SCÈNE 09. Marina Sulmona, Producer and Writer
Spinning out and drawing in: An emotionally stunted actor and his precocious preteen daughter connect amid existential ennui at the Chateau Marmont.
You’re now entering the Mise-En-Scène zone, edition number nine. If you’re new here thanks to
’s generous co-sign in the most recent round-up, my immense gratitude for subscribing and a hearty welcome to you! You can learn more about this newsletter’s reason for being here and connect on Instagram here.I’m astonished it took nine editions (ten, if you count my outlier Scène Dispatch) to get to the mise-en-scène of a Sofia Coppola film. I want to thank this edition’s guest curator, producer and writer Marina Sulmona (@marinasulmona), for breaking the lack-of-Coppola curse with her excellent Mise-En-Scène pick: Somewhere (2010), a quiet father-daughter story written and directed by Sofia; specifically, the poignant ice-skating sequence that happens early in the film.
Sofia Coppola is a filmmaker vaunted for her visual languor. An auteur and a Taurean, she’s gifted at creating gilded worlds and uses precise sensorial codes that evoke moods so potent they move her audience to not just champion her work onscreen, but also buy out her photography book and her co-created set of Augustinus Bader lip balms. I’m particularly struck by how younger audiences continue to connect with Coppola’s work; Gen Z is the most recent cohort to latch on, with notorious TikToker Harry Daniels serenading a characteristically serene Coppola at her book signing. Her cinema has become an entire lifestyle. For the under 30 set, the Coppola name automatically conjures Sofia, not her legendary dad Francis.
In today’s feature, Marina herself describes growing up with Sofia’s films, connecting first with Marie Antoinette (2005) when she was a girl. Cut to now: Marina knows a thing or two about world-building through compelling imagery. Specializing in visual culture, her work as a producer spans celebrity portraiture to commercial, lifestyle work and well beyond for clients including Apple, Sephora, Variety and more. She is venturing into film with a selection of short and feature projects she has in the works. In her writing, she’s explored curiosities like why people get married by “Elvis” in Las Vegas. (Yet another Coppola connection!) Marina’s practice is interested in the zillions of different ways there are to live a life.
Living a certain type of life—privileged, but not always pleasant—is a recurring theme in Sofia Coppola’s films. Unlike Marina, I didn’t click with Coppola’s work until I did; Somewhere, actually, was my way in. It’s the most Jeanne Dielman-like of her movies, trailing the listless routines of bad-boy movie star Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff) as he recuperates from an arm injury at the Chateau Marmont hotel, until one day he receives a visit from his preteen daughter Cleo (Elle Fanning). My early interpretations of Coppola’s debut feature The Virgin Suicides (1999) and her Oscar-winning follow-up Lost in Translation (2002) were that they were slight, too mood-driven. I hadn’t yet learned about Wim Wenders, Wong Kar-wei, Jane Campion, or Terrence Malick, filmmakers who tell stories in a more impressionistic style that Coppola herself prefers. Somewhere cemented for me that aesthetics are central for understanding the cinema of Sofia Coppola; the film routinely references, elegiacally, Chauteau Marmont lore like Helmut Newton’s photographs and even his fatal car crash on site. I’ve come to see Coppola’s style as soulful, but never cloying, with the correct touch of remove.
Read on for Marina Sulmona’s thoughts1 on Somewhere, its starry hotel backdrop, and quite possibly the best Gwen Stefani needle-drop on film.
“HI, DAD”: PRODUCER AND WRITER MARINA SULMONA ON SOFIA COPPOLA’S SOMEWHERE, 2010
MARINA ON THE “ENNUI” OF SOMEWHERE:
Upon first glance, Somewhere might appear to be Coppola’s only movie with a man at its center, but really, it's very much about his daughter, an 11-year-old girl named Cleo, who comes to live with him at the Chateau Marmont. In the film’s ice-skating scene—which remains my favourite in film, ever—the ennui of living life and the glimmer of meaning that comes from really seeing someone you love feels so palpable to me.
MARINA ON COMING OF AGE WITH SOFIA COPPOLA’S FILMS:
Growing up I watched Marie Antoinette over and over—it’s probably one of the movies I’ve seen most in life. I was a girl when it was released, paving a natural course to come into teen and young adulthood with Sofia Coppola’s filmmaking reflecting and refracting my visions of what girlhood is. It wasn’t ’til my mid-twenties that I came to Somewhere though, after rewatching the classics and doing a deeper dive into her filmography. This film is a time capsule of 2009.
