Film Review: Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis” — Forty Years in the Making … And it Shows

By Michael Marano

In Megalopolis, now we have Francis Ford Coppola, Titan of Cinema, unleashing his undiluted meditation on Roman Historical past, US Historical past, Political Rivalry and Cooperation, City Planning, Expertise, Love, Marriage, and many others.

Megalopolis, written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Screening at Alamo Drafthouse Boston and different film homes in New England.

That is going to be a really onerous assessment to write down, as a result of I haven’t seen Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis but.

Oh, certain… I’ve sat by means of it.

However I haven’t seen it.

As a result of I’ve solely considered it as soon as.

I’ve the identical feeling about Megalopolis that I’ve had about each Kubrick film since Barry Lyndon. Y’see… from Barry Lyndon on, Kubrick’s management of his movies grew to become absolute, attributable to his brother-in-law Jan Harlan taking up producer duties on his motion pictures. And I disliked and was bored by the self-indulgence of all of Kubrick’s motion pictures from Barry Lyndon on… till I noticed them once more. These first viewings have been Kubrick the Titan out to innovate cinema, and my dislike and lack of engagement was my moviegoer mind making an attempt to meet up with the neural rewiring Kubrick achieved with these motion pictures from Barry Lyndon on. I’ve had the identical expertise with a number of Michael Haneke motion pictures, like Cache and The White Ribbon.

So, with Megalopolis, now we have Francis Ford Coppola, Titan of Cinema, unleashing his undiluted meditation on Roman Historical past, US Historical past, Political Rivalry and Cooperation, City Planning, Expertise, Love, Marriage, and many others. It’s a film 40 years within the making, financed with 120 million bucks out of Coppola’s personal pocket, and it has rewired my moviegoer mind in methods my frontal lobes have but to course of. I may course of it and assume it’s crap. However I do know for a undeniable fact that strolling out of Megalopolis, I had the identical head buzz I had strolling out of a 70mm displaying of Apocalypse Now on opening evening.

I’ve to see it once more to actually see it, with my newly rewired mind.

Megalopolis is an American fable, set in a retro-future Manhattan standing in for Rome on the Fall of the Republic which is in flip standing in for the US at this political and cultural second. Adam Driver performs Cesar Catilina, an architect and metropolis planner who’s a mix, after all, of Julius Caesar and Roman conspirator Catiline and possibly Robert Moses? Add a touch of Preston Tucker (topic of Coppola’s biopic, Tucker: the Man and His Dream) and you’ve got the form of innovator/superman who can have Ayn Rand followers making nocturnal Fountainheads of their John Galt Underoos. Catilina is the inventor of the “megalon,” a constructing materials that earned him the Nobel Prize (and which has a mysterious connection to Catilina’s lifeless spouse). What does the megalon do? Principally regardless of the plot necessitates, however probably the most pertinent factor appears to be its utility towards creating cities that may (organically?) develop because the populations inside them develop.

Oh, yeah… Catilina additionally has a superpower worthy of considered one of The Flash’s villains: he can cease time at will.

Catilina needs to knock down a bunch of multi-ethnic and reasonably priced neighborhoods to construct his Megalopolis growth utilizing the megalon. In opposition to him stands Giancarlo Esposito as Mayor Cicero, who’s way more conservative in his method to… y’know… letting folks have locations to reside.

After all, Cicero has a phenomenal daughter named Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) whose loyalties can be examined between Catilina and her dad. Cue the cleaning soap opera organ.

Megalopolis is a film of unimaginable opulence… there are textures and colours and compositions which might be as wealthy as Renaissance work. The issue appears to be, particularly within the early Fellini-like, super-decadent components of the movie, that Coppola doesn’t belief his personal artistry concerning the ability of this opulence. The world-building is disrupted by a variety of fast cuts to construct a kinetic sense of extra: the viewers just isn’t given a chance to acclimatize, an opportunity to orient themselves. There’s additionally an overreliance on voice overs and newscasts to stuff exposition into the viewers’s skulls, and that comes off as particularly ham-fisted, given the magnificence of the movie’s general look and execution. Not less than one main character, a narrator of the movie, in reality, simply form of disappears for too lengthy a spell. All these are hints that make me assume that, very like Apocalypse Now, we’re going to have a number of cuts of Megalopolis sooner or later.

A view of town in Megalopolis.

There’s plenty of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis in Megalopolis. Now we have a battle of the orders between the Have’s and Have Nots centered round city infrastructure and assets. Additionally, by way of conservative forces standing in opposition to advancing expertise, there’s plenty of H. G. Welles’ Issues to Come right here, too. However, in comparison with Megalopolis, these two heady, ponderous science fiction metaphors are stripped down and breezy affairs. Megalopolis is a humiliation of riches, by way of plot, mise en scene, its plethora of characters. Coppola journeys over his personal ft. It’s stunningly lovely to look at him do it, similar to there’s magnificence watching Nijinsky faceplant. As with Apocalypse Now, Coppola is making a film a couple of man taking part in God whereas he, himself, performs God. The totality of his management is admirable… however possibly he’s not in whole management of himself?

Nonetheless, when Coppola swings for the fences, he hits it out of the megal-park. There’s an City Purgatory of Injustice sequence which is without doubt one of the most beautiful issues I’ve seen in years. A metaphoric, science fictional tackle 9/11 and Floor Zero exudes a surreal magnificence… adopted a bit later by TV information clips of the true Floor Zero, which takes away from the ability of the Floor Zero metaphor.

Megalopolis is undeniably a gargantuan mess. Regardless of the 40 years it took to make, it feels unfinished, and possibly it’s. Or… like I mentioned earlier, possibly what’s unfinished is my viewing of it. Coppola has introduced the complete drive of his cinematic genius to bear right here. It may effectively be that I’ve but to meet up with his imaginative and prescient. However, for a film about epic imaginative and prescient, the epic imaginative and prescient of the director himself may have to be ratcheted down — to permit for the epic imaginative and prescient of the characters to be seen and skilled and understood. As a result of, simply as Mayor Cicero stands in the best way of Catilina’s imaginative and prescient, so Coppola stands in Catilina’s manner. Yeah, it’s a narrative about city planning, however in the end, it’s onerous to see the forest by means of the bushes of Megalopolis.

Novelist, writing coach, and private coach Michael Marano (www.BluePencilMike.com) is commonly requested what his favourite film is. His typical reply is The Godfather and The Godfather Half II.