Lost in Translation: Sophia's Farce??

The article here is only the first post from Imomus.com. The article is title "Lost on Me" and contains a great deal of insight into the acting of the characters in Sophia Coppola's Lost in Translation. The following quote is taken from the article explaining Bill Murray's comedy:

Does Murray's charisma have to come at the expense of someone else all the
time? (Let's not even talk about the portrayal of the prostitute or the
commercial director.) In a hospital scene, an old lady asks Murray why he took
this long trip to Japan. Murray responds again by playing to the gallery, miming
her as if she were doing a ludicrous choreographed song. He's the odd one out,
the foreigner, and yet he's treating those around him as if they were
foreigners. This is bad manners and bad traveller etiquette. It prompts the
question, is it possible to be American and foreign? I suspect the answer is
'No', at least if one is in an American film, wherever it may be set.

The author describes, in great detail, the other actors and actresses and they're strong points and weaknesses in the film. There is also a great deal of ideological analysis which analyzes the socialogical behavior in the film.

Formalism in Psycho

This website talks about Hitchcock's "artistry in lighting, camera angle, and mise-en-scene."

The scene Michael Schmidt looks at is the parlor scene. In this scene he describes some of the fine details from the parlor itself to the objects on the wall. What is interesting is how Michael mentions how the actors and actresses are placed versus the background setting to emphasize the main theme of the movie. Michael also defines the different formalistic features of the film and how that relates to the theme of the movie and what Hitchcock's intent was do so.