3.29 - THE VIRGIN SUICIDES and Teenage Memory

This week, as Sam returns from intensive Dadding, we start on our next director: Sofia Coppola. Our first focus is on her debut, her adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenides’s novel THE VIRGIN SUICIDES. After we’re both really taken by surprise by this film, we talk about nostalgic film-making, ethereal screen presences, and what it is to remember (and mis-remember) things as a teenager.

<u>Next Week</u>

Our next film, and the next in Coppola’s oeuvre, is LOST IN TRANSLATION, available here: https://www.amazon.co.<wbr />uk/Lost-Translation-Bill-<wbr />Murray/dp/B00ESQGHTA.

<u>This Week’s Media</u>

PADDINGTON 2 (2017): Paul King, Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins

GHOSTBUSTERS (2016): Paul Feig, Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig

<u>Recommendations</u>

STAND BY ME (1986): Rob Reiner, Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix

THE FACULTY (1998): Robert Rodriguez, Elijah Wood, Jordana Brewster

INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (1994): Neil Jordan, Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt

LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN (2006): Paul McGuigan, Josh Hartnett, Morgan Freeman

<u>Footnotes</u>

Firstly this week, have a look at the Wikipedia pages for the original book (https://en.wikipedia.org/<wbr />wiki/The_Virgin_Suicides) and Coppola’s version (https://en.wikipedia.org/<wbr />wiki/The_Virgin_Suicides_(<wbr />film)). (There’s also an article on the film’s score, which Sam discusses briefly at the start of today’s episode as contributing to the sense of other-worldliness about the movie: https://en.wikipedia.<wbr />org/wiki/The_Virgin_Suicides_(<wbr />score).) Here’s the film that Rob talks about working on: http://www.imdb.com/title/<wbr />tt1137436. And here is more on the era that he (and Coppola, here) was creating: http://www.filmsite.<wbr />org/70sintro.html. We didn’t talk much about home movies, but this is more on (the recreation of) those: http://www.thebattles.<wbr />net/video/8mm_restoration.html<wbr />. Finally, this is a good book on the representation of female adolescence on screen: https://books.google.<wbr />co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=<wbr />ywsajx7jqAMC&oi=fnd&pg=PA125&<wbr />dq=cinema+gender+teenaged&ots=<wbr />wOetdOfKQ3&sig=<wbr />P6UQQKm6MiyawI86Yf9P9ORoav4#v=<wbr />onepage&q=cinema%20gender%<wbr />20teenaged&f=false.