Megalopolis

Adam Driver

Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis was certainly the cinematic farrago of 2024. An allegory of creeping American fascism set in a near future dystopian world that, stylistically, is a cross between ancient Rome and Gotham City, the film runs roughshod over any semblance of artistic coherence and understatement. That said, I find it fascinating both for its visual energy and its attempt to carve a personal statement out of its overlarge canvas. The film is dedicated to Coppola's late wife Eleanor and I find Coppola's sincerity touching despite the film's numerous lapses in taste and judgement. The film's central romance between master builder Cesar Catalina (Adam Driver) and Julia Cicero (Nathalie Emmanuel) is Coppola's tribute to the grounding and emotional support his wife provided for decades as Coppola chased his artistic rainbows. Now one can dismiss this as yet another example of Coppola's egotism run amuck, Cesar is essentially Coppola's version of Howard Roark, but I find the film to be a moving mea culpa that lays bare the sacrifices made by those who emotionally buttress a work driven visionary.

I do admit that there is as much to be appalled by in Megalopolis as there is to be admired. This is certainly true of the performances. I feel that Coppola was so wrapped up in the intricacies of his mammoth production that he left most of the performers to their own devices. Thus, such seasoned actors as Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight give some of the worst performances of their careers, indulgent efforts that reek of ham. Aubrey Plaza and Shia LaBeouf also offer outsized and garish turns, but at least seem to recognize where they fit into Coppola's outlandish scenario: LaBeouf is in drag for a large portion of the film and Plaza plays a tabloid reporter named Wow Platinum. Driver and Emmanuel's understated performances offer the viewer some relief amidst the film's garish and manic convulsions. I do think someone should have told Coppola to jettison the "To be or not to be" soliloquy from Hamlet that Driver has to intone with a straight face at one point. 

As to the allegory of Trumpian fascism the film provides, I was non-plussed. It seemed like shooting fish in a barrel to moi. What I did grok was the batshit energy of the array of images that Coppola throws at the viewer. Not since Bram Stoker's Dracula, has Coppola unleashed such a frenzy of expressionistic imagery poised on the brink of madness and or psychedelia. I am reminded of Andrew Sarris prescient remarks on Coppola over fifty years ago in The American Cinema. Sarris noted that Coppola was willing to borrow from bad movies just as much as he did from good ones. That gamut of low and highbrow references is just as much in evidence in Megalopolis as it was in Dementia 13: in his latest flick Coppola borrows from both the WWF and Caravaggio's The Martyrdom of St. Ursula. Despite its numerous shortcomings, Megalopolis is Coppola's least boring film in some time and I look forward to seeing it again.