“It is not the end of the physical body that should worry us. Rather, our concern must be to live while we’re alive – to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a facade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are.” – Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Privilege does not equate to the escape of human existence. Throughout her career, writer/director Sofia Coppola has examined the ways in which fame, fortune, power, and privilege do not abscond someone from existential angst all humans face. Despite the high price for notoriety and power, can one truly evade humanness? 

In her directorial debut, The Virgin Suicides, the Lisbon daughters are a conduit for male-gaze privilege. Lux Lisbon (Kirsten Dunst) is the object of fascination of Trip Fontaine (Josh Hartnett) and his friends. Lux and her sisters are ethereal from their vantage point. Yet, as the film progresses, the constraints of years of isolation and forced expectations have begun to weigh heavy on the Lisbon sisters. Suburbia does not protect Lux from the suffocation of her parents’ oversight or the reduction to an object of desire by the boys in her class. Lux was doomed from the start. 

But where Lux and her middle-class privilege led to her demise, the privilege in The Beguiled puts a girls school and one Union solider in a precarious and harrowing situation. Miss Martha Farnsworth (Nicole Kidman) and her students are spending the Civil War in their Virginia girls school. One day, wounded Union solider, Corporal John McBurney (Colin Farrell) attempts to seek refuge at the school. McBurney and Farnsworth both believe themselves to have the upper hand. On the surface, The Beguiled doesn’t seem to fit the formula; nevertheless, it is through the hubris of two opposing sides which highlights the inescapability of human existence. All of these characters exist with white privilege. Regardless the outcome of the war, their power in society will not be relinquished. Yet, what unfolds is a power struggle within the walls boarding house itself. One mirroring the struggle at large. The film becomes a cat and mouse game with McBurney using flattery to beguile teacher Miss Edwina Morrow (Dunst) and amuse the young intrigue of student Alicia (Elle Fanning). Farnsworth understands that while the women and girls outnumber McBurney, he is a trapped animal who will use any survival mechanism for self-preservation. Farnsworth, above all, is dedicated to the remaining students and teacher at her school. Their boarding school once a refuge from the war raging outside. But as the power plays between McBurney and Farnsworth intensify, so does the carnage that both parties were so desperately trying to evade. The Beguiled, a Southern gothic thriller, might be most brutal film in Coppola’s filmography, but its instinct for personal preservation can be found in the glitz and glamor of her other films. 

In both Lost in Translation and Somewhere, the existential quandaries of purpose and meaning are prevalent themes. Through Lost in Translation, we examine how fame is ephemeral. Bob Harris (Bill Murray) finds himself at a precipice. A fading movie star, Bob’s career is reduced to near irrelevancy when the only job he can secure is a whiskey commercial in Japan. His whole identity was wrapped into his stardom and as he seems the lights of Hollywood dim, he cannot help but feel directionless. Utterly and completely without purpose despite the years of success and notoriety. How can we, as people, survive if we lose our meaning? Can one find purpose while aging into obscurity? The money and previous fame provided no escape for Bob Harris. He ended up like many movie stars of yesteryears. 

While Bob Harris attempts to rekindle his dying star, it is Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff) in Somewherewho questions whether fame and notoriety mean anything at all. Johnny Marco is a working actor who has just achieved fame. Retreating to the Chateau Marmont, Johnny feels nothing despite the success, pills, and booze he’s ingesting. But when his 11-year-old daughter Cleo (Fanning) arrives for a surprise visit, his numbness towards his existential impasse slowly evolves into anguish as he begins to examine his life through Cleo’s eyes. The praise and recognition and privilege feel hallow as he grows to understand its impermanence. But it’s the impermanence of the time he shares with his daughter which troubles him more. No jet setting or fancy hotel for her can replace the time spent with her dad. His profession affords him the means to spend time at the pool playing or long hours talking over meals, but those are fleeting moments. And he comes to reckon with the price of his fame being his relationship with his daughter. At the end of the day, is that truly what he wants? Is the price worth the privilege? Any parent knows there is sacrifice when it comes to providing for your children. Yet, where the fine line lies can sometimes be found at the expense of your kid. It is the emptiness that Dorff exudes which makes Somewhereparticularly compelling. Whether the hedonism of his movie star lifestyle or the joys of parenthood, neither can fix that nagging sense of internal desolation. While Murray’s Bob Harris has decades of work to look back on, Johnny Marco’s painful realization in real-time lends to the discovery of inescapable humanness. 

