Bob Harris (Lost in Translation) Lost in Translation (2003)
Bob Harris is the fading American film star at the center of Lost in Translation, played by Bill Murray. He has flown to Tokyo to shoot a series of Suntory whisky commercials for a fee of two million dollars, leaving behind a twenty-five-year marriage to Lydia and two children. He spends most of the film in the Park Hyatt: jet-lagged, sleepless, fielding faxes about carpet swatches, lost in a city he cannot read. The character is widely cited as the role of Bill Murray's career.
Who he is
Bob is a recognizable type — the American star whose franchise career has begun to feel like an obligation rather than a vocation. The film does not name his films but signals their texture: he was famous in the 1970s and 1980s, has been working steadily in things he is not quite proud of, and has reached the point where doing a Japanese whisky commercial for two million dollars is the rational financial choice. He is twenty-five years into a marriage that is now conducted by fax. He has been doing this for long enough that he barely registers it.
"Bob Harris is one of the most recognizable American types in late-twentieth-century cinema — the famous man whose fame has begun to bore him. Sofia Coppola's writing of the part is precise: she does not give him a tragic backstory, she just gives him a Tuesday morning in Tokyo." — A.O. Scott, The New York Times (2003)
What he does in the film
Bob does almost nothing for ninety minutes. He sits in elevators looking down at the businessmen around himb3; he fields Lydia's faxes and calls about carpet swatchesb7b14; he stares at the ceiling. He goes to the Suntory shoot and lands the tagline without convictionb4; he extricates himself from the "premium fantasy" hostessb11; he sits in the bar at three in the morning and exchanges a small toast across the roomb9.
The activity begins when Charlotte calls his roomb15. From there: the karaoke night,b18 the corridor carry,b19 the hospital trip,b21 the floor conversation,b25 the Matthew Minami show,b28 the kabuki sit,b29 the night with Catherine,b30 the shabu-shabu apology,b32 the fire alarm,b33 the lobby goodbye,b36 the street whisper.b37
The arc
Bob's arc in the film is structurally counter to Charlotte's. Where Charlotte begins in equilibrium and is disrupted by an inciting incident, Bob is already disrupted — twenty-five years of marriage logistics, jet lag, the thousandth Suntory take, a midlife state Charlotte will name in the suite — and the film does not stage his redemption in the same way. He is the articulator of the post-midpoint epistemics in the floor conversation ("the more you know who you are and what you want, the less you let things upset you")b25, but he is not obviously their full subject. The cab ride out is the film's refusal to resolve where his arc lands.
What the performance does
Murray plays Bob almost entirely with face and posture. The work is in the underplaying — Bob does not act sad, he is sad, and the camera meets him where he is. The karaoke "More Than This"b18 is the great example of the small commitment landing with disproportionate force; the lobby goodbyeb36 is the great example of the underplaying carrying the structural weight.
"Bob Harris is one of the most-loved characters in twenty-first-century American cinema. Murray's underplaying gives the audience permission to do its own emotional work. The character does not tell you what to feel. He just sits in the room with you." — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times (2003)
The whisper
The street whisper at the end of the filmb37 was improvised by Murray on the day. The audio was deliberately mixed below the music; Coppola has said in interviews that she does not know exactly what was said. The full discussion is on The Improvised Whisper and The Whispered Farewell.