Movies
Oscar watch: 'Lost' might not win, but nomination is a history maker

By Moira Macdonald
Seattle Times movie critic

	YOSHIO SATO / FOCUS FEATURES Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray star in "Lost in Translation." The low-budget feature by Sofia Coppola is up against some box-office giants in the best-picture race.
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Shot in Japan in late 2002 for only $4 million (a minuscule budget, by Hollywood standards), Coppola's serene, dreamy film features no battle scenes, no murder, no climactic races, no elaborate costumes — just two lonely people finding each other, ending not with a bang, but a whisper. But it's become one of the year's biggest word-of-mouth hits.

After a small initial release in September on only a handful of screens, its audience kept growing, and "Lost in Translation" is still in theaters four months after its debut, with a domestic box-office take of more than $33 million.

Not a bad return on investment — particularly for a 33-year-old writer/director making only her second feature. And "Lost in Translation" is reaping far more than dollars.

It's won awards from numerous critics' groups and film festivals, and received a surprise four Academy Award nominations, for best picture, director, screenplay and actor (Bill Murray).

The odds of "Lost in Translation" winning best picture, in this Year of the Hobbit, seem about as slim as Coppola herself. And it would be most unusual for such a small film to take the big prize; even "Shakespeare in Love," a surprise winner in 1999, was a much bigger money-maker. But the film should win Oscar gold, quite possibly for Murray (whose sardonic-but-charming Golden Globes speech will not have gone unnoticed by Oscar voters) and for Coppola, most likely as screenwriter, a long shot as director.

Either way, she'll make history. She's from a line of Oscar winners — father Francis Ford Coppola (director, "The Godfather, Part II"), grandfather Carmine Coppola (composer, "The Godfather, Part II") — and another statuette would make the Coppolas a rare three-generation Oscar family. (Her cousin Nicolas Cage is also an Oscar winner for "Leaving Las Vegas.") She's only the third woman (and first American woman) to be nominated for the directing prize. And her quiet poem of a film is a breath of fresh air in the sometimes stuffy Academy.

If Coppola doesn't win this year, remember this: She's only 33, and her future's as bright as a newly polished Oscar.

Trivia

Sofia Coppola has, quite literally, been making movies all her life — she made her screen debut as the infant being baptized at the end of "The Godfather." Scarlett Johansson, co-star of "Lost in Translation," was comparatively ancient when making her acting debut: at age 8, in an Off-Broadway play starring Ethan Hawke.

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com

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