On May 14th the annual Cannes Film Festival will commence in the south of France, bringing with it film makers and movie premiers from all over the globe.
The spotlight will be shining brightest this year on one particular director who is attending Cannes for the first time in decades.
Francis Ford Coppola has won the coveted Palme d'Or twice in his long filmography, for The Conversation in 1974 and Apocalypse Now in 1979. But his appearance will not be for some career achievement trophy - though his good friend George Lucas will be there to receive his own deserved honorary d'Or backslap.
The 84-year-old Coppola actually has a new film. One he’s dreamt about making for more than forty years. With a cast featuring Adam Driver, Aubrey Plaza, Giancarlo Esposito, Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, his sister Talia Shire, his nephew Jason Schwartzman, Laurence Fishburne and Balthazar Getty (Japers, remember him?) among many others.
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The one-sentence synopsis of Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis reads like this: "An architect wants to rebuild New York City as a utopia following a devastating disaster." By all accounts, there is a hell of a lot more to it than that, thematically and aesthetically. Early drafts of the screenplay have been floating around the internet for years, causing many to scratch their heads with bemusement, wonder and disbelief that this film would ever get off the ground.
With the knowledge of age, that he is, as he puts it himself, 'vicino-morte’ (in the vicinity of death) Francis checked himself into a health farm a few years ago and lost a ton of weight. He returned home and sold off a chunk of his beloved vineyard in Napa Valley, near San Francisco for $125 million (which I had the good fortune to visit some years ago. Never mind the wine…dear god, his mother’s pasta sauce!) Cash in hand, the man has literally put his money where his mouth is and self financed the film that has haunted him in the wake of Apocalypse Now, the film that almost killed him.
The artistic and financial success rate of director’s ‘dream projects is spotty. What do all these films have in common: Avatar, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, West Side Story, King Kong, Dune and Leningrad? All were films their respective directors worked for decades to bring to the big screen; in some cases fulfilling the ambition which got them into film-making in the first place.
You know Avatar (a one and done watch, in my book); James Cameron day-dreamed the concept in high school and will now spend the rest of his life making sequels to it. Terry Gilliam’s Quixote famously fell apart some weeks after shooting started in 2001 (we did get a great documentary on that struggle, Lost in La Mancha), before finally re-mounting it with Adam Driver seventeen years later. The result was, well, fine. Peter Jackson was handed a blank cheque for his remake of King Kong in the wake of the success of his Lord of The Rings movies. Though big, shiny and financially successful, you could just as easily marvel at the 1933 original. Steven Spielberg remade West Side Story, and absolutely gave the 1961 musical a run for its money, and some. Alas, after decades of ambition, Covid scuppered its wide release and ultimate cultural impact. Probably the most famous dream project never made, and our greatest loss for it, is Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky’s take on Frank Herbert's novel Dune. I know Denis Villenue has recently made his version to great acclaim and sequels still-to-come, but watch the 2013 documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune and get back to me.
The last film on that list doesn’t exist, either. Still, it's quite unique in that money wasn’t an issue. I mean, all you had to say to financiers was, "Sergio Leone’s… Leningrad!", and sweeping dusty Cinemascope visions would fill their heads. Following the Italian master’s death, while still in pre-production for this WWII epic, British director and Leone megafan, Alex Cox, asked the late film maker’s producer if he could read the script. He was told there was none. Just a title, and the money.
A side effect of all this unrealised ambition by driven directors has often been the tell-all documentary which sprouts from the fertile soil of all this creativity. Besides the aforementioned Dune and La Mancha docs there is Hearts of Darkness, the unforgettable portrait by Coppola’s wife, painter, writer and documentarian, Eleanor, on the making of Apocalypse Now. Though ultimately documenting a creative triumph and box-office success, the mental, physical and personal paths to self destruction for the sake of art were writ large for all to see. Eleanor’s recent passing at 87 has made Megalopolis a bittersweet final creative act for Francis and his family.
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As it turns out, Cannes will also host a mini ‘movie brat’ reunion (the moniker of the first generation of Hollywood directors to emerge from fanboy-ism and film school) with both the presence of Coppola’s close friend, George Lucas and their contemporary Paul Schrader, on the Croisette. Awards and box-office be damned, the fact that Megalopolis exists and is beguiling is a near miracle. The picture has been screened twice since its completion, once in the US and recently in the UK. The Hollywood Reporter followed up with a ‘hit piece’ echoing the early reactions to Apocalypse Now, over 40 years ago - essentially saying, despite the standing ovations the film will struggle to find a distributor. WelI, so what, I say. Francis Ford Coppola has cashed his own cheque and shot his own epilogue. I echo the cry of cinephiles everywhere: we have a new film from one of the greatest artists to ever pick up a camera.
Final word goes to Francis: "One way I knew Megalopolis was finished is that I've begun work on a new film. It won't be cheap by any means."
The 2024 Cannes Film Festival runs May 14th - 25th.
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