Priscilla (Sofia Coppola, 2023)

[therewillbeblus]

Sofia Coppola to adapt Priscilla Ann Presley's memoir for A24, to give us an anti-Baz approach to Elvis' life, with Cailee Spaeny starring and Jacob Elordi co-staring as the King

[ryannichols7]

Sofia Coppola to adapt Priscilla Ann Presley's memoir for A24, to give us an anti-Baz approach to Elvis' life, with Cailee Spaeny starring and Jacob Elordi co-staring as the King

Coppola has now joined Instagram, separate from her wine account, and even did a fun interview with Vogue about the film, joining social media, and sharing archival stuff

[brundlefly]

Trailer

[hearthesilence]

Looking forward to this, especially after that grotesque lump of Americana Luhrmann vomited up.

[therewillbeblus]

Priscilla isn't revolutionary for either a biopic or one that practices Coppola's (here, auto-piloting) curious restraint, but it's still a pretty and effective piece of art for devaluing that prettiness in the face of vapidity. There's no characterization, but a full-throttle dive into what it must be like to be groomed by the zeitgeist's God at an impressionable age, and subtly emotionally abused into a life of perpetual inebriation, between a woman and her agency. I dunno, moments like the quiet split were tragic in watching Elvis -an even more enigmatic, peripheral non-character than Priscilla- sitting on his bed, wondering how they got here and what he could've done to change it. There were many of these observances of ignorance, of attempting to connect but moving past one another. Those were powerful, and the movie was appropriately artful in capturing the magic early on, before the style pares back and mimics the deflation of the mirage for Priscilla. I can't say I thought it was great though - Coppola has drawn her attention towards more interesting subjects with more risk and gusto in her narrative trajectories, so this feels like a lite retread, if one that's particularly critical to indulge right now.

[Lemmy Caution]

I only saw the first 30 minutes of Priscilla on the back of an airplane seat. But I was left wondering why this film was made. It looked nice enough, but was fairly formulaic. Every character seemed enigmatic or maybe just underdeveloped. I wondered what piqued Coppola's interest, who the target audience was. Then realized my mind was drifting and turned it off. It was a trans-Pacific flight, and certainly suboptimal conditions, but nothing stands out from the first half hour set-up.

[aox]

I only saw the first 30 minutes of Priscilla on the back of an airplane seat. But I was left wondering why this film was made. It looked nice enough, but was fairly formulaic. Every character seemed enigmatic or maybe just underdeveloped. I wondered what piqued Coppola's interest, who the target audience was. Then realized my mind was drifting and turned it off. It was a trans-Pacific flight, and certainly suboptimal conditions, but nothing stands out from the first half hour set-up.

I suffered through the whole thing the other night because it was the only newer film available to me that I knew my partner didn't care about. I don't even like Elvis (Yes, I fully understand and respect his historical importance in the 1950s).

I pondered the same question as you did watching it. Why? I just kept asking why.

My only theory is that this was Coppola's attempt to show what grooming by a powerful man looks like and is a shallow reflection of the #metoo movement. Even showing the dynamic of cult-like sensibilities. I think it might be as basic as that. Sadly,

SpoilerShow

when she finally wills the courage to leave him, I felt no catharsis and honestly didn't care.

I'll check out anything Sophia does based on Lost in Translation. That film has bought her lifetime capital for me, but I can't say I have loved a single thing she has done since.

[therewillbeblus]

The New Yorker did a thorough profile on Sofia Coppola recently, I suggest reading that if you want to get close to those "why" answers

[Lemmy Caution]

I can see how it contains the sexual politics/grooming you mention. Notably when we (and Priscilla) first encounter Elvis performing, he's imitating Jerry Lee Lewis. I had assumed Coppola saw some of herself in a young innocent girl caught up in and corrupted by fame (and powerful men) through no fault of her own. I guess the key is how to make this trap relatable to movie goers. Imo, An Education is a much more potent exploration of a similar theme from the same era, where characters including the parents are complicated and complicit, where self-deceit, role playing and selfishness take over. Where the vulnerable lead has significant agency and awareness, but not enough adult judgement in her life.

Of course if I watched the film in full and read the paywalled article ...

[therewillbeblus]

Hey, I also think An Education is much better, and this isn’t the kind of work I’m craving from Coppola either - but at least she’s moving the needle back to the good stuff’s vibes and away from whatever her last film was trying to do!

