Directors: Francis Ford Coppola
Writers: Francis Ford Coppola
Stars: Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf
Synopsis: An architect wants to rebuild New York City as a utopia following a devastating disaster.
Francis Ford Coppola is one of those cinema legends that, while having directed what many recognize as some of the best films of the 1970s (The Godfather Pt. I and II, Apocalypse Now, and the underrated The Conversation), is still looked at twice when producing a film. He has managed, time and time again, to get a project deemed as doomed off the ground and concoct something quite fascinating out of the turmoil. Coppola fought for his vision and stopped once the project pleased him. It is like a madman trying to salvage his creations. But unlike many who go through a similar situation, Coppola is labeled as a genius – currently past his prime yet equally visionary and without restraint.
Fast forward to today’s age of cinema, where big studios are afraid of spending money on original pieces of work; they have a severe allergy to producing the works of auteurs from across the world, whether Martin Scorsese or Mike Leigh. So, when it comes to projects seen as audacious big swings, don’t mention the idea of money benefits to them. This isn’t the 1970s when it was easier to make these types of films. There are many examples of this scenario, but Coppola’s Vietnam War masterpiece is the best (and most prominent) of the bunch. Hell broke loose; the production seemed cursed with all the complications that emerged in the jungle. And that’s without counting Marlon Brando’s antics when it was his time to appear on-screen.
Now, at eighty-five, near the end of his rocky yet awe-inspiring career, Francis Ford Coppola has placed himself in a similar situation to construct his passion project. It is a story forty years in the making, where he had to sell the majority share of his wine business to chunk up the one-hundred-and-twenty million dollars for production. But that isn’t all. Near the festival’s premiere, news broke out about what happened backstage; the experience was compared to watching a trainwreck occur right before the cast and crew’s eyes. Knowing all of these details – recognizing that Coppola has made chicken salad out of chicken sh*t before – does draw plenty of intrigue.
After all this time, Coppola finally delivers the project of his dreams, Megalopolis – a big swing, if there ever was one, the curtain closer to a cinema legend’s historic career. Described as multiple things at the same time – a story of doomed romance, a Roman epic, a tale of greed that downs civilization as the one-percent search for power and control – yet not necessarily being any of them at all, Megalopolis is Francis Ford Coppola’s own Southland Tales, a project so bold and ambitious that it doesn’t have a coherent bone in its body due to the high amount of frenetic ideas being encapsulated. The difference between the two is that Richard Kelly isn’t near the talent of Coppola.
Sparks of brilliance are scattered across the film, with both striking and psychedelic imagery being smeared onto a canvas with an abstract painting that only he can churn some meaning out of it with some clarity. It is a piece of work that will be discussed for an extended period. I can see many viewers revising it in the future about how this is a masterpiece or a thoroughly thought-out picture in the same way it happened with Inland Empire and, most recently, Babylon. Yet, for now, I call it a disaster, although a very entrancing one.
A fable of the longevity and decline of the American empire, Megalopolis is in the futuristic city of New Rome, a placeholder for New York City, during a time of significant change, inventions, and forthcoming revolution. While it has the outline of the city that never sleeps, this city is inspired by Ancient Rome, from its stone statues to its political denouement. This city is drowning; the poor are pooled together as the rich maintain security and wealth. Coppola sees today’s society as constantly dwindling, where injustices, maltreatment, and irregularity are some of the problems plaguing it. That is why he places the reasons why the Roman Empire fell – internal corruption, greed, the rich protecting themselves and leaving the others, tyrants, amongst others – as not only traits to make New Rome a character of its own but also the commanding people living in it.
“Civilization is destined to crumble and rebuild again”, the film quotes during its introduction. The people of New Rome hold onto that day when someone helps them. They seek a utopia amidst the inner cataclysm of the power struggle. That spark of light may come in the hands of Cesar Catalina (Adam Driver), a brooding architect (with the power to control time) who wants to reconstruct the city into that perfect place of prosperity and equality. Cesar is crafting a new material called “Megalon” to sustain the city for the foreseeable future. But Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito) doesn’t align with his vision for the city, nor does he think that this material is safe to use.
