The Sentimentality of Lost in Translation

Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation (2003) could be described as tale of forbidden love and ageless attraction found in exotic locales. The two lead characters, past-his-prime movie star Bob Harris (Bill Murray) and neglected wife Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) are both married, so their “love” is “forbidden.” Harris is considerably older than Charlotte, so their attraction does seem ageless. The whole narrative takes place in Japan, so the locale is exotic. Yet those of you who have seen the film know that the description above misses the mark. This is no Nicholas Sparks story with oft-quoted beach scenes or soggy, impassioned embraces. In many ways, the film seems to intentionally step around sentimentality.

In his article “Spectator Emotion and Ideological Film Criticism,” Carl Plantinga defines sentimentality as “false or unearned sentiment” (155) – in the case of films, it is the real sympathy or empathy that a viewer feels for fictional characters in fictional situations. However, Plantinga seeks to defend sentimentality and emotional responses to films by suggesting that such reactions can generate important and useful conversations about the interplay of feeling and reason. He criticizes the claim that “emotion clouds a certain kind of critical judgement,” further stating that “the kind of emotional experience a film offers, and not emotion per se, is a proper target of ideological investigation” (148).

Lost in Translation presents a unique example: as mentioned previously, much of its content aligns with more traditional “chick-flicks,” yet the treatment of that content seems to separate it entirely from that category. To return to Plantinga's text, the film begins to separate emotions “which are benign or beneficial from those which are manipulative or harmful” (151). There have been many instances when I exit a theater or finish watching a film at home and feel manipulated, particularly with respect to romantic movies. A Walk to Remember (2002) is an especially pertinent example (and another Nicholas Sparks creation; guess I've really got a bone to pick with that fellow?). The film itself might simply irk me because it elicits the intended emotional reaction, against my better judgment. So yes, I get very upset when things go south for the characters, when certain inevitabilities come to light – I would say more, but I don't want to spoil the surprise for anyone who has yet to experience the landmark film for themselves. 

Yet my primary issue with that film, like my issue with many other “chick-flicks,” is the unrealistic expectation it sets. Plantinga states that “our emotional experience at the movies may affect our ways of thinking and thus reinforce or alter the emotion schemata we apply to actual situations” (158). The bad boy changes his ways for the quiet, church-going girl; the single dad and his son meet the perfect woman at the top of the empire state building; the blood-sucking vampire is actually good, and he falls in love with the awkwardly reserved human girl. These narratives of happy endings begin bleeding into our approach of reality. Notably, the same argument has been made many times about depictions of violence in film.

Back to Lost in Translation: unlike the typical romantic-film arcs that I list above, Coppola's movie offers a more realistic set of situations with subtler emotional responses. Many critics argue, as Plantinga mentions, that “emotions must be 'bridled' or 'mastered' to allow reason to function adequately” (149), as if emotional responses and rational thinking are mutually exclusive (spoiler alert: in many cases, they are not). In Lost in Translation, Harris does not leave his family to run off with Charlotte due to his emotions. Yet he does not conquer them in any sense, since he still runs after her at the end of the film; he rather uses his emotions in conjunction with his reasoning skills. In terms of spectator response, though, I am a bit at a loss. I have always had difficulty identifying with the characters in this film, but perhaps that's precisely Coppola's intention. Perhaps all the interactions between Harris and Charlotte are intended to be perfunctory, leaving little long-term impact after the pair leaves Japan or the viewer leaves the theater. Is this film less sentimental simply because audiences do not sympathize with the characters as much as they do in more mainstream romances? Is this simply because Coppola is less manipulative in her emotional approach? “'Soft' emotions” (149) are certainly present, but a lot of emotional numbness is implicit in Harris's sexual encounter with the red-head bar crooner. Do you think this was a swing-and-a-miss at sentimentality, or is the absence of a powerful emotional response intentional?