August 27, 2012
The cinema is home to any number of legendary asses: Bardot, Balthazar, Brett Ratner … and that’s just a sample of the Bs. Filmmakers have used them to a wide variety of ends, most often to tease, tempt, or titillate, but Sofia Coppola uses Scarlett Johansson’s as a cry for help. Her script begins: “The back of a GIRL in pink underwear, she leans at a big window, looking out over Tokyo.” The writing is lucid and spare, but the image, as it appears in the finished film, offers even less information—most critically, the curtain on that big window is pulled closed. The unmistakable sight of Tokyo blinking in the distance might have normalized the frame, deflating the image of its mystery and reducing its components to their most blunt interpretations—that’s Tokyo, that’s a crisp hotel bed, that’s a privileged white ass. Effectively, surrounding that totemic butt with detail would have solved it, which is a tactic counter to the film’s most basic approach to the inner lives of its characters and the rare beauty of the connection they share. But Coppola opts for obfuscation—the girl could be anywhere, but to know her is to learn why she isn’t.

The cinema is home to any number of legendary asses: Bardot, Balthazar, Brett Ratner … and that’s just a sample of the Bs. Filmmakers have used them to a wide variety of ends, most often to tease, tempt, or titillate, but Sofia Coppola uses Scarlett Johansson’s as a cry for help. Her script begins: “The back of a GIRL in pink underwear, she leans at a big window, looking out over Tokyo.” The writing is lucid and spare, but the image, as it appears in the finished film, offers even less information—most critically, the curtain on that big window is pulled closed. The unmistakable sight of Tokyo blinking in the distance might have normalized the frame, deflating the image of its mystery and reducing its components to their most blunt interpretations—that’s Tokyo, that’s a crisp hotel bed, that’s a privileged white ass. Effectively, surrounding that totemic butt with detail would have solved it, which is a tactic counter to the film’s most basic approach to the inner lives of its characters and the rare beauty of the connection they share. But Coppola opts for obfuscation—the girl could be anywhere, but to know her is to learn why she isn’t.

1:51pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZHOMWuSFYLiO
(Notes: 294)
  
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