-09 04:03:47 +0000 UTCCurious to hear your thoughts on Gerwig’s adaptation of Little Women since you were such a big fan of Lady Bird. I quite liked it although found it mostly on the surface and a bit basic in certain aspects but her live action Barbie movie starring Margot Robbie sounds really interesting if you haven’t heard about that yet.
Dan Tedesco
2021-05-08 22:47:46 +0000 UTCI’ve still only seen the virgin suicides, and that was recently when I got it on criterion. it was fine. I wasn’t blown away. Visually very good looking film, but it didn’t make me want to take a deeper dive into her work.
Shaeffer Holt
2021-05-08 03:13:29 +0000 UTCI agree that Greta Gerwig is the one these days getting all the love and praise for being our Great Woman Director. I like her films well enough, but I hated the ending for Little Women. It was far too late in the story for Gerwig to be playing metatextual games with the audience regarding Jo’s story and whether it was feminist or not for her to end up with a man. She was trying to have it both ways: an ending that was”faithful” to the novel while still upholding modern feminist sensibilities about being independent.
Bennett Oliver
2021-05-07 23:12:15 +0000 UTCb a s e d
Arthur Augustyn
2021-05-07 23:02:07 +0000 UTCReposting this comment from before. The spam filter dropped it for being too wordy, so I split it up into two parts. When even Patreon is telling you that you’re going on for too long, it’s time to start aiming for a little more brevity. I’ll try to be more concise in the future.
Bennett Oliver
2021-05-07 22:43:46 +0000 UTCLol forgot she made the Bling Ring yikes
jared Clarke
2021-05-07 22:42:55 +0000 UTCBut because she deals so much in subtlety and subtext—what DOESN’T get said between people—I think her films get mistaken for being deeper than they are. Just because there are things going on beneath the surface of her films doesn’t mean there is a whole lot going on. Yes, there’s melancholy, and the need to break out of a detached state to make a connection in her characters, but ultimately they’re merely films about an offbeat romance and a father-daughter bonding. They’re well-made, but they’re slight. Coppola’s a talented filmmaker, but there’s not a lot on her mind. Which is too bad because I don’t think that was always the case. The Virgin Suicides is a different film from her later ones in that it strives to go deeper than any of them. It is a solid, confident debut, as well as a haunting film. It’s been years since I’ve seen it, but I still remember the sequence where the boys go to visit the girls—for the last time.
Bennett Oliver
2021-05-07 22:40:24 +0000 UTCAs far as Sofia Coppola goes, I don’t think she holds the same cachet that she did in her Lost in Translation days. I remember her getting dinged pretty badly in the press for not addressing race in The Beguiled (apparently the slaves are sent away from the 19th century estate in the beginning of the film). She got labeled as a “white feminist” with all the supposed myopia that entails. I haven’t seen the film, so I can’t speak to its flaws, but when I think of Coppola’s work, I can’t help but think of the word “slight”. She tends to focus on a very specific area—that of the rarefied world of the famous and privileged in films like Lost in Translation and Somewhere. Because she grew up in that world, she gets the surface details just right. And because of her visual talent, we experience the ambience of a movie star doing a press junket or shooting a commercial in a foreign land, as well as the quiet alienation that can envelop someone that lives in that atmosphere for too long.
Bennett Oliver
2021-05-07 22:39:51 +0000 UTCI don’t have strong opinions on Coppola. I saw Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation years ago and barely remember them. I saw Marie Antoinette a couple of years ago and thought it was OK, and The Beguiled was meh. Haven’t seen anything else. I agree with the commenter who called her work “slight.” Seems like a good description. Not to feel bad for someone with the advantages she has had in the business because of her father, but I do feel she gets it on both sides from different critics. On the one hand, she is often put forth as the one female director who is supposed to be alongside the most widely revered directors — Tarantino, PTA, Coens. She’s clearly not in that class, but she ends up carrying the mantle for her gender. Greta Gerwig is the new Coppola, though I liked both of Gerwig’s movies very much. I think she has a chance to be in that top class. But the commenter is right that Coppola has also come in for some “white feminist” criticism from the left that just shut down any discussion of The Beguiled. I agree that much more has been written about her, for all these reasons, than is deserved.
Jim Barnes
2021-05-07 22:07:20 +0000 UTCSo far, Jenkins' first Wonder Woman, despite some flaws, was damn good! Women were represented well and the character was perfectly written and portrayed. And then Jenkins through all that credibility out the window with WW84 and RUINED the character, and just women in general. Her feminist agenda was off-putting.
Tony Moro
2021-05-07 21:03:43 +0000 UTCContemporary neoliberals are fairly hollow in their ideology because their viewpoint is status quo. It's resulted in intellectual stagnation. They have nothing important to say anymore that hasn't already been said in the past 60 years. They're no longer revolutionaries, they're cheerleaders. It's no longer a revolution but a pep rally. As for their defense of Coppola, I don't have much to say other than these people will defend a female director simply because she's a female director. They're more concerned with demographical representation than actual artistic merit or content. Coppola could be churning out comic book superhero movies and they'd preach her accolades.
Ryan
2021-05-07 20:45:26 +0000 UTCDare I say: there aren't really that many good, non-controversial female directors out there. Bigelow is MAYBE an exception.
Tony Moro
2021-05-07 20:02:07 +0000 UTCThese people piss me off. They don't know a goddamn thing about artistry or filmmaking and have no desire to but think they know everything. This attitude is why most guys, including myself, have given up on dating.
Wolfman Brandon
2021-05-07 19:57:30 +0000 UTCThat's totally fair. Who are directors or films that successfully express feminist ideals and themes then to you? What are those films that do have that focus on content rather than just mise en scene in regards to feminism? This is genuine curiosity from someone that's fairly ignorant in case that wasn't clear.
Tyler Shobe
2021-05-07 19:50:18 +0000 UTCYeah I do like Virgin Suicides a lot. I've reviewed it even. Beyond that her films are a struggle for me. She never quite found that same balance for me again. I think her remake of The Beguiled really exposed her weaknesses in a glaring fashion.
Deepfocuslens
2021-05-07 19:46:45 +0000 UTCWell said definitely thinks she’s overrated. don’t wanna be one of those who dismisses her because of nepotism or privilege, because she definitely has talent (I like 2 of her movies) but it feels like whenever people grandstand about women directors they only bring up a couple of names. I only here these representation arguments for Hollywood mainstream things, it reads to me as super shallow. Where’s this energy for filmmakers like Lucrecia Martell or Clair Denis who are actually making interesting challenging work.
jared Clarke
2021-05-07 19:45:06 +0000 UTCBut I kinda hate grouping people based on gender or race or anything like that. My focus tends to be more on how I respond to the art itself, personally.
Deepfocuslens
2021-05-07 19:44:16 +0000 UTCDo you mean in modern day? If so, I don't think there are many I really connect with personally other than Julia Ducournau. She hasn't done a lot, but thus far I am really impressed by her.
Deepfocuslens
2021-05-07 19:42:32 +0000 UTCOut of curiosity, who are, in your eyes, some of the great female filmmakers of cinema?
Tyler Shobe
2021-05-07 19:37:39 +0000 UTC
