Obsessed with online celebrity and addicted to short videos, she deeply exposed the disadvantages of the traffic era

Being born in the Coppola family is like being born in the royal family in the film circle. Gia Coppola once again proved this point.

Although he lost his father before he was born, Gia Coppola grew up in the family’s favor.

At an early age, grandpa francis ford coppola dedicated the movie "Jack at Home" to her, and wrote "Dedicated to Gia when I saw a meteor fly by …" in the closing caption.

Gia Coppola almost grew up on the set of her aunt Sofia Coppola, and when she was a girl, she started working directly on the set of Sofia Coppola and her uncle francis ford coppola.

Francis ford coppola and Sofia Coppola.

At the age of 26, she made her first feature film Palo Alto, and was invited to participate in the horizon unit of Venice Film Festival.

This time, Gia Coppola went to Shuicheng for the second time and brought his new work "Mainstream".

This film is starring Andrew Garfield and Maya Hawke-Maya Hawke is no longer just the daughter of famous Hollywood actors ethan hawke and uma thurman, but has her own masterpiece with her performance in Strange Tales, and just released her first album this year.

Wes anderson’s imperial servants, such as Zhan Sen Schwarczman, are willing to be green leaves, escorting Coppola’s director nova.

Like Palo Alto, Mainstream also focuses on the lives of young people.

Palo Alto poster

Frankie, played by Maya Hawke, has a dream of directing, but has never had the opportunity to make a movie or even a video. By chance, she met the mysterious tramp Link (played by Andrew Garfield), who was deeply attracted by her warm and romantic temperament.

She filmed a video of Link going crazy in the mall, but she didn’t expect to get a lot of clicks on YouTube. At the instigation of Link, Frankie quit his job as a waiter in a bar, and together with his colleague Jake (played by Nat Wolff), he started shooting a short video featuring Link.

Although their works are empty, their style is wild and grandiose, coupled with Link’s handsome appearance and extraordinary charm, they became a hit on the Internet. With the help of agent Mark, the three young people have their own production team and started to build their own online video programs.

"mainstream" stills

As the career goes up, the relationship between Link and Frankie gradually warms up, and they are inseparable, which makes Jake jealous. The sudden fame and money made everyone go to his head, the program became more and more grandiose, the planning got out of control, everyone worked hard for the flow under great pressure, and the friendship between the three young people was on the verge of breaking up.

At this time, a news suddenly broke out: a viewer who participated in the program suffered a lot of cyber violence because Link exposed her photos without makeup against her will, and finally committed suicide. The death of this innocent audience set off a wave of boycotting Link on the Internet, and the contradiction between Link and Frankie broke out completely.

This energetic Mainstream is definitely one of the hottest films at this year’s Venice Film Festival. Its theme of focusing on social media has an innate audience affinity, and with the starlight blessing of Mingxing Kasi, the venue is almost full.

Moreover, in the era of short video apps and websites, the discussion of social media and online celebrity in the film is still blank, and this film has a considerable advantage in subject matter.

Like shooting, "Mainstream" imitates the image styles of Tik Tok, YouTube and other video platforms in audio and video, adding elements of animation and emoji, matching with exaggerated color filters, and assisting with various special effects. Plus, Andrew Garfield’s excellent acting skills have been nominated and certified by the Academy Awards, the whole big screen is absolutely too many elements, cool and gorgeous, which makes people dizzying.

The audience was simply caught in the audio-visual language, and took a roller coaster made in online celebrity, which was endless.

"mainstream" stills

It is no wonder that after the film screening, the audience stood up and applauded-the film is certainly better than the short video on the mobile phone, and Gia Coppola’s "mainstream" proposition was established.

Even though "Mainstream" has reached a very good level in terms of form design and production execution, some people will inevitably question on the side of "minority" and "art", why should we use the big screen to shoot entertainment products on the small screen, why should we use the volume of the whole film to discuss online celebrity’s law of following the crowd, and why should we pay attention to the birth of explosions with the ambition of shooting explosions?

The mainstream is full of such contradictions everywhere.

When the heroine Frankie first met Link, she faced the soul torture:Do you want to engage in art, or do you want to see the public’s preferences and criticisms?Frankie, who is still blank, doesn’t know what he is about to face, and the answer given is "both".

Later, the young trio did indeed play the game with both, and the content of their video program was contradictory to the carrier: the Internet tutor "No One Special" played by Link taught people how to throw away their mobile phones and live without them; And their programs are just for mobile video enthusiasts.

The more viewers who can’t live without their mobile phones, the more they love watching their programs. Those who can’t stop will sign up for the programs and let "No One Special" smash their mobile phones in strange ways.

