Lost in Translation (2003 Film) Sofia Coppola

Writing

After dropping out of college in her early twenties,[48] Coppola often traveled to Tokyo, trying out a variety of jobs in fashion and photography.[49] Unsure of what to do for a career, she described this period as a "kind of crisis"[48] in which she meandered around the city contemplating her future.[46] She came to feel fond of Tokyo, noting an otherworldly quality brought on as a foreigner grappling with feelings of jet lag in an unfamiliar setting.[50] After many years, she settled on a career in filmmaking and returned to the city, staying at the Park Hyatt Tokyo to promote her first feature film, the 1999 drama The Virgin Suicides.[24][note 9]

Coppola began writing Lost in Translation after returning home from this press tour.[15] Having been influenced by her background in Tokyo, she resolved to write a screenplay set there[24][note 10] and began forming a story about two characters experiencing a "romantic melancholy" in the Park Hyatt Tokyo.[5] Coppola was long attracted to the neon signs of the city and envisaged Tokyo taking on a "dreamy feeling" in the film.[49] She recruited her friend Brian Reitzell, who ultimately served as the film's music producer, to create dream pop compilation mixes that she listened to while writing to help establish this mood.[52]

Coppola did not initially write the screenplay in traditional script form, citing the difficulty of mapping out a full plot.[5] Instead, she opted to write "little paragraphs" largely based on disparate impressions and experiences of her life in Tokyo, which she then adapted to a script.[5] Among the first images she included was of her friend Fumihiro Hayashi performing a karaoke rendition of the Sex Pistols' "God Save the Queen", which Coppola saw him perform during the time she worked in Tokyo.[46] After writing the first 20 pages with help from her brother, Roman Coppola, she returned to Tokyo for further inspiration.[15] There, she videotaped anything she could use as a further writing aid.[36]

Coppola envisioned Murray playing the role of Bob from the beginning, wanting to show off "his more sensitive side"[36] and feeling amused by the image of him dressed in a kimono.[24] She described her mental pictures of Murray as a significant source of inspiration for the story.[7] For the character of Charlotte, Coppola drew from her own feelings of early-twenties disorientation, citing the strain in her relationship with her then-husband Spike Jonze as an influence for the relationship between Charlotte and John.[53] She also drew inspiration from J. D. Salinger's character Franny in Franny and Zooey, finding appeal in "the idea of a preppy girl having a breakdown".[48]

As she developed the relationship between Bob and Charlotte, Coppola was compelled by the juxtaposition of the characters having similar internal crises at different stages of their lives.[54] She cited the dynamic between Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in The Big Sleep as a source of inspiration for their relationship.[15] Coppola reported doing little re-writing of the script,[23] which took six months to complete[15] and culminated in 75 pages, much shorter than the average feature film script.[55][note 11] Despite worrying that the screenplay was too short and "indulgent" for including assortments of her personal experiences, she resolved to begin production of the film.[48]

Development

Coppola maintained that she would not have made Lost in Translation without Murray.[39] The actor had an 800 number for prospective clients interested in casting him, but he had a reputation as a recluse who was difficult to contact.[57] Coppola relentlessly pursued him and sent telephone messages and letters for months.[54] She also sought people in her professional network that might help her make contact.[38] She recruited screenwriter Mitch Glazer, who was a longtime friend of Murray's, to accept an early version of the script and try to persuade him.[53] Glazer was impressed with the story and said he called the actor frequently, telling him, "You need to read this",[57] but he would not provide an answer.[53] After up to a year of cajoling, Murray finally agreed to meet with Coppola at a restaurant to discuss the film.[53] He then accepted the role, saying "she spent a lot of time getting me to be the guy. In the end, I felt I couldn't let her down."[38]

Despite Murray's agreement, Coppola had to take him at his word, as he did not sign a formal contract.[15] She described this as "nerve-wracking", wondering if he would show up for filming in Tokyo.[15] She discussed the issue with director Wes Anderson, who had previously worked with the actor and encouraged her, saying, "If he says he's going to do it, he'll show up."[15] For Murray's co-star, Coppola liked Johansson's performance in Manny & Lo, remembering her "as a cute little girl with that husky voice".[24] She then invited Johansson to a restaurant to discuss the role.[37] Initially worried that the 17-year-old Johansson might be too young to play a character in her twenties, the director concluded that she appeared older and could convincingly play the part.[58] Coppola offered Johansson the role without an audition, which she accepted.[37]

Feeling a sense of personal investment in the project, Coppola wanted to maintain final cut privilege and feared that a distribution deal with a North American studio would threaten her influence.[15] It was also unlikely that a studio would provide such backing, given the short length of the screenplay and Murray's lack of formal involvement.[59] Instead, she and her agent opted to sell foreign distribution rights to an assortment of companies to fund production costs of $4 million.[15] She struck a deal first with Japan's Tohokushinsha Film, then with distributors in France and Italy, and finally with the international arm of Focus Features for the remaining foreign market.[15] By piecing together the funding from multiple distributors, Coppola reduced the influence of any single financier.[59] Still not knowing if Murray would show up in Tokyo, Coppola spent $1 million of the budget,[15] knowing that his absence would doom the production. When he finally arrived, days before filming, she expressed significant relief.[60]

