‘The movie tells you how to make it’: After decades, Coppola’s ‘Megalopolis’ is here

Francis Ford Coppola is known for his cinematic masterworks such as Apocalypse Now and The Godfather trilogy. Now, at age 85, the indie filmmaker has created Megalopolis, a mega-ambitious Roman epic set in a futuristic New York City.

The all-star cast features Adam Driver as an architect named Cesar Catilina who envisions a utopia. He’s pitted against Franklyn Cicero, played by Giancarlo Esposito, who seems content to keep the status quo as the mayor of “New Rome.”

As in the Roman Republic, the society is plagued with greed, political division,and special interests. Coppola told NPR he sees the fall of the Roman Republic as a cautionary tale for our times.

“It's very impressionistic. It's poetic,” says actress Aubrey Plaza, who plays a journalist known as “Wow Platinum.” She told NPR that while she admired Coppola’s creativity and passion, she found Megalopolis hard to grasp at first: “It's a beautiful nightmare. It's beautiful. But it is scary, also.”

Coppola began working on Megalopolis in the 1980’s, and eventually self-financed it with much of his own fortune – $120 million from his wine business.

Sam Wasson, author of a book about Coppola, The Path to Paradise, says the filmmaker has often been misunderstood. A movie about utopia, he says, filled with ideas and artistic experimentation, is not the easiest sell.

“It’s very hard for people to understand why or how an artist could spend so much money on creativity,” Wasson told NPR. “That has made him a maligned Quixote figure in the press.”

Once filming began, Megalopolis’ production made headlines. Early in the process, according to The Hollywood Reporter, the visual effects crew was fired and the art department quit. (Plaza told NPR she believed it was “an intense work environment, but it never seemed to be like, ‘Oh, you know, we're on a sinking ship.’”) Earlier this year, The Guardian and Variety cited sources claiming Coppola tried to touch and kiss background actresses in a nightclub scene without their consent.

Other cast and crew members denied Coppola had been inappropriate. But online, Variety posted videos reportedly of the party scene. And one of the extras, Lauren Pagone, filed a lawsuit against the director for civil battery and assault. She also alleges negligence by Coppola, his production company Zoetrope and two casting agencies.

Coppola is now suing Variety for $15 million dollars for libel. (In response, a spokesperson for Variety owner Penske Media Corporation told NPR in a statement, “While we will not comment on active litigation, we stand by our reporters.”)

As Coppola told NPR, he has “no intention of litigating this in the media.” In an interview this week, he shared his hopes for Hollywood – and for humanity.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Mandalit del Barco: I want to talk to you about Megalopolis. I know it's been your passion project for decades. What do you want audiences to take away from this conversation? 

Francis Ford Coppola: Well, first of all, there are a lot of phrases in the movie business. They always want to attach phrases. You referred to it as my passion project. Every movie I make involves passion. All movies are passion projects. There’s not…one that's more [of a] passion project than the other…My earlier films all were different styles. The Godfather is very classical. Apocalypse Now is very wild. One From the Heart was very theatrical. So I began to wonder what my style was. And of course my style is based on whatever theme that the movie is about. And in my wanting to learn what my style would be, I came upon the idea that it would be fun and I would enjoy doing the Roman epic.

In the course of my research, it was very clear that America…based itself on Rome, when it left the English and didn't want a king. And if you know your history, you know the Roman Republic was invented because they didn't want a king…And [then], ironically, Rome was repeating what the ancient counterpart did, and its senators were more concerned with their own power and their own money. And that's how Rome lost its republic. And there was the possibility that we, the modern Rome – which is America – [were] going to repeat [that] historical counterpart. And I thought that was very, very interesting and very prescient.

del Barco: I know you're asking the audiences to have this conversation about these ideas of what a utopia would look like.

Coppola: I mean, this could be a very long conversation. It could be a very short conversation. Let's make it short, which is to say that our system seems to be based on a population of people who are unfulfilled – or said another way, people who are unhappy, and are kept that way deliberately, because our major activity is to sell them a little piece of happiness…And it’s clear that if the people were happy, they wouldn't be interested and there would be good customers. But…I believe that they're deliberately kept unhappy through various means so that they'll be good customers. And that's sort of what's going on in the world today, which is very troublesome.

del Barco: Wow. And so with this film, you're challenging the audiences to think about how to reshape that?

Coppola: All I ask them is to have a discussion, which is a simple sentence, which is, is this is the society we have the only one available to us? I believe if people just talk together, people all over the world…we will come up with that. That is, basically a utopia.

del Barco: Has your vision for the film changed over the years? 

