Abstract

This thesis proposes adaptation studies as a productive, yet vastly overlooked, framework through which to contextualize the work of American filmmaker Sofia Coppola. A substantial number of Coppola’s films are adapted from both fictional novels and non-fiction texts, and approach conditions of contemporary girlhood from the context of varying geo-political and historical stories, events, and figures. This sparks an exploration of Coppola’s signature cinema of girlhood as transhistorical, as the filmmaker transposes, re-creates, and reinterprets stories of women and girls from the past through her own contemporary perspective. The first chapter looks at The Virgin Suicides (1999), an adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenides’ 1993 novel, and the reinterpretation of central narrative devices which transform a male-narrated story into a portrait of nostalgic girlhood. The second chapter looks at Marie Antoinette (2006), adapted from Antonia Fraser’s 2001 biography, Marie Antoinette: The Journey. I position the film’s anachronistic costumes and musical soundtrack as derivative of the adaptation process; not only working to situate the story of Marie Antoinette in recognizable, contemporary themes, but also reflecting Fraser’s sympathetic and subjective approach to her biography. The third chapter looks at The Beguiled (2017) as both an adaptation of Thomas Cullinan’s 1966 novel and a remake of Don Siegel’s 1971 film. I examine Coppola’s reinterpretation of the story’s perspective and sympathy through the gender dynamic on-screen, while addressing what remains off-screen: Coppola’s controversial decision to omit the novel’s original Black characters. This research positions adaptation studies as necessary to a comprehensive understanding of the filmmaker’s oeuvre, demonstrating the intertwinement of Coppola’s signature theme of girlhood and her evocation of adapted period narratives. This results in a recurring theme of transhistorical girlhood in Coppola’s films, through which the filmmaker repeatedly forms portraits of young women through transposed, palimpsestic stories and figures of the past.