Sofia Coppola’s Comments on Past Work Cast Doubt on How ‘Priscilla’ Will Be Handled

Sophia Coppola, like many white women before her, has had a long history of controversies. If you’re not already familiar, Coppola is a film director and daughter of Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now) who has directed movies such as The Beguiled, Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette, and so on.

As we’ve said before, Coppola is unapologetically white feminist. All of her movies are centered around the lives of white people, often to the detriment of POC. For example, the film Lost in Translation is horrendously orientalist. It treats Japanese people as mere background objects to the central white characters in the foreground. Many people have written about this already, like Lee Jae Min On of Flipscreened.

Coppola did so again in The Beguiled. As Slate says, this movie is adapted from the 1966 novel of the same name by Thomas P. Cullinan and is about southern women caring for a northern soldier during the Civil War. One problem: The novel had Black characters in it, while the film does not. It seems that Coppola felt like Black people would interfere with her story about white women and their own tribulations.

Recently, the director has received even more controversy. One of the biggest problems with Lost in Translation was its age gap between the two lead characters. Scarlett Johansson was only 17 years old at the time of filming, while Bill Murray was 52. According to IndieWire, Sofia Coppola pretty much brushed this off completely:

“I don’t know. I’m not going to think about it. I was just doing my thing at the time it was made. I did notice that watching it with my kids, because they’re teenagers and they were like, ‘What’s going on with that?’ But Bill is so lovable and charming. Part of the story is about how you can have romantic connections that aren’t sexual or physical. You can have crushes on people where it isn’t that kind of thing. Part of the idea was that you can have connections where you can’t be together for various reasons because you’re at different points in life.”

‘Lost in Translation’: Sofia Coppola on the Movie’s 20th Anniversary – Rolling Stone

Yeah … not a good look. To make matters worse, Coppola is set to release the film Priscilla, which is centered around real-life figures Elvis Presley and his wife Priscilla Presley. As reported by Parade, Priscilla was 14 and Elvis was 24 when their relationship began. Priscilla herself has defended this on record, and along with Coppola’s handling of the subject material, that does not bode well for how the movie will address the issues involved.

Priscilla seems like it’s going to be an absolute disaster, and one of the most controversial movies of the year.

(featured image: American Zoetrope/The Apartment Pictures)