The Cinema of Sofia Coppola: Fashion, Culture, Celebrity

The Cinema of Sofia Coppola provides the first comprehensive analysis of Coppola’s oeuvre that situates her work broadly in relation to contemporary artistic, social and cultural currents. Suzanne Ferriss considers the central role of fashion - in its various manifestations - to Coppola’s films, exploring fashion’s primacy in every cinematic dimension: in film narrative; production, costume and sound design; cinematography; marketing, distribution and auteur branding. She also explores the theme of celebrity, including Coppola’s own director-star persona, and argues that Coppola’s auteur status rests on an original and distinct visual style, derived from the filmmaker’s complex engagement with photography and painting. Ferriss analyzes each of Coppola’s six films, categorizing them in two groups: films where fashion commands attention (Marie Antoinette, The Beguiled and The Bling Ring) and those where clothing and material goods do not stand out ostentatiously, but are essential in establishing characters’ identities and relationships (The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation and Somewhere). Throughout, Ferriss draws on approaches from scholarship on fashion, film, visual culture, art history, celebrity and material culture to capture the complexities of Coppola’s engagement with fashion, culture and celebrity. The Cinema of Sofia Coppola is beautifully illustrated with color images from her films, as well as artworks and advertising artefacts.

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1. Self-Fashioning 2. Fashioning Worlds 3. Film Style 4. The Fashion-Fame-Film Industrial Complex Conclusion Fashion and Film Timeline Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Suzanne Ferriss is Professor Emeritus at Nova Southeastern University, USA. She has published extensively on fashion, film and cultural studies, co-editing Chick Flicks: Contemporary Women at the Movies (2008), Footnotes: On Shoes (2001) and On Fashion (1994), among other titles. She has also co-authored An Alternative History of Bicycles and Motorcycles (2016) and Motorcycle (2008).

Review :
Scholar Ferriss traces and deconstructs how Coppola’s knowledge of interior design, fashion, architecture, art and music informs every aspect of her movies – and their carefully crafted, painterly compositions – and illuminates how deftly style becomes substance. Suzanne Ferriss presents us with an indispensable study that effectively captures the complexities of Sofia Coppola's universe through the lens of fashion, culture and celebrity. Thought provoking for fans of Coppola’s work and casual viewers alike. Ferriss offers a sophisticated and wide-ranging analysis of Coppola's films and their intersections with fashion, art and celebrity culture. This is the first study, in particular, that positions Coppola's aesthetic preoccupations from the perspective of neither feminism nor post-feminism, but rather from that of art history. This book, therefore, offers a genuinely new, vital and fascinating take on a currently neglected, or under-studied, aspect of Coppola's oeuvre. Ferriss combines rich analysis with extensive knowledge of Coppola's artistic influences and writes both lucidly and beautifully. This study will be indispensable to both undergraduate students and serious scholars of not only film, but also those working in interdisciplinary subjects such as fashion studies, gender studies and art history. Suzanne Ferriss’s timely and lively book makes a convincing case for considering Sofia Coppola a designer as much as a director, creating beautifully fashioned story worlds. Threading together analysis of Coppola’s use of costume, her carefully curated locations, and her eclectic range of photographic and fine art references, this book will appeal not just to devotees of Coppola but also scholars interested in the vibrant interconnections Ferriss demonstrates between fashion, film, and visual cultures. This vibrant addition to the growing body of Coppola scholarship is an exquisitely detailed celebration of her luscious visual style, in the particular context of costume and fashion, photography and fame. Ferris explores Coppola’s unique set of influences and firmly demonstrates her cultural prestige and indisputable significance. A tour de force of extensive range yet admirable clarity, The Cinema of Sofia Coppola stands apart in the rapidly expanding field of Coppola studies for its definitive demonstration of the filmmaker's debt and contribution to fashion cultures, broadly defined. Moving nimbly between areas as diverse as fine art, phenomenology and business, Suzanne Ferriss' study conjures vividly the far-reaching impact of "Coppolism" as a densely intermedial aesthetic and social phenomenon. The Cinema of Sofia Coppola will fast become the go-to reference volume for any student, scholar or cinephile interested in the films of this talented, award-winning director. Writing in a readable and engaging style, the author provides a wealth of well-researched material about the complicated itinerary that lead to the success of one of the world’s most prominent women auteurs.