Man on a Ledge

May 4, 2024 11:54 AM

"Megalopolis has always been a film dedicated to my dear wife Eleanor. I really had hoped to celebrate her birthday together this May 4th. But sadly that was not to be, so let me share with everyone a gift on her behalf." Weeks after the loss of his wife, the legendary Francis Ford Coppola reveals a first look at his magnum opus more than 40 years in the making, which has finally found a distributor after the director spent $120 million of his own funds on the project.

Premise: An accident destroys a New York City-like metropolis already in decay. Cesar, an idealist, aims to rebuild the city as a sustainable utopia, while the venal mayor, Frank Cicero, has other plans. Coming between the opposing men and their visions is Frank's socialite daughter, Julia. Tired of the attention and power she was born with, Julia searches for her life's meaning.

Themes:

A film professional who attended the first screening told IndieWire the film is about a civilization teetering on a “precarious ledge, devouring itself in a whirl of unchecked greed, self-absorption, and political propaganda,” and echoed a Coppola quote: like “Apocalypse Now” before it, “Megalopolis” isn’t about the end of the world but the “end of the world as we know it.”

Hollywood Elsewhere has glowing responses from a recent private screening (though the bewildered reaction from industry insiders might explain its difficulty finding a distributor):

“It’s a startling film….a very enveloping film, but also highly visual in a ’60s experimental way. It felt like Francis’s youth was returning to him and pouring through his heart at age 84….the kind of independent cinema that he grew up on….it’s a wonderful, larger-than-life, jumps-off-the-screen movie and in a totally personal way….constantly entertaining….it’s not like any movie that’s out there, I can tell you that…avant garde experimental.

“It’s principally about a love affair between Driver and Natalie Emmanuel, the daughter of his rival and opponent (Whitaker)….a battle for her heart. Romeo and Juliet….a Shaekespearean battle between two families…a bit like Baz Lurhman’s Romeo + Juliet.

“The statement that I felt summed up the general response was from Andy Garcia: ‘This guy is the reason we’re all making movies.’

Cast:

Adam Driver as Cesar
Nathalie Emmanuel as Julia Cicero
Giancarlo Esposito as Frank Cicero

Jon Voight - Laurence Fishburne - Aubrey Plaza - Shia LaBeouf - Jason Schwartzman - Grace VanderWaal - Kathryn Hunter - Talia Shire - Dustin Hoffman - D. B. Sweeney - James Remar - Chloe Fineman - Madeleine Gardella - Isabelle Kusman - Bailey Ives - Balthazar Getty

Megalopolis previously on MeFi

posted by Rhaomi (19 comments total)

It's always surprising to me that successful director/producers who have without question made a tremendous amount of money with successful films almost never put that money back into idiosyncratic personal projects. There are just a handful of exceptions of American director/producers - Tyler Perry, M. Night Shyamalan, and Coppola. Perry and Shyamalan, in particular, seem uniquely able to produce, write and direct films for 10 to 20M self-funded dollars and parlay it into profits even when the critics are baffled. But even in Coppola's case, it feels like a big exception.

It seems bizarre to me that it doesn't happen more, either in terms of a successful director investing a minor sum of their own money to maintain final cut on a minor film, or creating a big, wonderful, gloriously ambitious failure that was everything they always wanted to do, critics be damned.
posted by eschatfische at 1:07 PM on May 4 [7 favorites]

I haven't seen any films he's directed since Bram Stoker's Dracula, to be honest, but I'm looking forward to this. And it still kind of boggles my mind that Coppola and Herzog have to self-fund, but yeah, maybe it's well worth it to be able to avoid studio/distributor "notes."
posted by queensissy at 1:10 PM on May 4 [3 favorites]

Man. That cast is exceptional.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:15 PM on May 4 [4 favorites]

Bummer about Shia LaBoeuf tho
posted by pxe2000 at 1:23 PM on May 4 [3 favorites]

Jon Voight?

