Rather than stage a meet cute between its two main characters – Bob and Charlotte, who are both in Tokyo not by choice – she holds off and lets them slowly warm to each other. That’s the reality that underscores Coppola’s exploration of loneliness in Lost in Translation. Namely, they’re in and amongst plenty of others for the most part, but mentally, they couldn’t be farther away, harder to reach. Her oeuvre weaves together archetypes of middle-aged men (Johnny Marco in Somewhere, Louis XVI in Marie Antoinette, Bob Harris in Lost in Translation) and young women (Lux Lisbon in The Virgin Suicides, Marie Antoinette, Charlotte) who embody the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby” lyric: “ Ahhhh, look at all the lonely people”. ![]() It’s almost like that joke in About a Boy – wherein a parade of single mums gather in a Clerkenwell basement and chant, “Single parents alone together! Single parents alone together! All for one and one for all!” – has lost its punchline.Ĭoppola’s films are the poster children for loneliness. ![]() Lost in Translation was practically made for reblogging.Īs we slowly inch towards an impending future of mainlining social connectivity, there are more and more accompanying think pieces, memes and click-baiting headlines that point to the irony of us feeling increasingly alone, despite being more socially connected than any other point in history. These are all singular cries into the void, using a means of communicating despondency that has an easy-access entry point. Juvenile by some standards, sure, but nonetheless faultless representations of loneliness. This introspection often translates into users posting monochrome gifs of Casper the Friendly Ghost sputtering “Nobody wants me for a friend”, Alice from Alice in Wonderland sobbing into a hanky with the hashtag #soalone, or a still of Scarlet Johansson’s character Charlotte, gazing forlornly over the Tokyo skyline, with “I just do not know what I’m supposed to be” tacked on the bottom. This finding supports the view that Facebook connects users to real-life friends, while Tumblr connects users with their inner selves.” A thesis published this year at San Diego’s Alliant University by Nicole Dizon Witkin suggests that signs of “extraversion was significantly higher in Facebook users than Tumblr users. Is there some transparent connection between feelings of isolation and the social media platform? Apparently, yes. However, it’s not that simple.Ī quick Google search for “I just feel so alone” autocompletes with “tumblr”. Lost in Translation’s ‘lonely together’ through line is cinema’s precursor to the invention of Tumblr, not to mention the act of venting your loneliness to whoever you can find to RT, double-tap and reblog your woes. Coppola’s film and the socially anxious mores of Tumblr have much in common. It’s a reblog-ready badge for the anxiety that a lot of social media users feel mirrors their existence. This quote was somehow invented, and has wormed its way on to the IMDb quote page and a handful of Tumblr blogs whose followers eat this shit for breakfast. Bob sits alone on a brown ultra suede couch feeling out of place and empty – not dialogue. There are 11 mentions of “alone” in the script, but every time it appears it denotes an action – i.e. ![]() Truth is, despite the body-aching loneliness that saddles its 101 minute run time, there is never a character in the film that so much as utters the word “alone”. “I just feel so alone, even when I’m surrounded by other people.” This is a quote from Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation. Or at least, Tumblr thinks it’s a quote from Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation.
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