Sofia Coppola Looks Back on Growing Up Cinephile

From the delicate ennui of 2003’s Tokyo-set Lost in Translation through the languorously evoked nineteenth-century South of 2017’s The Beguiled, Oscar winner Sofia Coppola has, over the last two decades, established herself as one of contemporary cinema’s most stylistically adept and emotionally perceptive auteurs. And in the latest installment of Adventures in Moviegoing—an ongoing program in which we invite artists we admire to talk about, and curate a series of, their most beloved films—she opens up about some of the viewing experiences that put her on the path to her singular sensibility.

In the above clip from the episode, Coppola tells Criterion’s Peter Becker about her memories of watching movies with her father—a director who needs no introduction, Francis Ford Coppola—including Last Year at Marienbad (which she dozed during) and Yojimbo (the family dog’s namesake). She also touches on a few of her cinematic first loves: raiding her dad’s laserdisc collection at the age of twelve, Coppola fell for Breathless, whose intimate shooting style inspires her to this day; soon after that, the sexy, electric Purple Rain knocked her out all over again, as did the glamorous Gilda, with its richly complex relationships. For the rest of the wide-ranging interview, drop by the Channel, where you can also enjoy Coppola’s handpicked favorites, among them Breathless, Jeanne Dielman, and Bugsy Malone.