Francis Ford Coppola
Megalopolis

A month after the release of Megalopolis, perhaps the most divisive film of the year, it can be discussed with a clearer mind. And since the previous review was far too undeservedly harsh, I believe it’s fair to offer a different opinion on such a complex work that should not be judged hastily and superficially.

"Rome in the ashes. Couldn't even sigh."

The last film by Francis Ford Coppola before Megalopolis was Twixt, from 2011. Thirteen years ago. At the speed at which time flows in the modern era, it's almost a geological era. The world was different, and so was cinema.

In the era of streaming and platforms, everything is consumed more quickly, and cinema itself risks disappearing, at least the ambitious, grand, gigantic films.

To realize his greatest cinematic dream since Apocalypse Now, one of the greatest auteurs of the past half-century put his own money. Knowing this was the only way to undertake such an endeavor and create an experience that, today, there are none like it. And in total creative freedom.

Sic cadit Imperium. Thus falls the Empire.

If in Dracula, the fall of Constantinople was evoked to offer a different cue in Coppola’s personal vision of Bram Stoker’s novel, the story of the Transylvanian Count/knight, now Megalopolis, talks about another type of fall.

Megalopolis is the vision of a future America. Of an American empire that, in everything, from names, symbols, aesthetics, vices, splendor, and the idea of grandeur, attempts to emulate the deeds of what once was Rome. Before the fatal appointment with History in 476 A.D. and the collapse.

Megalopolis is the vision of an Empire that only awaits its demise, from the moment its citizens begin to lose faith in it and their pride in being part of it.

It is when everything is taken for granted, that everything begins to end.

The dynamics represented are none other than the eternal ones: the struggle for power, lust, the discontent of the most marginal and subordinate classes that culminates in popular revolts. Stirred by those who, in riding them, have personal interests.

And, on the ruins of what, despite the stubborn resistance of those attempting self-preservation, is destined to give way, there are those who dream of the next step.

One wonders if too much civilization is not the source of these ruins. Petrarch and Marcus Aurelius are quoted, no less.

But more than the overly high level of civilization, it is endless and perpetual greed that sickens the human race.

Greed, avidità. A word that recurs multiple times in the film, as if to confess explicitly its debt to von Stroheim and his cursed masterpiece. The same photography of Megalopolis, with its golden tones, recalls the colored parts of the silent work from 1924. Exactly a century ago.

"Here the light was what those who are about to die desire. Those who want to be flooded with the light of Rome before falling into the earth." Aurelio Picca, Arsenale di Roma distrutta.

The reflection of that light penetrates across millennia and the oceans of time, and across continents. Time and space.

The Roman Empire is in the collective unconscious of all Western civilization and will be so forever.

In Coppola's mind, New York becomes New Rome (New Rome was one of the names used for the very same, aforementioned, Constantinople), and the one who carries the vision of the future, Cesar - obviously -, is none other than his alter ego.

Just as Cesar wants to create the city of the future, the director of The Godfather, fifty years ago, wanted to create the cinema of tomorrow, eternal and free from production constraints and limitations. They were the early days of New Hollywood. And today as then, Coppola imagines the new from the ashes of what is collapsing. Due to corruption, fatigue, or the simple passage of events.

Time, indeed, cannot be stopped nor dominated. No one can. No more than for a few seconds, at the most. Time is the table that always wins, taking everything.

"To understand time, consciousness, and courage, you must see them inside yourself"

Megalopolis, through Dracula and that other misunderstood masterpiece Youth Without Youth: even after stripping away everything else, the themes of Time and Love are the most cherished. And the identification between director and protagonist also lies in the poignant memory of the lost wife, just as the beloved Eleanor is at the center of the final dedication at the end of the work.

The enormity of what Coppola has imagined equals only the audacity of its staging, and there are few equals, at least in contemporary cinema.

This does not mean Megalopolis is without flaws or questionable moments, quite the opposite.

A titanic, exaggerated, disproportionate film that seems without a true plot, without rules, almost as if the Italo-American director decides to let himself go, simply enjoying the journey in the utopia of a future humanity.

In the freest and most unrestrained moments, the line between delirium and kitsch becomes indistinguishable. But despite everything, the journey mentioned above is one that is not forgotten.

"This film is a love letter to humanity. This will give hope to society and humanity".

With these words from Coppola himself, the meaning of this daring visual/narrative experiment of 138 minutes can finally be summarized. A reckless, bold path, but full of golden light. The one that, to return to Picca, man wishes to be flooded with before the end. Regardless of origin and background.