Like Father, Like Daughter

Martha Teichner takes CBS News Sunday Morning to meet Sofia Coppola, the director of the much-praised film "Lost In Translation."

A "sleeper hit," isn't that what a film like "Lost in Translation" is called?

With five golden globe nominations, a Directors Guild of America nomination for the writer/director and all kinds of Oscar speculation, who would have thought that Sofia Coppola's movie -- only the second full-length feature she'd ever made -- could end up on just about every top ten movie list.

For the record, some A-list stars were at the movie's discreet, little premiere last September. Coppola, in the middle of breaking up with her husband, director Spike Jonze, was escorted by her cousin, actor Jason Schwartzman. She looked nothing like a big Hollywood director. She drifted past reporters, answering questions Hollywood types are seldom asked, such as "Whether the hype made her uncomfortable?"

As small as the movie may have been -- she shot it in just 27 days for $4 million, pocket change in Hollywood -- the critical and box office success of "Lost in Translation" has once and for all put to rest any lingering suspicion that this is no more than Francis Ford Coppola's dilettante daughter dabbling at movie making.

The film is about two lonely, bored people stuck in Tokyo. It takes place almost entirely in a hotel.

Bill Murray plays Bob, an aging movie star being paid $2 million to do a whisky ad. Scarlett Johansson plays Charlotte, a recent post-grad and new wife trying to find herself while her fashion photographer husband is off working.

New York Times film critic Tony Scott is as impressed with Sofia Coppola as he is with her movie.

"What's most ambitious about it is its simplicity," says Scott. "I mean, you have a city and two characters. To make such an affecting and funny and engrossing movie from that is, I think, you know, not only beyond her previous work, but beyond a lot of work of her peers and other members of her generation."

Sofia Coppola wrote and directed "Lost in Translation." It grossed more than $30 million, and four months after it's release, it's still in theaters.

Sofia Coppola is hot. There was the piece in the Washington Post and two whole pages in Vogue about her. She's been turning up in magazines like Vanity Fair, wrapped around a large bottle of perfume by her favorite fashion designer, Marc Jacobs. And of course, there was the New York Times magazine cover story. In it, actor Bill Murray was quoted as saying, "She has been able to reinvent what her last name represents."

Talk about being born into the family business. Sofia Coppola was the baby christened in the last scene of her father's film, "The Godfather."

"We had three children and all of them were there and in every picture," says Francis Ford Coppola. "[It's] something that would be supplemental to their education, which I realized I was damaging by taking them out of their regular school. And also, I would put them in the films all the time."

Sofia Coppola says she's comfortable on a film set because of her time spent at her father's place of work.

"When she was about six, I remember Ellie and I were having, you know, the typical marital argument in a car, and we're shouting at each other and stuff, and all of a sudden we hear, 'cut,'" laughs Francis Ford Coppola. "Here's this little six year old that had, you know was controlling the situation."

The 6-year-old Sofia Coppola can be seen in the documentary "Hearts of Darkness" on her way to the Philippines, where the family lived while her father was shooting "Apocalypse Now."

Her mother, Eleanor Coppola, chronicled the incredibly star-crossed production, which had Francis Ford Coppola risking ruin to make the movie he wanted to make. It was a lesson in commitment to art that Sofia Coppola didn't know she was learning at the time.

"I think the children really had a wonderful time," says Eleanor Coppola. "They weren't aware of the complications and the difficulties. And, Sofia would go to the set and go to the costume department and they would sew clothes for her dolls and make her stuffed animals. And, it was like a child's paradise."

Her father was willing to mortgage everything he had and go through incredible pain and soul-searching so that the film he wanted would come out right.

"I don't know if I'm that tough, but you do try to put yourself on the line," says Sofia Coppola.

Coppola family home movies aren't like other people's. If you want to see Sofia Coppola growing up, go rent "Rumblefish" or "The Godfather: Part III," the movie that ended her acting career at the age of 18, when the critics trashed her performance.

"You're already feeling awkward," she says of the experience. "I remember there was some magazine cover that said, 'Did she ruin her father's film?' It was just so public, so that was a drag at that age."

It also set her on the road to directing. Home base for Sofia Coppola was always the picturesque Victorian house at the winery in Napa Valley, one of Francis Ford Coppola's other businesses. For someone whose family markets a sparkling wine named after her, it seemed like a very Coppola thing to do to follow her interests in pursuit of her life's work.

"There is like a disease in my family of starting little businesses," says Sofia Coppola. "What I learned from my dad is it helps to have, you know, a little side business that you can make your living at so, you know, pursue creative things."

When she was 16, she designed the costumes for the short "Life Without Zoe," her father's contribution to the movie, "New York Stories." Just out of school, Sofia Coppola and her best friend just assumed they could start a clothing business, and they did. It was called Milk Fed. The line is sold exclusively in Japan. On the money she made, she was able to try painting and photography and television. When she finally moved on to film- making, all the trips she'd taken to Tokyo became the inspiration for "Lost in Translation."

"It was just a really hard period in the early 20s and knowing what do," she says. "I put some of that into the character of Charlotte in my movie."

What about the gossip that Charlotte is supposed to be Coppola herself, Charlotte's intense photographer husband is supposed to be her husband and the giddy model is a representation of actress Cameron Diaz. Publicly, Sofia Coppola won't go that far.

"There's parts of it that are from experiences that are familiar to me and places that I've been, but then, it's made up too," she says.

An illustration of Sofia Coppola's approach to directing, as opposed to say her father's, is how she convinced actress, Scarlett Johannson, 17 years old when "Lost in Translation" was shot, to be filmed in sheer underwear.

"There's a lot of Scarlett walking around the hotel room in her underwear, and it's, you know, a girl being alone," says Sofia Coppola. "She didn't want to wear the sheer underwear and we were all saying 'No, it's going to look better.' So I said, 'I'll put them on and show what they look like.' So probably, that's different if you have a girl directing than a man … I guess if you're asking someone to do something you should be willing to do it yourself."

Sofia Coppola says she would like to work on a small movie again – something she and her friends would like to see.

Instead of rushing off to try her hand at a big Hollywood feature after "Lost in Translation," Sofia Coppola directed a not quite three-minute music video for a band called "The White Stripes." It stars her friend, supermodel Kate Moss. The song is called "I Just Don't Know What to do With Myself."

Once, that pretty much described Sofia Coppola. Not any more.