The last talk show of "No One Special" is even moreNaked exposure of the symbiotic relationship between online celebrity and the audience based on emptiness, curiosity and blind obedience is the biggest lie of social media at present:Morally nihilistic populism supports soulless opportunists in our time.

In the context of this script, everyone who is addicted to short videos, everyone who has been infatuated with online celebrity, and even everyone who sits in front of the big screen and watches this film, has been put in a critical position.

After the premiere of Ifeng film, Gia Coppola, the director of the film, was interviewed exclusively for the first time and talked about her satirical masterpiece Mainstream.

Social media is an "infectious disease"

Ifeng Movie: Your new movie "Mainstream" tells the story of how three young people build a online celebrity. In the film, you have done a very good job in presenting the survival status of social media internet addiction. So what’s your personal attitude towards social media?

Gia Coppola:You have to be extra careful about making comments about social media. And I really don’t think it can be said unilaterally that this is good and that is not good. Social media certainly connects people better, brings more entertainment and spreads information more conveniently.

However, whether in life or in movies, it is not difficult to realize that social media can’t replace real life. You still need to communicate with people face to face.Especially when you are a teenager, you try to find out your identity, the value of life and the meaning of life. In the process, social media may do you some harm.

In my movie Mainstream, some girls committed suicide because of the stormy comments on social media. But this is not an alarmist; These things are extremely realistic. You can see people committing suicide because of social media on the news. It seems ironic to say this today, but I still want to say that social media is an "infectious disease".

This online celebrity is bound to be swallowed up.

Ifeng movie: In your movie, there is a plot, and the talk show special program of the protagonist "No one special" will be performed soon and will be broadcast live on the global network; At this critical time node, the news that someone committed suicide because of him broke out, and he met with public opinion, and the performance and even the entire video channel were boycotted by netizens.

This is such a current trend-"canceling culture". Nowadays, too many celebrities have been "cancelled" and boycotted by netizens because of improper words and deeds or ancient black material, especially in the film circle, many actors have stopped their careers because of their personal morality.

Gia Coppola:The reason for arranging his ending is actually purely from the perspective of the rationality of plot development. Because "nobody is special" is so popular,Manipulating public opinion and fans is too powerful, so you will definitely encounter public opinion.So when we started writing the script, we arranged the ending for him. His trip to online celebrity was a roller coaster, with ups and downs.

We buried a lot of information in the lines of the role of Andrew Garfield, and both what he said and the way he said actually foreshadowed the ending. When we wrote the script, "cancel culture" was not a culture yet. But when we filmed the production, "cancellation of culture" began to have a name and became a phenomenon. We can only say that the full research preparation in the early stage makes our script stand the test of time.

Andrew Garfield

“main stream"Didn’t realize that online celebrity is the mainstream.

Ifeng movie: Before making this movie, were you a heavy user of social media?

Gia Coppola:Actually, it is not. I originally had the idea of making this film, and even decided the title of the film before shooting, because of a sentence said by a friend of mine. A few years ago, this friend made business contacts with online celebrity people. I never understood what her job was. She explained it to me and then said, "They are popular because they are very mainstream, but the mainstream hasn’t realized it yet. （They’re so mainstream, but the mainstream don’t know it yet.）

So my curiosity was aroused at once. Who are they? Why are there so many fans? Why can they grasp the mainstream? Why can they communicate with the public so smoothly? In this kind of social media, where is the position of art and film in the interaction between online celebrity and the audience?

Ifeng Movie: So Mainstream is a profile of the Internet mainstream?

Gia Coppola:From the words of my friend, I decided to make a work about the mainstream of the Internet with little investment at that time. In fact, I often feel that my distance from the mainstream is somewhat out of place.

Today is Tik Tok, and tomorrow is another app.

Ifeng Movie: Mainstream describes the state of internet addiction of contemporary people and various social media that try to keep users sticky. How did you do your research for the script and filming?

Gia Coppola:Actually, I didn’t spend much time on social media, because everything is changing so fast that you can’t keep up with the latest trends. Today is Tik Tok, and tomorrow is a new APP.

So I deliberately kept a little distance, didn’t let my role depend on any specific platform, and tried to tell a more universal story. In fact, this is nothing new to anyone now. I am interested in the process of interaction between human nature and social media, and I just want to present the tip of the iceberg of this world.

Ifeng movie: This movie also invited some real online celebrity to participate in the performance, such as Juanpa, Jake Paul and so on. How did you find them in the massive online celebrity and work together?

