{"id":66,"date":"2024-10-09T01:08:10","date_gmt":"2024-10-09T00:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/joshtest04.wordpress.com\/2024\/10\/09\/emersonian-megalopolis\/"},"modified":"2025-05-05T20:21:41","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T19:21:41","slug":"emersonian-megalopolis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fevered.earth\/index.php\/2024\/10\/09\/emersonian-megalopolis\/","title":{"rendered":"Emersonian (Megalopolis)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Contains detailed discussions of things that happen in Megalopolis<\/em>. Go see it first.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Filmed on an LED volume; put that in your pipe and smoke it.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s easy to take a film like this at its own myth, and much of the marketing in the run up to the release has encouraged you to do so. The now-infamous trailer consisting of machine-apocryphal negative quotes about Coppola\u2019s earlier films, the much-vaunted selling of Coppola\u2019s vineyard to fund the budget, the tactically-leaked tales of late improvisational nights smoking weed in the production trailer with the cast. It all contributes to an image of this film as something special, something which has taken an above-and-beyond effort to see realised\u200a\u2014\u200asomething which has loftier goals than the average flick. It\u2019s always going to be hard to sit in the cinema and see that collapsed into an actual film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does Megalopolis<\/em> crumble under the weight of expectation? Not quite. True, it\u2019s not that <\/em>weird and the giddy fervour with which critics have spent the last month damning it to hell as an incoherent mess (46% on Rotten Tomatoes, for anyone whose soul is withered enough to care) seems really a bit of a put-on; no-one is risking their cushy access to Oscar screeners or whatever by dunking on this \u2018independent\u2019 film. It\u2019s a well-made film with some judacious if budget-bound visual effects. It has a mercurial cast of talented and famous actors who are well-suited to their roles. It\u2019s not particularly radical in structure\u200a\u2014\u200athere\u2019s a nod to formalism with the occasional act-breaking title card but mostly it follows a classic Hollywood plot structure with a few break-outs into something weirder (Protagonist Cesar\u2019s drug-fuelled breakdown; the final Megalopolis montage) and a few things that are ostentatiously typical\u200a\u2014\u200athe scene where Cesar sees old flame Wow Platinum at the park and offers her his coat is sublimely executed, but could have come from Love, Actually<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We\u2019re never given any real explanation for why Cesar is playing with this prism. Perhaps he just thinks it\u2019s neat.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s actually weird in Megalopolis<\/em>? There\u2019s two main aspects, and both bear comparison to some other controversial directors. The acting in Megalopolis<\/em> is not at all naturalistic\u200a\u2014\u200ait has an element of the Shakespearean. In fact many scenes feel like they have come from an adaptation of some unknown discovered Shakespeare: the way in which we follow around the members of one or two families as they explain the popular politics to us through their encounters recalls Romeo and Juliet; <\/em>the plot itself of course is filled with references to antiquity and to Julius Caesar<\/em>. The good nephew who hides his virtue in controversy and the bad son who wages war on his own King is a twist on personal favourite Henry IV Part 1<\/em>. And so the acting is grandiose, prone to monologue, and allows the actors reign to interpret the dialogue as they will. Adam Driver\u2019s delivery of \u201cYou think one year of medical school entitles you to plow through the riches of my Emersonian mind?<\/strong>\u201d is not something you will see emulated in any other movie this year. George Lucas, of course, filled his Star Wars<\/em> prequels with similarly stylised performances and dialogue and was pilloried for it\u200a\u2014\u200aCoppola perhaps had some of the Tom Stoppard-inflected monologues from Revenge of the Sith<\/em> in mind when scripting Megalopolis,<\/em> with its odes to a dying republic and portraits of the people who let it become so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other aspect is the earnestness, with Megalopolis<\/em> being a distinctly funny film\u200a\u2014\u200aagain aping Shakespeare, every indulgent moment of drama is defused with a little following slapstick\u200a\u2014\u200athat is nonetheless bereft of the cynical humour that has become the mode for big Hollywood presentations. What does this mean? Well there\u2019s several dick jokes and no \u201cwell that happened\u201d moments. Alongside this cheeky humour, the actual meat of the film is similarly direct: Driver\u2019s Cesar wants to build his dream project, the titular Megalopolis. The film wants you to want him to build it. There\u2019s no interrogation of the merits of doing so\u200a\u2014\u200aindeed other reviews have noted the lack of any class perspective whatsoever. It\u2019s about the pure power of creating, the inherent worth in having the will to see something done. Naturally this recalls the cod-Nietzschean energy of Ayn Rand\u2019s infamous The Fountainhead<\/em>, another epic about a man who wants to build a thing. But Megalopolis<\/em> is not Randian except in the most broad of strokes. Cesar\u2019s high goals set him above the other characters but not in terms of rational self-interest, or in a way that is permissive of him to be cruel. Rather, the other characters are simply fallen, craven, too beholden to this existing world to open their eyes and see the next one approaching fast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This next world admittedly seems to involve a lot of petal-like buildings that flap around a bit. In the film\u2019s driving metaphor, Cesar is able\u200a\u2014\u200aby some virtue of his artistry or his engineering or his connection to the wonder-material Megalon\u200a\u2014\u200ato stop time. But we never see him use it for any deliberate purpose. It\u2019s only used for the artistic ends it\u2019s already a metaphor for. Similarly, the shorthand for the Megalopolis project and it\u2019s world of boons ends up being a sort of space-travelator; it\u2019s a city that\u2019s literally going to help you get to where you want to go. America like Rome is a dying Empire, so in this America Madison Square Gardens is literally a circus. Cesar at one point misses his dead wife while suffering from a hole in the head. It\u2019s an exceptionally literal film in many ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What could it mean?