Coppola: Oh, absolutely. Because – let me explain that when you know exactly how to make a movie, you set about making it according to what you think the rules are. But when you don't know how to make a movie, which, for example, I didn’t with Apocalypse Now, you listen and the movie tells you how to make it. And that's what happened with Megalopolis. My wonderful collaborators, the actors, many of the creative personnel, we sort of were collaborating together. We were listening to what the movie was and the movie was saying – do more of this, do less of that, do more of this, do less of that. And that's how the movie came about and shaped itself. So when you see it, you know, it's a big production. It's very spectacular. You haven't seen it, I take it?

del Barco: I have seen it. 

Coppola: Okay. Well…it’s not boring, but your reaction may very well be – wow, what did I just see? What the hell is that? And the best thing to do is to see it again. It’s like Apocalypse [Now]. The more times you see it, the more [it] changes. And that's exactly what happened with Apocalypse Now. It's been showing in theaters for more than 40, 50 years, and people are still going to see it. And I think the same thing will happen to Megalopolis.

del Barco: I'm sorry to hear [about] the passing of your wife. I know she was probably very integral to this film as well. And I'm wondering if that, you know, that changed the creative process of this.

Coppola: Thank you for your condolences. My wife – the last thing she said to me was, you're the most courageous man I've ever met, because you do what you feel is right. And, you know, nowadays the movie business, like the fast food business, they'll spend $100 million to develop a potato chip that you find addictive and habit forming. And that's the way they want movies to be. They want you to think there's only one kind of movie. But the cinema is always changing. And, you know, I don't know if you have children, but your grandchildren's cinema will be totally different than anything we're doing today. Cinema doesn’t remain the same, even if it's more convenient to sell it if it does. There's a line in my film which is – when you jump into the unknown, you prove you are free. And that's what artists must do. You know, lawyers and businessmen can be ruled by time and convention and what the rules are. But artists don't have to. Artists control time. I know in my story you see that that happens. But artists, moviemakers, painters, even architects, freeze time. Moviemakers move time backwards and forwards…

My film Megalopolis tells people that they're extraordinary. There’s nothing we can’t do if we apply our creativity to it. So my vote is that we apply our human genius to the issues of saving this beautiful Earth. And since you've seen [the movie], you know, it ends on a very hopeful, celebratory note. It's joyous at the end.

del Barco: Absolutely. And you don't always see something like that – on the … grand scale of humanity. Another thing that was extraordinary to me in this film was that amazing interactive moment – with somebody in real life in the theater and the character on screen. I was wondering if you could talk about that idea of live cinema.

Coppola: Well, of course, that's something I've always been interested in. When I made my movie, which was not very successful, One From the Heart, my idea was to make it as a live movie, that actually would be performed live…As I said, I come from theater, and even now I have one foot in the theater and one foot in the cinema. It's my desire to merge those two.

del Barco:  I know you recently filed a lawsuit against Variety for publishing allegations that were anonymous about you on set. And they spoke to people who said that you —

Coppola: Basically basically basically, next question. You know, I know why you're asking. There's a lawsuit. Anyway. Next question.

del Barco: Okay. Because there's another lawsuit, you know, against you. 

Coppola: I'm the one suing.

del Barco: You're suing, and then there's another suit that's against you.

Coppola: Mine is the suit. But whatever you think, that's not a question that's of any interest.

del Barco: Yeah. I just didn't know if you were worried that this would affect this film. 

Coppola: No.

[Following the interview with NPR, Coppola’s team sent the following statement from the director: “Nothing in my 60+ years career can equal the painstakingly difficult, yet artistically triumphant journey of bringing Megalopolis to the screen. It was a collaboration of hundreds of artists, from extras to box office stars, to whom I consistently displayed the utmost respect and my deepest gratitude.

To see our collective efforts tainted by false, reckless and irresponsible reporting is devastating. No publication, especially a legacy industry outlet, should be enabled to use surreptitious video and unnamed sources in pursuit of their own financial gain. 

While I have no intention of litigating this in the media, I will vigorously defend my reputation and have trust in the courts to hold them accountable.]

del Barco: Okay.  I know that even in the early marketing, they were saying that you've always been misunderstood and ahead of your time. I don't know if that has anything to do with what's going on?

Coppola: Oh, that's a different matter. That's like when you're making a movie that's not like any movie that's ever been made before, you run into occasionally conflict with people who want to make it the regular way, you know, and want to do things the way they're used to doing things. And, you know, my feeling is – I like a movie of mine, I like it to feel a little handmade, like the special effects are not just…like every movie’s special effects. Like if you saw my film Dracula, the special effects look as though they're made with mirrors and by hand.

