A look at the making of 'Megalopolis'

   Francis Ford Coppola invited director Mike Figgis to chronicle the making of Coppola’s ambitious Megalopolis, a film that had been percolating in Coppola’s mind for 30 years. Whether you saw Magalopolis as an explosion of visual genius or an inscrutable mess, Figgis’s Megadoc makes for an intriguing foray into the mind and personality of a director whose ambitions operate on a grand scale. 

 For Coppola, movies are a canvas on which to realize individual dreams. An artist who has directed some of cinema’s greatest narrative-driven films (The Godfather and The Godfather II), Coppola nonetheless views himself as an experimental artist who has never entirely forsaken his theater background.

    So it’s hardly surprising to see Coppola rehearsing his actors with a series of games that look as if they were left over from an acting class. Figgis also shows Coppola going against trendy grains, preferring practical effects to computer-generated imagery.

    Oh, and by the way, Coppola spent $120 million of his own money to finance Megalopolis, selling off a portion of his wine business to raise the funds. 

     If nothing else, Coppola is a romantic when it comes to art. What would matter if he died broke if his spending resulted in something beautiful?

     Interviews with Jon Voight and Shia LaBeouf show how different actors respond to Coppola’s approach. It’s hardly surprising that Coppola occasionally expresses his irritations with LaBeouf, who can’t get in synch with Coppola’s methods.

      Coppola presides over a massive production, often seen sitting in a chair, an emperor who understands that some may think he's encouraging chaos. He assures us that he’s looking for meaningful moments within a fluid atmosphere many directors wouldn’t tolerate. 

       A couple of comments in Megadoc tell us something about Coppola’s sense of himself and his work. At one point, he says (wrongly, I think) that he’s a “second-rate director.” He quickly revises the statement to say that he’s a “first-rate second-rate director.” In another telling scene, he encourages his actors and himself to put themselves at greater risk.

      Because movies require many varied talents, putting a singular vision on screen is no simple matter, something Coppola’s late wife, Eleanor Coppola, documented in her 1991 work, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse. Eleanor Coppola makes a set visit during the film, some of which takes place in a hotel Coppola bought so that he could create a tightly knit community.

         Eighty three at the time of the filming, Coppola seems a mellowed visionary who has spent much of his life trying to create the ideal conditions for making cinematic art; i.e., ensuring that, as one interviewee puts it, no one can say “no” to him.

         Of course, bumps in the road still appear. At one point, Coppola fires and replaces the film's visual effects supervisor. He can’t always hide his frustration. 

         Megalopolis struck me as a mixture of brilliance and incoherence fused with a call for a global conversation about the future of humanity. Some day, I’ll watch it again and check my initial reactions because I’m an admirer of Coppola and always remain hopeful about his work. 

         If you share that sentiment, you’ll be interested in watching an 83-year-old man take a shot fulfilling a life-long dream that might have been a culminating work, a glorious merging of all of his talents.

       That may not have happened, but Megadoc proves a fascinating look at the effort.