MovieChat Forums > The Virgin Suicides (2000) Discussion > the schwartzman's

the schwartzman's

posted 10 years ago by zephman
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did anyone catch that line about the nazi sympathizer family having a problem when "the schwartzman's" tried to join the neighborhood tennis club?

i didn't read the book, so maybe that part is taken straight from there, but that's most likely a reference to sofia's cousins robert and jason schwartzman.

robert plays the mafia kid who just "loves pineapple"...i'm surprised this isn't in the trivia section.

[–] TheNewOver 10 years ago

That's true, it isn't in the book. There must be a way to submit entries for the trivia and goof sections.

[–] ElxDiablo 10 years ago

Before you go submitting a goof...I'd hold your horses!

The girls do mention Nazi sympathizers in the book, but any references to the "Schwartzmans" or anyone throwing a fit when they try to join the the neighborhood tennis club, are completely added in there by Coppola or her writing team.

However, the book contains this passage (during the car ride to the Homecoming dance):

[The girls] began chattering immediately. As houses passed, they had something to say about the families in each one, which meant that they had been looking out at us as intensely as we had been looking in. Two summers ago they had seen Mr. Tubbs, the UAW middle-management boss, punch the lady who had followed his wife home after a fender bender. They suspected the Hessens had been Nazis or Nazi sympathizers. They loathed the Kriegers' aluminum siding. "Mr. Belvedere strikes again," said Therese, referring to the president of the home improvement company in his late-night commercial.

So, the "Nazi sympathizer" thing wasn't plucked out of thin air, but the actual "Schwartzman" name was. It might have been a sort of Coppola "in-joke"/reference, or it might have just been a way of improving the flow of dialogue, by adding a believable scenario and an obviously Jewish surname.

You might also note that Lux never says of the Aluminum siding "Do they really think that looks okay?" in the book...yet it's included in the film. Also, the Baldino's "BBQ tree-stump" is not mentioned at all in this section of the book, yet that too makes it into the film's dialogue.

It's pretty obvious from the book that the boys are realizing that these girls aren't a group of homogeneous otherworldly creatures...but real-life people with actual opinions (which aren't always the same, and are sometimes just petty)...and that is what is being conveyed through the dialogue. It's one of those times when the idealized version of the Lisbon girls that the boys carry around with them, is chipped away a little, if only for a little while.

That went off on a bit of a tangent, but anyhow...the Nazi sympathizer thing is in the book.

Given the context, there is nothing here that warrants being "trivia", let alone a "goof".