Film Critic Cassandra Fong unravels Megalopolis, Francis Ford Coppola’s journey into a New York of the future forty years in the making
Francis Ford Coppola is known for being a leading figure of the New Hollywood film movement and widely considered one of the greatest directors of all time. His self-financed science fiction drama film, Megalopolis, has finally emerged from a development hell of over four decades. It is a lavishly-designed and artistically demanding futuristic reimagining of political intrigue in the city of New Rome, aptly named for its blending influences of New York and Rome.
Ambitious, Nobel Prize-winning visionary architect Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) falls for beautiful socialite Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel). The catch is that she is the daughter of the city’s wealthy and corrupt Mayor Franklin Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), who fiercely opposes Cesar’s plans to radically reshape the city landscape itself with his invented wonder-material Megalon and instead wants to build a casino over the land where Cesar wishes to build his utopia.
As if this wasn’t enough, his jealous cousin, the lecherous scion Clodio Pulcher (Shia Labeouf) and former lover turned aunt by marriage, the calculating and seductive reporter Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza) collude in a conspiracy against Cesar’s uncle and patron, the billionaire banker Hamilton Crassus III (Jon Voight) to ruin the life work of Cesar and gain power for themselves. The general ensemble of actors aim for theatricality, befitting a script full of melodramatic dialogue.
It is solely the gravitas of Driver’s presence that does not render his delivery utterly ludicrous
Cesar’s golden-hued dream city seeks to eliminate the current state of New Rome as the wealthy’s playground and the poor’s prison, but his cavalier attitude towards demolishing existing buildings to replace them with his creations make him many enemies. His callousness also extends to his interpersonal communication, such as when he scoffs to Julia that ‘I work without caring what happens to either of us’. It is solely the gravitas of Driver’s presence that does not render his delivery of the next line, ‘so go back to the club’, utterly ludicrous.
Stone plaques in classical font serve as overarching thesis statements, even though the subtitle of the title card insists that Megalopolis is a fable and not an academic essay. This does mean that any strange storytelling choices can be handwaved with the explanation that a fable is more about an intended moral message than artistic excellence.
While it is undeniable that Coppola is a skilled director, his sprawling, messy stream of imagination is difficult to corral into a cohesive thesis. You cannot discuss his filmography without acknowledging his frequent usage of operatic elements that involve heightened emotional stakes and dramatic intensity which are displayed through grand set pieces. Here he uses the entire city of New Rome, a visual feast with its collapsing statues and chariot races, as a declaration of parallelism to warn against the disintegration of modern America.
[Coppola’s] sprawling, messy stream of imagination is difficult to corral into a cohesive thesis
Despite Cicero and Catilina’s roles as protagonists, they seem to have the least narrative agency of the entire ensemble. Antony and Cleopatra cosplayers Claudio Pulcher and Wow Platinum scheme entirely seperately from Driver’s ramblings – this focus on acts carried out alone extends even to Pulcher’s vaguely Trumpian speeches as he seeks to recruit working-class populists for an oncoming coup. John Voight’s oligarch Crassus has an especially baffling moment completely divorced from what are ostensibly Coppola’s main characters during the climax – previous diatribes about debt and utopia do not command audience attention quite as strongly as these moments.
Coppola’s intended examination of greed and regressive societal ideals is inundated with copious, lengthy monologues and literary allusions that reverberate between pretentiousness and simple showiness. One notable scene consists entirely of quotations from Marcus Aurelius; each lofty abstraction becomes increasingly inscrutable as the movie progresses.
The absence of non-elite perspectives in Megalopolis is a glaring omission; a utopian city cannot exist without its residents, after all. The true highlights are the film’s design departments: the costumes revel in colour palettes of lush opulence, with jewel tones of forest green and shiny gold and deep burgundy throughout.
Verdict
The postscript dedicates the movie to Coppola’s late ‘beloved wife Eleanor’, and maybe she would have understood Megalopolis perfectly, but a clearer storyline beyond transcendently sincere belief about the role of art in an empire’s twilight days would have made much easier viewing for everyone else. As it stands, this is definitely a film you must see in order to believe.
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