THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” – NOT TO BE MISSED
Famous for its monumental masterpieces – The Godfather (1972), Apocalypse Now (1979) –, Francis Ford Coppola also created pure wonders in a more modest register, such as The rain people (1969), secret conversation (1974), or Peggie Sue got married (1986). This variability of diets has always been part of his genius and charm. As he grew older and Hollywood no longer took any chances, Francis Ford seemed to have definitively converted to a frugal diet over the last twenty years, with films like Tetro (2009) or twixt (2011).
It was obviously a passing thing. The master, trapped in this arrogance that he loves nothing more than to put on stage, has been dreaming silently, and for several decades, of a new stroke of brilliance and heart to go back into debt for the rest of his days, but at 85, as long as your name is Coppola, it’s worth trying again…
Decline of a civilization
The thing is called, to be completely clear, Megalopolis. A slightly amusing and self-reflective wink, to be sure, but still: a grand baroque showbiz, a peplum of the final ends, a futuristic testament, an ode to love, a hymn to humanity. The roller coaster of tragic pomp and romantic effusion. This takes place in New Rome. Between the ancient, therefore, and the near future. Perhaps we would have dispensed with the Roman parable; in fact, we forgot it rather quickly. It speaks, essentially, of the inevitable decline of a civilization suffering from the deadly disease of civilizations: arrogance, lust, confiscated power, the common good subject to the enrichment of a few, the loss of meaning.
These are the protagonists. Caesar Catherine (Adam Driver), dark architect, master of time, Nobel Prize-winning inventor of a restorative and eternal material, with the utopian work of a new city. Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), mayor of New Rome, conservative and pragmatic, scholar, who maintains the status quo of power in the old style, the antithesis of Caesar. Julia Cicero (Nathalie Emmanuel), daughter of the former, admires her father, but is hopelessly in love with Caesar, whose utopian ambition she shares. Hamilton Crassus III (John Voight), multimillionaire banker and great-uncle of Caesar, unscrupulous speculator who has the city in his hands. Clodius Pulcher (Shia LaBeouf), grandson of Crassus, deceives the lack of consideration in which this one has him with an increase in cynicism and depravity, dreaming of killing his cousin Caesar. Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza), sex bomb and financial columnist, venal, fatal, lover of Caesar and wife of the elderly Hamilton Crassus, whom she agrees to rob with the help of her grandson.
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