Three Reviews of 'Megalopolis'

Because one is not enough

Francis Ford Coppola’s new film Megalopolis debuted this weekend to wildly divided critical opinions. As our writers discussed it, we realized that giving simply one review could not encompass the great conversation surrounding this film, nor accurately reflect the consensus of our opinions about it. Therefore, we offer you three reviews: a moderately positive one from Cameron De La Fleur (3.5 stars), a fully appreciative one from Joe Wilson (5 stars), and a thoroughly negative one from Sam Morales (0.5 stars). We hope that by offering this spectrum of reviews we allow our audience to make the best informed decision possible about whether to see Megalopolis. Please note that this film intends to expose the decadence of our American civilization, and so does include sex, sexual themes, nudity, and disturbing imagery.

Cameron’s Review

Few events in recent film history have been as highly anticipated, as long in development, as controversial, and ultimately, as maligned upon completion as Megalopolis, the likely monumental closing act to Francis Ford Coppola’s long and colorful career. An idea that has been germinating in the mind of Francis Ford Coppola longer than I’ve walked this earth, it is remarkable that Megalopolis even made it to the big screen given the incredible amount of setbacks it took. If you see nothing else of value in this film, it serves as a testament to the perseverance of one maverick artist who would not give up to bring his eccentric and audacious vision to fulfillment. In an era where major studios churn out sanitized content designed to minimize risk and maximize profit potential, Cappola put everything on the line, footing the entire bill for one final swing for the fences. 

Coppola’s unfettered creative autonomy is both the film’s greatest strength and perhaps its undoing. Megalopolis is presented as a fable, depicting the decline and fall of the Roman empire in an American setting, not too far from our own. With the vast array of intellectual and philosophical concepts that the film attempts to tackle, I cannot help but imagine that Coppola carried around a notebook for the past 40 years in which he jotted down any idea that sparked his imagination, the totality of which he attempted to shoehorn into the script. To the detriment of its overall coherence, the screenplay bites off far more than it can chew thematically, giving us a series of vignettes that fail to fully develop. The cast performs admirably as they struggle to fill the grand archetypal roles of Coppola’s philosophical musings. With writing that oscillates between Platonic dialogue and moments of off-beat humor, the emotional thrust of the film is muted into abstraction. 

Despite the disjointedness of the overall execution, I cannot help but stand in awe of the sheer audacity of Coppola’s vision. There’s a certain sincerity about it that one would be hard pressed to find elsewhere. Coppola fully believes in the profundity of his ideas. There are no sarcastic winks to the audience, no sense of meta modern cynicism. As absurd as the premise is, Megalopolis is ultimately an earnestly hopeful film coming as a breath of fresh air in an age of pessimism. Tackling the decadent absurdism of our own age, the film attempts to wrestle with the path forward. Do we break ties with the past completely? Is a utopia possible? What is the role of tradition? Coppola lays out his grand vision for humanity in a film that he truly believes will change the world. One thing is certainly apparent. Megalopolis was never made for the common movie-goer, nor will it change the world in the way Coppola ardently believes. But if one can get past the sometimes incoherent presentation, there is certainly great merit to be had. Many boldly visionary films were first met with derision. Perhaps, time will be favorable to Megalopolis, as it has been for so many others. Don’t expect Megalopolis to make sense initially. Watch it. Then, watch it again and think on it deeply. One day, we may look back upon it with kinder eyes.

Joe’s Review

Megalopolis is almost impossible for anyone to coherently review. Its detractors will snark that this is because the movie itself is completely incoherent; I, a defender, believe that it is because Francis Ford Coppola’s ambitions were too big for cinema. Coppola has been working on this film for more than 40 years; in that time, the scope of his story grew to such a proportion that it cannot be contained on a movie screen. Superhero movies often involve a battle between the heroes and an existential threat for the human race; Coppola attempts to draw us, his audience, into the battle ourselves, giving one great plea for humankind to save itself by entering into conversation with his movie. I think Coppola is truly convinced that Megalopolis can save the world.

