Sofia Coppola is a phenomenal individual in Hollywood, providing an entire generation of people with some of the most unique and enthralling works in all cinema. What makes her films so captivating are many factors. From the distinctive visuals and set designs to the beautifully written stories and extremely flushed-out characters, it is safe to say that she knows what she is doing when it comes to her filmmaking.
One would expect that someone as good as Coppola at what she does would have people constantly asking to let them generously fund her future projects, however, this is not the case. The filmmaker has recently revealed that her films have been seriously neglected regarding funds compared to her male counterparts. This has resulted in her having a significant regret about her recent film, Priscilla.
Sofia Coppola Has Become A Victim Of Sexism In Hollywood
Sofia Coppola is known for her films having a very distinct, and rich-feeling aesthetic. It is because of this that it is extremely surprising to find out that she has been struggling to get the same amount of funding as her male counterparts. She revealed during an interview with BBC News, that her high stature, the respect that she has earned, and her Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, have not exempted her from the sexism that plagues the film industry.
“I just see all these men getting hundreds of millions of dollars and then I’m fighting for a tiny fraction of that.” She added, “I think it’s just left over from the way the culture of that business is. It’s frustrating but I’m always fighting to get it and I’m just happy to get to make my movies independently and find people that believe in them.” she went on, “There’s a challenge and a freedom in making things small because if you have a big budget, you have a lot of input from studio executives, and I would never be able to make a movie like that.”
She confessed that the small amount of money, in comparison to male filmmakers, that she does get is something that she has to fight tooth and nail for. She finds it extremely frustrating that it is difficult for her to even get people to believe in her projects, simply because she is a woman in a male-dominated industry. She added that, though, this can make the start of her films very vexing, it does allow her to make her films independently.
She requires the absence of studio executives, who would only be trying to make a profit off her whole. The filmmaker added that she would not be able to make a good film in an environment like that, finding a silver lining in her situation.
Sofia Coppola Regrets A Decision On Priscilla Because Of The Smaller Budget
Sofia Coppola then mentioned that while the budget restraint can be frustrating at times, it allows her to be creative in a way big budgets would not be able to. She then went on to talk about her experience working on her film, Priscilla, a movie with a $20 million budget. She stated that her entire team was very imaginative, being able to meet the vision she had for this movie on the limited budget that they had. She added that everyone was helping out wherever they could, which resulted in the critically acclaimed film that we know today.
“So I have that freedom. And then you have to be really crafty and it was really hard but I had the best team… we were able to re-use sets and I don’t know how we made so many costumes! It was all hands on deck and just having really creative department heads.” She went on “I would have liked to shoot on film, but we shot digitally because we had to move so fast.”
While this may have been a very positive thing for the film, there was one specific aspect that forced her hand and led to Coppola regretting one aspect of this movie. Due to the limited resources, the film only had 30 days to finish shooting. This resulted in the filmmaker having to decide to film the movie on a digital camera rather than film, which was something she wanted to do. Although, there are quite a few filmmakers who prefer or exclusively shoot their projects on film, with Christopher Nolan being the perfect example; Coppola could not get the same privilege. It is safe to say that if this movie had been shot on film, it would have only added to its beauty.
