|
|
Lost in Translation, directed by Sofia Coppola.
Focus Features, 2003, 102 minutes.
Love's Language Lost by Jo Ann Skousen
In the 1964 comedy "What a Way to Go," Paul Newman plays
an American living in Paris who has fallen in love with a young widow (Shirley
MacLaine). After Newman goes on for several rapturous sentences in French
describing his new girlfriend to a fellow Parisian, the subtitle translates
simply: "She's pretty." Newman's friend responds with an equally impassioned and
lengthy rhapsody about MacLaine, also in French, followed by the subtitle, "Very
pretty." Obviously, a lot was lost in the translation.
| | Jo Ann
Skousen is a writer and critic living in New York.
|
|
Sofia Coppola borrows this trick in her Oscar-winning film, Lost in
Translation. Bill Murray plays a nearly washed-up actor who has flown to Japan to
make a whiskey commercial. He must communicate with the commercial's director
through a translator, who listens to the very detailed instructions and then
tells Murray only, "Turn your head." The point of the interchange explains the
title and theme of the film: much is lost in translation when we don't speak the
same language.
But what constitutes "the same language?" Coppola implies that there is more
to it than simply using the same vocabulary. When Murray's character calls his
wife to say "I miss you," what he really means is "I miss the sensation of
missing you." When his wife nags about home decor and problems with the children,
she says "I want you here," when what she really means is "I want you to want to
be here." |
| Fittingly, the most
important words of the film are muffled, whispered in Johannson's ears so that
the audience must "translate" for themselves. |
|
Murray's character notices a young woman (Scarlett Johannson) at his hotel who
has accompanied her photographer husband to Tokyo on a photo shoot. She, too, is
a victim of miscommunication. To her, "come with me to Tokyo" meant "let's have a
second honeymoon;" to her husband it meant, "I'll do my thing and you do yours."
Murray and Johannson, two lost souls, spend time together — trying to get in
touch with themselves by connecting with someone else. But words are inadequate
to express the yearning each feels. Certain thoughts are simply ineffable, no
matter how hard we try to translate them into words. Fittingly, the most
important words of the film are muffled, whispered in Johannson's ear so that the
audience must "translate" for themselves. Though we may long to know what Murray
actually said, we know instinctively that whatever it was would be less
satisfying if we knew. "I love you" would seem as flat as "she's pretty" or "turn
your head."
An unexpected subtext of the film is that in today's free-wheeling society,
sex has become an inadequate substitute for the more complicated language of
love. Once called "sexual intercourse" because it was the intimate, private
communication of two lovers using a language created and shared by them alone,
"having sex" seems to have become a recreational activity devoid of true
intimacy, no more personal than "having dinner." Recently, I overheard two
friends talking about men. Sue wants very much to find a true love, get married,
and start a family. Kate said to her, "Let me set you up with Steve — he
likes petite brunettes like you." Kate totally missed the point. Sue doesn't want
someone who likes to have sex with "someone like her;" she wants to meet a man
who will create a private language with her, who will engage in lifetime
intercourse, not just have sex. Thus, it was completely appropriate and
instructive that Coppola never cheapens her characters' relationship with a
gratuitous roll in the hay. Their one physically romantic act — a kiss
— occurs only after the whispered exchange of their privately understood
communication. In that whispered moment, true intercourse occurs. Perfect.
|
| |
|
