How does Sofia Coppola represent youth in The Virgin Suicides and The Bling Ring?

The Virgin Suicides is a 1999 drama written and directed by Sofia Coppola and based on the novel of the same name by Jeffrey Eugenides[1]. The film follows five young girls, the Lisbon sisters, aged 13-17 in the build up to their eventual suicides and the four boys who become obsessed with trying to uncover why they ended their lives. I will speak about the opening of the film which introduces two of the central characters, Lux and Cecilia Lisbon (played by Kirsten Dunst and Hanna R. Hall respectively). The scene is meant to give the viewer an insight to what the film is about and introduce key plot points, notably the suicide of Cecilia.

The Bling Ring is a satirical crime drama, released in 2013, also written and directed by Coppola. The film is about the real-life events surrounding a group of teenage criminals known as the ‘Bling Ring’ who would rob celebrities’ homes once they knew they were out of town, using social media and status to do so[2]. The scene I will be discussing is the scene in which the gang rob Paris Hilton’s house as I believe this shows youth in this film the most appropriately.

I chose to discuss these two films in order to compare them as they were both directed and written by Coppola yet portray youth in drastically different ways. Both films also demonstrate the theme of desire in some ways, yet Coppola portrays this very differently across the two films as well so this is something that I will also be discussing.

Firstly, the opening scene of The Virgin Suicides begins with the vibraphone version of the song, ‘Playground Love’, part of the score that was composed and written by Air specifically for the film, as it fades in from black. ‘Playground Love’ has lyrics such as ‘You're the piece of gold; the flashes on my soul’ and ‘I’m a high school lover” which reflect the feelings of a young teenager being completely infatuated with someone they regard as their ‘playground love’. This holds significance in the fact that the boys hold this view of the Lisbon sisters as they become more obsessed and ‘in love’ with them and encompasses the feelings of your first love, something commonly portrayed as happening as a teenager or when you’re young. This is probably the main way in which Coppola portrays desire in this film, through the desire the young boys have for the Lisbon sisters. The song encompasses this theme well with the lyrics and reflection of the feelings of the boys but in a very innocent and peaceful way that isn’t the typical rush of desire that may be commonly presented in films where desire is being shown. The innocent way in which desire is being described in the song reflects the rest of the film and how the boys behave and feel for the girls throughout as they are all very young and never act on their desires sexually, but rather more romantically. The version of the song used in this scene – with no lyrics – is very peaceful and delicate but also slightly ominous; paired with clips of the neighbourhood’s everyday lives, it creates a dream-like feeling as if it is all too good to be true. Putting this at the beginning of the film was perhaps done because it is classed as the most notable song on the score and summarises the theme of innocence and love well.

Initially the audience is presented with the wide shot of Lux, eating an ice-lolly (fig. 1); a symbol of youth and innocence. This, as an introduction to the character and film, is important because it makes the viewer aware that the girls are young and creates the contrast between their innocence and the dark themes of the film. This portrayal and connotation then creates more of an impact later on when the girls do eventually kill themselves as it emphasises the point that they were essentially only children and makes the audience more shocked and affected by the events. The way she is positioned as the main focus of the shot is also providing important information to the audience in that she is going to play a large part in the plot and be a strong force in the overall story.

Following on from this, the viewer’s attention is drawn to a removal sign being hammered onto a tree (fig. 2). A close up makes the audience focus on one point and pay attention as it is going to be significant either straight away or later on. In this instance, the relevance of the tree is not discussed until later in the film where it is stated that it’s Cecilia’s favourite tree. This is relevant in showing how youth is portrayed in this film because it’s a very childlike experience to have favourites of things and to personify inanimate objects that you like. It is a very innocent and playful thing to do to something like a tree such significance in your life, showing how the young characters in the film are still children and, to an extent, acting in such a way that reflects that, even though it is in complete contrast to the rest of the events of the film.

As that shot is being displayed, the diegetic sound of sirens is presented, presenting a more negative idea of the neighbourhood due to the connotations that sirens have. The sirens become louder as the scene gets closer to the reveal of Cecilia in the bath after her attempted suicide, building tension for the audience who want to know what has happened. Moving from outside to the bathroom, the music pauses and the shots have a completely different feeling; there is an obvious

shift in mood, created by the colours and lighting. There is an extreme contrast between the bright colours and high key lighting of outside to the muted colours and low-key light of the bathroom. The

first image inside is a crowded windowsill (fig. 3), which in its own way presents the idea of youth. As the bathroom is shared by five young girls, there is clutter scattered across it, including perfume bottles, jewellery, make-up and other items associated with teenage girls, telling the audience what sort of people live there without even showing them yet. When the cut to the shot of Cecilia’s face (fig. 4) is made, the audience is presented with more blues and dark colours and the high-angle shot, looking down on her shows her in a position of complete weakness. The way her face is perfectly framed draws direct attention to the face over everything else, making the viewer realise that she is just a child as she looks very young and vulnerable.