He’s wrong; no one is listening, and even if they did his solutions are not the utopian cure-alls he believes they are. However, I cannot but be fascinated by and thoroughly admire the ambition and earnestness that are behind every single frame of Megalopolis.

Coppola intends this film to be a fable, inviting us to compare the America of today with the last days of the Roman Republic and reflecting on the Roman roots of the American founding. This goes right to the names of the characters, combining Roman archetypes with American founders: Cesar Catalina, Clodio Pulcher, Hamilton Crassus, Franklyn Cicero. The film will be utterly incomprehensible to any viewer not already immersed in “The Great Conversation” of Western philosophy and literature or who does not care deeply about the debates which accompanied America’s founding. This is a film which references and outright quotes Marcus Aurelius, Cicero, Julius Caesar, Dante, Seneca, Livy, Thomas More, Francis Bacon, and Shakespeare with breathtaking ease and rapidity. Where else are you going to find a film where a character rattles off the entire To be or not to be speech as if he were coming up with it on the spot and not merely reciting Hamlet? Where else will you see a character literally named Cicero thunder “Quo Usque Tandem Abutere, Catalina, Patientia Nostra!” at a character literally named Catalina, from a balcony overlooking chariot races and gladiatorial games in Madison Square Gardens, no less? Where else will an antagonist’s heart be swayed by his daughter reciting Marcus Aurelius? (And yes, those two character do speak in Latin to each other at a different point in the film.) Those of us who still cling to Western tradition must at least smile to see someone else who is somewhat fluent in that tradition throwing Dante references, painterly nods to Ozymandias, and visual references to the execution of Mussolini across our megaplex screens.

However, underneath this veneer of classicalism, does Coppola actually have anything to add to the Great Conversation? Does he really understand the things he references? That, unfortunately, is a more mixed bag, but I think he (sometimes) has quite a coherent and intelligent perception of the underlying tradition he continually references. He critiques the decadence of our modern consumerist oligarchy quite harshly, showcasing its ugliness and its allure with no holds barred (not one to take the kids to, folks). Such a critique is hardly new, but I think that Coppola, an 84 year old recent widower, cuts to the heart of the problem with less restraint and more forthrightness than many in our society are willing to display. Our downfall will come from our lack of virtue, our decadent chase of fame and pleasure at the expense of stability, justice, and decency. Coppola warns that we are in danger of “letting the now destroy the forever”, and that progress comes from building on the past rather than sweeping it away. Even if some of his specific parallels are on the level of a college sophomore’s Western Civ 201 essay, his overall question is sound: is this society we have the only one available to us? What would it take to make a better one?

He has two answers, one great one and one weak one. The weak one is probably the last gasp we’ll ever see in a mainstream work of art or literature of the great boomer optimism of the 60s and 70s. Coppola’s proposal for a Roddenberry-esque global utopia is a fascinating relic of his generation, but one which my generation will be inclined to snicker at. You can tell he’s been working on this film for 40 years because this part of his message is about 40 years out of date. However, the answer will likely resonate with a Catholic audience, because his hope for the future springs from the same well that hope has always sprung from: families and children. Of all the classical ideas Coppola tries to pour into this film, filial piety and the importance of family is the most brilliant and most coherent. The good characters respect their parents and have hope for their children; the bad ones scheme to overthrow their elders and pay the price for it. The architect of a new society says that the most important institution to keep from the old one is marriage. The final shot of the film focuses on a beautiful baby, the hope for the future. This big lovable Italian Catholic boomer takes some wild swings with his great masterwork, with some hits and some misses; but his greatest hits are the same ones he’s been playing for decades: “The only wealth in this world is children. More than all the money, power on Earth, you are my treasure” (Godfather III).

As divisive and messy and incoherent as this film is, people will still be talking about it in 200 years, after the Everything Everywhere All At Onces and Get Outs and Parasites of the world have faded into obscurity. Francis Ford Coppola proves once again why he is one of the most respected and most misunderstood filmmakers of the late 20th and early 21st century by tapping (however imperfectly) into timeless truths. Not everyone will love it like I did; not even those who like it will completely understand it. But Coppola may indeed be the last great voice standing athwart history yelling “stop!”, and his prophetic voice will only be more appreciated as time goes on by those who remember it.

