I watched Lost In Translation again the other night, I think for around the fourth time. A film that just gets better and better for me the more I see it.
It's beautiful to look at of course (Sofia Coppola's nightime shots of Tokyo neon are especially lovely) and written and played in a wonderfully understated way - it also does that thing with music and colour that Coppola senior and his contemporaries picked up from genius British director Michael Black Narcissus Powell, and Coppola daughter seems to have absorbed by osmosis from birth....that thing where the screen colour and movement and the music all kind of fuse.
And when the music is the first major work from Kevin Shields since the Creation Records near-bankrupting My Bloody Valentine album Loveless, with some MBV, Jesus & Mary Chain and Air in there too at crucial moments, well....truly this is a Ghost-friendly film.
Tragically, I don't have an MP3 of Bill Murray karaoke-singing 'More Than This' (but YouTube has the clip) so the Roxy original will have to do.
Kevin Shields - 'Ikebana' (2003)
Kevin Shields - 'Are You Awake?' (2003)
My Bloody Valentine - 'Sometimes' (1991)
Roxy Music - 'More Than This' (1982)
Air - 'Alone In Kyoto' (2003)
The Jesus & Mary Chain - 'Just Like Honey' (1985)
[Buy the soundtrack and DVD (good deleted scenes!) here; Loveless here, Air here and Roxy's lovely Avalon here. This post goes out to my good friend Dr Al who's sandbagging against the floods in Oxford...]
i know we're supposed to like this for all that proper arty stuff but murray on the treadmill is still my favourite bit.
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'It's going to be fine. Just ditch the twat in the sunglasses and meet me at the airport in an hour. We are going to have a good life, you and I.'
ReplyDeleteThis is what he whispers to her at the end, right?
Or what YOU want to whisper Colin? Hey! Form a line here!
ReplyDeleteAlly - treadmill, yes. Also his bad 'combat' t-shirt I like v.much.
Come on, the best bit is surely Scarlett Johansson's bum in pink panties at the beginning.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a truly awful film but I did go in expecting a lot, just because The Virgin Suicides was so good.
ReplyDeleteThe Murray karaoke rendition of More Than This is tacked on to Just Like Honey on the soundtrack CD as a hidden track, by the way.
Aha! So as you can tell Marc, I have only individual tracks, not the album. Still, it did give me an excuse to post some soft Roxy. 'Virgin Suicides' should go on my 'to view' list then, eh?
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