“I do have my own way of working, my own style.”
Sofia Coppola
Sofia Carmina Coppola spent much of her childhood on movie sets as her father Francis directed some of his most significant film works. She was in front of the camera in a matter of weeks after her birth on May 14, 1971, appearing as a baby boy in the pivotal baptism sequence in The Godfather, her first of many cameos in her father's films.1 Sofia gravitated toward an artistic life but not screen acting. Her one substantial acting role in The Godfather III was sparked by a daughter's loyalty when Winona Ryder was forced to withdraw from the role of Mary. Sofia's performance was generally considered a father's misguided indulgence. Eleanor Coppola notes in her journal that she and Francis advised Sofia not to read the critics’ reviews and to let time pass before she evaluated her performance, but she did read the mostly negative reviews, and it was painful. Eleanor notes that “Francis said he felt those criticisms were meant for him, and that Sofia received them the way Mary Corleone got the bullets intended for Michael.”2 With the passage of time, Sofia, noting that she is camera shy, reflects, “I never wanted to be an actress. It's not my personality.”3
In 1998 Coppola co-wrote4 and directed her first film, Lick the Star, an 18-minute short about a seventh-grade girl clique, adolescent cruelty, and adolescent hysteria. To a degree, Lick the Star became an unintended dry run for Coppola's inaugural feature, The Virgin Suicides.5 For the short, Sofia invoked a solid Coppola tradition, enlisting family members and friends on the production. Her cousin Christopher Neil (Eleanor Neil Coppola's nephew) was a producer, her cousin Robert Schwartzman (Talia Shire's son) acted, and Zoe Cassavetes acted and assisted on second unit. Casting family and trusted friends in her films and employing them as production and crew members would become standard operating procedure for Sofia as it had been for her father.
Sofia Coppola read Jeffrey Eugenides's 1993 debut novel The Virgin Suicides and immediately labeled the book a “classic.” She was enthralled by the beauty of its narrative and the ethereal atmosphere of the story. She began envisioning its filmic possibilities and decided to adapt it as a screenplay. Completed script in hand, Coppola reached out for the rights and, as luck would have it, they were held by Muse Productions (Roberta and Chris Hanley.) Sofia knew Roberta Hanley through Jacqui de la Fontaine, fiancée of her late brother Gian-Carlo Coppola, and Hanley lobbied for Sofia's manuscript.
Coppola's next hurdle was whether she would be the screenwriter/director. Chris Hanley originally wanted independent film director Nick Gomez (Laws of Gravity [1992], New Jersey Drive [1995], Drowning Mona [2000]), but Gomez had written a script that Hanley felt didn't quite work. Roberta Hanley pressed for Sofia as screenwriter/director, and Sofia was hired to embark on her first feature film with Chris Hanley on board as one of the producers.
The Virgin Suicides is set in an upscale suburb of Detroit in the 1970s. Five teenage sisters, the Lisbon girls, reared by a strict, oppressive Catholic mother and loving but ineffectual father, commit suicide. At 13, the youngest sister Cecilia is the first suicide, slitting her wrists in a first attempt then impaling herself on the house fence in a second, successful try. Unaware, the rest of the girls are participating in a stilted boy/girl party orchestrated and chaperoned by their mother in the basement of the house.
As a result of Cecilia's suicide, Mrs. Lisbon allows the cloistered girls their first taste of freedom; they attend a high school dance. School heartthrob Trip matches up each sister and, totally infatuated, he chooses 14-year-old Lux for himself. They spend the night in sexual rapture. When Lux arrives home at dawn, there are dire consequences. The girls are withdrawn from school, isolated and confined to the house. As they linger in an endless malaise in their bedrooms, they maintain clandestine phone contact with the boys using pop recordings played into the telephone receivers to express their emotions. The boys are observing the sisters through a telescope from a house across the street. Trip disappears from the scene, and an unhinged Lux has random sex with all takers on the roof outside her room. Ultimately, the sisters arrange for the boys to visit their house. When the boys arrive, Lux greets them, but they are soon numbed by the discovery that the other sisters have committed suicide, each by a different method. Lux kills herself in the garage by carbon monoxide poisoning. Throughout the film, the impact of these macabre acts is detailed in backstory through a male narrator speaking for the teenage boys who idolize and obsess over the sisters, unable to resolve their suicides even decades later as grown men.
Francis Ford Coppola coproduced the venture through American Zoetrope Productions. The proud papa was on the set only occasionally as a support system for Sofia and gentle mentor if needed. The budget for the film was purportedly $6 million and the shooting schedule just shy of a month. As Sofia assembled the cast and crew, key players emerged. For cinematographer the renowned Ed Lachman was selected. Lachman had a stellar reputation photographing independent films. In 1995 Francis Coppola had executive produced director Gregory Nava's My Family/Mi Familia, which was photographed by Lachman. Lachman was well known for superb collaborations with independent filmmakers and had worked with Todd Haynes and Steven Soderbergh. Lachman related to Sofia Coppola's vision of the film. Together, they looked at many photographs from Sofia's extensive collection. In particular, Coppola was influenced by the photojournalism of Bill Owens, specifically his iconoclastic book Suburbia.6 Lachman was keen to develop a visual conception of Suicides that meshed with the look Sofia conceived. “The overall approach that Sofia and I discussed is that this is an adolescent world’…”it was very important that I created this childlike world, and even though things were happening that were kind of nightmarish, it was still from a childlike perspective.”7 Sofia also responded to the look of Haynes's 1995 film Safe, which takes place in a well-to-do suburb and has an eerie and disturbing storyline. Coppola wanted the style of the film to be simple, like a series of tableaus emphasizing adolescent femininity through pastels and lots of light. The camera is often set back to establish the reverie of the male observers’ point of view.
