The Virgin Suicides. 1999. USA. Written and directed by Sofia Coppola. Written and directed by Sofia Coppola, based on the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides. With Kirsten Dunst, Kathleen Turner, James Woods, Josh Hartnett. 35mm. 97 min.
Sofia Coppola’s assured feature debut, based on Jeffrey Eugenides’s novel, introduces us to the five Lisbon sisters through the eyes (and narration) of the adoring teenage boys in their Grosse Pointe suburb. Seemingly perfect, ethereal beings, the Lisbon girls begin to die by suicide in increasingly perplexing ways. Coppola’s adaptation lends a brilliant interiority to the sisters in their final days, and the mystery they leave behind. Stylistically remarkable, sonically and visually lush, The Virgin Suicides crafts a romantic nightmare of teenage girlhood. A quarter-century later, it remains one of the strongest, most singular, directorial debuts from the dawn of the 21st century.
Lick the Star. 1998. USA. Directed by Sofia Coppola. Written by Sofia Coppola and Stephanie Hayman. DCP. 14 min.
Just one year before chronicling the tragedy of the Lisbon sisters in The Virgin Suicides, Sofia Coppola distilled the skills she had honed directing music videos (for the Flaming Lips and others) into this stunning short-film debut. Shot on black-and-white 16mm film, it follows a clique of middle-school girls who, inspired by a pulpy novel they read in English class, hatch a scheme to use arsenic to make the boys at school weak. Lick the Star is the The Virgin Suicides’ riot grrrl little sister, needle-drops included.