By Robert Scucci
| Published
Cinematic passion projects often share a number of guidelines to expect in the form of up-and-coming actors with no star power, a budget tighter than a violin string ready to snap as soon as it’s subjected to too much pressure, and the unfortunate lack of studio support that most established filmmakers have access to after proving themselves over time. Francis Ford Coppola’s latest release, $136 million Megalopoliswas a game-changer by proving how a roster stacked with A-list actors and seemingly endless financial resources generated by Coppola’s personal wealth cannot save a film that was clearly doomed from the start.
After sitting down and watching the 138-minute dystopian sci-fi epic for myself, a new throughline was added to my personal canon for passion projects: unchecked ego.
That is to say, it is not very difficult to compare Megalopolis’ themes and execution to self-serving projects run by Tommy Wiseau or Neil Breen, two self-proclaimed authors who personally finance their own projects and have very little resistance to their unwavering, unhinged, creative visions.
Money Talks
To self-finance Megalopolis, Francis Ford Coppola sold his Sonoma County vineyards to Delicato Family Wines for a daunting $650 million equity investment, setting aside $200 million of the deal to pursue the artistic vision he was trying to achieve fully for 40 years. With the fortune he amassed, Coppola was finally ready to produce his passion project without any studio interference.
Star Power only works if the storyline makes sense
A high-caliber budget means high-caliber talent, and there’s no shortage of stars in Megalopolis. Although it’s easy to blame B-movies (or Megalopolis(which I call a big-budget B-movie) to have inexperienced actors tasked with telling a story, this became clear to me after watching Megalopolis that even Adam Pilote couldn’t help but recite Shakespeare while frolicking as if he were a marionette controlled by a puppeteer with a photic sneeze reflex who stared directly at the studio lights before Coppola shouted “action “.
Star cast and direct-to-DVD plot
Set in New Rome, an alternate version of New York, Driver’s Cesar Catilina is a brilliant but troubled architect, Nobel Prize winner and president of the Design Authority of New Rome, who has an idealistic blueprint for a utopia known as Megalopolis. He also has the power to stop and start time on a whim, allowing him to think about how he will execute his grandiose plans under the radar. Caesar’s intellectual and metaphysical gifts are hampered by his severe alcoholism, which began to worsen years earlier when his wife mysteriously disappeared and he was unsuccessfully tried for her murder.
Caesar’s idealistic opportunism is accompanied and thwarted by New Rome’s conservative mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), his directionless but opportunistic cousin Clodio Pulcher (Shia La Beouf), her extremely wealthy uncle Hamilton Crassus III (John Voight), and her now ex-lover, a television personality named Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza).
When Cesar suddenly and inexplicably loses his gift of time manipulation, he forms a romantic bond with Julia Cicero, Franklyn’s daughter, after realizing that her muse-like presence restores his artistic and time manipulation abilities, much to his annoyance. of his father.
Bones without meat
The general plot of Megalopolis makes for compelling futuristic melodrama, but it all starts to fall apart when each piece of the sliding puzzle fails to connect. Although there is no shortage of Coppola’s extravagant stylistic choices to make postmodern America look like the collapse of the Roman Empire, which was at its height of excess and disorder before reaching a breaking point and ‘Completely collapse, style alone cannot tell a story. as pretty as it is to look at.
Instead, Megalopolis renders these cinematic bones into a mush that the viewer can attempt to digest while they are assaulted by vibrant colors, supposedly deceptive vestal virgins, sprawling cityscapes, a proletarian population in a perpetual state of civil and economic unrest, and John Voight. pretending that the crossbow buried under his sheets is actually an erection in order to foment a revenge plot against his nephew, Clodio, who is conspiring with Wow Platinum to take over his bank.
A cinematic spectacle
Megalopolis’ The divine, time-manipulating, idealistic yet psychologically unraveling protagonist reflects the same character archetypes you would see in Neil Breen films like Double down, I’m here…now get through itAnd Fateful discoveriesjust to name a few. And I assure you the irony is not lost on me: Neil Breen was able to personally finance his own projects through fundraising and his own personal fortune that he accumulated through a successful career in architecture.
In my mind, Coppola’s fearless creation Megalopolis deserves a lot of respect because he had a vision, he stayed true to his positions and did the thing as he wanted to do. The jury may be out on whether the thing in question is worth your time, but if you have a penchant for B, C, D, and Z-tier films, you owe it to yourself to see how even the most decorated filmmakers can swing . and fail without anyone questioning their vision along the way.
As of this writing, you can watch Megalopolis on demand through Amazon Prime Video, Google PlayAnd Fandango at home.
