Megalopolis

Francis Ford Coppola: Megalopolis (US 2024) with Adam Driver (Cesar Catilina) and Nathalie Emmanuel (Julia Cicero).

Rakkautta & Anarkiaa / Love & Anarchy: Helsinki International Film Festival (HIFF) 2024.

Mega Gala: Megalopolis

HIFF: "R&A's first-ever Mega Gala features legendary director Francis Ford Coppola's highly anticipated and highly controversial passion project."

Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis. A Fable.

US 2024. PC: American Zoetrope - Caesar Film LLC. P: Barry Hirsch, Fred Roos, Michael Bederman, Francis Ford Coppola.

D+SC: Francis Ford Coppola. DP: Mihai Mălaimare, Jr. ED: Cam McLaughlin, Glen Scantlebury. M: Osvaldo Golijov.

C: Adam Driver (Cesar Catilina), Giancarlo Esposito (Franklyn Cicero), Nathalie Emmanuel (Julia Cicero), Aubrey Plaza (Wow Platinum), Shia LaBeouf (Clodio Pulcher), Jon Voight (Hamilton Crassus III), Laurence Fishburne (Fundi Romaine), Talia Shire (Constance Crassus Catilina), Jason Schwartzman (Jason Zanderz), Kathryn Hunter (Teresa Cicero), Grace VanderWaal (Vesta Sweetwater), Dustin Hoffman (Nush Berman).

Languages: English

138 min

Sci-fi, Urban spaces, Society, Fantasy, Tech

Distributor: Njuta Films

Festival premiere: 16 May 2024 Cannes

American festival premiere: 9 Sep 2024 Toronto

US theatrical premiere: 27 Sep 2024

Finnish premiere: 27 Sep 2024

Viewed at a HIFF press screening, Cinema Orion, 20 Sep 2024.

Linked: Francis Ford Coppola: Director's Statement on Megalopolis.

HIFF 2024: "Ohjaajalegenda Francis Ford Coppolan kohujen saattelema unelmaprojekti Megalopolis on röyhkeä mutta vilpitön utopia vallasta, korruptiosta, rakkaudesta – ja ennen kaikkea ajasta. Yhtä lailla elokuvaa voisi luonnehtia kirjallisuusviittauksia viljeleväksi scifi-fantasiaksi, turboahdetuksi (anti)supersankari-tarinaksi tai poliittiseksi hätähuudoksi. Tämä määritelmiä väistävä mammutti on koettava itse!"

"Adam Driverin näyttelemän kaupunkisuunnittelija Cesarin kautta valkokankaalle vyörytetään dystooppinen New Rome, joka näyttää New Yorkilta, mutta muistuttaa myös loistostaan kohti vääjäämä-töntä tuhoa rapistuvaa Rooman valtakuntaa. Cesar on vallan-himoinen visionääri, jolla on kyky hallita aikaa, mutta edes hän ei pysty kontrolloimaan ympäröivän yhteiskunnan kolisevia kulisseja. Ja kun imperiumi ympärillä murenee, mitä tekevät ihmiset? Tietysti juhlivat, juonivat, ahnehtivat ja irstailevat!"

"Megalomaanisen uran tehnyt Coppola on unelmoinut tämän elokuvan tekemisestä jo 40 vuotta. Alun perin hän haki varoja normaaleista lähteistä, mutta päätyi lopulta rahoittamaan noin 120 miljoonaa taalaa maksaneen eetoksensa itse myymällä omaisuuttaan, muun muassa osan kuuluisasta viinitilastaan. Cesarissa onkin helppo nähdä Coppolaa itseään: omaan erinomaisuuteensa rakastunut visionääri ei suostu kuuntelemaan ketään, eikä taivu kompromisseihin."

"Megalopolis on pamfletti, testamentti ja hätähuuto. Painava sanoma on kääritty ylenpalttisuuteen ja yllätyksiin, joista herttaisin lienee talent-realityohjelmasta elokuviin päätynyt laulaja-lauluntekijä Grace VanderWaal." Saija Holm

"The word “opus” feels custom-designed as a descriptor for a film such as Francis Ford Coppola’s self-conscious folly-to-end-all-follies, Megalopolis. It’s a rare bird indeed in that it’s a work of art that actively practices what it preaches, a celebration of unfettered creativity and farsightedness that offers a volcanic fusion of hand-crafted neo-classicism while running through a script of toe-tapping word-jazz that merrily dances between the raindrops of logic and coherence. . . It’s a film from the man who made The Godfather. And it’s a film from the man who made Dracula. And it‘s also a film from the man who made One From the Heart. And it’s definitely a film from the man who made Twixt. On a macro level, there should be no surprise when it comes to discovering what this film ended up being, but on a micro level there are images and ideas that are completely surprising and new." David Jenkins, Little White Lies

"With Megalopolis, he crams 85 years worth of artistic reverence and romantic love into a clunky, garish, and transcendently sincere manifesto about the role of an artist at the end of an empire. It doesn’t just speak to Coppola’s philosophy, it embodies it to its bones." David Ehrlich, IndieWire

AA: What is Megalopolis? A film that evades classification. A visionary epic fantasy poem, simultaneously futuristic and historical. The basic concept is time, and like Christopher Nolan's time plays (such as Tenet) it moves forward and backward, yet seems to be anchored into an imaginary present, the year MMXXIV. Megalopolis is a succession tragedy inspired by Roman Antiquity and a science fiction yarn, at once utopistic and dystopian. 

It channels Metropolis in its vision of the city of the future - both Metropolis and Megalopolis having New York City as their inspiration. There is also a bit of The Fountainhead in the mix - the megalomania. Megalopolis is a magnificent dream play and a fantasmagoria. Francis Ford Coppola belongs to the rare masters of the Georges Méliès lineage of fantasy spectacle, in films including Finian's Rainbow, One From the Heart and Apocalypse Now. 

The computer generated artificial paradise is in continuation to the experimental One From the Heart. Megalopolis is Coppola's last word in this current. As a testament film its parallel is Fanny and Alexander: a colossal farewell party of an old master.  A drop of The Game of Thrones may have been inserted in the visual cocktail. It is both about the society of the spectacle and an embodiment of that very condition.

Whatever Megalopolis is, it is different, original and unique. It needs to be revisited. As for my personal verdict: too early to say. Just random remarks: Adam Driver carries his leading role with grandeur. It may seem bizarre to incorporate extended Shakespeare dialogue in Megalopolis, but Driver makes Hamlet's most familiar monologue sound new. Time is out of joint. Some of the female characters are seen with a surprisingly old school stereotyped sexist gaze. 

Megalopolis is long and incoherent judged by the criteria of a well-made story-driven play. But there is a fascinating groove, and a compelling musical drive throughout. Something profoundly dream-like and dance-like. Something Wagnerian, something deranged, something like late Eisenstein (Ivan the Terrible). The counterpart in Shakespeare might be the romantic mystery fairy-tale The Tempest. The stuff that dreams are made of.

...

Films enter into dialogue with each other via soundtrack selections. Ludwig van Beethoven: II Satz: Allegretto from: 7. Sinfonie in A-Dur op. 92 (Entst. 1811/12, Urauff. 1813) I was listening to three months ago as the main theme of The Long Night. Here it is heard in the finale as the gates of Megalopolis open and arrows shot by Hamilton Crassus III (Jon Voight) are removed from the ass of the scheming Clodio Pulcher (Shia LaBeouf).

Cast in the role of Vesta Sweetwater is Grace VanderWaal who graces the movie with two of her own songs: "My Pledge" and "No Turning Around".