Sofia Coppola’s latest film somewhere is an intense character study, in which a Ferrari isn’t just a background prop but an important dramatic cipher. in this exclusive interview, the acclaimed director talks about the attraction of Ferrari and explains why she’s keeping it in the family
Ferrari has enjoyed a 60-year love story with cinema. The Prancing Horse has starred in Federico Fellini classics and cult 1980s teenage comedies, has been driven in breathless street chases and even been turned into a cartoon. There have been dozens of movies, some action-packed, others more introspective, all featuring a very personal, intimate connection between character and car. Now, Somewhere, the latest critically lauded film from director Sofia Coppola, has brought Ferrari back on to the big screen, this time in the shapely form of a black 360 Modena, used by the film’s main character, Johnny Marco (played by Stephen Dorff), to travel around Los Angeles. It’s a film that firmly belongs in the “introspective” camp. A slight wrist injury is enough to sideline Marco from his acting job for a couple of weeks, leaving him with plenty of time to reflect on his relationships with those closest to him, in particular the one with his young daughter, who provides him with a rare anchor of reality in the empty and often disillusioning world of the Hollywood star system. Ferrari first became aware of the project back in the spring of 2009, after G Mac Brown got in contact. An executive producer with 30 years experience in the industry (his impressive CV includes Martin Scorsese’s The Departed and Michael Mann’s Public Enemies), Brown was working on behalf of Coppola, whose new film called for a Ferrari. It wasn’t the first time Brown had to bring the Prancing Horse on set; in 1992 he produced Scent of a Woman, featuring Al Pacino as the visually impaired Frank Slade who memorably drives around the streets of New York in a Mondial. Reading through the script, it was immediately clear that Coppola’s film would be another showcase for the intimate and intriguing themes that had so characterised the director’s previous three critically acclaimed works: The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation and Marie Antoinette. It was also apparent that two of the leading man’s co-stars would not actually be human. The first was the film’s main location; so much more than a 1929 formerapartment- building-turned-boutique-hotel on Sunset Strip, the Chateau Marmont is a legend, backdrop to the private and professional lives of celebrities and key players in the arts for many a decade. The other co-star, perhaps enjoying a little less screen time but certainly still very close to the main character, was the Ferrari. On a visit to a showroom, Coppola was initially attracted to the Company’s V8 models, and in particular to the California, but she felt that an older model would be more in keeping with Marco’s character. The 360 Modena was thus deemed perfect for the role. I had the opportunity to meet Coppola back in June 2009, when the production of Somewhere had discreetly taken over the grounds, halls and a number of the guest rooms of the Chateau Marmont. We spoke that day about the film’s plot, about the connection between the 360 and the character of Marco, but also about a range of practical issues and the challenges the production would face when it came to shooting the vehicle – where and how the cameras could be mounted in the car, if the seats could be removed; all questions that needed to be answered before the scheduled days of filming got under way.
The film enjoyed its world premiere in September 2010 at the Venice Film Festival, winning the prestigious Golden Lion in the process. Since then, Somewhere has opened at cinemas across the globe. Talking to Coppola again recently, I asked her to describe the character of Marco’s teenage daughter Cleo (played by Elle Fanning). ‘I wanted the daughter to be a real contrast to [Marco’s] decadent world, she represents something fresh and pure,’ Coppola explained. ‘She is more of a child than all the other young women that have featured in my previous films.’ This spirited young girl enters her father’s world at a difficult moment for him. ‘He’s lost in a world that has little meaning to him, that he thought would be great.’ As Coppola acknowledges, Marco’s time at the Chateau Marmont could be seen as some sort of Dante-esque punishment of the soul; the hangerson who surround him resemble his present and past and force him to a realisation and, ultimately, move him forward in his life.
Coppola was living in Paris when she began writing the script for Somewhere: ‘I was thinking this was my existential moment, or as close as I’ll get to one,’ she observes. Certainly the influences of existentialist literature can be discerned, not least Jean-Paul Sartre’s Huis Clos (known in English as No Exit, and sometimes even Dead End). In both Coppola’s movie and Sartre’s play, being in a restricted space is part of a punishment. In the two stories, “the others” play a key part in the transition that the characters will face: “l’enfer, c’est les autres” (“Hell is other people”), as it says in the play, and is seen, for instance, in the hotel room of Johnny Marco. ‘It’s about him being stuck at a moment in his life, and I’ve seen actors at the Chateau in between relationships or roles,’ Coppola says. Like her 2003 film Lost In Translation, which won her an Academy Award for best original screenplay, this new film includes a multitude of references to different ideas of place and space. ‘They both come from me, but are very different settings, moods and characters,’ Coppola adds. Thoughts of a Ferrari came early in the sketching out of Marco’s character. The film’s symbolic first scene features a car running in circles on a track. ‘I started the script with this idea to set up [Marco’s] state of mind,’ Coppola says. ‘My first idea was him in a black Ferrari driving in circles in the middle of nowhere.
’ During pre-production, Coppola and Brown scouted various tracks in Southern California, before deciding on Willow Springs. ‘I imagined that in LA these guys with sports cars couldn’t really drive them in all that traffic, so they’d have to take them to a track outside the city, and that track looked blank, like the desert.’ Coppola admits that shooting in a 360 was not the easiest of tasks. For all that, it remained a very positive experience. Why had she chosen the car in the first place? ‘It’s a classic, and seems like the ultimate sports car… I wish I had kept it!’ The sound of the engine was another important factor. That beautiful roar became a prominent feature in the film. ‘We really wanted the engine to be part of the soundtrack, part of its theme,’ Coppola says. I asked Coppola about her Italian roots. ‘My family has traditions, which come from my dad’s background, around rituals and cooking. I have great memories of our time in Venice! I’ll never forget it. Venice is such a glamorous film festival.’ Italian television culture, she admits, can be ‘another thing’. Coppola’s movies are always very personal: they speak to their viewers in a poignant voice. Somewhere is primarily about the epiphanies one can have when in the right place with the right people. Watching the film in an old theatre in the town where I grew up near Milan was fundamental to the experience. That familiar space, with its uncomfortable chairs, turned out to be the ideal place to see it. The Ferrari 360 is undoubtedly a key protagonist, one with different connotations and personalities. Somewhere also highlights the extent to which a car can actually have two essences of a soul. One is certainly intrinsic to its nature, but the other depends, at least in part, on what the driver makes of it. Hence the last scene (I won’t divulge it fully here, lest I spoil the enjoyment of those yet to see the film), which features a separation between Marco and his beloved car. It might be a moment, or it could be indefinite, but as a parting of the ways, it shows that Marco is ready for the next phase in his life. Strength is often found from those who offer support and belief in your dreams and potential. Ferrari is a company that stems from the vision of one man, Enzo Ferrari, and the support of the people who believed in him. Somewhere reflects this spirit, not just in its storyline, but also in its production history, with Coppola’s father and brother among its producers. ‘My film is like that,’ she agrees. ‘A dream that the people around me helped to create.’
Published on The Official Ferrari Magazine number 12, March 2011
PUBLISHED IN HOME, PEOPLE BY MATTEO SARDI ON 08.26.2011
Credit: Ferrari S.p.A. (www.ferrari.com)
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