Sam’s Review

In his seminal account of the "New Hollywood" movement of the 1970s, "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls," Peter Biskind tells many tales concerning those involved in this movement, including, namely, one Francis Ford Coppola. Biskind dives into excruciating details about the production that launched Coppola’s career, The Godfather. It’s pretty fascinating stuff, as it was a notoriously difficult shoot with Coppola often clashing with the infamous producer, Robert Evans, but also clashing with acclaimed cinematographer Gordon Willis, who is responsible for the film’s shadowy, under-exposed look. As Biskind writes:

Coppola clashed repeatedly with his DP. He created so much turmoil and chaos on the set that strong-willed individuals were always tempted to step in to make sure the picture got made. Willis was a formidable presence, a man used to getting his own way…he shared the conviction that Coppola did not know what he was doing…Willis worked slowly and meticulously, which Francis, who was under brutal pressure from the studio to make up for lost time, found infuriating.¹

However, Biskind goes on to contend that this friction between Coppola’s spontaneous genius and Willis’ straightforward, "Old Hollywood" ended up being what cemented the film as a masterpiece:

The tension between Coppola and Willis proved creative. Coppola relied on his DP to frame the shots. Coppola’s strengths were writing dialogue, storytelling, and working with actors, not visual composition. Willis achieved a unique look- rich earth colors, buttery yellows and browns- that would go down in cinema history.²

I think this dichotomy speaks to a truth about art: that oftentimes the best artists are the ones that are able to take their manic, creative genius and guide it along the rigid guidelines of tradition behind them to create something unique and beautiful. Without these guidelines, any hope of conveying whatever meaning the artist had originally intended to a potential audience is risked: the viewer may be partially swayed by the beautiful image, but it will not be a lasting one.

Megalopolis, Francis Ford Coppola’s 23rd film, has no Gordon Willis. By self-funding his long-delayed feature from his vineyard proceeds, Coppola has sought to make a film where no producer is standing over his shoulder, and nobody can say no to him. The result may be exactly what you expect: a muddled mess of a film that has a million things to say and ends up being all sound and fury, signifying absolutely nothing. Coppola’s talent with actors at least has not diminished, because in this film we get some all-time great performances from stars Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Shia LaBeouf, Aubrey Plaza, and more: each committing fully to the bonkers, Neil Breen-esque dialogue that has been written for them.

I don’t really have a problem with these actors going bonkers, but the execution of almost everything else in this is so sloppy and barely thought out that it completely distracts from every interesting idea Coppola brings forward. The digital cinematography- although dazzling in spurts- still looks more like that of daytime television than, say, Apocalypse Now, and is only further marred by a multitude of green-screen shots that needed some more time in the oven. In fact, there is a lot of CGI work in this film that I can only imagine was consistently changed at the last minute by an insecure Coppola: one can sense the building frustration of his VFX team towards the end of production as the director begins to demand more and more effects than the team can handle.

As unintentionally enjoyable as all this chaos- with heaps of pseudo-intellectual babble and half-baked ideas about the inflated importance of 'progress' to boot- can be at times, the end result is an indecipherable, garish-looking film that probably could have been made for less than half of its budget. It is probably best compared to bad Christian cinema: the execution is so ill-thought out that any hope of conveying any sort of meaning just gets laughed off. Just because Coppola is clearly sincere in all his beliefs about progress and America doesn’t make them suddenly profound. Not to mention all the unnecessary sex and nudity in this that doesn’t help me to dispel any doubts about Coppola’s alleged misbehavior on the set. There is perhaps value in watching this as a fascinating curiosity, but beyond that there is little in the way of artistic merit of any kind. It is simply bad filmmaking from a washed-up director who even in his old age still cannot let go of his ego. There’s a world in which there is a version of this that works, and we are unfortunately not living in it. Don’t waste your time on this, use that time to pray, spend time with a loved one, read a book by one of the greats, or almost anything else.

Demand better from the art you consume.

1. Biskind, 156.

2. Biskind, 157.