Cinema of Sofia Coppola

<p><i>The Cinema of Sofia Coppola</i> 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. <p/>Ferriss analyzes each of Coppola's six films categorizing them in two groups: films where fashion commands attention (<i>Marie Antoinette The Beguiled </i>and<i> The Bling Ring</i>) and those where clothing and material goods do not stand out ostentatiously but are essential in establishing characters' identities and relationships (<i>The Virgin Suicides Lost in Translation </i>and<i> Somewhere</i>). 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. <i>The Cinema of Sofia Coppola</i> is beautifully illustrated with color images from her films as well as artworks and advertising artefacts.</p>