One of the more interesting things I've read about "LIT
Posted: Fri Nov 25, 2005 1:56 pm
I saw this today at imdb.com. The poster's name is kp-jacoby. This is a fascinating take on the Bob-Charlotte relationship. Whether it is correct or not...we may never know. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
At the general imdb-page about "Los in Translation", there´s given the following "Trivia"-information:
"the movie Bob and Charlotte watch together at the hotel when neither one of them can sleep is La Dolce Vita"
No further comment is made on that fact, although in my opinion it is one of the most ESSENTIAL keys to the understanding of the movie. Although the whole context appears different (the meaningless aristocratic high-society-life in the Rome of the 60s and the Tokyo business-setting), the movie turns out to be more than only inspired by Fellini. At some stages, it nearly appears to be an updated study on "La Dolce Vita", and at the same time, a much more optimistic re-writing of the story.
If you don´t look at the surface but on the essence of the story (incommunication in an apparently meaningless environment), how similar become the characters interpreted by Marcello Mastroiani and Bill Murray, both strolling around, bored, depressed and totally alienated from the people that surround them.
In La Dolce Vita, it is the (very short) appearance of Paola (Valeria Ciangottini) that might show Marcello a way out of his shallow life. In the first scene it´s just a short encounter in a café where Marcello shortly talks to the young girl that represents the only spot of innocence, purity and beauty in the whole movie. I just can´t imagine Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) in another way than representing La Dolce Vita´s Paola, although, of course, the relationship with Bob Harris is much more intense, but still platonic (o.k. we don´t know for sure, the movie is ambigous to this point). However, both movies end up with Paola/Marcello and Charlotte/Bob returning each one to his own life.
But now the point that really made me shiver, as it is a modification of a scene that for me has always been one of the most powerful in the history of cinema. Remember the final scene in La Dolce Vita: after a boring party Marcello and his friends hang around on the beach where Paola suddenly reappears on the other shore of a river, trying to tell something. But a noisy wind makes it impossible for Marcello to understand anything. After an attempt to establish contact, he finally gives up and returns to the party ... what remains is the shallow taste of a return to the a horrorful routine leaving aside the (illusionary?) magic of having crossed the shore to stay with Paola.
The same scene reappears in La Dolce Vita, when Bob and Charlotte see them each other for the last time. She also tries to tell something that is impossible to be understood, this time due to the street noise. But now the scene is changed by Coppola in an important way. They join again, telling something to the ear. In the first moment, I felt the scene would turn into "kitsch" by changing the powerful original to a common happy-ending lovestory, but than i was surprised by the sensibility of the modification. The ear-whispering is still overheard by the spectator due to the noise and Bob and Charlotte leave each other, anybody for his own way, as it has to be in the logic of the whole movie. What remains is, however, the secret of an unheared message that Bob and Charlotte share, whereas La Dolce Vita leaves us alone without a similar promise of magic. The beautiful thing about Lost in Translation is that the secret remains unrevealed to the audience, or even more, it remains unrevealed if there is a secret at all. The importance to be attributed to the last scene just depends on everybody´s personal belief in a kind of communion among people. Wonderful!
At the general imdb-page about "Los in Translation", there´s given the following "Trivia"-information:
"the movie Bob and Charlotte watch together at the hotel when neither one of them can sleep is La Dolce Vita"
No further comment is made on that fact, although in my opinion it is one of the most ESSENTIAL keys to the understanding of the movie. Although the whole context appears different (the meaningless aristocratic high-society-life in the Rome of the 60s and the Tokyo business-setting), the movie turns out to be more than only inspired by Fellini. At some stages, it nearly appears to be an updated study on "La Dolce Vita", and at the same time, a much more optimistic re-writing of the story.
If you don´t look at the surface but on the essence of the story (incommunication in an apparently meaningless environment), how similar become the characters interpreted by Marcello Mastroiani and Bill Murray, both strolling around, bored, depressed and totally alienated from the people that surround them.
In La Dolce Vita, it is the (very short) appearance of Paola (Valeria Ciangottini) that might show Marcello a way out of his shallow life. In the first scene it´s just a short encounter in a café where Marcello shortly talks to the young girl that represents the only spot of innocence, purity and beauty in the whole movie. I just can´t imagine Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) in another way than representing La Dolce Vita´s Paola, although, of course, the relationship with Bob Harris is much more intense, but still platonic (o.k. we don´t know for sure, the movie is ambigous to this point). However, both movies end up with Paola/Marcello and Charlotte/Bob returning each one to his own life.
But now the point that really made me shiver, as it is a modification of a scene that for me has always been one of the most powerful in the history of cinema. Remember the final scene in La Dolce Vita: after a boring party Marcello and his friends hang around on the beach where Paola suddenly reappears on the other shore of a river, trying to tell something. But a noisy wind makes it impossible for Marcello to understand anything. After an attempt to establish contact, he finally gives up and returns to the party ... what remains is the shallow taste of a return to the a horrorful routine leaving aside the (illusionary?) magic of having crossed the shore to stay with Paola.
The same scene reappears in La Dolce Vita, when Bob and Charlotte see them each other for the last time. She also tries to tell something that is impossible to be understood, this time due to the street noise. But now the scene is changed by Coppola in an important way. They join again, telling something to the ear. In the first moment, I felt the scene would turn into "kitsch" by changing the powerful original to a common happy-ending lovestory, but than i was surprised by the sensibility of the modification. The ear-whispering is still overheard by the spectator due to the noise and Bob and Charlotte leave each other, anybody for his own way, as it has to be in the logic of the whole movie. What remains is, however, the secret of an unheared message that Bob and Charlotte share, whereas La Dolce Vita leaves us alone without a similar promise of magic. The beautiful thing about Lost in Translation is that the secret remains unrevealed to the audience, or even more, it remains unrevealed if there is a secret at all. The importance to be attributed to the last scene just depends on everybody´s personal belief in a kind of communion among people. Wonderful!