Lost in Translation (film)
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| Lost in Translation | |
|---|---|
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| Directed by | Sofia Coppola |
| Produced by | Ross Katz Sofia Coppola |
| Written by | Sofia Coppola |
| Starring | Bill Murray Scarlett Johansson |
| Music by | Brian Reitzell Kevin Shields |
| Cinematography | Lance Acord |
| Editing by | Sarah Flack |
| Distributed by | Focus Features |
| Release date(s) | October 3, 2003 |
| Running time | 102 min. |
| Language | English/Japanese |
| Budget | $4,000,000 |
| Gross revenue | $44,566,004 |
| IMDb profile | |
Lost in Translation is an Academy Award-winning 2003 comedy-drama film. It centers on Bob Harris (Bill Murray), an American movie star whose career (and seemingly, marriage) is in decline. The film joins him as he arrives in Tokyo, Japan to film a Suntory whisky commercial. Unfulfilled with the work, he meets Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), a recent Yale philosophy graduate who is unsure of the direction she would like her life to take. She is married to a celebrity photographer (played by Giovanni Ribisi), and is in Japan to accompany her husband on work trip to take publicity photos for a rock band and, later, a female movie star, but has become bored and lonely due to her husband's preoccupation with work. Although both are married, Bob and Charlotte share a friendship that borders on unconsummated romance, while briefly exploring the cultural life of Tokyo and the surrounding area. The central focus of the film is on the two characters' feelings of alienation, not only with their immediate Japanese surroundings, but their own separate senses of alienation from those closest to them, and their uncertainty about the direction of their lives.
Superficially, Lost in Translation is a movie about culture shock. The film explores these themes against the background of the modern Japanese cityscape.
It was the second feature film written and directed by Sofia Coppola, after The Virgin Suicides. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Bill Murray, and Best Director for Sofia Coppola. Coppola won Best Original Screenplay.
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[edit] Plot
Aging movie star Bob Harris (Bill Murray) has arrived in Tokyo to film a Suntory whisky advert (a reference to real-life Hollywood actors who do foreign celebrity advertising, including Sofia Coppola's father, Francis Ford Coppola, who did Suntory commercials with Akira Kurosawa during the filming of Kagemusha[1]).
Charlotte (played by Scarlett Johansson) is the young wife of a celebrity photographer on assignment in Tokyo. Left behind by her husband when he goes to his photo shoots, she is unsure of her present and her future and about the man she has married. Bob's relationship with his wife of 25 years is clearly tired and lacking in romance, as revealed in his telephone calls back to the US. Bob and Charlotte, both lonely and directionless, meet in the bar of the hotel where they are both staying and strike up a friendship. The two explore Tokyo together, experiencing the differences between Japanese and American culture. The two grow close through their adventures and the time they spend together when neither can sleep.
On the penultimate night of his stay, Bob attracts the attention of the resident vocalist of the hotel bar. The next morning, Bob awakens to find this woman in his room and Charlotte waiting for him. The pair have a brief conflict when they later meet at a restaurant, seemingly over Bob's sleeping with this other woman. Later that night, during a fire alarm, they reconcile and express how they will miss each other.
On the morning of his departure, as Bob is in his taxi to the airport, he sees Charlotte on a crowded street. He asks his driver to stop, gets out, and pursues Charlotte. When he reaches her, the two face each other for a long moment and then embrace. Bob whispers something in the tearful Charlotte's ear, kisses her, and then departs. The movie ends leaving a completely ambiguous answer to the question of whether their relationship will continue.
[edit] Parting words
In the film's final scene, Bob whispers something to Charlotte and kisses her, actions that were not in the script. The actors and Sofia Coppola have refused to disclose in interviews what Bob says. Some fans and professionals (such as the BBC) have attempted to decipher the quote, but there is no consensus on what is said.
[edit] Lost in translation
The concept of "lost in translation" occurs throughout the film with a number of meanings,[2] and one scene illustrates it quite literally. Bob (Bill Murray), a Japanese director (Yutaka Tadokoro), and an interpreter (Takeshita) are on a set, filming the whisky commercial. The audience witnesses several exchanges in which the director speaks several long sentences, with passion, followed by a brief, pithy translation from the interpreter. The scene (like all the film's Japanese dialogue) is played without subtitles, so that viewers who do not speak Japanese feel quite as lost as Bob does.
- Director [in Japanese, to the interpreter]: The translation is very important, O.K.? The translation.
- Interpreter [in Japanese, to the director]: Yes, of course. I understand.
- Director [in Japanese, to Bob] Mr. Bob. You are sitting quietly in your study. And then there is a bottle of Suntory whiskey on top of the table. You understand, right? With wholehearted feeling, slowly, look at the camera, tenderly, and as if you are meeting old friends, say the words. As if you are Bogie in Casablanca, saying, Cheers to you guys, Suntory time!
- Interpreter [In English, to Bob]: He wants you to turn, look in camera. O.K.?
- Bob: That's all he said?[3]
[edit] Locations
The bar featured throughout the film is the New York Bar, situated on the 52nd floor of the Park Hyatt Tokyo hotel in Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo.[4] Other locations include the Heian Jingu shrine in Kyoto and the steps of the giant San-mon gate at Nanzen-ji. All locations mentioned in the film are the names of actual places, bars or businesses that existed in Tokyo at the time of filming.
