Preview

Movie Analysis: The Virgin Suicides

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1588 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Movie Analysis: The Virgin Suicides
How does the Sofia Coppola, in The Virgin Suicides, use a range of stylistic features (film techniques) to display the movies themes and with what effect on the audience?

INTRO:
Director Sofia Coppola uses a range of film techniques to display themes of obsession, the superficiality of vision and isolation from the real world in her film The Virgin Suicides. Through use of symbolism, characterization, setting and techniques specific to a film such a soundtrack, Coppola is able to construct the intricate, mysterious and unfathomable world of the Lisbon sisters. The story of the five sisters, told through the eyes of a group of neighborhood boys obsessed with their mere existence, becomes somewhat of an urban myth. Their tragedy translating to the downfall of the community of which they lived. Coppola portrays the five Lisbon sisters as ethereal entities existing on a level separate to the rest of modern society through her unique and specific directing style; creating an unearthly, pastel world of femininity. Through these film techniques, the prominent themes of The Virgin Suicides are effectively communicated to the audience, allowing them to see past the facades and illusions of stereotypical 1990’s American suburbia.

OBSESSION
The theme of obsession and the power it possesses is prominent in Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides. Obsession in this film relates to the infamous Lisbon sisters; portrayed with assistance from setting, symbolism, and characterization. The film is voiced over by an anonymous narrator, assumed to belong to one of the many teenage boys of which have become in enchanted by Lisbon girls. The particular group of boys that the audience are introduced to enlighten us into the lives and minds of the five Lisbon sisters, perhaps more then the girls themselves. In a scene from the film, set in the bedroom of one of the boys, we see them attempting to decode the delicate and complex puzzle of the mysterious girls. Reading through the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    13 Sins: Film Analysis

    • 409 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The movie I am reviewing is 13 sins. 13 sins is a horror movie and was released on April 14th 2014 in the USA. I was directed by Daniel Stamm, Mark Webber ( as the main character), Devon Graye, Tom Bower, Rutina Wesley, Ron Perlman and more. There are no big A-list actor/actresses. It is placed in present time, and placed in a city.…

    • 409 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Passion of the Christ is a movie based upon the last hours of Jesus' life. Though not all of what is potrayed in the movie is historically correct according to scripture. This set their central theme on the torture and crucifixion. The central theme of the four gospels is salvation and how Jesus taught, the intent of the movie deviates from scripture.…

    • 232 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The film showing in Epworth and Owston Ferry in July was ‘The Child Killers’ depicting a true episode of the invasion of France. The support film was a Keystone Cops comic! As noted earlier the obsession with fifth columnists in England meant that spy pictures were very popular. One such was ‘The Spy,' a two-reel drama furthering the belief that German spies were everywhere. Another was ‘The Deadly Model,’ a drama about the German Spy System in London, but by far the most chilling drama shown during these summer months was ‘The Mad Dog of War.’…

    • 2015 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The feature presentation we viewed in class was a movie I thought I would never see in my life time. Learning about the term “Hermaphrodite” and the actual story about why people use that particular term to describe a human being always struck my mind, and after seeing the film in conjunction with the reading the book Testo Junkie I am coming to grips with the term. That word is also used to describe the main character in the story Phoebe, a women who has mens chromosomes.…

    • 400 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Carrie Movie Analysis

    • 668 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Carrie is a 2013 remake of Stephen King’s 1974 Carrie novel. This movie film was directed by Kimberly Peirce with the help of Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. The movie shows of a mother and daughter relationship between religious mother Margaret played by Julianne Moore and daughter Carrie played by Chloe Grace Moretz. Peirce shows how Carrie being in the house with her religious mother’s beliefs affects the social beliefs of Carrie at school, and how she takes revenge on everybody. Carrie is and high school senior that never had real friends or any type of social relationship. Margaret made Carrie believe there was in outside world and homeschooled Carrie until the local authorities got involved and made Margaret send Carrie to public school. Now that…

    • 668 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In this trimester, I have studied Paradigm II at Mahidol University International College, which is a core course for the social science division. This course learns about the major paradigms in social sciences during the twentieth century. In the past few months, a lecturer, Eugene Jones, opened a documentary film named Bowling for Columbine. In this film, a filmmaker, Michael Moore, try to find the reason of butchery in the United States. After I watched this film, I had learned that there are numerous reasons why Americans are so violent.…

    • 475 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This analysis will examine the following focal points, panopticism, scoptophilic instincts, and visual pleasure. First, the analysis will examine panopticism in relation to embedded “secret politics” within the film, The Day I Became a Woman. Second, the analysis will compare both scoptophilic instinct with visual pleasure.…