In the article, there’s a nice bit where Jacob Elordi excitedly shows her the Elvis accent he’d been working on for so long, only to have her say “it’s a bit.. Elvis-y”

[Lemmy Caution]

I just realized the implications of the title. Elvis of course is one of those few mega stars who only require a first name to be identified. But here his wife is elevated to the same status, proclaiming she is just as worthy of examination and attention, her agency and struggles are just as important as her more famous partner. I like that, and hadn't considered that before.

[felipe]

I'll check out anything Sophia does based on Lost in Translation. That film has bought her lifetime capital for me, but I can't say I have loved a single thing she has done since.

I feel like we all have been doing that. Every time she releases a new movie we give her the benefit of the doubt again based on the one great movie she made 20 years ago...

[The Narrator Returns]

We "all" certainly have not been doing that, Lost in Translation would probably place fifth of her first five movies for me which only speaks to how good the surrounding work is. I won't deny that what follows is a step down (though I'm one of the bigger On the Rocks fans you'll meet) and this one is my least favorite to date, feeling like a drier retread of Marie Antoinette (which is well on its way to taking Translation's crown as her consensus masterpiece, if it hasn't gotten there already). But most of what I've thought about it since seeing it is how incredibly impressive Cailee Spaeny is, the most physically and temperamentally accurate performance I've ever seen an adult give of a teenager, let alone an early teenager. By the time Priscilla is an adult with some agency, it's like watching a grown-up suddenly emerge from a distant yearbook photo. Her work alone makes me want to revisit, and Somewhere previously made the jump from my least favorite Coppola to my favorite so I'm more than open to a drastic turnaround.

[hearthesilence]

Lost in Translation feels closer and closer to the least of her work as time goes by, but I appreciate what it did for her career. I still don't think she's made the great film she has in her - I have mixed feelings about all of them - but I remain optimistic.

[ianthemovie]

Like The Narrator Returns I will go to bat for On the Rocks, which was a lovely hangout movie in the style of some of her earlier films. I would put that as my favorite of her last four features. But those four are all inferior to her first four, in my book. The run of films from The Virgin Suicides to Somewhere remains very strong. I don't know why, but her films have become increasingly chilly and inert. Her eye for style/texture/surface detail is always impeccable but there is not much else going on beyond that in Priscilla (or The Beguiled or The Bling Ring, though I did appreciate the humor of The Bling Ring).

On paper Priscilla is consistent with many of the themes of Coppola's body of work, the most obvious being that of the girl trapped in the gilded cage, but it comes nowhere close to what she was able to do with similar subject matter in Marie Antoinette. Much of Priscilla felt perfunctory. I miss the way that, in the early films like Lost in Translation and Marie Antoinette and Somewhere, you would get these languorous unhurried sequences, usually cut to a particular song, where the film was allowed to swell and breathe. I think of the scene of Elle Fanning skating in Somewhere, Scarlett Johansson in Kyoto in Lost in Translation, the housebound teenagers playing phone tag in The Virgin Suicides, Kirsten Dunst wandering through the halls of Versailles in Marie Antoinette...just gorgeously composed sequences. Coppola is (or used to be) a genius for finding exactly the right piece of music for a scene, and editing the scene perfectly to match the soundtrack. In Priscilla, even when the source music is well-chosen, scenes end before they even have any time to start.

[therewillbeblus]

Lost in Translation didn't do much for me until I revisited it for, I don't know, maybe the sixth(?) time recently, and suddenly fell in love with it. But I don't think she peaked there, and I'd also place it somewhere in the middle. The Virgin Suicides and The Bling Ring and Marie Antoinette and Somewhere are all masterpieces, and she carries the same curious, humanist approach, in novel thematic shifts across her body of work through The Beguiled. I couldn't stand On the Rocks because it felt like an abandonment of the 'personal-yet-distanced-enough-to-be-objective' into just a weird hyper-personalized blend, so stuff like the relationship with the husband and everything just felt weird and forced and inorganic and not real. I go to her films to get something of the opposite effect.

