It was one of the main events of the 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, the return of one of the greatest filmmakers of new Hollywood: Francis Ford Coppola presented his new film Megalopolis, forty-five years after his second Palme d’Or. Gold for Apocalypse Now.
A few months later, this gigantic and long-running project, which he financed himself, finally hit theaters. AlloCiné’s opportunity to revisit the director of the Godfather trilogy, Dracula, and talk confidentially about the long-running production of Megalopolis, his inspirations and his career.
What is Megapolis about?
Megalopolis is a Roman epic set in an imaginary modern America in total decadence. The city of New Rome absolutely needs to change, creating a major conflict between Caesar Catiline, a genius artist with the power to stop time, and conservative mayor Franklin Cicero.
The former dreams of an ideal utopian future, while the latter remains very attached to a regressive status quo that upholds greed, privilege and private militias. The mayor’s daughter and jet-setting Julia Cicero, in love with Caesar Catiline, is torn between two men and must discover what is best for the future of humanity.
The cast of Megalopolis features exceptional actors including Adam Driver, Aubrey Plaza, Laurence Fishburne, Natalie Emmanuel, Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight and Giancarlo Esposito.
An epic journey to produce a film
Megalopolis was a long-term endeavor for the 85-year-old director to finally bring the project to fruition. Everything reflects on his status as a director, he explained.
“Who Was I Really as a Filmmaker?”, “What’s my style?”, “Do I have style?” These are the questions that Francis Ford Coppola asked himself, even as he quickly rose to fame with his landmark masterpieces.
But he wanted to see bigger, and the idea of returning to his first loves, namely the theater and big shows, then took up a huge place in his mind, as did the concept of modern America, perceived as an antique in the arena.
“When I said to people, ‘Oh, I want to make a movie about America like Rome,’ they said, ‘Why do you want to do that?’ And now they tell me: Oh, yes, America is like Rome. We are going to have elections. We may lose our republic.”
At the end of the 1980s, the Megalopolis project seemed too ambitious, and yet Francis Ford Coppola did not lose hope, despite many disappointments, because he did not have the necessary funds until the script was read to Robert De Niro in the early 2000s. Even Leonardo DiCaprio and James Gandolfini.
“When I really started, I had offices in Brooklyn. I started touring with another crew on my own, not knowing if I’d have any money. And that’s when the 9/11 attacks happened and our country was deeply traumatized. What happened at the World Trade Center and I always wanted to talk about utopia, happiness and creativity.
A few years later, new actors read the script, such as Ryan Gosling and Virginia Masden, and Francis Ford Coppola continued to work, for example, a request to compose music for a film that did not yet exist. But still not working. “I’m not going to make a megalopolis, it’s hopeless” thinks at that moment.
The turning point came years later, shortly before 2020. He decided to lose weight and get back in shape: “When I was doing all this training, I heard that a lot of actors were reading the script for Megalopolis. Then I thought, ‘Well, maybe I could do this.’ I borrowed all the money I could and did it.”
Therefore, Francis Ford Coppola used his personal resources (about $120 million) by selling his wine farms. Then the cast was assembled and filming will begin in 2022, with a release in 2024.
“I hope the film survives the test of time”
For this vision of the world, so special and so rich in Megalopolis, Francis Ford Coppola was able to use the many sources of inspiration that he was able to collect to maintain the hope of the utopia narrated in Megalopolis, among others, thanks to “A collection of newspaper political cartoons that tells the whole story in one picture”.
Even though forty cinematography, narrative, aesthetics, and staging in a megalopolis torn between visions of the past and hope for a better future, the film is not too far removed from the current socio-political context of the United States. What seemed crazy and unbelievable forty years ago is no longer the case today.
“Even when I started writing about listening to the movie ‘Secret Conversation,’ it wasn’t even ten years later, but then there was the Watergate scandal. You know, a lot of my movies are still being seen forty years later. That’s because they tend to predicting the future”.
If Megalopolis is described as a Roman epic, it is much more. The film, truly unclassifiable, blends all genres, peplum, thriller, romance, parody, sci-fi, drama and more, leaving it as a dream or lost at the end of the session.
This is why Francis Ford Coppola recommends a second or even another viewing for a film he hopes will stand the test of time:
“The audience tends to say when it’s over, ‘Wow, what did we see? We have no idea what it is.’
Comments collected by Megan Choquette in Paris on September 17, 2024.
Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis is currently in theaters.
Source: Allocine
Rose James is a Gossipify movie and series reviewer known for her in-depth analysis and unique perspective on the latest releases. With a background in film studies, she provides engaging and informative reviews, and keeps readers up to date with industry trends and emerging talents.