Ew, no. It’s a writeoff.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 1:31 PM on May 4 [7 favorites]

Bummer about Shia LaBoeuf tho

And double about Jon Voight
posted by thecincinnatikid at 1:35 PM on May 4 [6 favorites]

That's a fascinating cast. DB Sweeney!
posted by suelac at 1:42 PM on May 4 [1 favorite]

Partway through trailer, seeing black suited man on a skyscraper while John Adams-y strings and brass skitter ominously: “ha! Looks like an Arthouse Matrix”
After protagonist yells “Time Stop!”and the camera peers vertiginously over the skyscraper edge: “Wait is this an Arthouse Matrix??”
posted by Jon Mitchell at 2:54 PM on May 4 [2 favorites]

No, it's the film adaptation of Saved by the Bell.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 4:02 PM on May 4

After protagonist yells “Time Stop!”and the camera peers vertiginously over the skyscraper edge: “Wait is this an Arthouse Matrix??”

Not dressed in black, but wow did the "man stepping off the ledge of an elaborate art deco skyscraper, time stops to allow him a second chance" motif bring some serious Hudsucker Proxy vibes. That said, I feel like I'd actually like Coppola to try to make a film that combined The Hudsucker Proxy and The Matrix?
posted by eschatfische at 4:47 PM on May 4 [4 favorites]

Coppola spend millions of his own money, but for someone 90 years old, that's money well spent, even if it bombs. It was his passion project for decades, and you can't take it with you, so...why not? Go out with style.

Adam Driver elevates anything he's in, and it's a fantastic cast. This clip is indeed intriguing. I'm down.
posted by zardoz at 5:36 PM on May 4 [5 favorites]

“Megalopolis has disaster written all over it ” [13:07]—Science Fiction with Damien Walter, 04 May 2024
posted by ob1quixote at 6:45 PM on May 4

Does Giancarlo Esposito or Forest Whitaker play Cicero? (Whitaker's been talking up this movie for years; he's in the Hollywood Elsewhere excerpt but he's absent from the cast credits.)
posted by Iris Gambol at 4:01 AM on May 5

A friend on social media, about the film:

"I feel like Coppola just lit the beacon and we film nerds of Gondor will answer."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:41 AM on May 5 [4 favorites]

The clip was gripping and stunning. I can't wait to see the whole thing.
posted by rednikki at 12:50 PM on May 5

>I'd actually like Coppola to try to make a film that combined The Hudsucker Proxy and The Matrix?

The Hudsucker Matrix Now
posted by Pliskie at 3:43 PM on May 5

The first trailer dropped last night and it is a trip and a half. Also increasing to see how much it leans on late Roman Republic history, including references to Crassus and Clodius Pulcher.
posted by Rhaomi at 7:26 AM on May 14

Reviews are polarized, to say the least:

IndieWire: Wild and Delirious Fever Dream Inspires New Hope for the Future of Movies

The Times: A head-wrecking abomination

The Telegraph: Like Succession crossed with Batman Forever and a lava lamp

Collider: Coppola’s Sci-Fi Is a Big, Bonkers Swing

The Guardian: Passion project is megabloated and megaboring

The AV Club: A magical, meandering, maddening epic - Francis Ford Coppola’s cri de coeur to a dying empire is batshit crazy

ScreenDaily: Grand vision of a new world order fails to live up to its ambition

Variety: Bold, Ungainly Epic Crams in Half a Dozen Stars and Decades’ Worth of Ideas

THR: A Staggeringly Ambitious Big Swing, if Nothing Else

Vanity Fair: A Passion Project Gone Horribly Wrong

Deadline: Mad Modern Masterwork Reinvents The Possibilities Of Cinema

The Wrap: Epic Sprawl Is Grandiose and Goofy - This is a project of operatic pronouncements, didactic repetitions and mad artistic ambitions – quite a few realized, just as many not

Vulture: Megalopolis is a Work of Absolute Madness

posted by Rhaomi at 1:03 PM on May 16 [1 favorite]

From THe Wrap link:

We follow [...]Cesar who wants to rebuild his crumbling metropolis [...] part of an aristocratic clan run by his patrician uncle, Crassus (Voight) [...] The Crassii sit atop a world-spanning empire imagined as a Rome that never fell, and though they are its undisputed masters, day-to-day governance falls to Mayor Cicero.

So Coppola is one those dudes who thinks about Ancient Rome all the time, I guess?
posted by OnceUponATime at 7:49 AM on May 17