Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis is a mess worth seeing
Life and Art from FT Weekend
Forhecz Topher
4.6 • 601 Ratings
🗓️ 4 October 2024
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, we are stopping time to discuss Megalopolis, Francis Ford Coppola's controversial passion project, which took him 40 years to make. The film was entirely self-financed for $120mn and has an all-star cast, including Adam Driver, Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman, but it has fiercely divided viewers. Is this Coppola’s worst film, or are critics being too harsh? What is it actually about? And are we glad it was made? Lilah is joined by the FT's film critic Danny Leigh and independent film critic Nicolas Rapold to talk about the film's highs and lows.
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Want to stay in touch? Lilah is on Instagram @lilahrap, and email at [email protected]. We’re grateful for reviews on Apple and Spotify!
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Links (all FT links get you past the paywall):
– Danny’s review of Megalopolis is here: https://on.ft.com/3YcfpSo
– Nicolas Rapold is on X @NicolasRapold. Follow him and his podcast The Last Thing I Saw, here: https://rapold.substack.com/
– Raph Abraham’s one-star review of Megalopolis, from the Cannes Film Festival, is here: https://on.ft.com/3ZUAulz
– Danny wants to see more three-star reviews. Here are his three-star reviews of The Substance and Will & Harper
– Nic is reading Once and Forever: The Tales of Kenji Miyazawa
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Life and Art from FT Weekend. I'm Lila Raptopoulos and this is our Friday chat show. |
| 0:08.4 | Today we are talking about Megalopolis, the latest film by legendary director Francis Ford Coppola, |
| 0:14.4 | of the Godfather and Apocalypse Now fame. This film is Coppola's Labor of Love. It took him more than 40 years, 300 script rewrites, and 120 million of his own dollars to make. |
| 0:27.7 | But despite a star-studded cast, including Dustin Hoffman, John Voight, and Aubrey Plaza, |
| 0:33.1 | the film has been quite controversial and left audiences, confused, delighted, and enraged, maybe an |
| 0:39.8 | equal measure. |
| 0:42.7 | My plan is a city that people can dream about. |
| 0:46.1 | The majorapolis. |
| 0:47.6 | What about those standing in your way? |
| 0:50.6 | Power to the people. |
| 0:52.7 | Who like it the way it is. |
| 0:55.5 | People don't need dreams. |
| 0:57.5 | People need help now. |
| 0:59.9 | Don't let the now destroy the forever. |
| 1:05.0 | We're in need of a great debate about the future. |
| 1:11.0 | Enjoy the show. |
| 1:12.5 | At its simplest, the film is about an idealistic city planner, played by Adam Driver, who's |
| 1:17.8 | trying to build a utopian city of the future on the ruins of what's called New Rome, |
| 1:22.6 | which is some mix of current day New York and ancient Rome. |
| 1:26.0 | He's fighting the city's mayor, who's a somewhat corrupt pragmatist, and he's falling in |
| 1:31.0 | love with the mayor's daughter, who's caught between them. |
| 1:33.9 | Today, we're going to talk about the film and what we think this 85-year-old director is trying |
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