[edit] Reaction
Boosted by critical acclaim and audience word-of-mouth, this modest feature film (with only a $4 million budget[5]) became a comparative box office hit, returning over $45M in receipts from the U.S. alone. Lost in Translation has been praised not only for Coppola's script and distinctive directing, but also for the work of Murray, who by many accounts gave the performance of his career.[6] Johansson also received notice for her strong performance. Overall, Roger Ebert gave the film four stars, describing it as "sweet and sad at the same time as it is sardonic and funny."
Some reviewers criticized the film's purposely vague ending, in which Coppola skirted the concept of denouement and left the conclusion entirely up to the opinions of viewers. For example, Noel Megahey of DVD Times considered this device a "cheat" on the audience and argued that the film was "equally as endearing as frustrating for viewers".[7]
One of the most negative reviews came from Kiku Day – a reviewer for British newspaper The Guardian – who strongly criticized the movie for what she claimed was "anti-Japanese racism". The reviewer cited the film as an example of how Hollywood was, as she saw it, "the handmaiden to perpetuating the belief of the superiority of US cultural values over all others" and characterized director Coppola as "the thinking person's Sylvester Stallone".[8]
[edit] Awards
| Academy Awards record | |
|---|---|
| 1. Best Original Screenplay, Sofia Coppola | |
| Golden Globe Awards record | |
| 1. Best Picture - Musical/Comedy | |
| 2. Best Actor - Musical/Comedy, Bill Murray | |
| 3. Best Screenplay, Sofia Coppola | |
| BAFTA Awards record | |
| 1. Best Editing, Sarah Flack | |
| 2. Best Actor, Bill Murray | |
| 3. Best Actress, Scarlett Johansson | |
- The film won an Oscar for best original screenplay. It was also nominated for best director (the first time an American woman was nominated for this award), picture and actor.
- The film won Golden Globes for best musical or comedy motion picture, screenplay, and musical or comedy actor. It was also nominated for best director, and musical or comedy actress.
- At the BAFTA film awards, the film won the best editing, actor and actress awards. It was also nominated for best film, director, original screenplay, music and cinematography.
- It won four IFP Independent Spirit Awards, for best feature, director, male lead, and screenplay.
[edit] Cast
| Ratings | |
|---|---|
| Argentina: | 13 |
| Australia: | PG (cut) |
| Brazil: | 14 |
| Canada: | PG (all other provinces) |
| Canada (Alberta): | 14A |
| Canada (Quebec): | G |
| Chile: | TE |
| Finland: | K-11 |
| Germany: | 6 |
| Hong Kong: | IIB |
| Hungary: | 14 |
| Iceland: | L |
| Italy: | T |
| Malaysia: | 18PL (cut) |
| Netherlands: | AL |
| New Zealand: | PG |
| Norway: | A |
| Peru: | PT |
| Portugal: | M/12 |
| Singapore: | PG (cut) |
| South Korea: | 15 |
| Spain: | 13 |
| Sweden: | Btl |
| United Kingdom: | 15 |
| United States: | R |
- Bill Murray as Bob Harris
- Scarlett Johansson as Charlotte
- Giovanni Ribisi as John
- Anna Faris as Kelly
- Fumihiro Hayashi as Charlie Brown[9]
- Akiko Takeshita as Ms. Kawasaki
- Catherine Lambert as the Jazz Singer
- François Du Bois as the Pianist
- Tim Leffman as the Guitarist
- Kazuyoshi Minamimagoe as Press agent
- Kazuko Shibata as Press agent
- Take as Press agent
- Ryuichiro Baba as Concierge
- Takashi Fujii as TV host (as Matthew Minami)
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ 1980s Suntory Whisky Advertisements.
- ^ Rich, Motoko (2003-09-21). What Else Was Lost in Translation. The New York Times. Retrieved on 2007-11-04. “It doesn't take much to figure out that "Lost in Translation," the title of Sofia Coppola's elegiac new film about two lonely American souls in Tokyo, means more than one thing. There is the cultural dislocation felt by Bob Harris (Bill Murray), a washed-up movie actor, and Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), a young wife trying to find herself. They are also lost in their marriages, lost in their lives. Then, of course, there is the simple matter of language.”
- ^ Rich, Motoko (2003-09-21). What Else Was Lost in Translation. The New York Times. Retrieved on 2007-11-04.
- ^ Tokyo Bars: New York Bar, Peak Bar, Hotel Park Hyatt Tokyo, Japan
- ^ Lisa Armstrong (2008-06-04). Sofia Coppola: I'm more interested in looking than being looked at. The Times. Retrieved on 2008-06-03.
- ^ Roger Ebert: "These are two wonderful performances. Bill Murray has never been better."
- ^ DVDTimes review
- ^ Day, Kiku (2004-01-24). Totally lost in translation. Guardian Unlimited. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved on 2007-11-04.
- ^ Charlotte: Why do they call you Charlie Brown?
Charlie Brown: Everybody says, Charrie Brown, Charrie Brown. He rooks riek, Charrie Brown. You know, Snoopy, man!
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Official site
- Lost in Translation at the Internet Movie Database
- Review by Roger Ebert
- Guardian article on the film's perceived racism
- Draft Script (9/2/2002 draft)
- An audio analysis of the whisper in the final scene which purports to reveal what Murray's character said.
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| Awards | ||
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| Preceded by Chicago |
Golden Globe for Best Picture - Musical or Comedy 2003 |
Succeeded by Sideways |
