Megalopolis is Francis Ford Coppola’s definitive statement on his hope for the future, along with a warning of where we are currently at. It is also perhaps his boldest film to date.
DIRECTED BY: FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA/2024
Megalopolis. Francis Ford Coppola’s magnum opus that is over 4 decades in the making is finally hitting theaters this weekend. With its debut, there is much discussion of what has transpired off-screen as much as it has been discussed of what made its way on to the screen. With Coppola securing a loan to finance the $120 million dollar price tag of his passion project himself by selling a portion of his wine business; his facing accusations of inappropriate behavior on the set of the film; casting “cancelled” actors, and losing his beloved wife of 61-years, Eleanor, earlier this year, Coppola has literally given blood, sweat, tears, and much more to see this vision come to life. Will his all-in gamble pay off at the box office, restoring him to cinematic greatness at the age of 85? Or, will it be the final word of a revered director who will always be remembered for The Godfather and Apocolypse Now, but who may be ready to professionally fade into that good night?
For me, Megalopolis is Francis Ford Coppola’s definitive statement on his hope for the future, along with a warning of where we are currently at. It is also perhaps his boldest film to date. His vision, however, is an ambitious vision that is much grander than the sum of its parts. It will surely be his most polarizing film to date. Audiences will either love this film, or they will hate it with equal passion. The fact that Coppola, at age 85, is able to demonstrate this level of vision and boldness, should make every filmmaker think twice about how safe they are approaching their visions, and how they should be embarrased by their lack of boldness and artistry. This is easily the most daring story put to film this year, even if the story doesn’t always live up to the director’s aspirations.
Megalopolis is billed as a fable where New York is called New Rome. Parallels to the collapse of the Roman Empire, and modern-day America abound throughout this tale. Coppola means this story to serve as a warning of where our country finds itself, compared to how the mighty Roman Empire found itself collapsing from within. The filmmaker, in a live-streamed Q&A before our screening, commented that he believes we have only a few weeks before we elect a future dictator. Robert De Niro, who was also being interviewed in the Q&A, along with Spike Lee, echoed this sentiment. The film itself, while clearly acknowledging this as a possibility for its New Rome, does try to strike an optimistic tone of the kind of world that is possible if we give ourselves over to actually thinking and dialoguing about the kind of future we truly want. Coppola closed the Q&A saying that human beings are intrepid, and able to accomplish anything we put our minds toward, if only we seek to leave our world better off than we received it.
Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) is a man of vision who has created a building substance that is as strong as concrete and steel, albeit with living properties, that can help transform the crumbling city of New Rome into a future utopia that people from every class and background can enjoy together. Opposing him is Mayor Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), a former prosecutor who tried to convict Cesar for the murder of Cesar’s wife. Further complicating things is the fact that the mayor’s daughter, Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel), is falling for Cesar. Cesar’s former lover Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza) has her gold-digging sights set on Cesar’s elderly rich uncle Hamilton Crassus III (Jon Voight), while Hamilton’s son, and Cesar’s cousin, Clodio Pulcher (Shia LaBeouf), seeks to use his father’s wealth for his own debauchery and growing ambition. Rounding out this talented cast includes Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Fishburne, Talia Shire, D.B. Sweeney, and Jason Schwartzman.
While the visuals are bold, beautiful, and ambitious, the narrative is often long, meanandering, and manages at times to dilute the impact of the visuals. At other times, when it is not focused on long soliloquies from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, or The Tempest, and the like, it is surprisingly light, poignent, and impactful. This is primarily most obviously felt in the refeshing romance between Cesar and Julia, though their characters together seem very disjointed from the way they are first presented in the film with Cesar as an eccentric visionary artist tripping on drugs and booze and Julia as a rebellious socialite experimenting with her own vices to the disapproval of her father, the mayor. Its not so much the change in their characters, as narrative progression is encouraged, but the way that they arrive there that feels so rushed and disjointed.
Coppola mentioned in his Q&A how he lets the film write itself and gave examples of filming the actors improvising lines as a means of developing the characters’ backstories before re-writing the script with these collaborative backstories informing the actual dialogue. While this is a great way for a director to work with his actors in developing the artistic aspect of the narrative, the actual presentation of the scripted dialogue in the film reveals that Coppola, who wrote the film, should have used these developed bits to fit it tighter into the narrative he actually expected the actors to deliver. Too often good ideas seem half-baked in the larger scenes they are presented in.
On the whole, I appreciated seeing Coppola’s vision of Megalopolis on the IMAX screen, which is really where it belongs. As I stated earlier, it is indeed a grand vision. While it is visually stunning, and the overall point of comparison of modern America to the Roman Empire compelling, it is still a very polarizing tale that evoked audience reactions as divided as America’s modern day political landscape. Francis Ford Coppola mentioned that his best works were equally greeted with a divided audience reaction and stated that based on this similar reaction to Megalopolis, the dialogue it creates should indicate that this film will continue to live long into the future culture zeitgeist the way Apocolypse Now and The Godfather films have. Time will tell if that is true or not. One thing that is for certain: at age 85, Coppola is no shrinking violet, but a bold and visionary auteur who isn’t ready to go silently into the good night. He isn’t just making one of the biggest movies of his storied career…he’s banking his own money and reputation on it!
