The Grandeur, the Folly, the Dream of Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis: Another One from the Heart

“Don’t let the now destroy the forever.”

In Orson Welles’ other masterpiece F for Fake, there is a scene in which, in his discussion on the transcendent value of art irrespective of its creators’ authenticity, he observes the Chartres Cathedral. “It might just be this one anonymous glory, of all things” he said. “This rich stone forest, this epic chant, this gaiety, this grand choiring shout of affirmation, which we choose, when all our cities are dust, to stand intact. To mark where we’ve been. To testify on what we had on a list to accomplish.” Art is what survives when all is said and done, its expression of the human spirit will far outlive us. Welles takes comfort in that.

F for Fake was Welles’ last statement on authorship and art (at least until his true final film was completed more than four decades later), and its themes are likewise echoed in the final bow of Francis Ford Coppola -an entirely self-financed  high-concept, messy and metaphor-drenched epic called Megalopolis: A Fable. His first major wide-release movie in twenty-seven years, it is also the last he will likely make, designed to be his artistic magnum opus. And while it expresses a similar ideal, a hope for the endurance of art and his art form more specifically, it also looks to the present state of the world -though filtered of course through America- with concern at a certain short-sightedness of the grand scheme of things. A movie about the present and future that draws on aesthetics of the past.

Plot-wise, it is loosely inspired by the Catalinarian Conspiracy of Ancient Rome, and Coppola transplants that Ancient Rome into modern America -envisioning a contemporary empire in the vein of both, with New Rome as its metropolitan centrepiece. There resides in what is meant to be its fading days the brilliant architect and urban planner Cesar Catalina (Adam Driver) -a man with the curious power to start and stop time- who seeks to build his imagined utopia Megalopolis, of his own invented substance called Megalon, as a successor city to New Rome. His great nemesis in local politics is Mayor Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), envious of Cesar’s popularity and content in the failing old traditions of running the city, while his daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) in working for Cesar soon comes to fall for him. All the while, corruption and Megalopolis both become inevitable as cosmic disaster looms for the civilization.

There are perhaps three immediate takeaways from that description, all of which are correct: that it sounds very Shakespearean, that it sounds inspired by Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, and that it sounds like a thinly veiled self-indulgent metaphor for “auteur” filmmaking. Starting with the first, Megalopolis is Shakespearean, and not just in its themes and archetypes. It has the bombast and the flow of one of the Bard’s Roman tragedies, Cesar as consequential as one of those heroes, his enemies as malicious and scheming as those villains. While it stops short of replicating Shakespeare’s language exactly, there is a calculated poetry to much of the way characters speak, a grandiosity in their dialogue that evokes classical literature. Coppola clearly meant for this to feel like another world, where Rome and its traditions both aesthetically and culturally had survived and adapted into a modern setting. And a lot of it is interesting in how it conceptualizes fashion, the media, new iterations on the Vestalia (a broadcast entertainment show) and Saturnalia (with a mixture of Roman and Christmas iconography). But it is confounding too, as the world is also meant to be the United States, complete with real American symbolism -flags and money that is still used, and real cities referenced in the periphery of New Rome. It’s as though Coppola didn’t trust in his audience to see the parallels themselves, and in a few occasions also has a character outright state what is pretty heavily implied or visualized.

Often, the language of his movie is compelling; rich in gravity, poetic allusions, and philosophy. Several characters are deeply thoughtful people, and express their ideas in provocative musings that leave you mulling over them. But this dialogue is also broken up by bits of undeniably awkward comic relief. There are particularly bad sexual jokes from Aubrey Plaza and Jon Voight; Plaza, whose tabloid reporter is called Wow Platinum, never quite gets the grasp of the movie’s tone and a lot of her line deliveries suffer as a result, much as she may be an interesting screen presence and formidable femme fatale. At the same time, some comic bits in their meshing of classicism and modernity are unexpectedly effective -the way the news glosses over incest rumours for instance regarding Clodio (Shia LaBeouf), Cesar’s envious cousin and eventually fascist provocateur, whom fittingly LaBeouf seems to play in the style of Malcolm McDowell’s Caligula.