The idea for Bill Murray's character doing an advertising campaign for Suntory came from Coppola's father Francis Ford Coppola and director Akira Kurosawa's Suntory Whiskey advertisement from the 1970s. In 2023 for Suntory's 100th year anniversary, and 20 years after the appearance of Lost in Translation, she was asked to direct the company's anniversary tribute video starring Keanu Reeves, with a mix that included scenes from her film along with footage of her father and Kurosawa's original advertisement.[61][62]

Filming

Principal photography began on September 29, 2002,[64] and lasted 27 days.[24] With a tight schedule and a limited $4 million budget, filming was done six days per week, without permits,[65] marked by a "run-and-gun" approach: Coppola was keen to stay mobile with a small crew and minimal equipment.[36] She conducted few rehearsals and kept a flexible schedule, sometimes scrapping filming plans to shoot something she noticed on location if she thought it better served the story.[17][note 12] Since the screenplay was sparse, missing details were often addressed during shooting, and Coppola allowed a significant amount of improvisation in dialogue, especially from Murray.[23] One example includes the scene in which Bob is being photographed for Suntory whisky; Coppola encouraged Murray to react to the photographer spontaneously as she whispered names for the man to repeat to Murray as unrehearsed dialogue, such as "Roger Moore".[23][7][note 13]

While key crew members were Americans that Coppola invited to Tokyo, most of the crew was hired locally.[17] This proved to be challenging for the production, as most of the Japanese crew could not communicate with Coppola in English, so both sides relied on translations by a bilingual assistant director and a gaffer.[36] The production encountered frequent delays while translations took place and suffered from occasional cultural misunderstandings; in one example, Coppola described a shoot in a restaurant that ran 10–15 minutes late, something she said was normal on an American shoot,[24] but it prompted the restaurant owner to feel disrespected; he subsequently disconnected the crew's lights and the film's Japanese location manager resigned.[15] Despite this, Coppola said she worked to adapt to a Japanese style of filmmaking, not wanting to impose an approach that her crew was not used to.[36]

Coppola worked closely to visualize the film with her director of photography, Lance Acord. She showed him and other key crew members a book of photographs she created that represented the visual style she wanted to convey in the film.[23] To evoke a sense of isolation in Bob, Coppola and Acord used stationary shots in the hotel and avoided conspicuous camera movements.[66] They also had numerous discussions about shooting on video, but they ultimately decided that film better suited the romantic undertones of the story.[36] Coppola remarked, "Film gives a little bit of a distance, which feels more like a memory to me. Video is more present tense".[36] Acord believed that new film stocks would reduce the need for excessive lighting, ultimately using Kodak Vision 500T 5263 35 mm stock for night exteriors and Kodak Vision 320T 5277 stock in daylight.[67] Most of the film was shot with an Aaton 35-III camera. For some confined locations where the Aaton would have been too noisy, a Moviecam Compact was used.[67]

With high-speed film stocks, Acord chose to utilize available light as often as possible,[68] only supplementing with artificial lights when necessary.[67] He reported "never really" rigging lights for night exteriors, relying on the natural light on Tokyo's city streets.[67] For interior sequences in the Park Hyatt Tokyo, he relied mostly on the hotel's practical lighting sources, shooting at a wide open f-stop and heavily cutting the light to eliminate reflections in the hotel window.[69] Acord said he heard objections about lighting from some of the Japanese electricians, who were unaccustomed to relying so much on available light and were concerned that the exposure would not be sufficient.[70] Acord, assured that the film stocks would hold up against lower lighting, ultimately shot much of the film two stops underexposed.[68]

Many of the shooting locations were local places of business and public areas at the time of filming, including rooms, bar and swimming pool in the Park Hyatt Tokyo[71] and Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo.[72][73] Filming also took place at Jōgan-ji (Nakano, Tokyo).[74][75] The opening scene was done at Yasukuni-dōri in Kabuki-chō.[76] Charlotte's ride at the subway was taken at Omote-sando Station at the Hanzōmon and Ginza lines platform.[77] The chase scene after the bar and through the Pachinko parlor "Botan" were around Naka-Meguro Station.[78][79] Brief scenes were also filmed in Kyoto at the Heian Shrine,[80] and Nanzen-ji.[81] The hospital scene was at the Tokyo Medical University.[82] The last scene was done at Chūō-dōri in Nishi-Shinjuku close to Shinjuku train station.[83]

On public streets and subways, the production did not secure filming permits[39] and relied on city bystanders as extras;[36] Coppola described the shooting as "documentary-style"[24] and was worried at times about getting stopped by police, so she kept a minimal crew.[36] In the hotel, the production was not allowed to shoot in public areas until 1 or 2 a.m. to avoid disturbing guests.[84] In the film's concluding sequence in which Bob and Charlotte make their final goodbyes, Coppola reported being unhappy with the dialogue she had scripted, so Murray improvised the whisper in Johansson's ear.[23] Too quiet to be understandable, Coppola considered dubbing audio in the scene, but she ultimately decided it was better that it "stays between the two of them".[23] After production concluded, Coppola supervised 10 weeks of editing by Sarah Flack in New York City.[35]

• Selected filming locations
• Yasukuni-dōri in Kabuki-chō, with the Donki store at the corner[85]
• View from the 47th floor of the Park Hyatt Tokyo
• Swimming pool of the Park Hyatt
• Bar of the Park Hyatt[86][87]
• Cemetery of Jōgan-ji (Nakano, Tokyo)
• Stepping stones in the gardens of Heian Shrine, Kyoto[88]
• Main gate of Nanzen-ji, Kyoto