All of Megalopolis, as big as it is, it's really handmade – it's not it doesn't look like it's a factory-made movie. And that causes sometimes disagreements with the people who are used to – who have been trained to working in a system that basically, you know… I've been around longer than they have. And I know what the cinema used to be like. And it's not like it is today. Today it's like the army. You know, if you go to one of the five art directors and say, ‘Oh, I want you to do this,’ then she'll say, ‘Oh, you can't step on my toes.’ You have to go to the chief art director. And that's not the way the cinema was for the 60 years that I was in it.

del Barco: Do you worry that Hollywood is dead now?

Coppola: Well, I’ll tell you in truth. Two wonderful institutions that I love dearly with all my heart – journalism and the Hollywood system – are dying. And what we're seeing, you know, with journalism making quotes from unknown sources, I mean – you can't run journalism and just make all your… just to get clicks for people to subscribe and then refer to unknown sources. At the same token, you can't make motion pictures if your only goal is to make your debt payment. Because, you know, art has a degree of risk to it. And if they're afraid of risk, then…making art without risk is like making babies without sex.

del Barco: Well, when you are making a film, who are you making your films for? Who [do] you imagine going to the movies to see your films? 

Coppola: Well, it's my audience. I love my audience, but my audience is more like me. I mean… if I'm going to see a movie about the Roman Empire, I like to know a little bit about it. I mean, most people don't know why Rome invented a republic or why America…why was it that all our founders … who wrote the American Declaration of Independence – why was it they were so aware of Rome?

It’s because they were all educated, and in those days, that meant they spoke Latin, so they had to read Caesar's Gallic wars and they had to read about Cicero and his contests with Catilina. They knew philosophers like Epicurus…Because they all spoke Latin…that was what an education in those days included. So we were blessed [to] have founders that were so well-educated and were so aware of history that they created a country that has worked effectively for more than 200 years, you know… But, you know, our country is a shining example of the republic concept. And if we lose it in this election, it will be a heartbreak – but yet Rome did lose it 2000 years ago plus.

del Barco: This film is coming out at a very politically charged time… we're in the middle of an election. And these ideas about what is a republic, what is our society about – 

Coppola: What it really comes down to…is there any creature, any intelligent creature – be it an octopus or a dolphin or a parrot or anything – that comes even one percent of… our genius? We are a species that can chart and change the human genome, who can send a spacecraft to photograph Mars, who can move icebergs with particle physics…So, I mean, how can you be told by [a politician], ‘Oh, those people are just animals’? There's no human being that isn’t part of the human family – that's our cousin, you know? I mean, they put people down so they can control them.

del Barco: You're probably referring specifically at this time [to] certain politicians.

Coppola: Well, I mean, I think whatever politician denigrates people and puts them down and insults them when I know they're geniuses. I mean…there’s no creature like the human being. And Megalopolis says that right to your face.

del Barco: You refinanced your winery for, what, $120 million to get this movie made? And not every filmmaker can do that. I mean, how sustainable is this system of financing in Hollywood today?

Coppola: Well, I mean…most companies have been bought recently by another company, which was recently bought by another company. So there's so much debt racked up.

What's worse is that they don't even know everything they've bought. I know more about Paramount Pictures than the current owners do. That's a danger, because since they buy it, their lawyers say, well, ‘What is that part? We don't need that,’ and they just get rid of it. But that might be a vital part.

In other words, when you're buying something that you don't really know a lot about, some lawyers and accountants will tend to want to get rid of the parts that they don't know what it was for. But there are many parts of movie studios. Thank God people like George Lucas and Martin Scorsese know, and put lots of pressure on them to keep and restore things that came with their purchase, if you know what I’m saying.

del Barco: What do you want to do next?

Coppola: I know I'm finished with Megalopolis because I've written a new project. I'm going to go do it in London, because London is the only city that I have never lived in, which means I never lived shoulder to shoulder with my wife, who I miss every morning because I have no one to talk to about…even now when all this is happening, I keep thinking, ‘Oh, I’ve got to tell Ellie what just happened. I got to tell her.’

I thought if I lived in a place where I never lived with her, I’ll still think about her all the time. But it won't be quite as…. I would like to just live in another place and work on another movie and work with English actors. It's a musical film. It'll have a lot of incredible dancing. So it will be fun. I always say it'll be fun.

del Barco: Do you go into every film thinking, this is going to be fun, it's going to be a blast?

Coppola: . Yeah, absolutely. I read a great quote that George Lucas gave. He said, ‘You know, when you make a movie, you try to make it go as well as you can, given the circumstances.’ And that that thing – given the circumstances – that's a big few words, because every movie has a certain circumstance that is not in harmony with what you're doing. And you have to decide either to change what you're doing to be in harmony with that circumstance, or you have to change the circumstance to be in harmony [with] the movie… I had to face that in Apocalypse Now and I had to face that in Megalopolis.