CONTRAST: Disaster, Film Narrative, Archetype

I chose the Sophia Coppola’s Lost in Translation as an articulation of our Contrast instruction from game theory. I considered using the film Antonia’s Line for different reasons and emphases that would have worked just as well as Lost in Translation, but I like the open, silent spaces in Coppola’s film, and the sense of isolation that the many panoramic scenes of the Tokyo landscape seen through hotel windows convey.

Anybody who has travelled to Japan can appreciate the genius of Coppola’s achievement of her artistic vision in the film. She captures the character of the experience of a foreigner visiting Japan; particularly the experience of staying in Tokyo: the adjustment to the time difference, the sense of isolation, and loneliness among all the vibrant sounds, the pitch and cadence of recorded womens’ voices in seemingly repetitive public announcements, the lights of the city at night, the hustle and bustle of people, and an efficiency of movement and purpose that is difficult to comprehend without knowing the mindset that drives the culture. Coppola manages to convey the sense of isolation a traveler experiences amid the hustle and bustle of a way of life that a traveler only recognizes as operating normally without understanding its intricacies.

Bill Murray seems to be the perfect character for the role of Bob Harris--a middle-aged actor riding out the effects of a successful career in the film industry. His combination of insomnia, reserve, patience, and the passivity of his mid-life crisis are perfect for downplaying (and thereby emphasizing) the utter fascination a person experiences when first arriving in Japan. Scarlett Johansson, similarly, is the perfect counterpart to Murray’s character: a young woman, just graduated from university and unsure of what she wants to do with her life, who is spending time with her new husband while he works in Tokyo. Coppola slowly brings the two oddly matched characters together: Johansson (Charlotte) is just starting out in life and questioning herself and her marriage, and Murray (Bob) is questioning his role in his marriage and his career—emphasized by the bland communications he has with his wife, who is excessively preoccupied with getting Bob to decide on what color carpet he should have in his study.

While the film purposely shows the characters following parallel paths and following different motivations in the film, the protagonist is clearly Bill Murray's character, Bob.  Looking at the film in context of narrative actants (mythologies), Bob is the Subject, who is dealing with multiple Opponents (his foreign environment, his age, falling into a displaced routine with his wife, and a reserved and mutual attraction to Charlotte).  His magic tool and Helper is Charlotte, who helps him overcome the foreign environment that he feels (respectfully) so out of place in.  Bob's and Charlotte's roles do, however, interchange.  The film juxtaposes the two characters in a manner that allows for Charlotte to also be the Subject, with Opponents that are similar to Bob's but seen from the perspective of the beginning of her adult life.  Her Helper and magic tool is Bob.  Both characters perfectly complement each other because Bob offers Charlotte (and embodies) the experience and a subtle sense of weariness (with life, emphasized intriguingly by his foreign surroundings) that she lacks (and which makes his character's passivity and his sort of stunned nonchalance and sense of humor attractive) and Charlotte gives him the opportunity to share his difficulty adjusting to Japan, which is an issue for both of them due to their different Opponents.   

They both find a sort of sanctuary in each other that in many ways replicates the larger cultural space of foreignness that they both find themselves in.  The familiar/foreign space they create between each other slowly opens up their resistance to the larger foreign space of Japan.  This opening up is subtle in the film.  It takes the position of the Object, which again is different with each character (and is associated with their Opponents, who never substantially present to offer the satisfaction that each character seeks).  Because the Object for each character does not have material form, the foreignness takes up the Sender-Object-Receiver space on the axis of communication, which becomes realized in the obvious desire between Bob and Charlotte in the second half of the film.  This desire, though, is more than a physical desire for both characters because it is the desire for the absent Opponents (literal and figurative) that they are both seeking and dealing with in different ways and which they recognize in each other.