The Cinema of Sofia Coppola

The Cinema of Sofia Coppola provides the first comprehensive analysis of Coppola’s oeuvre, situating her work broadly in relation to contemporary artistic, social, and cultural currents. Suzanne Ferriss considers the central role of fashion—in its various manifestations—in Coppola’s films. She explores fashion’s primacy in every cinematic dimension: in film narrative; production, costume and sound design; cinematography; marketing, distribution, and auteur branding.

Ferriss also delves into the theme of celebrity, including Coppola’s own director-star persona, arguing that Coppola’s auteur status rests on an original and distinct visual style derived from the filmmaker’s complex engagement with photography and painting.

Ferriss analyses each of Coppola’s six films, categorising them into two groups: films where fashion commands attention (Marie Antoinette, The Beguiled, and The Bling Ring) and those where clothing and material goods do not stand out ostentatiously but are essential in establishing characters’ identities and relationships (The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation, and Somewhere).

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. The Cinema of Sofia Coppola is beautifully illustrated with colour images from her films, as well as artworks and advertising artefacts.