La Presse at the 77th Cannes Film Festival | Megalopolis: A Roman Chariot Crash

The shipwreck was the Titanic. The 85-year-old American cinema legend wanted to carry out this heartfelt project from the shootingApocalypse Now, which earned him his second Palme d’Or 45 years ago. During that time, Coppola invested his savings in endless filming in the Philippines. During this time, he invested about US$120 million from his personal wealth by mortgaging part of his vineyard.

Let’s get straight to it: money doesn’t appear on screen. Demonstration scenes look like they were shot with two dozen extras and the budget of a Quebec soap opera. Also, the special effects might have been cut 10 years ago, but not anymore. In short, we wonder where the millions disappeared to.

A myth about the fate of America at the dawn of Donald Trump’s new presidential campaign, a powerful allegory for the fall of the Roman Empire. Megalopolis Set in the year 2024 in a futuristic megalopolis called New Rome, which looks a lot like New York. Both sci-fi peplum and political dystopia, the filmmaker’s debut The Godfather from Twixt In 2011, Adam Driver played Caesar Catilina, a brilliant architect.

A Nobel laureate thanks to the invention of the revolutionary invention, the Magellan, Caesar talks a lot in his apartment at the top of the Chrysler Building, drinks even more, and confuses himself with his muddled proverbs.

His mistress (Aubrey Plaza) is an archetypal diamond digger, his uncle (Jon Voigt), an easily influenced billionaire, his cousin (Shia LaBeouf) is wickedly jealous, his mother (Talia Shire, the filmmaker’s sister) is mad at him, the mayor’s new Romain, named Francis Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), hates him, and the mayor’s daughter, the jet-setter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel), intrigues him. I can’t say exactly what roles Dustin Hoffman and Coppola’s nephew Jason Schwartzman play in this future: they’re basically extras.

I almost forgot: Caesar has the power to pause time with his fingers. It doesn’t help the plot at all…

“Our American republic is no different from ancient Rome. Will we fall like Rome because of the insatiable hunger of a few men? », from the beginning, in voiceover, the character of Caesar’s faithful right-hand man (Laurence Fishburne, only 14 years old at the time of filming)Apocalypse Now)

Is Mayor Cicero motivated by the public good or corrupt? Is Caesar a megalomaniacal Pygmalion, as Meyer describes him, or a utopian who wants better living conditions for his fellow citizens? Coppola’s headless scene, which seems to change the direction of the wind, provides no clear answer.

Cartoon therapy

Megalopolis Feels like a cool, cerebral, wobble 2:18 style workout Party The puffy toga, its incessant and definitive references to Roman mythology: the silhouette of Remus and Romulus on a wall, chariot races and gladiators (WWE-type wrestlers) in the Coliseum at Madison Square Garden (Colosseum), Fellini’s circus performers movies, etc.

There are bassoons where young people – especially women – immerse themselves in hypnotic, sensual, hallucinatory, techno music or syrupy jazz saxophone melodies. We’re a long way from when Gene Hackman played this instrument ConversationCoppola’s first Palme d’Or was in 1974, and abuse wasn’t even that.Eyes wide shut Stanley Kubrick or not Babylon Written by Damien Chazelle, but a very watered down version.

The cartoonish treatment style of the staging is closer to a superhero film. Batman Tim Burton’s, there Dick Tracy A theater production filmed by Warren Beatty or on Broadway. The characters are also drawn in caricature and it is difficult to connect with them.

After all, Francis Coppola makes poor use of today’s technological means from the perspective of another era. It’s not a question of age: his friend Martin Scorsese is as relevant as ever.

Although IMAX has promised to show it in its theaters on Thursday, his confusing film with no clear direction is still without a distributor for North America. His fate reminded me yesterday as a journalist of the magazine Variety, the Hollywood Bible, may depend on its reception at Cannes. Let’s just say the chances of Coppola paying his way are almost nil.

However, he wanted to Megalopolis Thierry Frémaux, general representative of the Cannes festival, recalled at a press conference on Monday. Cannes competition is a double-edged sword that can make or break a job in the blink of an eye. Coppola did not present a film there after the coronationApocalypse NowHis devastating shooting was immortalized by his late wife Eleanor in a fascinating documentary. Dark hearts.

Information about the shooting of the film has been released Megalopolis are also stimulatingApocalypse NowIt began with the firing of its lead actor Harvey Keitel, his replacement Martin Sheen’s heart attack and the million-dollar-a-week demand by Marlon Brando, who didn’t know his lines.

According to a British newspaper GuardianCoppola reportedly tried during filming Megalopolis Because he wanted to put them in the mood of the evening at the legendary Studio 54 in New York, for extra kissing during a decadent party scene. The filmmaker reportedly smoked in his dressing room Pot We were looking forward to his presence on the set. Not to mention that half the visual effects team (obviously losers) were fired in the middle of filming.

Francis Ford Coppola’s cinematic tribute to Eleanor, who died a few weeks ago, is a grotesque parody, and we believe it was intentional. A great review. A movie that wants to be epic, but is horribly kitsch and new age in both form and content.

There are views of Megalopolis It made me think of a soap opera pastiche The heart has its causes Marc Brunet with Marc Labreche and his band. I laughed out loud, but it wasn’t to be funny.

I only hope – Coppola remains a monument to the seventh art, whose work is fundamental to my cinephilia – that this film will become a psychotronic cult hit.

I wonder what the Greta Gerwig-led jury will think, which is one of the film’s best comedies. Barbie It’s about male obsession The Godfather. There are only two filmmakers in the competition who have already won the Palme d’Or: Jacques Audiard and Coppola. On May 25, the American will become the first triple Palme d’Or winner in history. I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were him.

Coppola declared, “There is nothing more terrible than a pretentious film.” Dark hearts. A film that aspires to something great and fails to achieve it. This is shit! “I didn’t say that.

Hosting costs for this report were paid by the Cannes Film Festival, which had no comment on the matter.