Lost in Translation

A close look at Sofia Coppola’s celebrated sophomore feature.

Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation released in 2003 to widespread critical acclaim. The film brings together two Americans—played by Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray—in Tokyo, each experiencing a personal crisis. Emotionally and spatially distant from their spouses, they are lost until they meet each other and develop an intimate connection. In the film’s poignant, famously ambiguous closing scene, they find each other, only to separate.

In this close look at the award-winning film, Suzanne Ferriss mirrors Lost in Translation’s structuring device of travel: her analysis takes the form of a trip, from planning to departure. She details the complexities of filming (a twenty-seven-day shoot with no permits in Tokyo); explores Coppola’s allusions to fine art, subtle color palette, and use of music over words; and examines the characters’ experiences of the Park Hyatt Tokyo and excursions outside, together and alone. She also re-evaluates the film in relation to Coppola’s other features, as the product of an established director with a distinctive cinematic signature: “Coppolism.” Fundamentally, Ferriss argues that Lost in Translation is not only a classic film—it’s classic Coppola.

The BFI Film Classics series introduces, interprets, and celebrates landmarks of world cinema.

Suzanne Ferriss is professor emeritus at Nova Southeastern University in Florida. She is the author of The Cinema of Sofia Coppola.