Francis Ford Coppola on Thursday premiered his selffinanced opus Megalopolis at the Cannes Film Festival, unveiling a wildly ambitious passion project the 85yearold director has been pondering for decades. Reviews ranged from a folly of gargantuan proportions to the craziest thing Ive ever seen. But most assuredly, once again, Coppola had everyone in Cannes talking. No debut this year was awaited with more curiosity in Cannes than Megalopolis, which Coppola poured $120 million of his own money into after selling off a portion of his wine estate. Not unlike Coppolas Apocalypse Now some 45 years ago, Megalopolis arrived trailed by rumors of production turmoil and doubt over its potential appeal. What Coppola unveiled defies easy categorization. Its a fable set in a futuristic New York about an architect (Adam Driver) who has a grand vision of a more harmonious metropolis, and whose considerable talents include the ability to start and stop time. Though Megalopolis is set in a nearfuture, its fashioned as a Roman epic. Drivers character is named Cesar and the films New York includes a modern Coliseum. Filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola brings family members in addition to the stars of his new film Megalopolis including Adam Driver, Aubrey Plaza, Laurence Fishburne, Nathalie Emmanuel and Shia LaBeouf on the Cannes red carpet. (May 16) The cast includes Aubrey Plaza as an ambitious TV journalist named Wow Platinum, Giancarlo Esposito as the mayor, Laurence Fishburne as Cesars driver (and the films narrator) and Shia LaBeouf as an unpleasant cousin named Claudio. Coppola, wearing a straw hat and holding a cane, walked the Cannes carpet Thursday, often clinging to the arm of his granddaughter, Romy Coppola Mars, while the soundtrack to The Godfather played over festival loudspeakers. Adam Driver, Francis Ford Coppola, Laurence Fishburne and Kathryn Hunter (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP) After the screening, the Cannes audience stood in a lengthy ovation for Coppola and the film. The director eventually took the microphone to emphasize his movies ultimate meaning. We are one human family and thats who we should pledge our allegiance to, Coppola told the crowd. He added that Esperanza is the most beautiful word in the English language because it means hope. Many reviews were blisteringly bad. Peter Bradshaw for The called it megabloated and megaboring. Tim Grierson for Screen Daily called it a disaster stymied by arbitrary plotting and numbing excess. Kevin Maher for the of London wrote that its a headwrecking abomination. Critic Jessica Kiang said Megalopolis is a folly of such gargantuan proportions its like observing the actual fall of Rome. But some critics responded with admiration for the films ambition. With fondness, New York Magazines Bilge Ebiri said the film might be the craziest thing Ive ever seen. David Ehrlich for IndieWire praised a creatively unbound approach that may not have resulted in a surplus of dramatically coherent scenes, but it undergirds the entire movie with a looseness that makes it almost impossible to look away. Is it a distancing work of hubris, a gigantic folly, or a bold experiment, an imaginative bid to capture our chaotic contemporary reality, both political and social, via the kind of largecanvas, highconcept storytelling thats seldom attempted anymore? wrote David Rooney for The Hollywood Reporter. The truth is its all those things. Megalopolis is dedicated to Eleanor Coppola, the directors wife who died last month. Coppola is seeking a distributor for Megalopolis. Ahead of its premiere, the film was acquired for some European territories. Richard Gelfond, IMAXs chief executive, said Megalopolis which Coppola believes is best viewed on IMAX will play globally on the companys largeformat screens. In numerous places in Megalopolis, Coppola, who once penned the book Live Cinema and its Techniques, experimentally pushes against filmmaking convention. At a screening Thursday, Jason Schwartzman emerged midfilm, walked across the stage to a microphone and posed a question to Drivers character on the screen above. Several weeks ahead of Cannes, Coppola privately screened Megalopolis in Los Angeles.
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