Movies

Megalopolis, starring Adam Driver and Nathalie Emmanuel
Trailer: Lionsgate

Megalopolis
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Rated R
Imagined 27 September 2024
#Megalopolis

"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority,
but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."
Marcus Aurelius

"When we leap into the unknown, we prove that we are free."
Cesar Catilina

With Megalopolis, Francis Ford Coppola delivers a unique cinematic experience that is best experienced in IMAX.

(Another) One from the Heart

Some things can’t be argued about Megalopolis. For Francis Ford Coppola, it’s been a decades-long passion project. One for which he ponied up $120 million of his very own Benjamins to make a reality. It’s a movie driven by a distinct vision and a heartfelt message from the 85-year-old Aries (and filmmaking genius) behind the Godfather trilogy, Apocalypse Now and Tucker.

But it’s also a movie which offers plenty of opportunities for people to second-guess and – effectively – become armchair directors. Surely there are hundreds – thousands – of things various people would’ve done differently. That’s not unusual for any given movie, but for Megalopolis, it seems exponential in comparison.

There’s a solid, timely and valuable message running through Megalopolis, but it’s presented in a curious, extravagant fashion. The location is a New York City of the future, but the trappings are decidedly Roman.

The opening frames are of Grand Central Terminal by night, with the sculpture of the Roman god Mercury basking in the Chrysler Building’s light. The question is asked, "When does an empire die?" The answer, "When the people no longer believe in it." The parallels are set between the decline of the Roman Empire and a future-state United States in its own decline.

Power to the People

There are several subplots running in Megalopolis. One surrounds the mysterious death of Cesar Catilina’s wife. Another involves a pop singer and pop culture sensation named Vesta Sweetwater who gets mired in a scandal involving deep fakes and numerous deceptions that are the bread and butter of tabloids. There’s a flamboyant TV business reporter named Wow Platinum who will use anybody in any way possible to fulfill her delusional ambitions. There’s a marriage involving Wow Platinum and a much older man, Hamilton Crassus III. There’s a romance between Cesar and Julia Cicero, daughter of Mayor Cicero. There are the conflicting visions of the future between Cesar and Cicero. There’s an insurgent campaign led by Clodio Pulcher, essentially seeking to make New York great again. There’s junk journalism focused on the superficial and inconsequential. There’s even a falling Russian satellite.

And then there’s the really interesting stuff. The human capacity to stop time. The genius of the human mind to imagine new ways of living. The power of dreams.

So many subplots. So many colorful names. So many potential distractions from the actual focus of Megalopolis. But, ultimately, it’s best to stay centered on the core of Megalopolis: it’s about two diametrically opposed forces. One that deliberately seeks to keep people down and feeling unhappy. One that envisions a Utopia and seeks to make it a reality.

That’s it. Very simple, really. But there’s so much going on, so much vibrant imagery and such a creative energy that this simple, relevant core can get lost. All of it is part of Coppola’s own extravagant vision. Would the material have been better served – and possibly better received – had it been told in a more straightforward fashion, something more in line with the Godfather legacy and mindset?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Part of the beauty of Megalopolis is its wild ambitions, both in the grand vision of Cesar and the grand vision of Coppola.

This Cesar (Adam Driver, House of Gucci) is a visionary wanting to bring big, bold positive changes to the city. Many forces are at play, working to keep him down, undermine his work and discredit his character.

Design Authority

During a pre-screening event streamed live from the New York Film Festival, Coppola commented on how his movies have had a certain prescient nature to them. The Conversation – a movie about electronic eavesdropping – was only a handful of years before the Watergate scandal. The Godfather: Part II ushered in a whole new era of sequels with Roman numerals.

With Megalopolis, that notion seems all the more real. The movie is about making the impossible happen even as forces seek to hold you back and keep you down. But, in short order, reality started to mimic the fantasy.

There were reports of Coppola’s misconduct on-set (he’s now suing some of the Hollywood trades). Lionsgate, Megalopolis’ theatrical distributor, botched the movie’s first trailer. In an effort to counter-market, Lionsgate wanted to call out the negative reception – by some notable critics – of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now. But Lionsgate had to pull the trailer the same day it was released because – shocker – the quotes used were never written by the attributed critics. There’s a theory an "intern" used ChatGPT to find the quotes and what popped up was a devilishly deceptive mix of fact and fiction.

It’s stunning how much playing out around the filming and release of Megalopolis echoes the themes and events of Megalopolis.

For the record, Apocalypse Now in particular was not universally praised during its original theatrical release. But it is now regarded as one of the greatest war movies ever made. Give Megalopolis some time for reality to catch up to it.

Sunny Hope

Helping Coppola bring this vision to life is a great cast. There’s Driver in the lead role and Nathalie Emmanuel (Game of Thrones) is his love interest, Julia. Giancarlo Esposito (The Boys) is the mayor with quite the conflict of interest. He opposes Cesar and Julia is his daughter. Shia LaBeouf (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) takes full advantage of this opportunity for career rehab and, as Clodio, does a great job of fleshing out Julia’s incestuous "tag-along brother."

Jon Voight (Midnight Cowboy) is Hamilton Crassus III, who marries the conniving Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza, My Old Ass). Laurence Fishburne (The Matrix) is Fundi Romaine, Cesar’s right-hand man and the movie’s narrator/historian. Plus, Coppola brings in family with Talia Shire as Constance Crassus Catilina and Jason Schwartzman as Jason Zanderz.

Each of their characters is a chess piece in this intricately detailed production.

