How Sofia Coppola uses music to shape her work
For a long time, it was rare for the voices and stories of teenage girls and young women to be taken seriously on screen. Yet, when Sofia Coppola made her debut feature, The Virgin Suicides, she opened up a world that was unashamedly feminine, taking the struggles of teenage girls into account with her tragic story of female subordination at the hands of traditionalism and patriarchal expectations. By giving her female characters complete agency and highlighting the horrors of the male gaze, Coppola’s film connected with girls across the world.
The movie is defined by its stunning visuals, with scenes bathed in pastel colours and sets decorated with florals, girlish items, and religious iconography. Yet, one of the main elements that tie the whole film together is the soundtrack, an original score courtesy of the French band Air.
In Coppola’s cinematic world, music is a vital element that brings everything together. Whether the music perfectly reflects the atmosphere of the film or purposefully acts in contrast, many of Coppola’s films are noted for their gorgeous and unforgettable soundtracks.
Air’s dreamy score for The Virgin Suicides helps to place us in the Lisbon sisters’ world, where daydreams keep them afloat while their parents banish them from having fun. Yet, many of these ethereal tracks are juxtaposed with darkness to convey the tragedy at the heart of the film. Songs like the ominous ‘Dark Messages’ and the chaotic ‘The Word Hurricane’, with its explosion of piano and drums, reflect the downward spiral that takes place within The Virgin Suicides, and it couldn’t be a more perfect soundtrack for Coppola’s captivating creation.
With her next film, Lost in Translation, Coppola employed My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields to record some pieces for the film. The shoegaze maestro created several original songs for the soundtrack, including ‘City Girl’, as well as donating one of his band’s most beloved tracks, ‘Sometimes’. These songs contain a melancholic essence, a bittersweet beauty lurks within the thick layers of guitar and reverb, evoking the feelings of loneliness and alienation felt by the main characters, Charlotte and Bob.
With other songs like the Jesus and Mary Chain’s ‘Just Like Honey’ and Air’s ‘Alone in Kyoto’ featuring in the film, Coppola brings a hazy palette of dreamy indie to Lost in Translation, which feels like the sonic equivalent of the film’s visuals. Moreover, the karaoke sequence, in which Charlotte and Bob perform tracks by The Pretenders, Nick Lowe, and Roxy Music, serves as a unique language between the characters, who connect as they loosen up and embrace the night.
Coppola took viewers back a few centuries for Marie Antoinette, exploring the young queen’s isolation and struggle to come of age and navigate her duty despite being just a teenager. To communicate her naiveté and youthfulness – and emphasise that Antoinette might not have been as dissimilar from modern young girls as we might think – Coppola used several devices to give her relatability. Not only did she purposefully show a pair of discarded Converse trainers in the back of one scene, but she also used many songs from the ‘70s and ‘80s – when the director herself grew up.
Using songs by artists like Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cure, Bow Wow Wow, Adam and the Ants, and New Order, Coppola communicated an atmosphere of rebellion, fun, and youthfulness. At the same time, for the movie’s more melancholic moments, she used some mellow modern songs, most prominently, Aphex Twin’s ‘Avril 14th’.
Priscilla, Coppola’s most recent release, also uses anachronistic musical choices, such as songs performed by her husband’s band, Phoenix. There’s a real mix of songs that are accurate to the time period, such as cuts from Brenda Lee, Frankie Avalon, Dolly Parton, and The Soul Stirrers, as well as covers like the Ramones’ 1980 version of The Ronettes’ ‘Baby, I Love You’. Just like Marie Antoinette, Coppola’s music choices serve to emphasise the young protagonist’s innocence and the fact she was just a teenage girl who was sadly sucked into a world that would take advantage of her.
The use of Parton’s ‘I Will Always Love You’ is one of the most poignant sequences in the film. The song soundtracks Priscilla’s painful yet powerful exit from Graceland after leaving Elvis Presley. The song emphasises just how difficult it was to truly let go, in spite of everything, and even carries real significance—Presley sang the song to his ex-wife as they left the courthouse after divorcing.
Coppola knows the power of using the right songs in her films. For many, it’s hard not to imagine Emma Watson’s awkward dancing in The Bling Ring when Azealia Banks’ ‘212’ plays; the same goes for ‘I Want Candy’, which brings to mind images of Kirsten Dunst trying on pretty shoes and eating extravagant desserts in Marie Antoinette. Out of every filmmaker from her generation, Coppola is easily one of the greatest to make the best and most poignant uses of music within her gorgeous cinematic worlds.
