Other than Orson Welles, there’s no other filmmaker who’s embodied the “rise and fall” of the auteur more than Francis Ford Coppola. A UCLA drama student who worked wonders on the stage, Coppola rose out of Roger Corman’s low-budget exploitation films to make one of the defining “New Hollywood” indies with The Rain People, which introduced him to his lifelong best friend and collaborator George Lucas. Coppola and Lucas tried and failed to create a filmmaker’s paradise with their independent company American Zoetrope, and were so wrecked by debt that the former had to take several studio gigs just to recoup losses. The three “for-hire” jobs Coppola took were The Godfather, The Godfather: Part II, and The Conversation, which took home a total of nine Academy Awards and gave him the clout to make Apocalypse Now. The production of Apocalypse Now was tumultuous due to hazardous weather conditions, accidents, studio meddling, budgetary cuts, the firing of Harvey Keitel, Martin Sheen’s heart attack, Dennis Hopper’s drug problem, and Marlon Brando’s weight gain, all of which were captured in the documentary Hearts of Darkness, which was directed by Coppola’s late wife, Eleanor.
Apocalypse Now signaled the end of “New Hollywood” because it taught Coppola the wrong takeaways, and led him down the path to make a number of expensive vanity projects with One From the Heart, The Outsiders, Rumble Fish, The Cotton Club, and Tucker: The Man and His Dream, all of which flopped. It started a familiar cycle in which Coppola would have to make something commercial (in this case The Godfather: Part III and Bram Stoker’s Dracula) before doing another “personal film.” Megalopolis was an idea Coppola had since the 1970s, but it was deemed impossible to make for decades because no studio would finance it. Megalopolis was funded entirely through Coppola’s personal estate; he earned a hefty sum upon the sale of two personal wineries in 2021.
Megalopolis isn’t able to stream or buy digitally, and the memories I have of seeing it in theaters are fuzzy. What’s available is Megadoc, a documentary that compiled behind-the-scenes footage from the film’s production, which is also a spiritual sequel to Hearts of Darkness. Eleanor Coppola wasn’t able to return (she died shortly before the film’s Cannes premiere), but Megadoc still has a family connection; it was directed by Mike Figgis, the filmmaker who directed Leaving Las Vegas, the 1995 drama for which Coppola’s nephew, Nicolas Cage, won the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Coppola was game for an in-depth exploration of his filmmaking process, but his cast was not. The documentary is marred by the absence of several Megalopolis cast members, specifically Nathalie Emmanuel and Chloe Fineman, who were unwilling to comment on their performances, which could most eloquently be described as "embarrassing" and bluntly referred to as "disastrous." Alternatively, Aubrey Plaza is open in discussions about her confusion regarding the tone, story, and Coppola’s style of directing, which encouraged improvisation without clear guidelines. If Plaza has received any backlash for having the same personality in every role, Megadoc is proof that this is just what she’s like.
Coppola’s proclamation from the beginning is that Megalopolis will be doubted for the same reasons that Apocalypse Now was, and that Hollywood will always resist efforts to be innovative and experimental. While Coppola was proven right when Apocalypse Now became a masterpiece, it was intended to be an ambitious film, but not a disaster. Apocalypse Now was the result of years spent developing a script with Lucas and screenwriter John Milius, and it reacted to ongoing world events. Megalopolis is a projection into the future that is also a window into the past; it’s set in a futuristic New York City, but styled after the fall of the Roman Empire.
The energy in Megadoc goes through shifts as the production is derailed by continuous setbacks, including the firing of the art department and original cinematographer. The sentiment among those who left the project is uniform; they’d all love to make something with the guy who directed The Godfather, but can’t build on a concept that exists within the head of one man. Coppola isn’t flailing because he doesn’t know what he’s making; this is evident from archive footage, shot over 30 years, in which the same script is table-read by different sets of actors, including Robert De Niro, Uma Thurman, Ryan Gosling, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Jessica Lange.
The greatest endorsement of Coppola’s desires for Megalopolis can be found among the cast members who agreed to star in the film and appeared enthusiastic just to work with him. The most moving interview is with Laurence Fishburne, who referred to Coppola as “my Godfather;” although he’s played figures of authority and wisdom for decades now, Fishburne was offered his first role in Apocalypse Now. There’s also the unusual reunion between Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, who hadn’t appeared in a film together since Midnight Cowboy in 1969. Fifty-eight years led Voight to switch political parties to become a radical Trump supporter, and Hoffman has been lightly cancelled, without any truly great roles in a decade. Nonetheless, both actors are completely engaged in the acting process and show why they’re legends, despite having no comprehension of what exactly Megalopolis is about.
Coppola has created many surrogate sons out of his leading men over the years, and it’s fascinating to see the two that he attempted to latch on to in the making of Megalopolis. Adam Driver is a generational talent whose involvement was what got the film made, but he’s barely in Megadoc due to his busy schedule; he’s made a habit of helping old masters complete their projects with Michael Mann’s Ferrari, Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel, Leos Carax’s Annette, Noah Baumbach’s White Noise and James Gray’s upcoming crime drama The Dead Don’t Die. Comparatively, LaBeouf is open to a degree that is unnerving, given that Coppola offered him a comeback after being cancelled for abuse allegations. Although LaBeouf was able to make up with Voight, his Transformers co-star, with whom he had started a feud because of their differing political opinions, he’s on the offensive throughout Megadoc with questions and suggestions for Coppola. He comes across as a dedicated artist and a pain-in-the-ass, which made Coppola’s description of him as the most irritating actor he’s ever worked with (including Brando) fitting.
Lucas took a similar approach to the Star Wars prequel trilogy in creating a complex, politically salient, and ambitiously digital epic based on mythology that he had complete creative authority over, for better or worse. The difference between them is that Lucas’ interest leaned commercial, and he sold his company Lucasfilm to Disney for $4 billion and used it to create the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles. Lucas has a brief appearance in Megadoc where he’s given a chance to explain the difference between them; if Lucas is most comfortable when he can map out everything in advance, Coppola will always choose to jump in headfirst.
I like Megalopolis, mostly because it’s imaginative and sincere; it’s probably the same reason I like Lucas’ Star Wars films. It’s flawed, but a mediocre Coppola film is more interesting than any made-by-committee films, and I’d say that it’s not the worst entry in his filmography, considering that The Godfather: Part III and Youth Without Youth exist. You don’t need to see Megalopolis to appreciate Megadoc. As is frequently the case with Coppola, the abstract is more compelling than the reality.