THE BEGUILED
In his 1971 film The Beguiled, Clint Eastwood played a wounded Union soldier whose presence at an all-girls school literally drives the women crazy with desire. For her remake, director Sofia Coppola “thought it would be interesting to tell the same premise from the point of view of the women characters.” She assembled a cast that includes her Marie Antoinette collaborator Kirsten Dunst, Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman (reinterpreting Geraldine Page’s part as a cruel headmistress). And unlike her more abstract previous films like Lost in Translation, “I just wanted this to be fun and entertaining,” Sofia says. “I liked that there was actually a plot; it had dialogue. Things that I’m not used to doing.” She did them well: Sofia won Best Director at the recent Cannes Film Festival, only the second woman ever to receive that honor. Says Sofia, “I was thrilled.” [R]