Disorderly Contexts: ELAC Conference 2024

For many years I have admired the films of Sofia Coppola, and I consider Lost in Translation (2003) to be both my all-time favorite film and one of the best-made films ever. For its revered position both in my musings on its merit and personal attachment to the film, I had always made the conscious decision NOT to teach it in the classroom. Concerns about the students not enjoying it as much as me overrode the value I believe it held as a text for the classroom setting, and I simply did not want the film to be marred if they did not enjoy it, engage with it, or “get” it. Instead of incorporating one of Coppola’s movies into my overhauled English 20-1 course as a new film study, I decided to take it a step - or, more accurately, several steps - further. It has been an ongoing concern for me that in the study of literature, students are typically only afforded the opportunity to engage with one text per author before moving on to something new, another story, another author, another era. They are provided with a snapshot of the lives of the author, connect their writings to that moment in time, that precise era of their lives, and then they move on. Might the deeper study of one author and their career development allow students to engage more significantly with that work, and would this be demonstrated in their own critical thinking and writing? I sought a method for the study of a career, not simply of one text. Sofia Coppola presented me with this opportunity. I made the choice to use Sofia Coppola’s seven feature films as the basis of study for my entire English 20-1 class: The Virgin Suicides (1999), Lost in Translation (2003), Marie Antoinette (2006), Somewhere (2010), The Bling Ring (2013), The Beguiled (2017), and On the Rocks (2020). Each film would be connected to a more traditional text to create a comparative literature class that would allow space for the study of Coppola’s entire career. The hope was that students would see growth in her work, her development as an auteur, and how the themes of her oeuvres connect beyond a single story. Students would have the chance to fully engage with this artist and their career, (hopefully) able to critique their work with more depth and understanding by using the examples from a rich career instead of a single snapshot. This session proposes to discuss and explore the journey of what became "The Coppola Course" and its growth into an examination of postfeminism in contemporary film.