Reflections on MEGALOPOLIS and Coppola

In defense of Francis Ford Coppola's very ambitious and VERY silly swan song. 

By: Josh McCormack

This weekend I was one of the few people who paid to see Francis Ford Coppola’s latest (and presumably final) film, “Megalopolis”. While many others with blogs and TikTok accounts seem to be using the movie as merely a punchline–especially after the news of its “disastrous” weekend box office–I want this blog to be somewhat of a celebration of the madness that is “Megalopolis”. 

Am I going to try and convince the reader that “Megalopolis” is some sort of misunderstood masterpiece? Or that the bizarre performances given by its ensemble cast are all secretly brilliant? Absolutely not. I do think, however, that an auteur director like Coppola taking such a big swing and putting his own fortune into a bizarre piece of work that is now playing on 2,000 screens across the country is something worth celebrating. 

So what the hell is this movie? A maximalist take down of modern capitalism? An ego-driven cinematic hellscape? A new camp classic? Well, it’s really all of these things and more.

To recite the specifics of the plot would be an act of futility. For almost fifty years, Coppola has dreamed of this project, and the resulting film is seriously hindered by having the director throw every single idea he has into the final product. In fact, if I were to write down the specific series of events as they occur in “Megalopolis”, one would probably think it was a collection of discarded cue cards intended to be read out loud by Bill Hader’s SNL character, Stefon (“This movie has everything; Shia Labeouf in a toga, Aubrey Plaza as Wow Platinum, and Jon Voight with a fake boner!”). 

The only concept that really sticks is the core thematic mirroring of the fall of Ancient Rome with what Coppola fears will be the fall of our modern society. An incredibly basic idea that in recent interviews Coppola seems to think is quite revolutionary. But even within this simplistic narrative conceit, the filmmaker finds ways to complicate it with multiple different plot threads running tangentially. As a result,I never really got a good sense of what was actually going on many times during the film.

There’s really no nice way to say this, but “Megalopolis” legitimately feels like the cinematic ravings of a lunatic. Filled to the brim with half-assed monologues about societal collapse and goofy pontifications on a mysterious substance called “Megalon” (not to be confused with the Godzilla villain). I got so much perverse joy thinking about a younger version of Coppola pitching this movie to frugal studio executives in the 1980s. 

Even more entertaining is seeing the incredible cast struggle through some of the nonsense that’s written for them. It leads to one of the most disjointed pieces of work from an ensemble cast I can think of. There’s “Game of Thrones”’ Nathalie Emmanuel as the female lead, Julia, who feels completely lost at sea with whatever is going on. Then there’s Aubrey Plaza and Shia Labeouf who seem to be using the insanity as an excuse to just play it so over-the-top (their extended sex scene garnered some great laughs at my IMAX screening). And then there’s a half-dead Jon Voight who’s reciting all of his lines like he just read them seconds before the camera started rolling, and who also seems too out of it to realize the thunderingly obvious fascism commentary is directly pointed to dopes like him who support a certain Republican candidate in the real world.

But the most surprising performance comes from the film’s lead, Adam Driver. One of our most reliable leading men and one of my personal favorite actors; it is actually kind of amazing seeing how even he struggles with getting a grasp on this material. At points he’s way too reserved for the chaos that surrounds him and yet at other times he goes full kabuki theater. Is it bad? Maybe, but it certainly isn’t boring. And it’s really Driver’s performance that’s emblematic of the entire film; this whole thing was a mess I didn’t really want to stop watching.

Coppola’s latest is just as audacious as it is ridiculous. For every bizarre narrative choice is a visual idea that will stick in my brain forever. One sequence in which Adam Driver’s limo drives through the night fog and witnesses belabored marble statues coming to life before crumbling is one of the most moody and striking images of any film I’ve seen this year, regardless of context. 

 

Montages are consistently employed not only to represent the passing of time, but also the constantly active mind of Driver’s lead character. While these montages do recall Coppola’s greater works such as the first “Godfather” and his “Dracula” adaptation, they are presented in such a uniquely sensory way that the effect is stunningly dreamlike. It’s truly unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.  There is real mastery in “Megalopolis”, but there is also what many would consider to be incompetence. This is further exemplified by the film’s VFX which vary from spectacular to embarrassing in any given scene. 

It’s this push and pull of the man who was once considered one of our classical masters and the man who now seems to be so tired of the “traditional” rules of Hollywood storytelling that really piqued my interest. For better or worse, I think this makes “Megalopolis” the perfect concluding statement of Coppola’s entire filmography. 

The Coppola who made “The Godfather” was the director that the greater public idolized, but it was never the version that Coppola, himself, seemed very pleased with. The sad truth is that some of Coppola’s most totemic work wasn’t the result of passion, but the result of financial necessity. It’s what makes Coppola stand out from many of his contemporaries in the Film Brat generation. He has always been an artist who has struggled to get his true, unrestricted vision on the screen. With “Megalopolis”, Coppola has finally made his purest cinematic dream come true, whether we like it or not. 

While watching the madness of this sci-fi odyssey unfold on an IMAX screen, a quote came to mind from the iconic documentary “Hearts of Darkness” which chronicles Coppola’s agony on the set of “Apocalypse Now”. Near the end of that film, Coppola says something that I think is the key to the latter part of his career and certainly to his latest film.

“Fuck it,” a shirtless Coppola muses. “I don’t care if I’m pretentious or not pretentious. Or if I’ve done it or I haven’t done it. All I know is that I am going to see this movie.”

For as much as Coppola talks about his audience, I don’t think “Megalopolis” was ever really meant for us. It was always meant for him.

The 120 million dollars he sunk into it was never something that he really expected to make back, so we shouldn’t feel bad even as the film has made 30 times less than that amount at the time of this writing. This movie was for Francis Ford Coppola and Francis Ford Coppola, alone. While most audiences might think that’s a selfish ego-driven experiment, I think I take the opposing view. It’s been decades since Coppola has made a movie that I really love, but between the “Godfather” trilogy, “The Conversation”, “Apocalypse Now” and “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”, he has been the mind behind films that I would consider the very best American cinema has to offer. So for all of the entertainment he has given me, I think it’s pretty fair that I paid my twelve bucks to hear him passionately yell at me about a futuristic Roman Empire in cinematic form. 

These filmmakers who defined a medium for generations in the 1970s aren’t going to be around much longer, and I honestly want to hear what they have to say while we still have them.

So here’s to you “Megalopolis”! You might be unintentionally campy, you might be inscrutable, but you are a truly uncompromising vision from one of our most important filmmakers.  

I’m really glad you exist.