Time has always been kind to Francis Ford Coppola. The legendary filmmaker is no stranger to epic, unwieldy, ruinously expensive films, underappreciated upon release before later achieving classic status. Will his monumental, decades-in-the-making, self-funded passion-project Megalopolis follow a similar path to The Godfather and Apocalypse Now — or will it be more like One From The Heart? Only time will tell. It is certainly a film that requires some time digesting.
Coppola has compared the film to James Joyce’s Ulysses: like that grand experimental novel, it recasts ancient myths in a modern city. And like Ulysses, it is wildly ambitious, conceptually bold, frequently inscrutable, endlessly fascinating, and endlessly frustrating. It is a “fable” about the fall of empire, the parallels between modern America and ancient Rome, power and corruption, art and creativity, the violence of progress versus the cruelty of the status quo. It is, ultimately, a $120 million film about town planning.
When you think you have a handle on it, Coppola throws something head-scratchingly strange back at you.
Adam Driver plays Cesar Catilina, an impetuous but brilliant architect, desperate to rebuild New Rome with his Unobtanium-alike magical new element Megalon. He finds a muse in Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) but a rival in her father, Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito). Driver is introduced with jaw-dropping imagery, his frame looming over a Metropolis-esque city-scape, defying the laws of physics and God. Later he descends into a vivid, Baz Luhrmann-esque bacchanalian hallucination. Other times, Coppola’s camera is more blunt: a statue of Lady Justice literally collapses from exhaustion; an Elvis impersonator sings ‘America The Beautiful’; there is footage of September 11th. Subtext becomes text here, subtlety be damned.
Just when you think you have a handle on it, Coppola throws something head-scratchingly strange back at you. Driver regularly launches into actual Shakespearean soliloquies. There is a bizarrely creepy subplot about a “virgin pledge”. Shia LaBeouf plays a Donald Trump Jr avatar with no eyebrows. Dustin Hoffman shows up for five minutes, then is revealed in flashback to have died. Aubrey Plaza plays a character called ‘Auntie Wow’. Jon Voight appears to get an erection.
But it is not short of ideas. The film groans under its themes, it is so full of them. Utopia and dystopia share the same space. And there are clear parallels, conscious and unconscious, with Coppola and his protagonist. Cesar is a polymath, a genius driven by an ambitious vision but also beset by hubris. At 85, this could be Coppola’s final film, a swan song on a historic career. It is astonishing that he seems to have more drive than ever. “There’s still so much to accomplish,” Cesar laments towards the end of the film. “But is there time?” Time, as always, will tell.
