Lost in Translation

I lost a world the other day.
Has anybody found?
  ~Emily Dickinson~

Lost in Translation, an important film for our time, gives words and images to the lost loneliness of our generation. The deep longing of our heart for what we want more than anything, more than sex. To be found, to be understood, to belong, to be human.

Bob (Bill Murray) and Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), surrounded by all things affluent and larger than life, lonely, meet in the ultramodern Tokyo hotel and share a friendship wrapped in sweet comic sadness. Bob, a famous big-screen actor whose glory is fading, has come to Tokyo to shot a commercial for Santory whiskey. Has his career come to this? Is he anything more than the digitally-projected image he has created? His media-enriched persona is recognized internationally, but does anyone know who he is? Charlotte, newly married, has come to Tokyo with her husband, a photographer whose driving ambition is capturing the images of rock stars and beautiful people. Has intimacy been lost to infatuation? Will she have value and meaning apart from becoming yet another icon captured in her husband's lens? Her husband is passionate about immortalizing the fame of celebrities, but will he be content to walk with her in the very mortal world of hopes and hurts?

Lost in Translation is an exquisite film, magnificently conceived and created by Sofia Coppola. This is only her second feature film (The Virgin Suicides, 2000), but she has undoubtedly inherited much from her father, Francis Ford Coppola (Godfather trilogy), a film legend. David Edelstein (Slate) says that she "put the longing for human connection into your bloodstream from the first frame." Indeed, she does. The performances by Murray and Johansen are tremendous — certainly Murray's finest hour worthy of the Oscar nomination awarded him.

As you watch the film, absorb many of its subtle elements. Sound, and the way the noise of the world falls on the ear of someone who is lost and disconnected. Light, and the way the world is illuminated to someone who longs for a hopeful tomorrow. Windows, and what a panoramic view of the world brings to someone who is lonely. Images, and how someone without a certain center is known. Desire, and the hunger for something more than physical gratification. Distance, language, a shirt, a wig, reflections in glass — all these provide harmony to the major melody of Lost in Translation.

Are the faces reflected in the window our own, or perhaps well-crafted projections that mask our true self? Is the ironic laughter floating across the room the sound of a heart longing to be known, loved? The sights and sounds of Lost in Translation are all familiar to the world as we know it, but do we understand what those sights and sounds really mean?

-Steve Froehlich

Questions for discussion:

1. Explain the meaning of the key words in the title: lost, translation
2. How does the use of sound complement the theme of the film?
3. What are the several ways that Bob and Charlotte attempt to over come loneliness? Do they succeed? In what way?
4. Contrast the way the Bob and his wife and the way Charlotte and her husband communicate with the way Bob and Charlotte communicate. How would you explain the distance or the connection?
5. Why are Bob and Charlotte lonely?
6. Note the use of irony in the film, and comment on how it is essential to the story.
7. Do either Bob or Charlotte find anything they are looking or longing for?
8. What is the significance of the time of day in which the main events of the story occur?
9. What effect do you think Bob and Charlotte's friendship has or will have on their marriages?
10. Comment on the closing scene. Why might it be meaningful that we don't know what Bob said to Charlotte?
11. How did you react to the film? In what ways did you find it true to your own experience or your observation of the world around you? Do you think of people you see or know as lost? Lonely? Is there something in between people that prevents them from knowing one another? Finding, or loving one another?
12. Does it surprise you that Bob and Charlotte to not have sex? Why? If the film implies that they want something better than sex, what would that be? How does Bob's fling with the nightclub singer comment on the attraction between Bob and Charlotte?
13. The visual framing of the characters highlights their faces and expressions. What impact does that have in the look and feel of the storytelling, and how is it important to the central theme of the film?
14. Do you think the film is primarily descriptive (vs instructive)? If so, why do you think it does not go beyond description? Or, do you think the film offers any degree of hope or resolution? If so, in what way?