Mayor Cicero wants to build more casinos and idle landmarks instead of providing the most vulnerable citizens with a better life. These are two visions for the same city; one values it more than the other. Cesar says that if New Rome continues down this road of internal malfeasance, it will collapse entirely any time soon. However, Cicero says the architect’s perfect world will only lead to more chaos, creating a dystopia. Amidst their collision, things take a turn for the worse, both figuratively and literally, when Cisero’s daughter, Julie (Nathalie Emmanuel), starts to work and falls for Cesar. Many questions arise upon her arrival in Cesar’s life. You don’t know if she is spying on him on behalf of her father or if her emotions toward him are genuine.
This relationship between Julie and Cesar is the best thing story-wise that Coppola has to offer in Megalopolis. This doomed romance is the heart and soul of New Rome, the only thing keeping Cesar calm to some degree. Drive and Emmanuel are incredible together; each conversation about the passing of time and running out of it feels heartfelt, although written straightforwardly. Through these scenes, you see why Coppola has dedicated this film to his wife, Eleanor, who recently passed away. In this weird world that he has created, these are the moments where everything feels more grounded. It is beauty and devotion amidst destruction. But, like most of the ideas that Coppola tackles in Megalopolis, this is put to the side in exchange for more outlandish situations and personas that all feel placed in different movies with various tones.
The fact that Cesar’s ability to stop time isn’t much of a narrative gadget, as the first act hints, tells you how poorly organized everything is. While the power play between Cesar and Cisero feels like an oddball and more manic version of Succession, the rest of the film feels way different. The likes of Shia LaBeouf’s mullet-wearing, politically rampant revolutionary Clodio Pulcher, Jon Voight’s boner joke-saying Hamilton Crassus III, and Aubrey Plaza’s zany seductress Wow Platinum (one of the most entertaining facets, with campy dialogue and self-serious facial expressions) are some of the eccentric, cartoonish characters that play significant parts in this way for the “betterment” of New Rome. Not only do they paint the portrait of the political or influential figures within a failing society, but also the thematic and narrative disarray in Megalopolis.
These ridiculous characters and the acts they end up doing feel distanced entirely from the central theme; ever so lightly do they end up entertaining or provoking a thought that isn’t complete and utter bafflement. In some ways, these precarious scenes of uproarious scandal and glamorous indulgence fit within the confines of the film being a Roman epic. When the Roman Empire was nearing its end, the games in the Colosseum started to get even more absurd to keep the attention out of the slowly crumbling city. They flooded the Colosseum and had a live naval battle, brought out animals from across the world and had prisoners (even emperors) fight them, and mythical deaths were reenacted to their full extent. And it was all for their amusement.
Like the emperors of the time, when Coppola loses control of the story, he throws whatever he can think of to a wall to see what sticks. Whether it is wrestlers and chariot races a la Ben Hur or toga parties and a musical performance by Grace VanderWaal’s Vesta Sweetwater, none of it sticks. (Coincidentally enough, these scenes also occur in New Rome’s own Colosseum-like arena.) Visually, it is experimental in ways that Coppola hasn’t tapped into before. But what is it worth if the visual language doesn’t amount to much? It is opulence over thematic exploration. His psychedelic visual style can only lift the film to a certain degree. Megalopolis doesn’t make any sense; it doesn’t try to. Yet, while trying to write a proper review of it, I found myself fascinated by it all.
It is preposterous on a cinematic and narrative level, yet seeing such a project of this magnitude slowly fall on its face, just like the Roman Empire, is an indescribable experience. These are big swings, some done with complete confidence and others quite the opposite, without precision. And you admire Coppola for putting everything on the lie to close the curtains on his legendary career. This is a creation of its own, a strange cinematic oddity that will cause many debates and revisits as time passes. It is the cataclysmic event of a lifetime, unlike anything you have seen in the past few decades. In that sense, there’s some worth. However, deep in my heart, I would have liked him to have closed everything out with a more potent feature.