That is a theme Coppola re-explored in 2020’s On the Rocks. When Laura (Rashida Jones) begins to suspect her husband Dean (Marlon Wayans) of infidelity, Laura enlists her father Felix (Murray) on a rouse to uncover the truth. On the surface, the film feels like a father-daughter duo sleuthing to catch a potentially cheating husband. But what unfolds is a reckoning 40+ years in the making. Felix, a wealthy art-dealer, who has used charm and money to fix all of his problems. But as Laura and Felix 

Fame. Fortune. Privilege. Themes found in the aforementioned films above. Yet, the two companion pieces which capture them best in Coppola’s filmography are 2006’s Marie Antoinette and 2013’s The Bling Ring.

Marie Antoinette (Dunst) is cast as a tragic figure. Necessarily so. Long after her death, she has become a caricature of inaccessible wealth. Yet, in her film, Coppola first introduces audiences to Marie, a young woman who is stripped of her name, her home and her language (and even her dog) in order for security. For women in her time, marriage was the only means for survival. So, ensuring one married laterally or upwardly in society was a must to ensure self-preservation. Similarly, her husband, Louis-Auguste (Jason Schwartzman), a young, naive man himself, is preordained to rule France. But life in the upper echelons of French society is not as extravagant. They are repetitive and mundane.  And the duties and expectations of the young married couple become even more complicated when Louis XV (Rip Torn) dies, and young Louis-Auguste ascends the throne at 19, with Marie Antoinette being 18. As the pair slowly grow accustomed to their roles but are continually uninterested in its lack of personal purpose. They exist not as fulfilled people, but as luxurious facades shrouded in disenchantment. Which is why, nearing the end of Louis XVI’s reign – and Louis’ and Marie’s lives – the stark realization of their impending demise feels all the more gut-wrenching. Children, ill-prepared for the responsibilities of their roles, become adults woefully destined for the harshness of the world. 

When you juxtapose Marie Antoinette’s fate with the desires of the teenagers in The Bling Ring, you find yourself gob smacked by their motivations. In Marie Antoinette, a young woman is forced into France’s high society with no resemblance of her former life. Meanwhile, The Bling Ringduo Marc (Israel Broussard) and Rebecca (Katie Chang) along with their friends are ravenous about becoming famous. In the early days of social media and Kardashian-esque reality TV, being famous for the sake of being famous was the new goal for notoriety. Based off of true events, the Bling Ring began burglarizing homes of Hollywood stars and socialites in an attempt to align themselves with Southern California royalty. While the motivations for the real-life members differed from person to person, the film focuses on fame as the ultimate goal. Time and again, they break into the homes of Paris Hilton, Orlando Bloom, Rachel Bilson, and Audrina Patridge to treat their personal belongings as a treasure trove. There is a cognitive dissonance that comes with their endeavor. The group continually violated the lives of these public figures while believing they will be immune to the same invasion of privacy. Once the group faces the consequences of their actions, some of the members fail to recognize that fame and infamy are two wildly different levels of notoriety. 

With Priscilla receiving a nationwide release in early November, we are no doubt about to confront the prices to notoriety. How a power dynamic was re-branded as a great American love story. And moreover, how the gap in age and power can be wielded unrelentingly and, many times, insidiously in plain sight. For a more in-depth analysis on Priscilla, read Kenzie’s full review here.

Coppola, a woman herself raised with connection and influence, has never shied away from the human experience. More often, her films serve as cautionary tales for those who believe themselves immune to the angst of being alive.  Regardless of our paths, we are all bound by the same humanness. Privilege and power do not absolve us of existential strife, nor does it save us from the harsh realities of personhood.  Throughout her illustrious career, Coppola has focused so heavily on our relationships with power, the constraints of society, and the existential ennui that comes with being alive.