Gia Coppola:With regard to inviting online celebrity like Juanpa, we have done a lot of audition work and contacted a lot of online celebrity.

Mexican national online celebrity Juanpa Zurita

In fact, what we want is not that online celebrity plays himself, but that he plays online celebrity in our play, so "being himself" is not enough. I have been in contact with Juanpa himself for a while, and he is sweet and lively, and we soon got together.

We thought about Jake Paul for a while and liked him very much. His brother Logan Paul is also very popular, but I don’t agree with what Logan did, so I didn’t want to give him any role at all.

Movie makers also want to try to make explosive videos.

Ifeng movie: At the end of the first chapter of the movie, the heroine played by Maya Hawke and the hero played by Andrew Garfield are very exciting. You used the typical dreamy and cute special effects on social media to make the big screen of these videos very full of excitement.

Gia Coppola:In the stage of script writing, I actually know very clearly that this process of making videos together and attracting fans will become a key node for the emotional warming of the hero and heroine, and it is also the place to divide the film chapters.

After that, the color temperature, rhythm, music and sound of the whole movie will change. I don’t think anyone who is interested in audio-visual language can resist this attempt, and people who make movies will also want to try to see what it is like to make explosive videos.

So we did imitation in editing, photography, filters and other aspects, and added a lot of emoji and animation special effects. I’ve never tried to study a shot with an animator. It’s really a very interesting experience.

Although this is a social media work that wants to capture the public, it will become very personal later, just like planning my own vlog work.

Ifeng movies: It is not difficult to see that in addition to imitating social media, Mainstream also pays tribute to some classic movies. So what other movies inspired you?

Gia Coppola:David fincher’s "The Social Network" is of course a very important reference and my inspiration.

"Social Network" poster

Then I expanded to some movies with similar ideas, and watched movies such as My Fair Lady and Radio News again. And some movies that can inspire me in characterization and triangle relationship writing, such as "Zu and Zhan", "Extralegal" and so on.

Ifeng Movie: In this film, you have chosen the songs of young musicians such as Grimes, Blood Orange and King Princess, which are popular with social media. It can be said that they have kept pace with the times, and this is the musician that young people are now enthusiastic about.

Is this your favorite music? Or did you choose them because they were the most popular after making an investigation? Is it influenced by Blood Orange?

Gia Coppola:Of course, they are all my favorite musicians. In particular, I trust the taste of the musician Devonte Hynes—— who wrote the music for this film, that is, Blood Orange himself. We started working together in my debut "Palo Alto".

That cooperation was very pleasant, so I invited him again in Mainstream this time. He completed the goal I set very accurately, when to set off the mood and when to create the atmosphere.

It’s very strange to set music to the script. Sometimes you choose the music when you write it, and then it goes with it: Oh, my God, not at all! But I’m glad we did it with Devonte.

Andrew’s improvisation is so precious.

Ifeng movie: So many adjustments were made before and after the filming, and not everything went according to the script?

Gia Coppola:This film has been produced for a long time, and some adjustments are inevitable. Everyone is constantly adding their own ideas. Especially on the set, many of Andrew Garfield’s plays are improvisation; You don’t know what he will do next, he is the character himself. It is very exciting to watch him perform on the set. He is so smart and expressive.

Andrew Garfield

For example, in one scene, he broke into the bar where Maya Hawke worked and forced himself on the stage to talk about a talk show. He had no idea what kind of extras would be in the audience, so when he was excited, he pointed at a black man and called him "Nazi". At that time, we were all stupid. But after reading the material, I thought it was really funny, so I put it in the movie.

In another scene, he plays online celebrity’s "No one special" to participate in a round-table interview on TV programs, and the others invited are all kinds of Youtube online celebrity.We didn’t show them the whole script, and we didn’t tell them what would happen, so everyone was scared when Andrew jumped on the table to take a shit, and then he took out the shit from his pants, and everyone present was crazy. We just took one and captured everyone’s frightened appearance at that time.. This moment is too precious to be repeated.

I also want to be a director like Aunt Sofia Coppola.

Ifeng film: As a member of Coppola family, people will inevitably ask about the family influence on your career as a director. For example, when you were young, you always played on the set of your aunt Sofia Coppola. Did her movies and working methods have a profound impact on you?

Gia Coppola:When I was a child on her set, watching her work was a very intimate experience. She is not the kind of person who is overbearing, and she is often not the absolute center of a room. But she will achieve her goal in her own way, very gently and firmly. Since I was a child, I have wondered if I can be such a person. Later, I became more and more interested in images and audio-visual language and tried to express myself.

Sofia Coppola is on the set.