To design the costumes Coppola enlisted Nancy Steiner because of the subtlety she observed in her work on Safe. Steiner explains, “We worked to give the girls’ identities through outward appearances. The idea is that the Lisbon girls are completely misunderstood. Their perception of themselves is entirely different from how everyone else saw them. That's something I think we all can relate to and it's a big theme of The Virgin Suicides.”8 Another collaborator from Safe was editor James Lyons,9 who shared credit with Melissa Kent, who had edited The Rainmaker for Francis Coppola. Sofia used sound designer Richard Beggs, who was a constant collaborator on her father's films and had sound designed her short Lick the Star. The aural environment was enhanced greatly by the score supplied by Air, a French electronic group that Sofia admired. She listened to Air while writing the screenplay. Coppola perceived that the music had “the feeling of memory because it's very dreamy and ethereal. It's influenced by the 70s but is also very modern.”10 The sound track is rounded out by songs of the period: Heart's “Magic Man” comments on Trip's introduction to the film, “Alone Again (Naturally)” by Gilbert O'Sullivan, “Hello, It's Me” by Todd Rundgren, “So Far Away” by Carole King, and “Run To Me” by the Bee Gees are used in the phone sequences, and “Come Sail Away” by Styx is danced to at the high school.
Roman Coppola was Sofia's right-hand man throughout the production. He was credited as second-unit director but most significantly functioned as Sofia's alter ego; as Sofia pointed out, they think so much alike.11 Sofia recruited her cousin Chris as acting coach to instruct the many young and inexperienced extras and supplementary cast members. Eleanor Coppola was on the set to document the making of the movie, which appears on the DVD as a featurette. Needless to say, the presence of her mother was reassuring for Sofia. On the documentary Eleanor marvels at Sofia's unflustered demeanor. Eleanor compares the Coppolas to a circus family where Francis as director has been on the high wire with the family there to support him.12 Now Sofia was on the high wire and the family's support shifted to her. Author Eugenides was a presence on the set and spoke approvingly of Sofia's approach to transforming the novel to film and of the unique colors and shaping she brought to the screen story. Director Sofia Coppola gained and held the respect cast and crew. She had authority and, unlike her father, a quiet reserve. She brought an informed feminine perspective when it was appropriate to the material.
To cast The Virgin Suicides Coppola and the casting team used several methods. Once again she employed certain actors she knew from her father's films and some relatives upon whom she relied. For the crucial role of Mrs. Lisbon, Sofia chose Kathleen Turner, with whom she had acted in her father's film Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), playing Peggy Sue's little sister.13 The role was a stretch for Turner, who was known for her glamour. Coppola felt Turner met the challenge head on. “It was a real risk for Kathleen,” observes Coppola. “It's so different from how you usually think of Kathleen, but she has the extraordinary ability to play this very strong, very tough woman with a certain amount of sympathy.”14 James Woods was cast against type as Mr. Lisbon, the inept father who is unable to assert his love for his daughters. When Woods read the script he was committed. “She had written an amazing script,” says Woods. “Then when I met with her she was so terrific. She is a very talented, very imaginative, very daring director and writer who is also quite a lot of fun to work with.”15
For the vital role of Lux, Coppola had many casting calls, but her gut choice was 16-year-old Kirsten Dunst, whose current acting schedule was tight. Sofia discovered Dunst was on another project in Toronto where Suicides was shooting, and a deal was struck. Dunst's performance provides just the right nuance as the innocent yet provocative Lux, and the chemistry with Josh Hartnett as Trip is explosive. Other roles were filled by relative newcomers, all of whom carried their weight. The cast also included Sofia's cousin Robert Schwartzman (Talia Shire's son) and Leslie Hayman, who had cowritten Lick the Star and was a childhood friend, as Therese.
The role of the narrator was given to Giovanni Ribisi, whom Coppola felt was among the most impressive actors of the 20-something crowd. His off-camera performance is delivered with melancholic resonance.
The Virgin Suicides made the festival circuit rounds, screening at Cannes, opening the San Francisco International Film Festival, and airing at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival. Reception to the film was generally warm and positive, although some viewers were uncomfortable with the subject matter. Sofia Coppola's distinct capabilities were recognized and her directorial skills separated from the towering image of her father. On May 12, 2000, the film opened to general audiences in the United States and enjoyed a respectable art-house run. With her first feature film in the can, Sofia Coppola had cut her eye teeth and could safely contemplate her sophomore effort.