Flatness, Nostalgia, and the Digital Uncanny in Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla (2023)

This article contends that Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla (2023) uses digital filmmaking to re-animate the commodified image of Priscilla Presley, privileging surface and affect over historical realism. Though Coppola predominantly shoots on film, her decision to film Priscilla digitally—an adaptation of Presley’s memoir—marks a formal shift in her filmography aligned with her ongoing exploration of feminine interiority and aesthetic control. The film traces Priscilla’s life from her first encounter with Elvis Presley to their separation, presenting a visually stylized narrative that immerses viewers in what Walter Benjamin terms a phantasmagoria: a spectacle of commodification divorced from historical consciousness (The Arcades Project). Rather than striving for veracity, Coppola evokes a nostalgic atmosphere that re-members Priscilla through pre-circulated cultural images. This article examines Coppola’s often-criticized “flat” visual style in relation to the Freudian uncanny, i.e., the estrangement of the familiar through temporal and affective distortion. Coppola manipulates digital temporality—looping and flattening time—to produce an oneiric repetition that heightens the artifice of Presley’s image while emotionally distancing viewers. These formal strategies dissipate emotional depth but intensify aesthetic control. Finally, this article considers the political valences of Coppola’s digital aesthetics in a media landscape that both enables visibility and enacts erasure.

Duke Scholars

Author Abby Shepherd