New epic from the star director Francis Ford Coppola spent half his life working on this film
Francis Ford Coppola worked on his film "Megalopolis" for almost 50 years. Because he was unable to convince the major studios, the 85-year-old financed the film himself. Now the work has celebrated its world premiere in Cannes.
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- 47 years ago, after the completion of "Apocalypse Now", Francis Ford Coppola had the idea for a new epic.
- To raise the 100 million budget, the US filmmaker even sold part of his wine empire.
- Now, almost 50 years later, "Megalopolis" has been shown to the public for the first time at the Cannes Film Festival.
He is one of the greatest and most influential directors in film history: Francis Ford Coppola has long since made himself immortal with films such as "The Godfather" trilogy, "Apocalypse Now" and "The Conversation".
However, the 85-year-old's last directorial work was over ten years ago. And frankly, his masterpieces all date back to the 1970s.
Since then, the American filmmaker has not succeeded in making a really big hit. It is therefore not surprising that he had difficulties financing his latest epic "Megalopolis".
Adam Driver, Shia LaBoeuf and many other stars
Coppola worked on the film for almost 50 years. He financed the film entirely himself because the major film studios did not want to take the risk and therefore did not participate.
The cast list for "Megalopolis" is all the more surprising: in addition to Adam Driver and Shia LaBoeuf, the film also stars Nathalie Emmanuel, Giancarlo Esposito, Aubrey Plaza, Laurence Fishburne and Dustin Hoffman.
Francis Ford Coppola has now presented his film at the world premiere in Cannes - and polarized the audience. At the end of the press screening, there was both applause and booing.
Coppola wants to explain the mechanisms of global society
No question: visually, the epic "Megalopolis" is a stunner. The images of the futuristic city in which the story takes place are powerful.
In his film, Coppola attempts to explain the mechanisms of global society. Or to put it more simply: he tries to explain the world to mankind. What an ambitious and at the same time arrogant idea!
In order to capture the functionality of the big city and its society, Coppola takes ancient Rome as his model and gives his film characters the names of influential rulers from the Roman Empire.
Ancient Rome has perished. But will Coppola's "Megalopolis" manage to overcome the power struggles within the city? This is the goal pursued by the protagonist Cesar Catilina, embodied by a virtuoso Adam Driver.
The architect and scientist is one of the city's most famous inhabitants and the inventor of the miraculous building material Megalon. This invention enables him to overcome the planes of space and time at the same time.
Conclusion: "Megalopolis" is too unmanageable
His opponent is the mayor of the city: Cicero, played by Giancarlo Esposito. The government has allowed Cesar Catilina to destroy large parts of the city in order to carry out experiments with his Megalon.
Cicero can't stand Cesar because of his conceited nature and his extremely ambitious ideas ... and his image as a womanizer. But Cicero's daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel), of all people, takes a liking to Cesar.
And when he discovers that Julia has similar skills to him in handling the megalon, he is fascinated by her.
As strange as it all sounds, the movie feels just as chaotic. Powerful imagery, some original ideas and a few funny scenes just aren't enough in the end. Conclusion: The epic "Megalopolis" is too overambitious, too unmanageable and too bloated.
In addition, "Megalopolis" contains a kind of intermezzo that has probably never been included in a movie before and which caused a great deal of confusion at the press screening. No more can be revealed at this point.
It will be interesting to see whether this will be implemented in a similar way for the regular cinema release. Meanwhile, Praesens-Film has secured the rights to Francis Ford Coppola's new epic in Switzerland, which gives us hope that the film will soon be released in cinemas.