Regarding The Bling Ring, the first scene I am going to discuss is the Paris Hilton robbery. This scene shows the teens that are the focus of the film in several different situations which show how they and youth are presented throughout the film. It begins with the group in one of the girl’s bedrooms, trying on clothes, smoking weed and reading magazines (fig. 5). This initial representation of the characters tells the audience what kind of people they are but also their immaturity as sisters Nicki (Emma Watson) and Sam (Taissa Farmiga) Moore bicker over clothes and what to wear. The bickering and interest in clothing continues to be a theme in this scene when the gang arrive at Hilton’s house and ransack her wardrobe, each one of the teen girls trying to find the best shoes and outfits. This is often seen as something teenage girls do in films as they are commonly portrayed as fashion-obsessed and having a love of shopping and being sometimes materialistic in this sense. The casual use of marijuana and other drugs is also something that, especially recently, has been used in many films and television series about young people as shown by popular TV shows like Skins and 13 Reasons Why. This could arguably be a form of desire that is shown throughout this film; the desire to be beautiful, have the nicest and most expensive clothes and look good. This egotistical and materialistic desire that these teenagers have is a different form of desire than what is shown in The Virgin Suicides but shows these characters’ personalities and how/what they desire, nevertheless. It also tells the audience that they may not desire love or relationships but rather just the selfish need to be perceived as rich and glamourous in themselves. This shows already some ways in which both youth and desire is being presented to the audience by Coppola through these characters.

The scene then continues to show two similar partying or nightclub scenes, one still inside Hilton’s house and one at a nightclub, then showing the group to be acting much more mature as they drink alcohol and dance provocatively (fig. 6). Although this moves away from the immaturity displayed in the previous parts of the scenes, it still presents an idea about youth that is widely held by audiences and people in general, that young people enjoy to party, drink to excess and act beyond their years in order to do so. Again, television shows like Skins show this also in that all the characters in the show are often seen at nightclubs and parties, drinking and taking drugs despite being underage in some cases. Therefore, we can see another way in which Coppola is portraying youth in this film and drawing on conventions of a youth ‘genre’.

This part of the scene also draws upon the idea of teenage girls being promiscuous and showing their sexuality, something that is also shown in many forms of media about young people today. Perhaps the best example of this is in horror films where it is a trope and convention in that once a young female character has sex, she will die soon after, placing negative and almost guilty feelings towards sex between teenagers, especially girls. This also shows the idea of desire, further emphasised by Sam kissing a boy in this scene (fig. 7), as there is the idea that the girls featured are acting this way in order to attract male attention, regardless of how true or false this may be. However, this is much more aggressive and sexual in comparison to the innocence and romanticised idea of desire Coppola portrays in The Virgin Suicides.

To conclude, both films portray youth using stereotypes and visual ques to the audience, showing viewers what they would expect from young people, particularly in media such as films and television, however, as we can see the films convey two very different types of youth. The Virgin Suicides is all about portraying the innocence and child-like qualities of the young girls featured, whilst The Bling Ring shows almost the complete opposite, making it very hard to see the same innocence. Despite this, Coppola is using conventions of childhood and films about childhood to purposely portray the characters in these ways to align with the themes of the films; The Virgin Suicides having a mysterious feel and the idea being to make the viewer question why such young girls would take their lives, comparatively to The Bling Ring which aims to portray teenagers as criminals. It could also be argued that these contrasting representations were also due to the time in which the films were released and set. Over the fourteen years between both films being produced, views and ideas about youth may have changed and so the portrayal of young characters would have changed to mimic this. In addition, The Virgin Suicides was set in the seventies whilst The Bling Ring was more contemporary and so shows a very modern and up to date idea of how teenagers today act and/or are thought to behave, in line with how other media presents youth in more recent times. You can also see the difference in the way Coppola has portrayed desires in the young people in the films, once again, with The Virgin Suicides being much more innocent and childlike than The Bling Ring which is more overtly sexual and a more typical display of desire in film and television. Overall, both films use similar techniques to present youth and desire to the audience, even if these representations are vastly different in many ways.

[1] “The Virgin Suicides (1999)”, IMDb, an Amazon Company [n.d.]. [2] “The Bling Ring (2013)”, IMDb, an Amazon Company [n.d.].

Illustrations

Figure 1 – Still from The Virgin Suicides. Sofia Coppola, 1999. Paramount Classics, USA.

Figure 2 – Still from The Virgin Suicides. Sofia Coppola, 1999. Paramount Classics, USA.

Figure 3 – Still from The Virgin Suicides. Sofia Coppola, 1999. Paramount Classics, USA.

Figure 4 – Still from The Virgin Suicides. Sofia Coppola, 1999. Paramount Classics, USA.

Figure 5 – Still from The Bling Ring. Sofia Coppola, 2013. A24, USA.

Figure 6 – Still from The Bling Ring. Sofia Coppola, 2013. A24, USA.

Figure 7 – Still from The Bling Ring. Sofia Coppola, 2013. A24, USA.

Bibliography

“The Virgin Suicides (1999)”, IMDb, an Amazon Company [n.d.]. Web. 14th April 2019. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0159097/

“The Bling Ring (2013)”, IMDb, an Amazon Company [n.d.]. Web. 14th April 2019. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2132285/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1