But, despite the eye-popping number of A-list talent on display, Megalopolis isn’t about its star power. It’s headstrong in building up a story that lands a punch and delivers a message.

It’s about looking at the world differently and finally tackling some of the global problems that have held billions of people down. Drop the debt. Tear down the slums. Create a world – a Utopia – in which all people are born with the opportunity to be what they want to be.

Coppola couldn’t be more bold in his statement and with his conclusions by offering a new pledge, one of allegiance to global equality.

It’s a crazy dream. But there have been plenty of people talking about it and trying to make at least some facet of it happen.

IMAXopolis

Coppola has always been about big ideas and crazy filmmaking experiments; those traits are also seen in his American Zoetrope co-founder, George Lucas. American Zoetrope as a studio has always been about the unconventional. In 2017, Coppola authored the book Live Cinema and Its Techniques, exploring new ways to collaborate and create with real-time sharing of cinematic experiences.

All of that ties into the Megalopolis IMAX experience. The IMAX format and Megalopolis belong together. There’s the richly detailed sound design, certainly. But there’s also something else, something truly unique. Christopher Nolan pioneered mainstream filmmaking in the IMAX format, but with the camera technology still evolving for practical filming, a compromise has been shifting aspect ratios, with the IMAX-filmed scenes spectacularly filling out the giant screen in full.

Here, Coppola takes this experience to the next level. There’s a key scene. It’s a scene that sums it all up: Cesar addresses the public and makes a statement about how we need to have a debate about the future. An honest conversation. In this critical, dialogue-heavy moment, Coppola effectively reverses the shifting aspect ratio logic and Cesar’s image shrinks – it fills only roughly 20% of the screen. Down at the bottom, centered.

And then there’s something new. The IMAX auditorium’s rear house lights turn on. Combine the smaller image with the massive message and this real-world lighting effect, and Coppola continues to push forward the cinematic experience.

That is what great filmmaking is about.

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Megalomania

After the IMAX Live Event and Megalopolis premiere, I went back for a second visit.

It’s a great movie. Even better the second time, actually. And some of the reactions are all the more puzzling having seen the movie twice now. One writer even referred to it as "baffling."

There’s nothing "baffling" about the movie. It’s the kind of bold filmmaking that should be celebrated. It’s romantic. It’s wildly ambitious. It’s a wide-spanning narrative. It’s a huge vision that makes a compelling statement about the human potential.

Alas, sometimes bold visions take a while to resonate.

Nonetheless, while revisiting Megalopolis, I caught a couple things I want to address.

One was my comment about the opening frames being of Grand Central Terminal by night. That’s a boo-boo on my part. Actually, it opens in broad daylight. It’s a case of my own New York experiences augmenting the movie. That shot - of Mercury with the Chrysler Building to his side - is one of my all-time favorite New York City views. One I’ve revisited often, but it’s even more striking at night. The photo here is one I took back while I was living in Connecticut and visiting Manhattan (almost) every single weekend. That’s also when I started getting into photography. This shot of Mercury is one of the photos that fanned the flames of my lifelong passion to capture the world through my own lens.

That photo was taken with a "point-and-shoot" Pentax film camera which had a bulb feature for extended exposures. I was carting around a large tripod for that small camera. It’s a rig I had with me on a July 4 trip to Washigton, D.C. I was taking fireworks photos from the base of the Washington Monument. One person "kindly" pointed out I was foolish for taking fireworks pictures with that camera. They won’t turn out, he said with (unfounded and utterly ignorant) confidence.

Those photos turned out great, especially for this kid who was just starting to experiment with cameras and was just starting to explore the world.

Foundational experiences all around.

Compound my own experiences with my enthusiasm for Megalopolis, and I was struck by those opening frames. I felt a synchronicity with Coppola in which I conflated my reality with the movie’s.

An innocent enough mistake, but I apologize for my error in the review.

Another observation is around the IMAX experience. There was a very strange lighting effect that happened during the premiere screening. The rear house lights briefly came on during a pivotal scene. As I commented in my review, Cesar was talking about his vision for the future. The lighting seemed to track so closely with that scene, it had to be intentional.

But, maybe not. It didn’t happen during my second visit. I was really disappointed because I thought it was such a cool, unique thing that seemed to be in keeping with Coppola’s experimental mindset. A nifty trick to blend the real world and cinema.

Could it have simply been the house lights (rear only, mind you) were set to turn on at a specific time and the live event Q&A from New York threw off the schedule? Maybe. But it seems so unlikely. The time gap doesn’t seem to fit with that logic.

I’ll chalk it up as a mystery to remain unsolved. I loved that effect. Even if it was wholly unintentional.

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Stranger Things

I thought maybe I had gone delusional with my observation of the rear house lights turning on - seemingly appropriately timed for a key moment - during the IMAX premiere event night since it didn't happen during my return visit.

Strangely enough, in that same IMAX theatre at the press screening of Gladiator II a comment was overheard about that same Megalopolis screening and how there was a guy in a cowboy hat - down toward the front of the theatre - who was talking to the screen during a particular scene. It was surmised - as I had thought about the house lights effect - this was part of Coppola's live theatre experiment.

But I did not pick up on a guy in a cowboy hat talking to the screen, of course not randomly, but timed as part of the theatrical experience.

That would be a massive effort to pull off show after show. It also certainly didn't happen during my second IMAX viewing. At least the light effect could be pulled off with some technical programming and not be dependent on an in-audience actor.

So very strange to hear about this.

It adds to the mystique and mythology of Megalopolis.

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• Initial review originally published at MovieHabit.com.

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