    • 661 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    “Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl” by Jesse Andrews is about a boy, Greg, and his friend, Earl. Greg likes to credit himself to “not being friends with anyone”, saying he is friends with all of the groups. However, there is one thing that makes Greg and Earl real friends, their love of film making. In the beginning of the story, Greg learns that his old friend, Rachel, is sick with leukemia. To try and “cheer her up” Greg begins to visit her, and they become great friends. Since Greg is such great friends with Earl, he decides to introduce them. Things start off rocky, but eventually they all become friends. One day Rachel and Greg begin talking about the films that he and Earl make, she asked to see one but he, of course, rejected that idea. Even…

    • 251 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    * Describe the film techniques (visual and aural) that are used to convey these values and ideas…

    • 480 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Run Lola Run Essay

    • 1000 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Throughout the film’s three alternative versions of events, It poses deeper existential philosophical questions that challenge the audience’s perceptions of coincidences of relationships and the post-modern societal values of relationships. An example is the protagonist Lola and her boyfriend Manni’s relationships. The post-modern relationship value that they behold has been effectively conveyed throughout the film with the use of numerous distinctively film techniques. In commencement, the incorporations of several distinctive visual motifs are presented in order to convey the nature of Lola and Manni’s constantly changing relationship. The motif of Lola’s scream emphasises danger, fear and pain. The audience envisions Lola in full zoom “screaming”. The zoom effect magnifies her emotion and draws the attention to her red hair. The red motif evokes associations with love, passion, danger, blood and even death. The association of these motifs highlights Lola’s determination and energy in wanting to save her troubled boyfriend. Furthermore, the calamities caused by these motifs hence are represented through other mediums such as the monochrome “red scene” where Lola and Manni explore and challenge each other’s love. Lola questions the sincerity of Manni’s love towards her, as she is unconvinced. Their constant explorations of their love…

    • 1000 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In "The Virgin Suicides," Eugenides uses the motif of boundaries to express how the girls are enclosed in this environment that they are living in and want to escape but have people that keep them restrained for example their family, friends, and even strangers.…

    • 532 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Coppola can be remembered as an auteur in specific for his concepts of self – conscious films that pay homage to the past’s new wave cinema. As Turner discusses, Coppola was fascinated by the idea of a misanthropic man that lives alone and is constantly preoccupied with surveillance, drawing ideas from films like Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow Up (Turner, 9). This 1996 film centering around a photographer who accidentally photographed a murder, also features the subjectivity of perception and can be traced as the origins of Coppola’s mime reference in the opening shot (Turner, 4). Coppola also borrows sequences from Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) in the sequence where blood is flowing from the toilet (Braudy, 25). Moreover, Coppola adapts the story in Apocalypse Now from Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novella Heart of Darkness, and morphs the story’s structure and material to reflect his own experience (Kinder, 13). Kinder agrees that this is a prime example of Coppola’s auteurism as he has the ability to adapt someone else’s story and still let his vision shine through to such a large extent.…

    • 2212 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    “The Night of a Thousand Suicides” by Teruhiko Asada is a fiction that shows the pressure and expectations of the Japanese society placed on its soldiers forcing them to commit acts of suicide then to come home as coward. Because of the peoples dedication to the Emperor and their belief in him as a living God they fallowed him blindly.…

    • 720 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Halloween Movie Analysis

    • 1241 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Its director managed to apply the low budget and brilliant cast and create one of the best works of American cinematography. The most essential thing in this film is not its terrifying effect but the thought which it provokes. It does not resemble thousands of other horror movies because of its ability to render the particular idea to the viewer. Despite the fact that John Carpenter portrays the deeds of the psycho, they still have the hidden truth. With the help of this movie, the director has manifested his viewpoint on life, its laws, and possible aftermath. This movie was his inner response towards the sexual revolution and debauchery, which dominated over human moral dignity and ethics in the 1980s. The director showed that human actions have consequences and that people have to take this fact into account. People’s life is in their hands, and each individual is responsible for the aftermath of his or her…

    • 1241 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Estrella’s mother, Petra, was left a long time ago by her husband. It is her circumstances that the reader is asked to relate with most. Estrella learns from her father’s disappearance that men cannot be trusted or depended on, and that women will usually always be left to take care of the family. Just as Petra has been abandoned physically by Estrella's father, and mentally by Perfecto, Estrella soon will come to be abandoned by Alejo. The fact that Perfecto has not married her mother, furthers this idea of lack of commitment made by the men in her life. “The eucalyptus trees lined the dirt road like a row of thin dancing girls fanning their feathers. Estrella knows the world of men and women through her mother Petra and Perfecto, ‘the man who was not her father’" (3). Viramontes is sympathetic to the men in some ways, but she does emphasize that when the men abandon the family, the women are left to endure for themselves and their children. Estrella and Alejo’s relationship, serves as a major basis for the author's allegation in this idea of suffering. Alejo’s death represents how once again a female is left behind. Estrella is the heart and soul of the novel and her love for Alejo, was more important than Alejo…

    • 811 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays