‘Megalopolis’ experiment makes Coppola’s passion project worthwhile, Adam Driver says

TORONTO – That Francis Ford Coppola’s $120-million magnum opus “Megalopolis” is weird doesn’t seem to be in contention.
The Roman epic-meets-science fiction fable is as jam packed with ideas as its cast is stacked. Characters based loosely on the figureheads of ancient Rome flit through an alternate New York City, reimagined as New Rome, swishing capes and quoting Shakespeare as they fight to build their vision of the future.
There’s also a surprising amount of interpretive dance.
But for Adam Driver, who said he agreed to star in the film after Coppola told him he could fly home to his family on weekends, the weirdness, theatricality and ambition is part of what made the project worthwhile.
“It felt like experimental theatre that we were capturing on film, which made sense, because Francis came from theatre, and that’s how he kind of runs the sets,” Driver said ahead of the film’s North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this month.
Driver portrays Cesar Catilina, a genius architect who believes he holds the key to New Rome’s salvation: he happens to have the ability to stop time and has also invented a new building material that adapts to the environment around it.
But Catilina is up against Mayor Frank Cicero, played by Giancarlo Esposito, who represents the establishment and is in the pocket of big business. And they both must contend with a populist cabal comprised of power-hungry TV journalist Wow Platinum, portrayed by Aubrey Plaza, and banking heir Clodio, played by Shia LaBeouf.
Also, there’s an old Soviet satellite racing towards Earth, bound right for New Rome.
Though the film’s narrative is complex – convoluted, according to some – it is the metanarrative surrounding “Megalopolis” that has really taken off.
On numerous occasions, including this one, Driver has told reporters about a direction Coppola gave on the first day of shooting.
“We weren’t being brave enough,” Driver recalled the director saying.
“And to me, it totally told me the rules of how we were working on this, to not think of it as a conventional scene that you’ve seen in a lot of films. We’re trying to push it. And if it’s a bad idea, we’ll just erase it.”
The 85-year-old director’s opinion of what makes an idea bad seems to differ from that of many film critics.
Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes says critics are split roughly down the middle about whether the movie is any good, with slightly more of them saying it’s not.
Coppola himself gave the movie five stars on Letterboxd, the social media site for cinephiles.
But the bad press surrounding the film goes far deeper than the reviews. Coppola is suing Variety for libel after it published an article alleging he ran an unprofessional set and seemed to act with impunity. The trade publication also shared video that appears to show the director trying to kiss female extras on set.
Coppola argues, in part, that Variety should have considered the sources of the video to be untrustworthy because they signed non-disclosure agreements that they later broke.
The film suffered another blow when American distributor Lionsgate pulled down its “Megalopolis” trailer that included quotes from critics like Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert of other Coppola films that did not actually appear in their reviews.
The intent had been to highlight the critical divisiveness of now-classics like “The Godfather” and “Apocalypse Now,” suggesting that “Megalopolis” was on their level.
Esposito, who plays Catilina’s foil mayor Cicero, seemed to echo that sentiment.
“It in many ways is a fable. It’s a little larger than life, and it begs you to hear it and listen to it and see it on a larger scale, on a larger level,” he said during a junket at TIFF.
Coppola, Esposito said, “had great courage in making a film that he could see in his mind’s eye and then releasing that vision to actors that he believed in and to the experimental nature of film.”
“Megalopolis” will be released in theatres across Canada on Friday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 23, 2024.