Part of why I adore The Bling Ring (which I've written about extensively in its dedicated thread) is how Coppola avoids satire in favor of curiosity to a population she doesn't understand and, frankly, realizes she has a judgment and fear about. It's heartening to watch her work through those personal sides of her in favor of interest and unconditional positive regard, as well as a duty to meet a person on their level to understand, if we're really trying to do that. Why make a movie just to condescend to a population you don't get - that's not what she does. It's such a fun blend of genuine validation of the thrills and also a refusal to break from their worldview by inserting her own. I'm never surprised at how many people hate it, but I truly think people who don't like it do not 'get' what she's trying to do (yes, I realize this is an annoying thing to say and hear, and I don't often feel this way about films I'm passionate about that others aren't - we're all allowed to have our own experiences - but I've read too many misreadings that assume Coppola's approach is the exact opposite of her ethos and style, so I have yet to read a convincing defamation). In the New Yorker profile, Coppola considers The Bling Ring her least-favorite film of her's because she doesn't like the style of the kids and is averse to the population, but being able to recognize her bias going in, and working with it as a separate part rather than blending with it, produced a great work of art.

I don't blame her for not caring for it when she's passionate about so many other things though - and it's funny, in the article she mentions she's upset that her daughter considers it her favorite of her mother's work - so I wonder if there's some worry about her kids falling into that kind of antisocial materialistic ethos (especially after that viral video), wearing the hat of a parent rather than artist!

[reaky]

PRISCILLA follows MAESTRO in finding a musical titan’s commitment issues and abuse of a wife vastly more interesting than their art, to the point of excluding any reference to it. Never mind that these figures’ musical achievements are why the movies exist, why they found funding and why anyone might be interested in seeing them. What next, LARKIN: Adventures in a Library? AMIS: Ordeal by Dentistry? KUBRICK: A Passion for Stationery?

[The Curious Sofa]

I haven't seen Priscilla yet, but doesn't that have something to do with the fact that Elvis Presley's estate didn't give Sophia Coppola the rights to his music? And according to the title, it's not a biopic about Elvis but about his wife, who isn't a musician.

Even if we ignore that the film is supposed to be a biopic about Felicia and about Leonard Bernstein, I disagree on Maestro not being about the music. There is wall-to-wall use of Bernstein compositions throughout, used as the dramatic score in often inventive and unexpected ways. The film introduced me to music of his that I was unfamiliar with, and it made me appreciate him as an artist all over. As someone who isn't the biggest fan of biopics, what I liked about the film was that it didn't have any Eureka! moments. Instead, it takes an almost anti-dramatic approach, going against the usual "rise and fall and (optional) rise again" structure of biopics by dropping in on the Bernsteins almost at random over the years. So glad I didn't have to sit through a montage of the composer furiously jotting down notes.

[reaky]

Regarding PRISCILLA, I take the point that she and not Elvis is the subject of the film and the narrative’s POV. But we learn no more about her than about him. Without getting into spoilers (though I think we all know how the relationship was resolved), there’s no sense of Priscilla’s growth, or what was going on in her head. The film might as well have been from the perspective of one of the Memphis Mafia, or the dog.

[The Curious Sofa]

As I said, I haven't seen the film but rather than an Elivis biopic, I'd expect another Sophia Coppola film about a young woman trapped in a gilded cage, in her usual style, which is detached and observational. I'll admit that I haven't been in a great rush to see it, because it appears to me like she revisits familiar subject matter here. The last film of hers I liked was the underrated The Bling Ring, which I noticed has another fan on this thread.

[therewillbeblus]

It's absolutely a retread, and you're spot on. I could tap the New Yorker article again, but what Coppola was seeking to do here and with her work in general: A curious look at the 'privileged but not autonomous'; or, to put it more broadly, the one who has "all the things" that are "supposed to" lead to satisfying lives, and yet still feeling a lack of agency to engage with the world in a meaningful way - and this isn't always through tangible oppressors like a husband or religious parents. It can be culturally, and her most interesting films are - including the obvious ones like The Bling Ring but also her work that seems like it's focusing on those surface-level barriers.. Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation, and Marie Antoinette all seem way more focused on a spiritual malady not attributed to only familial conditioning, loveless marriages, oppressive monarchs: It's that we're taught that these things are 'supposed' to make us feel a certain way, and then we fight with ourselves and others and act out in curious and interesting and unique and not-unique ways, and then sometimes we come out self-actualized.

Priscilla could be charitably viewed as engaging with that same idea - but I think it would've been more interesting if the set-up was more emphasized on that spectacle for her and then the letdown, whereas being in the right place/right time and going from there just doesn't pack the same punch. I get that this is Priscilla's story, so if that's how it happened that's how it happened, and that they wanted to focus more on her constantly trying to catch up to what was going on around her. That swallowing effect can be well-done, but it didn't go into a route that could've laid richer textures of complexity, in an on-brand mode for Coppola and respectfully planting her sober focus on the experiential surface.