Lost in Translation (film)

Lost in Translation
Directed by	Sofia Coppola
Written by	Sofia Coppola
Produced by	Ross Katz Sofia Coppola
Starring	Bill Murray Scarlett Johansson
Cinematography	Lance Acord
Edited by	Sarah Flack
Music by	Brian Reitzell Kevin Shields
Distributed by	Focus Features
Release dates	United States October 3, 2003 France January 7, 2004 United Kingdom January 9, 2004 Hong Kong February 12, 2004 Japan April 17, 2004
Running time	102 min.
Language	English/Japanese
Budget	$4,000,000
Box office	$44,566,004

Lost in Translation is a 2003 comedy-drama film. It centers on Bob Harris (Bill Murray), an American action movie star on the downward slope of his career, who has come to Tokyo, Japan to film a Suntory whisky commercial. He meets Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), a recent Yale philosophy graduate who is married to a celebrity photographer (played by Giovanni Ribisi), and as yet unfocused in terms of her future. Bob and Charlotte share an unconsummated romance while briefly exploring the cultural life of Tokyo but primarily feeling alienated and uncertain about the direction of their lives.

Superficially, Lost in Translation is a movie about culture shock, but the experience of Westerners in Tokyo is a metaphor for more existential themes of alienation, loneliness, and the desire for companionship. The film explores these themes against the background of the modern Japanese cityscape. The film is rated R in the United States, 15 in the United Kingdom, PG in Australia and PG in Canada.

It was the second feature film written and directed by Sofia Coppola, after The Virgin Suicides. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Bill Murray, and Best Director for Sofia Coppola. Coppola won Best Original Screenplay.

Synopsis

Aging movie star Bob Harris (Bill Murray) has arrived in Tokyo to film a Suntory whisky advert (a reference to real-life Hollywood actors who do foreign celebrity advertising, including Sofia Coppola's father, Francis Ford Coppola, who did Suntory commercials with Akira Kurosawa during the filming of Kagemusha).

Charlotte (played by Scarlett Johansson) is the young wife of a celebrity photographer on assignment in Tokyo. Left behind by her husband when he goes to his photo shoots, she wonders about her future and about the man she has married. Bob's relationship with his wife of over 20 years is clearly tired and lacking in romance, as revealed in his telephone calls back to the US. Bob and Charlotte, both lonely and directionless, meet in the bar of the hotel where they are staying and strike up a friendship. The two explore Tokyo together, meeting Charlotte's local friends and experiencing the differences between Japanese and American culture. The two grow close through their adventures and the time they spend together when neither can sleep.

On the penultimate night of his stay, Bob attracts the attention of the resident vocalist of the hotel bar. The next morning, Bob awakens to find this woman in his room and Charlotte waiting for him. The pair have a brief conflict when they later meet at a restaurant, seemingly over Bob's sleeping with this other woman. Later that night, during a fire alarm, they reconcile and express how they will miss each other.

On the morning of his departure, as Bob is in his taxi to the airport, he sees Charlotte on a crowded street. He asks his driver to stop, gets out, and pursues Charlotte. When he reaches her, the two face each other for a long moment and then embrace. Bob whispers in the tearful Charlotte's ear (something that was unscripted and that the actors and Sofia Coppola have declined to repeat in interviews). However, with digital enhancement of the scene one can hear "Don't let my leaving get in the way of our friendship, okay?". After a kiss (also, apparently, unscripted), Bob and Charlotte part. The movie ends leaving the future of their relationship ambiguous.

Lost in Translation

A scene in the film illustrates being "Lost in Translation" quite literally. Bob (Bill Murray), a Japanese director (Yutaka Tadokoro), and an interpreter (Takeshita) are on a set, filming the whisky commercial. The audience witnesses several exchanges in which the director speaks several long sentences, with passion, followed by a brief, pithy translation from the interpreter. The scene (like all the film's Japanese dialogue) is played without subtitles, so that viewers who do not speak Japanese feel quite as lost as Bob does.

Bob: Does he want me to, to turn from the right or turn from the left?

Interpreter (in formal Japanese, to the director): He has prepared and is ready. And he wants to know, when the camera rolls, would you prefer that he turn to the left, or would you prefer that he turn to the right? And that is the kind of thing he would like to know, if you don't mind.

Director (very brusquely, in colloquial Japanese): Either way is fine. That kind of thing doesn't matter. We don't have time, Bob-san, O.K.? You need to hurry. Raise the tension. Look at the camera. Slowly, with passion. It's passion that we want. Do you understand?

Interpreter (In English, to Bob): Right side. And, uh, with intensity.

Bob: Is that everything? It seemed like he said quite a bit more than that.

