“Sofia Coppola Archive: 1999-2023” goes behind the scenes of the films

For Sofia Coppola, her films don't just live on the screen, but in boxes and boxes in which she stores ephemera from each of her projects. They contain scripts, notes, and references, as well as mood boards and memorabilia. Above all, there are many photographs documenting his time on various sets. When examining what she called “trash” throughout the Covid-19 lockdowns in 2020, Sofia decided to make a book “to have them all in one place”.

This book is “Arquivo Sofia Coppola: 1999-2023”, the director’s first volume to narrate her work. Although it looks like a sturdy coffee table book, Coppola prefers to see it more as a “scrapbook” that recreates the vibes of her creative space. “For me, this book is the closest version of visiting my office and seeing all the things piled up around my desk,” Sofia Coppola told Vogue.

Leafing through the almost 500-page book, each chapter dedicated to one of her films, you get a visual sense of what sparked the filmmaker's imagination over the years. Among its collection are objects such as photographs by Tina Barney, which served as a reference for the Lisbon sisters' rooms in “The Virgin Suicides” (1999), and a print of the painting by John Kacere that inspired the opening scene of “Lost in Translation” (2003).

Coppola's introductions to each chapter further highlight his creative sources: John Galliano and the Met's Costume Institute for “Marie Antoinette” (2006) and Drew Faust's 1996 book “Mothers of Invention” for “The Beguiled” ( 2017).

“Archive” also compiles many photographs that capture the scenes behind Coppola's films. Some were shot by the director herself on her trusty Contax T3 and others by photographers she invited to the sets, including British fashion photographer Corrinne Day. The section “The Bling Ring” (2013), for example, includes dozens of images taken inside Paris Hilton's scandalous home and closet, which served as locations for the film.

Of course, there are tidbits for Coppola diehards, many of whom crashed the New York book signing at Bookmarc. There is “The Virgin Suicides” director Jeffrey Eugenides’ annotated copy, his email correspondence with Priscilla Presley for Priscilla’s next film, and a clipping of a positive review of “On the Rocks” (2020) sent by his father, filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola.

Overall, Archive is permeated by Coppola's singular aesthetic—dreamy, wistful, pastels (see: the book's millennial pink cover)—with which she told stories of white girlhood and womanhood. As she told journalist Lynn Hirschberg in the book's introduction, common in her eight feature films is both “a world” and “a young woman trying to navigate it.” The construction of these worlds, Archive reveals, has been Coppola's ongoing creative effort.

“I was raised with the idea of auteurism, of having a distinct point of view,” she told Hirschberg, referring to her father. “And I still believe that’s how you become an artist. What’s the point of making a movie unless it’s something only you could do?”

Source: Artnet News