Francis Ford Coppola’s infamous film Megalopolis is unlike any movie you’ve seen before. Starring Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Jon Voight, Shia LaBeouf and Laurence Fishburne, it’s a film Coppola began developing in the 1980s, a Roman epic set in a more modern time, ultimately self-financing the project to make it on his own terms.
Driver plays Cesar Catilina, an architect and artist at odds with New Rome mayor Cicero (Esposito). Cesar is working on an invention, called magalon, a new material to construct buildings that can adapt with the people inside the structures. When Cicero’s daughter Julia (Emmanuel) falls in love with Cesar, her loyalty is divided. The film aims to pose questions about pushing boundaries to create a society that could be better for humanity, outside of traditional norms.
‘It felt rebellious and what I thought films were going to be like’
As Driver explained, there was a notable impact on how the film was made because it was being financed by Coppola himself.
“Because he was paying for it, … there’s no producers hovering. There’s nobody kind of in his ear telling him how they should make a scene a certain way,” Driver told Yahoo Canada. “I think if anyone came on our set and is accustomed to a traditional way of making films, what Francis was doing is wild. Theatre games before we do shots in the film, … two weeks of rehearsal where there was a lot of improv.”
“It felt rebellious and what I thought films were going to be like in making them. That they felt like a protest, in a way. To not get set in … there’s a correct way to do something.”
Esposito stated that it was “difficult” to envision what Coppola had in his head until the film was edited together, but that’s a testament to the filmmaker’s commitment to trying to make a film that is completely original
“You have an expectation of what a film should be and maybe that expectation should be exploded,” Esposito said. “Maybe we should start to think about film as being a way of expression of a particular visionary or auteur that changes the way we think about even the medium.”
“So I think Francis has achieved that and I think it’s very important to be open in terms of watching something that pushes that boundary and allows you to see something you didn’t imagine you could ever see. And I think this film is much like that. It has a lot of different elements. It’s densely packed in terms of its writing and its story, based on something that is historical, that really happened, placed in a place called New Rome that brings it up to a contemporary time. But it’s about ideas and those ideas that we have lived by for so many years that we believe to be true may not be what we always thought them to be, and this film questions all of that.”
Watch: ‘Megalopolis’ stars Adam Driver and Giancarlo Esposito: Francis Ford Coppola’s film felt ‘rebellious’
The ‘noise’ of ‘Megalopolis’ criticism
Before the film’s theatrical release, Megalopolis was the subject of significant criticism. This has ranged from the debacle with fake quotes used in its originally released trailer, to claims about unprofessional behaviour on set (Coppola has since sued Variety and two of its editors about the report), and poor reviews coming out of film festivals.
Esposito said that despite all the noise happening about the film, he had to stay focused on his job and the role that he plays in the movie.
“Everyone has an opinion and we don’t all work the same, then we don’t all see things the same,” Esposito shared. “People on set, some are more involved than others in terms of your primary cast, and others are just observing and part of the process, but not on an inside level.”
“And then you have the noise of the media, and you have what’s being reported. … I mean, I think within the first week of me being there people were saying, ‘Oh, it’s a disaster. It’s a mess.’ It’s this, it’s that, the other, but I didn’t have the experience of a disaster or a mess. I had the experience of making a movie that was not only focused in a way that Francis had it focused, but it was also an experiment, which is very much Francis. ‘This is an experiment. Let’s see where it goes. Let’s see what we have.’ And that gives me, as an actor, an opportunity to really be welcoming of not only my own voice, but be inspired by his.”
Driver and his fellow cast members have been calling Coppola a particularly “generous” director, with the actor explaining that’s the case “in every way.”
“You would think that he would be someone, because of his resume, who would show up and say, ‘I’m doing this. I made The Godfather, I don’t know if you’ve heard of this movie that’s changed cinema, or Apocalypse Now. But it’s the exact opposite,” Driver said. “He’ll pull an intern in to hear their idea about a scene and if it’s good, he’ll take it, and that’s not new to this. He’s not against taking a studio note, as he’s told me in the past, if it’s a good note he’ll take it if it makes it better.”
“But it is a group effort. It feels like a theatre troupe, … that’s where his background is. He’s generous with his time. Every actor on set, he is so thoughtful about where they are in the shooting day. He will adjust things to make things comfortable. He’s not dictatorial to tell someone to execute some vision that he’s had for 20 years. … He showed me the film early, early, early on, and would take any thoughts. … That’s been my experience with directors who are great, they have confidence that the thing will kind of show them what it wants to be and Francis kind of embodies that principle.”
‘How wonderful is that, to be able to sit and have your imagination’
A core element of Megalopolis is that there isn’t a lot of telling or showing the audience what to believe, or the path to go on. Much of it is very much up for interpretation.
Driver said it’s about having “respect” for the audience, that they can be shown something to interpret for themselves.
“I feel like a lot of things are characters going to tell you exactly what the plot is and you’re going to leave no mystery about how they feel about it, because they’re going to tell you how they feel about it,” he said said.
“What makes [films] exciting, and this one in particular, it’s singular. I don’t have another film reference that I can put it next to and compare it to. It’s not like he’s not trying to make something that’s like 50 other versions of the same thing.”
“How wonderful is that, to be able to sit and have your imagination become a part of the interpretation of what the film is,” Esposito said in a separate interview. “We become so critical as human beings that we’re told what it is, and we want to accept that at face value, but is that really where we’re at as a people and a culture? To just be guided to the trough to drink?”
“What if I think the water is bitter, you might think it’s sweet. This is a great thing about being in a way futuristic and visionary, about how you present something, and so if it’s presented in a way that many people can accept it or feel it, or see it in a way that’s unusual, isn’t that the point? I think that does something to our own imaginations and allows us to create a picture that … at least it gets us thinking.”