Reaction

Boosted by critical acclaim and audience word-of-mouth, this modest feature film (with only a $4 million budget) became a comparative box office hit, returning over $45M in receipts from the U.S. alone. Lost in Translation has been praised not only for Coppola's script and distinctive directing, but also for the work of Murray, who by many accounts gave the performance of his career. Johansson also received notice for her strong performance. Overall, Roger Ebert gave the film four stars, describing it as "sweet and sad at the same time as it is sardonic and funny."

Some reviewers criticized the film's purposely vague ending, in which Coppola skirted the concept of denouement and left the conclusion entirely up to the opinions of viewers. For example, Noel Megahey of DVD Times considered this device a "cheat" on the audience and argued that the film was "equally as endearing as frustrating for viewers".

One of the most negative reviews came from Kiku Day - a reviewer for The Guardian - who strongly criticized the movie for what she claimed was "anti-Japanese racism". The reviewer cited the film as an example of how Hollywood was, as she saw it, "the handmaiden to perpetuating the belief of the superiority of US cultural values over all others" and characterized director Coppola as "the thinking person's Sylvester Stallone".

Awards

Academy Awards record
1. Best Original Screenplay, Sofia Coppola
Golden Globe Awards record
1. Best Picture - Musical/Comedy
2. Best Actor - Musical/Comedy, Bill Murray
3. Best Screenplay, Sofia Coppola
BAFTA Awards record
1. Best Editing, Sarah Flack
2. Best Actor, Bill Murray
3. Best Actress, Scarlett Johansson

• The film won an Oscar for best original screenplay. It was also nominated for best director (the first time an American woman was nominated for this award), picture and actor.

• The film won Golden Globes for best musical or comedy motion picture, screenplay, and musical or comedy actor. It was also nominated for best director, and musical or comedy actress.

• At the BAFTA film awards, the film won the best editing, actor and actress awards. It was also nominated for best film, director, original screenplay, music and cinematography.

• It won four IFP Independent Spirit Awards, for best feature, director, male lead, and screenplay.

Cast

• Bill Murray as Bob Harris
• Scarlett Johansson as Charlotte
• Giovanni Ribisi as John
• Anna Faris as Kelly
• Fumihiro Hayashi as Charlie
• Akiko Takeshita as Ms. Kawasaki
• Catherine Lambert as the Jazz Singer
• François Du Bois as the Pianist
• Tim Leffman as the Guitarist
• Kazuyoshi Minamimagoe as Press agent
• Kazuko Shibata as Press agent
• Take as Press agent
• Ryuichiro Baba as Concierge
• Takashi Fujii as TV host (as Matthew Minami)

Autobiographical elements

Much has been made of the parallels between the characters in the film and those in Coppola's own social circles. Ribisi's character has similar speech mannerisms and gestures to Coppola's then-husband, director Spike Jonze, who began his career as a photographer. In addition, the main character of Charlotte wears clothes by designer Marc Jacobs, Coppola's close friend and a designer for whom Coppola has appeared in ads. Coppola specifically denied that the film was meant to be a portrait of her marriage in an Entertainment Weekly interview. Coppola and Jonze separated soon after the film was released.

Also, the character played by Anna Faris is supposedly based on the actress Cameron Diaz. As the character, in Lost in Translation, is promoting an action film; Diaz would have most likely been promoting Charlie's Angels which was released in 2000. The relationship between Faris' character and Charlotte's husband may be derived from the real-life inspirations meeting on Being John Malkovich, which was Jonze's first directorial effort, starred a non-blonde Cameron Diaz, and was released in 1999.

DVD special features

Lost on Location: Behind the Scenes of "Lost in Translation" is a 30-minute featurette included on the DVD. It features Sofia Coppola, Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson, and others. During filming, most of the cast and crew stayed at Oakwood Residence Aoyama, a serviced apartment in Tokyo. During one day of filming, a typhoon hit Tokyo and producer Ross Katz was heard urging everyone to go back to Oakwood.

Clarifications

• The bar featured throughout the film is the New York Bar, situated on the 52nd floor of the Park Hyatt Tokyo hotel in Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo. The bar features two movie-inspired beverages – the L.I.T (Lost in Translation) and the Sofia.
• The movie Charlotte and Bob are watching on TV near the end of the film is Federico Fellini's La dolce vita.
• The shrine that Charlotte visits while in Kyoto is the Heian Jingu. She is also seen walking up the steps of the giant San-mon gate at Nanzen-ji.
• In the latter parts of the film, Bob is asked to play a guest in a real chat show called Matthew's Best Hit TV.
• Bob's chauffeur car throughout the film is a Toyota Century, a full-size luxury car that is commonly used in Japan for VIP transportation.

See also

• Lost in Translation (soundtrack)

External links

• Official site
• Lost in Translation at IMDb
• Review by Roger Ebert
• Guardian article on the film's perceived racism
• Draft Script (9/2/2002 draft)
• An audio analysis of the whisper in the final scene which purports to reveal what Murray's character said.

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