Sophia Coppola's "Lost in Translation" in the Age of "Liquid Modernity"

Essay , 2010 , 12 Pages , Grade: A

Film Science

In this essay, the author examines the ways in which Sophia Coppola’s film "Lost in Translation" (2003) tackles the discomfort experienced by two strangers living in an age of liquid modernity. This movie becomes a ‘liquid love’ story, in which characters Bob Harris (played by Bill Murray) and Charlotte (played by Scarlett Johansson) meet in at the Hyatt in Tokyo and engage in a somewhat ambiguous “love” affair (ambiguous because it sits between platonic and romantic love). Bob Harris is a worn out movie star who is getting paid two million dollars to endorse a whiskey ad and Charlotte is a recently graduated philosophy student who struggles with existentialist boredom and unemployment. Charlotte and Bob bond throughout their stay in Tokyo through what may be referred to as ‘Mixophobia,’ a term coined by Bauman to describe that which “manifests itself in the drive towards islands of similarity and sameness amidst the sea of variety and difference”. In Tokyo’s “sea of variety and difference” Bob and Charlotte find sanctity in their similarities as they bond over their American backgrounds, their unhappy marriages and their general sense of meaninglessness.

Sophia Coppola’s ‘Lost in Translation’ in the Age of ‘Liquid Modernity’

Francis Grin

University of Melbourne, 2010

Zygmunt Bauman’s work portrays a shockingly truthful account of our current world as it interrogates the full impact of globalization and consumerism. Bauman argues that the impact of globalization has converted humanity into a society of consumers, where the market holds a tight grasp on human bonds and identities. The globalized market has shaped the world into a“liquid” state of modernity, where there is no time for solidification as everything must be readily consumed and subsequently disposed of, rapidly moving and making way for the constant re-emergence of the“new”. (Bauman: 2007) Bauman refers to this present age as that of“liquid modernity” which he defines as, A condition in which social forms (structures that limit individual choices, institutions that guard repetitions of routines, patterns of acceptable behaviour) can no longer (and are not expected) to keep their shape for long, because they decompose and melt faster than the time it takes to cast them, and once they are cast for them to set.

(Bauman, 1: 2007)

It is a state of liquid modernity which has woven its way into all aspects of culture, as human bonds become frailer, identities more shallow, and the boundaries between cities and spaces become blurred.

In this essay, I will examine the ways in which Sophia Coppola’s film Lost in Translation (2003) tackles the discomfort experienced by two strangers living in an age of liquid modernity. This movie becomes a‘liquid love’story, in which characters Bob Harris (played by Bill Murray) and Charlotte (played by Scarlett Johansson) meet in at the Hyatt in Tokyo and engage in a somewhat ambiguous“love” affair (ambiguous because it sits between platonic and romantic love). Bob Harris is a worn out movie star who is getting paid two million dollars to endorse a whiskey ad and Charlotte is a recently graduated philosophy student who struggles with existentialist boredom and unemployment. Charlotte and Bob bond throughout their stay in Tokyo through what may be referred to as ‘Mixophobia,’a term coined by Bauman to describe that which“manifests itself in the drive towards islands of similarity and sameness amidst the sea of variety and difference” (Bauman, 87: 2007). In Tokyo’s“sea of variety and difference” Bob and Charlotte find sanctity in their similarities as they bond over their American backgrounds, their unhappy marriages and their general sense of meaninglessness.

In this essay, I will read Lost in Translation through Bauman’s discussions to argue that what essentially draws Charlotte and Bob together is their similar sense of anxiety and displacement within their liquid world. We see this in the way that they both often experience discomfort and resistance towards the“current” (for lack of a better word) of their liquid environments. I will illustrate this discomfort through three aspects of the film. Firstly, I will discuss the construction of Bob and Charlotte’s identities as ones which occasionally resist the mainstream“fashion” of a liquid identity. As Bauman discusses, a liquid identity is very much regulated by the necessity to become a commodity, to be invested in the constant remaking and re-establishing of the self through consumerist habits. (Bauman, 2007) While Bob and Charlotte are both clearly commodities, they still occasionally step out of their own commoditization at significant points in the film, expressing a sense of discomfort and re-evaluation of their liquid identities. Secondly, I will look at the ways in which Bob and Charlotte’s existential anxiety is triggered by their detached existence in Tokyo, a city which comes to represent the‘liquid city’. And lastly, I will discuss the ways in which Bob and Charlotte express a discomfort for the frailty of their“liquid bonds”. In this liquid world, the fleeting romance of a quick affair is better at home than the long-term bond of marriage, yet at the same time Bob and Charlotte experience a significant unease towards the manifestation of these new liquid bonds as they are both‘stuck’between the old world of traditional modernity and the new world of liquid modernity.

Charlotte and Bob’s identities are constructed in such a way that they often resist the conventional portrait of a liquid identity. Bauman discusses this new liquid identity as a commoditized identity, one which is driven by a consumer society. As Bauman notes,“the consumerist culture is marked by a constant pressure to be someone else” (Bauman, 100: 2007). Identities, just like marketable products, are meant to be in a constant state of reinventing and remoulding themselves and this remoulding conventionally comes through the purchase of consumer goods such as clothing, technology, plastic surgery, etc. It is this process of self reinvention which offers the individual a fleeting sense of satisfaction, one which can never extend its stay for too long (as this process must remain continuous). (Bauman 2007) While Bob and Charlotte both experience the desire for self-reinvention and satisfaction, their quest in doing so is often an incomplete and reluctant one, as neither fully embraces the role of the consumer. In this way, their process of self-reinvention becomes an incomplete and uneasy one, leaving both characters somewhat displaced within their liquid environments.