It’s a break certainly from a lot of the stoicism in the performances, though that isn’t to say these are bland or bad performances necessarily. Esposito takes to it all naturally, and Laurence Fishburne as Cesar’s driver and the film’s narrator, lends the very same air of grandiose weight that he brought to The Matrix. In his small role, that was originally intended for the late James Caan, Dustin Hoffman ekes out more of the world’s character (he is Cicero’s fixer), and of course it’s nice that Coppola gave some fairly substantive material in at least one scene to his sister Talia Shire, whose son Jason Schwartzman also appears in a minor role. As the leads, Driver and Emmanuel  can be more wooden, but there are curious bits of spontaneity in their performances still, a side-effect of the experimental nature that Coppola encouraged in his actors. And when it comes to those conceptual diatribes, Driver proves immensely earnest.

The movie itself is incredibly earnest, especially as far as its ideas and values go. Obviously it takes a lot of its cues from Metropolis, from its allegorical depiction of societal ills and injustices of its time to an ending statement of profound sentimental hope for the future of humanity. Through the image of New Rome, Coppola expounds on his feelings regarding sensationalist news, the rise of populist fascism, cults of personality, and anti-intellectualism in our culture -whilst also colouring it of course in his Roman dress, connecting more closely the fate of this era to that. It's intriguing, though of course it comes with a predictably unsavoury statement on sex scandals and "cancel culture" -disturbingly pre-empting that very discourse surrounding this film and allegations of harassment directed at Coppola.

Counter to that statement, Megalopolis is an incredibly idealistic film, in which Cesar is frequently advocating dialogue and understanding in a world that has no interest in either (he does so in fact in the scene where he answers a question from the audience, for those lucky to attend the interactive showing). And so so much living for the future, for the prospect of utopia. A utopia that is actually difficult to define tangibly, but that Megalopolis will supposedly represent -one of mind and spirit more than technology. "Utopia is not about solutions, it is about asking the right questions" Cesar states at one point, in response to criticism of his idyll in the here and now, and the palpable consequences it has for the city when it is underway. The push-back isn't unjustified, there is a price Coppola is acknowledging for utopia to be achieved. But he believes it is worthy of striving towards anyway for his own sake. Of New Rome as it is of the United States.

And of course, of cinema. It’s not very difficult to ascertain how this movie functions as analogue for film itself and the future of the movies. Cesar is certainly in some ways a stand-in for Coppola himself, Julia -whom Cesar credits as the figure who cultivates his inspiration- thus his late wife and artistic partner Eleanor, to whom the movie is ultimately dedicated. Cesar acts the director, reality itself at his control through his abilities to stop time -though something he finds himself unable to do in the wake of scandal, reputational complexity, and the consolidation of his enemies. And the decadence, sensationalism, and corruption of New Rome can be likened to the modern studio system and populist franchise machine, against which Cesar struggles to create his vision -which he is ultimately able to put in action independently at the right time when it is most needed. While Coppola’s adherence to autuerism makes what could be salient points come off fairly self-indulgent and egotistical, the ever-present sincerity makes out as much a general plea for artistic ambition, for trust in artists with vision, drive, and genuine socio-cultural expression. He believes profoundly still in the power of cinema to change the world -a romantic prospect, but one hard to fault him for; and most importantly, his aching desire to leave behind a cinema that can be built upon by the next generation resonates quite strongly.

The movie is visually stunning in places, often in spite of digital backdrops. Certain digital backdrops in fact are distractingly fake, and not in a discernible way that serves the craft. And yet, as he did over thirty years ago in Dracula, he can make some of these images, through lighting and composition, really remarkable. And it’s just nice to see a movie actually make evocative composition choices -several individual shots of this movie are worth dissecting for their own aesthetic meaning.

But is the movie good? It really doesn’t matter. It’s Coppola’s vision, rendered without interference or compromise, with no expectations of making a profit, just his own need to make it and put it out into the world; and it demands to be approached on those terms. It succeeds  and provokes enormously in some respects, it falls quite short, comes off poorly in others. But Megalopolis is an experience that I largely appreciated, and that will be sitting with me for a while, as is its intention. And what it represents I think is fundamentally good, both for Coppola and for movies as an art form if they are indeed to live past him.

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