Brief
reflections on Megalopolis
Written
and directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Starring
Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel et al.
I truly hate to be negative,
but I fear Francis Ford Coppola (for whom I have great respect as a director)
has tried too hard to make a work of art with this film.
It seems to me that in
making Megalopolis, Mr Coppola has sacrificed clarity, substance and engagement
for style, symbolism and indulgence. There is a lack of engagement with the
characters because they are clearly representatives of attitudes and outlooks rather
than fleshed out, believable and affecting, while the plot is a contrivance to
make social and political points. The characters are tools in a mechanism
created by Mr Coppola to say something about American society, politics, ambition
and family, but also to show how clever and artistic he is.
At its core, I think this
is probably a good story regarding the condemnation and demise of a society
built on money-making corruption and the ever-increasing gap between the very wealthy
(or “haves”) and the poor (or “have nots”). However, that is buried, along with
clarity, somewhere beneath the mass of unpursued plot threads, the myriad of inconsistent
or underdeveloped characters who make occasional appearances, pass comment and
move on, bloated set pieces and clunky, forced dialogue which, in places, seems
to aspire to Shakespearean tones. The style and self-awareness of Mr Coppola’s
direction and script do nothing to engender sympathy, compassion or even
intellectual satisfaction while in terms of performance, I am not convinced the
actors always knew what purpose their scenes served or where these scenes
fitted in the story arc.
On the positive side, the
film is beautifully mounted with some dazzling and spectacular sequences and
individual moments of brilliance, but overall its individual parts are greater
than the whole. I’m afraid that, for me, it’s an exercise in cinematic
posturing whose self-awareness condemns it to fail and I suspect Mr Coppola
recognised these issues as he has labelled his film “a fable”, emphasising the
artistic distance between his film and its audience.
Many reviewers have
lauded the film’s ambition and I have to agree the film is astonishingly
ambitious, but that alone does not make it worthwhile. Ambition must be
tempered by respect and regard for those at whom the film is aimed, and I’m
afraid it seems to me that Mr Coppola became so absorbed in his own thoughts
that he failed to consider his audience.
The Godfather films and
Apocalypse Now worked, along with many other Francis Ford Coppola films, because
of the fundamental humanity of the characters and the effort to produce a
coherent, well developed and natural plot which suggested respect for the
audience and recognition of the need to involve it rather than patronise it as
is the case with this artificial and contrived effort.
My thanks for taking the
time to read this article. I hope you found it of some value.
Stuart Fernie (stuartfernie@yahoo.co.uk)
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