Credits
Director and Writer: Sofia Coppola
Main actors: Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson
Other important casts: Akiko Takeshita
Giovanni Ribisi
Kazuyoshi Minamimagoe
Kazuko Shibata
Akira Yamaguchi
François du Bois
Gregory Pekar
Richard Allen
Catherine Lambert
Studios: Focus Features(presents)
Tohokashinsha Film Company Ltd. (in association with)
American Zoetrope
Elemental Films


Narrative
Plot: This is a story about two lonely American people who met in Japan. One is the out-dated movie star- Bob Harris, who was casted by Bill Murray. Bob had an advertising show in Japan, and had lost heart to his married life, but he also wanted to do something, he tried to change something, but it did not work. During this time he worked in Japan, because of language gap, he could not communicate with Japanese colleagues effective. Loneliness was written on his face. Another one is Charlotte, who was casted by Scarlett Johansson, a young beautiful married lady; she had nothing to do in US. Her husband is a photographer and worked in Japan. But her husband was invest himself totally in his work, and did not care about Charlotte. Two loneliness persons met in another country, and had a great time between them.

Narrative structure: Linear
Narrative voice: Omniscient


Themes
Story about: Lost In Translation is telling a story about two American people fall in love in Tokyo. What is really about this film I are loneliness and isolation, people need for others, culture shock and existential boredom.

Another story in Lost In Translation: Marital status. Bill Murray is facing a midlife crisis, the same situation as his career, highlighting the troubles the family chores and family responsibilities, fear of helplessness. When he got the mail from his wife, he read with silence, his picked the fax with disappointment. He and his wife had twenty-five years of marriage, the feelings between them is too ordinary and should to rely on children to contact. One scene in this film is Bob got a good mood and he told his wife “I love you”, but what he was waiting for is the busy signal from the other side. Charlotte is a beautiful girl and just graduated from the university, she got married when she was very young with a photographer, she along with his husband to Tokyo, and her husband invested himself completely to his job every day, this is a man she did not understand before, with sunglasses, pack up in the morning, ready to begin his journey or something, all of these he did Charlotte never seen before. She did know him when they fall in love, but not this situation. His husband has been said “I love you” every morning, maybe he was not going to develop this bad habit. Charlotte’s married life just begun, but she had seen herself after 25 years, maybe was the same situation as Bob’s wife.


Mise-en-scene
Lost In Translation was wrote and directed by Sofia Coppola, released in the United States in 2003.Presented by Focus Features Co. This whole film takes 102 mins long, and main characters are Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson. This is the second movie of Sofia Coppola. She made this movie in 27 workdays, and all the scenes were taken in Japan. When Sofia made this film, only eight American people in their group, included herself, the rest of crew members were recruited in Japan, and most of Japanese actors and crew members did not speak English, the entire process can be described as difficult. Sofia did her best to demonstrate respect to for Japanese cultures to overcome obstacles. She hopes the film mode of operation is more Japanese style, not copied from the United States to impose a set of colleagues in Japan. It is the last we found this movie which illustrated foreigners feel loneliness but could change nothing.


Editing
The narrative structure of this film is Linear. The whole film was taken in Japan to demonstrate the urban life; there were not especially visual effects in it. But in this film, we could see many Coppola’s style, as the same as her first film- The Virgin Suicide, she prefers an emotional point of view from the front of the camera image, emphasizing performance in a mobile way to Tokyo.


Special camera work or SFX
The Photographer is Lance Acord, he has a good sense of the screen, and we can see the black pub and moving shots of Tokyo night street in this film. At the beginning of this film, we can see the most of the shots are long shot or POV of Bob, it shows the busy city- Tokyo, it is bustling, but no relationship with Bob. We can likewise see that when Charlotte feels lonely, what she can do is overlook the city view from the hotel window. In this film, a lot of moving shots, it displays the mood of actors, everything in Tokyo are eyes mist, because they are not belong here.


Diegesis and sound
In Lost In Translation, it contains a lot of background music and sound, at the beginning, we can tell Bob is very tired in the car, the music is playing when he have a look outside view in Tokyo street. When he comes in the room, he has nothing to do and feel so boring, he wants to watch TV, what he hears from TV is he in drama but speak Japanese. At the end of this film, he is in the car, just kissed goodbye with Charlotte, he feel comfortable and music is playing at this time, he look the Tokyo view again through the window on the way to the airport.


Genre and codes
The genres of Lost In Translation are Drama and Romance, and the sub-genre is romantic comedy.
Other: Bill Murray is a comedy actor in US, Coppola said this story was written for him, if he did not join this paly, she would not direct. Form this film, we could find differences in Bob. Some scenes when we watch the paly we want laugh with sorrow. Murray used to play in Ed.Wood. He gave his audiences differences in Lost In Translation, and this is Bill Murray, this is Sofia Coppola’s Style.