There are plenty of distinguished bloodlines in the history of Hollywoodβthe Selznicks and the Mayers, the Warners, the Hustons, the Bergman-Rossellinis, the Fondasβbut very few, like the Coppolas, in which one famous director has spawned another.
After an early life spent in front of the camera, Sofia Coppola made a career behind it, becoming one of the most influential and visually distinctive filmmakers of her generation, with eight features to her name. Her career, of course, has been bolstered by an unusual wealth of resources. Coppola is self-aware enough to know that it would be bad manners for someone in her position to complain. Coppola had adapted the book into five episodes and cast Florence Pugh in the lead role of Undine Spragg, a Midwestern arriviste on a desperate quest to infiltrate Gilded Age Manhattan society.
Coppola, like Wharton, is known for her gimlet-eyed portrayals of a rarefied milieu, and for her insight into female characters who enjoy enormous privilege but little autonomy.
They pulled our funding. Coppola grew up watching Francis do battle with movie studios. Coppola absorbed from her father the ethos that it was never worth it to cave to the creative demands of executives.
Like Marie Antoinette, she found herself unhappily married to a King. Paging through the book while in bed with a case of Covid , Coppola had begun to see the picture unfolding in her mind.
