"Without daddy's money backing up her efforts, Coppola's emaciated screenplay would still be smoldering on her hard drive as the author worked the 10-4 shift at the Starbucks on Figueroa" Pete Vondor Haar, Film Threat
Not sure if the ad hominem is necessary(however hilarious), but at any rate, Marie Antoinette, the latest from Sofia Coppola, is a cinematic disappointment on just about every level. Although cinematographer Lance Accord(all Spike Jonze videos, Lost in Translation) does his best to capture some truly magnificently framed, drawn out takes, ultimately it is the preexisting architecture of Versaille and the superb costume design that do most of the work. Haar probably is correct in pointing the finger at Coppola's under-developed script. What this film lacks most, and where its true failure lies, is in its lack of any emotion, of any yearning. To me, it seems that if a film is to succeed at being slow, methodic, and for the most part, void of dialogue, it must also contain a yearning melancholy, a yearning for the sublime (read: every Terrance Malick film). Also I'm not sure if this type of film can also have the music video montage aesthetic as well - if it can, I suppose Lost in Translation is the example. Writer/Director David Mamet said, "You have to earn your montages," yet in this film, montages would pop in and out of the film, disrupting plot lines with quick visual pleasures that simply did not work. If you're going to make a revisionist bio-pic with a new wave and post-punk soundtrack, why not take it all the way? Why not be truly experimental and modernize everything - all of the dialogue, all of the soundtrack, etc. Can't people learn that making a biopic about someone's entire life is extremely difficult (Scorcese failed) - just focus on one section - the most intense section. Watching a film about a girl who is bored is boring.
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