There is an‘unfinished’aspect to Charlotte and Bob’s identities as reluctance to fully invest in consumer behaviour and properly follow fashion/material trends causes them to appear as‘incomplete commodities’. As Bauman argues:

The consumerist vocation ultimately rests on individual performances. The selection of services offered by the market which may be needed in order to allow individual performances to run smoothly is also deemed to be the concern of the individual consumer: a task that must be individually undertaken and resolved with the help of consumer skills and patters of action individually obtained.

Bauman, 55: 2007

For example, while most of the characters in the film wear highly characteristic outfits and expressive styles of clothing, Charlotte is often left with uncharacteristic and bland outfits causing her to appear as a kind of‘incomplete commodity’. Her incompleteness is first illustrated through the opening shot of the film, which is a close-up and slightly voyeuristic shot of her backside, as Charlotte lies in bed wearing a large pair of pale pink underwear and a bland, grey sweater. There is something non-sexual about the image, even though she is positioned in a way that would usually be framed sexually (as the shot focuses on her bottom). Academic Wendy Haslem refers to this shot as:

An intimate image without context. Coppola's intention with this opening shot appears to be to defy taboos and to undermine expectations surrounding what might be considered the“money shot” in more traditionally exploitative cinema.

(Haslem, 2004)

This opening is certainly not a“money shot” as there is something naked and incomplete about Charlotte’s appearance within it. Throughout the rest of the film, Charlotte is continuously shown underdressed in her hotel room, wearing nothing but a bland, non-sensual pair of underwear and a grey t-shirt or sweater. The constant image of Charlotte walking around under-dressed in this manner creates an air of underdevelopment and“un-readiness” around her character. Bauman employs the theories of Günter Anders to point out that the‘unclothed body’is in many ways the‘insufficiently reified body’:

The‘naked body’, the object which by common consent should not be exposed for reasons of the decorum and dignity of its‘owner’, These days does not mean, Anders suggests,‘the body unclothed, but a body on which no work has been done’ –an insufficiently‘reified’body.

(Gunther as quoted by Bauman, 58: 2007)

This‘insufficiently reified body’quality of Charlotte’s body is further explored in the scenes that she shares with her husband John. John, in contrast to Charlotte, is incredibly‘reified’and‘liquid’in the sense that he was fully equipped and in motion with the latest fashion trends of his consumer society. One of the first times the spectator really encounters John is in the hotel room after he has returned from a photo shoot. Even though he is inside the hotel room, John wears a colourful trendy polo, jeans, a white sports watch, a red wrist band, some fashionable sneakers and an oversized stylish pair of sunglasses (which cover half his face). He sits on the ground, talking to Charlotte and unloading his camera equipment as the shot shows Charlotte walk past him, wearing again nothing but pale pink underpants and a grey sweatshirt. She walks past the camera; her bottom again in the middle of the shot, framed in a non-sexual light as she moves in a careless, frumpy way. Charlotte then sits on the bed and puts an unfinished homemade scarf around her neck. She asks John if he thinks the scarf is ready and he just squints at her in a confused way and says“I don’t know”. In this scene, John clearly represents the commoditized, consumer world while Charlotte represents the world of incomplete and‘unfinished’identities, as she sits undressed, holding onto her unfinished homemade scarf, an image defies consumer culture and clearly perplexes John.

Bob, on the other hand, represents an incomplete identity in the sense that he is unable to properly mould and recreate his identity on his own; rather he consistently requires assistance when it comes to establishing and practicing his liquid identity. While Bob’s producers have no trouble repeatedly re-moulding him into marketable personas, Bob himself is less efficient when it comes to following trends and reinventing himself. The first example of this is during Bob’s photo shoot for the Santory Whiskey Brand. Bob wears makeup and a very suave suit which has been tailored at the back with large visible clips. During the shoot the photographer keeps telling Bob to put on different identities, such as that of Roger Moore,‘Rat Pack’and‘Frank Sinatra’, all of which he effortlessly manages. Yet after the shoot is done, Bob goes to the bar and has a whiskey, completely unfazed by the fact that he either forgotten or dismissed the necessity to change out of his photo shoot attire. Hence, at the bar Bob now looks completely displaced in his clearly constructed look, one which becomes estranged as the clips behind his jacket and his makeup are clearly visible. The moment symbolizes both Bob’s disinterest and inability to properly move with identity trends. Bob’s inability to properly construct his identity is later revisited when he first decides to go out with Charlotte for the evening. Bob shows up at Charlotte’s door wearing a hip yet hideous bright orange army shirt, one which looks completely awkward on him. Charlotte looks at his shirt and says“you really are having a mid-life crisis”. Bill then takes the shirt off, reverses it and asks Charlotte to cut off the tag. In this scene, Charlotte helps Bob construct and secure his identity, as he is now ready to go out and present himself. We see this again at the end of the film, when after having had a fight Charlotte and Bob meet outside during the hotel evacuation. In a state of reconciliation, Charlotte looks down at Bob’s ridiculously undersized white slippers and smiles at him. This identity“malfunction” becomes one of the things that Charlotte and Bill can both connect and laugh over, as they both feel a similar displacement within the world of liquid identities.

[...]

• College: University of Melbourne
• Grade: A
• Author: Francis Grin (Author)
• Publication Year: 2010
• Pages: 12
• Catalog Number: V1033213
• ISBN (eBook): 9783346444868
• ISBN (Book): 9783346444875
• Language: English
• Tags: sophia, coppola’s, lost, translation, liquid, modernity