I would like to call attention to two scenes. The first being at 50:19-51:30, the physical comedown post-Karaoke and the oscillating perspectives of the landscape and the characters’ viewpoints
The second scene is nearing the end around 127:45-128:03 in which Bob Harris (Bill Murray) gazes at Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) ending their conversation and closing the elevator after returning his coat.
My choice for the first scene is largely prompted by the apparent advantages film has to written or static-visual narrative form. The utilization of non-diegetic sound, specifically “Sometimes” by My Bloody Valentine to eventually fade back into the diegetic sounds of the city and the taxi offer us a degree of involvement in the space which the characters occupy. However, it’s a liminal phenomena, We, the viewers, are experiencing a gaze of cultural displacement, over-stimulation, and pleasure. Coppola’s choice to use “shoegaze” or “dreampop” here seems to inherently ground the audience through an emphasis via the soundtrack which the diegetic sounds may not have done as strongly. The distorted guitar builds up, the vocals are washed out underneath, it’s hard to focus in on any one thing that is being presented and as such, the phenomena of being taken by the scenery is shared between the characters and us, the spectators. We’re cued by this from what sounds like a radio or an amalgam of diegetic sounds bringing us back in to alter the viewpoint.
Charlotte’s view of Tokyo in the evening fulfills the Fruedian scopophilic view which Mulvey highlights in a peculiarly multi-faceted way. The viewers gaze switches to Charlotte’s view, allowing the spectator to indulge in the same pleasures of viewing as Charlotte experiences before ultimately bringing us back to the traditional scophophilic view of the woman as the sexualized view, to ultimately alter the angle to Charlotte’s view of a sleeping Bob, an inversion of the traditional male gaze. This is not to say the gaze is intrinsically sexual as Mulvey notes that, “according to the principles of the ruling ideology and the psychical structures that back it up, the male figure cannot bear the burden of sexual objectification” (Mulvey, 716). However, the inversion we’re seeing is an alteration to a history of Hollywood’s traditional narrative structure: an autonomy is granted to Charlotte that may not have existed if this film were directed under traditional Hollywood settings.
The second scene nearing the closing of the film is peculiar to me because we view the male gaze traditionally. The spectator watches Charlotte’s rear figure as Bob views that same figure but again in a twist of the take, Charlotte is not powerless to this gaze. Rather, she has the autonomy to end it. Their character relations could have allowed for a myriad of options, several of which may have been more favorable to Bob’s desires—any of which Charlotte staying in the lobby and remaining in his view. However, Charlotte’s autonomy allows her to be the deciding factor in the gaze, granting her a power in a very quotidian task.
Lost in Translation routinely plays jump rope with the lines of the male gaze. This facet of the film is both a strength but seems to highlight some trouble for film. There seems to be an underlying tension between the real and film. Mulvey states “The image of woman as (passive) raw material for the (active) gaze of man takes the argument a step further into the structure of representation, adding a further layer demanded by the ideology of the patriarchal order as it is worked out in its favorite cinematic form—illusionistic narrative film.” (Mulvey, 721). Mulvey here highlights the underlying ideology of upholding the patriarchal system which fuels the male gaze in cinema. Mulvey’s claims in that regard are much like Pudovkin’s notion of film as a propaganda tool put into sinister praxis. (Pudovkin, 11). Psychical structures of society exist perversely and propagate through film as propaganda in a sort of feedback loop. We see breaks in this loop in the scenes where the diegesis allows these alternate viewpoints and the very removal of the sexual intimacy of Charlotte and Bob is very significant in this. However, the “real” pops up in the characterization of Charlotte. The film opens and is propped up with a lounging Charlotte, a personal intimacy in undergarments. This is a quotidian affair but the nature of sexualization effectively creates the male gaze despite attempting to offer an honest portrayal of a woman in cinema. Can this tension be undone purely through film alone?
My questions are largely, how important is extra-diegetic sound to a cinematic experience? (Was the soundtrack successful for Lost in Translation?)
Are narrative driven films able to maintain realism while attempting to disrupt norms of the real?
Is film trapped as a simulacrum of the real rather than a tool able to subvert it?
Can film only successfully serve as a tool of propaganda for the dominant class or does it have praxis utility universally?
References:
Mulvey, Laura. “Laura Mulvey Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Film Theory and Criticism Introductory Readings, by Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen, Oxford University Press, 2016, pp. 711–722.
Pudovkin, Vsevolod. “[On Editing].” Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, by Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen, Oxford University Press, 2016, pp. 7–12.