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Where Megalopolis<\/em> disappoints is in its handling of gender, the classical trappings being something of a lure to encourage you away from noticing that Cesar lives in a world where there are only three women: grasping climbers, frigid mothers and beautiful perennial muses. The climbers appear in the twin figures of Wow Platinum, the TV gossip host whose role is elevated significantly by Aubrey Plaza\u2019s performance, and Taylor Swift-alike Vesta, the virginial singer who makes a brief but significant appearance at the halfway point of the film. Platinum is a perfect foil for Jon Voight\u2019s slightly hateful, slightly loveable wealthy banker Crassus. Unlike the feckless Clodio (who has the classic Disney villain cross-dressing trait) and his two sisters, Platinum has the drive and the ability to outmaneuver old Crassus, who she marries after dumping a disinterested Cesar\u200a\u2014\u200aso it\u2019s a shame that of all the characters in the story, a violent death is reserved for her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, there\u2019s an odd edge to the reveal that Vesta\u200a\u2014\u200athe subject of a ludicrous and deeply satirical auction for her virtue\u200a\u2014\u200ais in fact not a virgin, or a teenager, or American. Do those things count against her? Should we be good Kantians and hold the subject of this horrid circus to account for lying, even in these circumstances?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cesar\u2019s mother is perfectly unloveable and a non-entity beyond that, perhaps to drive home his need for unconditional love from Natalie Emmannuel\u2019s Julia. Much of the film is spent in discussion of Cesar\u2019s previous muse Sunny Hope, who was driven to despair by his mercurial nature\u200a\u2014\u200aand his cheating. Modern replacement Emmannuel\u2019s Julia has the most difficult job in the cast, keeping any kind of edge on a character written as permanently doe-eyed and bowled over by the great creative virtues of the man she is muse to. Her big moment is getting to say \u201cstop time\u2026 for me!\u201d Furiosa<\/em> this is not. It\u2019s a huge missed opportunity for this ostensible vision of the future to be so hide-bound in its women characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Much like the film\u2019s politics, it looks neat but it\u2019s unclear what it\u2019s actually meant to do.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As mentioned above, the film plays with being political, with having something specific about politics to say. Where it settles is not exactly deep however, and it\u2019s more than a little reactionary. Rich dilettantes playing with the emotions of the mob are dangerous. Indulging fascism will bring some truly stupid people to power. Rioting is bad. It\u2019s not much to sink your teeth into and even the ostensibly political framing of the corrupt old-world mayor who serves corporate interests is quickly rinsed out and replaced with an interpersonal conflict about Cesar marrying his daughter. The climax of the film has Cesar address the audience directly (okay, it\u2019s somehow the second-most-direct address to the audience in this film) to beg them to dream big and shoot for the stars and so on. I couldn\u2019t decide whether the slightly bathetic nature of this was intentional or not; I think it wasn\u2019t. It\u2019s a Mishima speech, one given by a character too detached from the world of regular people to have any purchase or impact. He\u2019s hollering from that balcony but the noise from the planes is just too loud to hear what\u2019s being said. It\u2019s enough to wrap up the plot, but I didn\u2019t feel inspired much at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which I think is the ultimate problem for Megalopolis<\/em>\u200a\u2014\u200aCoppola wants to inspire us to debate, to think, to create society anew\u200a\u2014\u200abut he doesn\u2019t actually have any idea how. Taking a single rich family as a microcosm of society as a whole is useful for telling a story, but it\u2019s a difficult way to offer something tangible. How To Blow Up a Pipeline<\/em> could at least suggest blowing up a pipeline. Becoming Barron Trump is simply inaccessible for most people. There are plenty in the world who remember that the world was made by people, made by their choices. Rediscovering that is important, but it\u2019s not even a first step. For me, Megalopolis can\u2019t even claim to be reigniting that flame\u200a\u2014\u200athe Graeber and Wengrow book The Dawn of Everything<\/em> made a much more compelling case for the inadequency of our politics to our ever-changing nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is it perhaps unfair to expect a film to reinvent politics. But it\u2019s only even a notion because this is Francis Ford Coppola\u2019s Film That Reinvents Politics (and Art, and Love, and Everything)<\/em> which is maybe a silly thing to aspire for a film to be. <\/em>I wouldn\u2019t change it though. <\/em>And as a mere film, it has unique moments, spectacular visuals and a beating heart. That\u2019s enough, I think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If you like my writing, please watch my video essay The Fanatic<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, available now with a short companion essay kindly published by Blood Knife. If you\u2019re after more text, please follow me on Medium or subscribe to my Letterboxd<\/em><\/a> reviews.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Contains detailed discussions of things that happen in Megalopolis. Go see it first. It\u2019s easy to take a film like this at its own myth, and much of the marketing in the run up to the release has encouraged you to do so. The now-infamous trailer consisting of machine-apocryphal negative quotes about Coppola\u2019s earlier films, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"footnotes":""},"categories":[94,96],"tags":[6,85,86,18,19],"class_list":["post-66","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","category-media-criticism","tag-film-criticism","tag-francis-ford-coppola","tag-megalopolis","tag-movie-review","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fevered.earth\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fevered.earth\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fevered.earth\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fevered.earth\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fevered.earth\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fevered.earth\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96,"href":"https:\/\/fevered.earth\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66\/revisions\/96"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fevered.earth\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fevered.earth\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fevered.earth\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}