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With the deaths of the five blonde Lisbon sisters, the 1998 adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel “The Virgin Suicides” from filmmaker Sofia Coppola told a tragic tale through gauzy, sunlit suburban scenes. Her characters in the movie, and her subsequent works including “Lost in Translation,” “Somewhere,” and the soon-to-be-released “Priscilla,” about Priscilla Presley’s relationship with Elvis, are marked by their sense of yearning; no matter the era or geography, her protagonists are adrift, searching for connection and meaning.

Now Coppola is releasing “Archive,” an anthology of rare behind-the-scenes images and ephemera collected during the making of her movies. Filled with sketches, letters, magazine clippings and diaristic polaroids of her muses, including Kirsten Dunst and Elle Fanning, “Archive” fits neatly in Coppola’s nostalgic coming-of-age narratives and adds another romanticized dimension to her output.

Real-world locations straight out of a Wes Anderson movie

Coppola’s groundbreaking deep dives into the psyches of young women have each taken their place in their zeitgeist, even when they haven’t been box-office hits. (“Marie Antoinette,” her exuberant take on the ill-fated teenage monarch, received mixed reviews in 2006 and offended the French, but its cult status has made a generation of period pieces far less stuffy.)

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Taissa Farmiga and Emma Watson were among the actors who reenacted the infamous crimes of a group of real-life teens who burglarized A-List celebs in 2013 's "The Bling Ring." Coppola writes in "Archive," that the cast "spent days in night clubs and in Paris Hilton’s closet surrounded by her shoes."
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Elle Fanning in the 2017 Civil War-era drama "The Beguiled." Coppola writes, "I love that Elle is really the same person as the girl I met when she was eleven on 'Somewhere'" — Fanning's first film with Coppola in 2010.

As she pointed out in a published interview in “Archive,” very few moviegoers saw “The Virgin Suicides” during its original US release, despite its popularity at Cannes. “The studio was nervous about a film about girls who are going to kill themselves. So it barely came out, and no one here saw it,” Coppola said. “Since then, a whole new generation of girls has discovered it, which makes me happy.”

As Coppola’s directorial debut turns 25, and the biodrama “Priscilla,” starring Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi, premieres in Venice this month, the monumental tome is a time capsule of her career so far. In “Archive,” Coppola reflects on the threads woven through her films, including her latest, which is based on Presley’s 1980s autobiography, “Elvis and Me,” and focuses on how she navigated her teenage years after meeting the superstar.

Below, take a peek inside of “Archive,” which publishes this month by MACK, for a look at some previously-unseen insight into Coppola’s films.

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Coppola was fascinated by Priscilla Presley's life, and how she spent her teenage years in Catholic school while living with Elvis in Graceland. "I appreciated the strength she showed in leaving to find her own identity after growing up trying to be his idea of the ideal woman," she writes.
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Prop fanmail to Elvis photographed on the set of "Priscilla." "On this set, I totally felt in my element, doing what I love. I could see moments that felt like past films, but hopefully that’s now my style and all of my experience went into this one," Coppola writes.
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Bill Murray on the set of 2003's "Lost in Translation." Coppola had always imagined Murray in the starring role, but had to work to persuade him to join the cast; she was unclear until the film began shooting if he was going to show up to Tokyo at all.
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Scarlett Johansson, with two robots, in a deleted scene from "Lost in Translation."
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Casts worn by Stephen Dorff in "Somewhere."
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A copy of a marked-up script from "The Virgin Suicides."
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Test images of Kirsten Dunst taken for "The Virgin Suicides." Dunst's performance in the film kicked off her long working relationship with Coppola. "In Kirsten I saw the real essence of the character and the film I wanted to make."
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In making "The Bling Ring," Coppola said in "Archive" that "the whole world had to be lurid and oppressive for the story to work."
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Coppola asleep on a chaise lounge on the set of "Marie Antoinette."