ABSTRACT
As part of the ‘next generation’ of Coppolas, Sofia was able to utilize the structure, organization and creative talent of American Zoetrope for her debut feature. The other way that American Zoetrope influenced The Virgin Suicides is through the Coppola lineage. Patriarch Francis Coppola continually created opportunities for Sofia to experiment creatively while growing up, from acting in Rumble Fish (1983) and The Godfather Part III (1990) to cowriting the script for his segment ‘Life Without Zoe’ in New York Stories (1989). Some may interpret these efforts as nothing more than exploitation, particularly casting Sofia as a last minute replacement for Winona Ryder in The Godfather Part III. The public shaming and humiliation of Sofia Coppola was most vivid.
The Virgin Suicides, novel and film, is centered on loss. Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides links to this theme in the family Coppola response to the tragic loss of her brother Gio. Both center on the loss of a young life, its impact on a family, and the surrounding public inquiry/curiosity around the event. Further, The Virgin Suicides is definitely situated as a memorial, narrated by one of the neighborhood boys now twenty-five years after the tragedy. For Coppola, the creative act of making The Virgin Suicides is memorializing also, sifting through the loss of a sibling and attempting to reclaim their role and presence in the family. Through the ‘mourning work’ of the film, Coppola’s potent visual imagination was fused with a psychological and emotional investigation of loss.