MARINA ON FEELING AT HOME WITH SOMEWHERE—AND HER FASCINATION WITH THE CHATEAU MARMONT:
Since seeing it that first time, Somewhere instantly became the movie I put on when I most want to feel like myself. It always hits. Also, despite having never been, I’ve always been a little obsessed with the Chateau Marmont and this further fuels that in a fun way. (Read this book if you are interested.)
MARINA ON THE FILM’S EMOTIONAL CENTER, THE ICE-SKATING SEQUENCE:
I think that each image in this film is so indelible, but what strikes me in particular about this [sequence] is how genuine Cleo looks. She appears unencumbered and released into a zone of her own, yet still like a regular 11-year-old girl, doing regular 11-year-old girl things. More than that, I keep sitting with how she’s being seen in this scene, as her father watches her figure skate, newly envisioning her in her true light.
MARINA ON COPPOLA USING ONE OF GWEN STEFANI’S BEST SONGS TO ITS HIGHEST EXPRESSION:
Gwen Stefani was my girl growing up. Long, long before ever seeing Somewhere, the actual music video for “Cool” was on repeat in my room. I thought it was so glamorous. So much longing, so much aching beauty that I fell in love with but never quite understood the depths of when I myself was 11. The scene from Somewhere has become its own complementary music video in my mind—and in many ways, it’s one I think I would’ve clicked with, more simply, at Cleo’s age.
MARINA SULMONA RECOMMENDS
The people clamor for a Sofia Coppola guest-edit: see her oft-circulated December 2004/January 2005 issue of Vogue Paris, or those newly launched lip balms I referenced earlier. Our girl Marina also has some excellent cultural recommendations up her sleeve. Keep reading for more of what is bringing her delight these days. (As always: No affiliate links used.)
“Making Peace With Our Distractions: On Kelly Reichardt's Showing Up (2023)” by Sarah-Welch Larson.
Marina says: Sarah Welch-Larson’s essay pays attention to Showing Up in the specific way that Reichardt herself attends to the details she’s built into the world of her film—which is to say, in a way that’s thoughtfully observant. In describing the artist Lizzy’s goings-on, Welch-Larson notices details that I did not. She picks up on connections that floated above my head as she weaves together a story of what art making within a community is. Also, don’t miss the Marge Piercy poem she begins with.Noticing the foliage around you.
Marina says: Perhaps a bit of a cop-out, but I’ve been lucky to have spent the better part of the past month outside walking and running a lot, so much of that time being soothed by the trees and flowers around me. First, I couldn’t get enough of all the cherry blossoms and their lookalikes, but now, my newest obsession is this delicate little pink or red plant. It looks almost like an orchid, but it just sits out there in the wild (of people’s lawns, that is). And it’s called a “bleeding heart”—what romance and tragedy!Photographer and director Viðar Logi’s collaborations with Björk.
Marina says: Everything Viðar Logi is shooting is to die for! I particularly like the music video for “sorrowful soil” (it takes place on an active volcano), this Purple Magazine feature where Björk’s dripped out in Noir Kei Ninomiya, and this specific shot from the “atopos” video.Cakes that look like little animals.
Marina says: This will never get old to me!Writing every day and going on dates with yourself.
Marina says: I picked up Julia Cameron’s method of ‘Morning Pages' and ‘Artist Dates’ years ago, and then dropped off for a while. After revisiting at the start of this year, that thing happened—where once something is on your radar, seemingly everyone is recommending you write your Morning Pages. I do think it’s helpful and calming to write something that has no stakes every day. More than that though (and far less frequently recommended), I say you stick with her habit of making a weekly date with yourself, solely for the purpose of having fun.
That’s all for now! Thank you for reading. I hope you were able to briefly luxuriate with Marina and me. You can screen Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere in all the usual places: Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play.
What are your thoughts on Somewhere or Sofia Coppola’s work in general? What do you want to see more of in this newsletter? Whose mise-en-scène (or Mise-En-Scène selection) are you curious about? Share your thoughts and opinions below in the comments, or DM me: @yourmiseenscene and/or @natisagee on Instagram.
Special thanks to Marina Sulmona, our guest curator, for her sumptuous Mise-En-Scène pick. Connect with Marina on Instagram (@marinasulmona) and view her writing and production work at marinasulmona.com.
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Until we meet again. Stay “Cool” and be well!
Answers have been lightly edited for clarity.