7 Ways Sofia Coppola Captures Isolation — Directing Style Explained

Sofia Coppola Directing Style — a breakdown of seven elements of directing by one of this generation’s stellar auteurs and how she uses them to create isolation around lost protagonists.

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Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction to the work of Sofia Coppola
01:10 - Sofia Coppola on Isolation
01:53 - Story
04:38 - Production Design
07:29 - Color
09:30 - Cinematography
12:32 - Editing
16:30 - Sound Design
19:25 - Music
23:18 - Takeaways

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SOFIA COPPOLA DIRECTING STYLE

Watching the films of Sofia Coppola, one often finds themselves in a certain mood, from the composed and dreamy visuals to the soundtracks that put us into a trance. A consistent story motif in her work deals with isolation — what happens to characters who find themselves isolated or face the possibility of isolation. In this video, we will dissect the Sofia Coppola directing style into elements like cinematography, editing, and sound design to unlock how Coppola constructs this concept and mood.

The most obvious way Sofia Coppola movies present isolation is on a plot level. In The Virgin Suicides, the Lisbon sisters are isolated on house arrest while the group of love-struck neighborhood boys dream of them from afar. Charlotte and Bob are two lost souls who find common ground in the maze of Tokyo. Some characters are trapped in a location, some are trapped in their indecisions, and some are dealing with both quandaries simultaneously.

With production design, Sofia Coppola continues this theme of isolation. For example, in The Beguiled, a group of women are stranded in a schoolhouse during the Civil War. The costumes and set dressing provide subtle clues without clunky exposition. Their dresses are faded, and obvious alterations have been made since they are unable to leave to buy new clothes. Vines grow up the walls of the house while the yard is choked with overgrowth.

Coppola also uses color to separate characters from the worlds around them. In The Bling Ring, the domestic homelife of the teenage thieves is drowned in muted beige palettes while their criminal nightlife bursts with vibrant hues. With cinematography, Coppola will often shoot at a distance from her characters, with abundant negative space in the frame to visually isolate them.

In films like Somewhere, the editing is minimal, allowing scenes to play out in real-time to help put the audience into the same “going nowhere” headspace of the characters. Or, on the other end of the spectrum, we can see how the subjective montage edits in The Virgin Suicides capture the romantic memories of the Lisbon girls.

Finally, the sound and music elements that Coppola is mostly known for. In some cases, the sound design is extra quiet. So much so that we can hear the pull of a cigarette or water dripping into a bathtub. Coppola’s music choices range from daydream melancholy to heartwrenching ballads and everything in between. Their purpose is to put us in the characters' heads so that we can feel the isolation with them.

Few filmmakers can create an introspective mood or dreamy headspace like Sofia Coppola. All of us have felt lost or alone, which is why these small, intimate portraits of similar individuals resonate.


#FilmTheory #VideoEssay #Filmmaking

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♬ SONGS USED:

"Playground Love (Vibraphone Version)" - Air
"My Love for You" - ESG
"I'm Not In Love" - 10cc
"Fantino (Official Audio)" - Sébastien Tellier
"On The Subway" - Brian Reitzell & Roger J. Manning Jr.
"Clouds Up" - Air
"Pulling Our Weight" - The Radio Dept.
"Love Like a Sunset, Pt. 1" - Phoenix
"I Fall In Love Too Easily" - Chet Baker
"Beguiled Theme" - Phoenix
"Tommib" - Squarepusher
"Identical" - Phoenix
"The Word Hurricane" - Air
"Sometimes" - My Bloody Valentine
"Dirty Trip" - Air
"Ce Matin Là"
"Jynweythek" - Aphex Twin
"Goodbye" - Kevin Shields
"Are You Awake?"
"It Might As Well Be Spring" - The Bill Evans Trio
"Strange Magic" - Electric Light Orchestra
"How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?" - Al Green
"Highschool Lover" - Air
"Playground Love"
"Just Like Honey" - The Jesus and Mary Chain
"Girls" - Death in Vegas
"Alone in Kyoto" - Air
"I Get Along Without You Very Well (Except Sometimes)" - Chet Baker
"Ceremony" - New Order
"I Want Candy" - Bow Wow Wow
"212" - Azelia Banks
"State Lines (Instrumental)" - Aaron Kellim

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