On October 19, 2024, I saw Megalopolis in theatres for the third time. My friend from high school had come to see the movie in one of only four theatres in Canada showing the film. On our way, he asked me a difficult question: “What is Megalopolis about?” It is difficult to explain why, despite having seen it twice already, I didn’t know. We saw it that afternoon, and I would go on to see Megalopolis two more times before it went out of theatres. Despite all of this, I still don’t have a good answer to his question. There is something utterly baffling about Megalopolis, something indescribable, which makes it unlike anything I have seen. This question is still unanswered in my mind, and my five theatre viewings brought with them only more questions. Why did I spend over $100 on tickets for this? What is the miracle substance Megalon? And, most importantly, what were they thinking when they made this movie? In the following article, I will try and fail to answer these questions. 

Megalopolis had a troubled development. The film was envisioned by director Francis Ford Coppola in the late 1970s, and was developed over the course of the following decades. Coppola had gained fame as a filmmaker through projects such as The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, widely regarded as masterpieces. He intended Megalopolis to draw comparison between ancient Rome and modern America, to give commentary on the development of empires through time. He worked on the project on and off for the next few decades, only beginning production seriously in 2001. Progress, however, halted after the September 11 attacks, due to plans for the film to include a scene in which much of downtown New York is destroyed by debris falling from the sky. Production for the film was essentially cancelled, and it appeared that the movie would not be made. 

Throughout these many years, Coppola’s wife Eleanor had been a major creative collaborator. When her health began to deteriorate throughout the 2010s, Coppola returned to the project. He had previously been unable to secure Hollywood funding, but he was able to capitalize on the success of his wine business and self-finance the film for 120 million dollars. Production of Megalopolis was rushed as he attempted to finish the movie before Eleanor’s death in 2024. I do not know if she was able to see Megalopolis before it was completed, but the film is dedicated to her memory. 

The production of Megalopolis is suggestive of the film itself. The story has the grandeur and complexity to match the decades of development which had been dedicated to the project, but the execution of these ideas is generally scatterbrained and rushed. The themes are truly massive in scope, but so bloated and unwieldy as to be impossible for presentation in a theatrical runtime. There is also the ugly side of the Megalopolis production, with allegations of sexual harassment against Coppola on set, and accounts of a poor working environment among crew members. While I do not know the full story of Megalopolis’ production, a certain picture begins to emerge through these accounts. Coppola is a flawed person, having lost much of his old skill in filmmaking – however, I cannot help but see the artistic vision deep at the heart of this film. Megalopolis is not a magnum opus, crafted by a talented filmmaker in their prime. It is a strange movie made by a sleazy Italian man trying to recapture his genius of four decades prior, a last-ditch attempt to give his wife this film before she died. The reality is that Megalopolis is not a masterpiece, nor is it total garbage, but instead a complex blend of both. The beauty of Megalopolis is that it tries and fails to accomplish something impossible. 

I was inspired to write this article after having seen that some contributors and masthead members of the Innis Herald feel negatively about Megalopolis. Objectively speaking, they are correct. By any measure, Megalopolis is terrible. It is probably the worst movie I have ever seen. The plot is nonsensical, the acting is completely disjointed, and the visual effects budget appears to dry up about forty minutes in. Despite all of this, there is something almost magical in this film which is impossible to describe. There are fragments, glimpses of moments, which contain true beauty; concepts of hope which are so genuine, images which are so beautiful, that I cannot believe this film is without merit. It is as if Francis Ford Coppola had fed a beautiful film into a wood chipper and then blown the bits across some other dogshit he had slapped together. Megalopolis is a terrible movie by any measure, but it is more than that. It is an attempt by an artist to communicate a view of the world – Coppola’s love letter to his dying wife. Buried in this movie, below the strange Aubrey Plaza sex scenes (plural) and the Emersonian dialogue, there are glimpses of a true masterpiece. Beyond this, the moments of contrast between beauty and garbage in this film make for the most hilarious cinema I have ever seen. If you haven’t seen Megalopolis, don’t listen to the detractors. Do not let criticism deny you the chance to love this film. Do not let the derision and ridicule turn you away from the chance to enjoy a work of art. In the words of Cesar Catalina, “Don’t let the now destroy the forever.”