Megalopolis: A Fable

Coppola's newest is a confusing mess but a necessary examination of democracy and power...

On Thursday, we took many, many coins to the local movie house and exchanged them for seats to the first showing of Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis. You might have seen the movie, read some reaction, or heard the chit-chat that Megalopolis is some kind of a mess, and it is, though what kind of a mess is the subject of a very long debate. The debate is long because it centers on Coppola, a director that made three of greatest films of all time – The Godfather, The Godfather II, and Apocalypse Now, and also The Conversation, which is easily in the Top 100. The man’s great work justifies mulling over the excess and confusion we’d ignore from hacky blockbuster builders like James Cameron and Guy Ritchie.

Megalopolis’s excess and confusion are part of the mess, which is so messy that examining the mess and all its parts is going to take a lot of time and words from a lot of different perspectives. Not going there. Instead, I’m going to pluck out one thing from the mess: Politics.

Focusing on politics, the story goes like this: Mayor Frank Cicero “runs” New Rome, a stand-in for New York City (and the United States). Cicero’s hold on the city is tenuous as he serves at the mercy of true wealth and power. He also must respond to the needs and emotions of the common folk. The true wealth and power is held by Hamilton Crassus III, an old banker and the richest guy in town (by far), and Cesar Catilina, a wealthy, Nobel Prize winning, visionary Renaissance Man who is also Crassus’ favorite nephew and who is something like the city planner. There’s also Clodio Pulcher, Crassus’ jealous, opportunistic grandson, who is dangerous but not a real power player.

Copolla’s main characters – and a few minor ones – are engaged in a power struggle over the future of New Rome, specifically a project dreamed up by Cesar Catalina called Megalopolis, a proposed but ill-defined utopian city within the city. Mayor Cicero is opposed to Megalopolis. He frames his opposition as fighting for the people, though it has much more to do with maintaining power, power which involves corruption, something hardwired into the city.

Catalina is insistent on Megalopolis, so much so that he’s already started destroying a rundown part of New Rome so that he can force its build-out. Though modeled on infamous New York City planner Robert Moses, Catalina also emulates the troika of Big Tech: He’s equal parts Bill Gates’ “humanitarian” tech-futurism, Elon Musk’s jackass performative hubris, and Mark Zuckerberg’s destructive, ubermensch egomaniacalism. Through most of the story, Catalina’s relationship to others and his project is more philosophical (Marcus Aurelius, Emerson, and, though not mention, Nietzsche) than personal. When he does try to relate to his others he is self-centered and cliched (Musk, Zuck).  

Rich Dude Hamilton Crassus III’s vision for the present or future doesn’t go beyond his own wealth and what pleasures his wealth buys. He admires and supports his nephew Catalina but not at the expense of losing his hold on Mayor Cicero and New Rome’s power structure. Despite his “neutrality,” Crassus’ extreme wealth makes him a huge presence.

Catalina’s Megalopolis is to be a utopian project, and a huge risk. Catalina’s vision is also pure, but its the purity of an ideologue. He is willing to risk dystopia because his ideals are 100%...according to Catalina. We are to accept this because Catalina is an artist and a philosopher at heart. He already has money; he doesn’t need or want more. He already has power; he doesn’t need or want more. He is lacking love, which sends him into self-destructive cycles, but that’s what happens to artists, and, besides, he will soon have that taken care of. Point is: Megalopolis must happen, it will happen, because it is good and Catalina says it is good. It is also new and new is good because Catalina says so.  

Mayor Cicero sees Megalopolis as a threat to his power. If Megalopolis succeeds, Cicero’s power diminishes. If it fails, it fails on Cicero’s watch and ruins him. Because Cicero came up from the people and not the elite, he knows that the potential for unrest from below is great, something Catalina is either ignorant of or doesn’t care about. Cicero also knows that he must keep things as is to appease the wealthy elite, especially Crassus. Cicero sees maintaining the status quo, while promising minor fixes and distractions (such as a new casino), as the only way to hold everything together, even while it is all falling apart.

In the struggle at the top, the jealous, hedonist Clodio Pulcher sees an opportunity in the neglected and sidelined masses – who are most often seen behind chain-linked fences staring at the wealthy or milling around in the street. Clodio riles up the proles with talk of “people power” and threats against his own class and family, while enjoying every decadence extreme wealth affords. Clodio is the Trump-like, “populist” exploiter, though livelier and a lot more fun than the boring, old rapist.

Documenting the elite power struggle and the excesses of wealth is a fawning media that loves scandal and dirt. When not staring through fences, the common people watch the shitshow on entertainment news and read about it in New York Post-like tabloids. Coppola pegs members of New Rome’s media elite as soulless strivers fixated on access to power.

If all of this seems like a caricature of USA 2020s, well, Megalopolis is subtitled A Fable. And this is where things get dicey. On the project Megalopolis as a concept or reality, Coppola doesn’t take a side. He seems to be sympathetic to Catalina as an artist driven by what others dog as megalomaniacal projects (see Godfather, Apocalypse Now, Megalopolis), but also visualizes Megalopolis as an illusion made out of garbage and kitsch straight out of the 1936 movie classic Things To Come.

What Coppola cares about is the struggle over Megalopolis, or the struggle between the old and the new, or between pragmatism and idealism, between stability and risk, between “what works now” and utopianism, and between the competing stories we tell ourselves to survive. Coppola is on the side of the visionary and he also sees stability as vital.

While he is unsure of exactly where he stands in struggle between Cicero and Catalina, Coppola is firm about two things: Advocates of the status quo and futurism better get their shit together, otherwise degenerate opportunists will try to use the masses to gain power for power’s sake. And, the uber rich have to look beyond their own narrow interest and stop playing the middle or they will be screwed.

What is missing in Coppola’s fable is democratic choice and the will of the people. In Megalopolis, the common people are nothing but pawns, spectators, and things that are in the way. They stare at power, consume what power gives them, and, when they have had enough bullshit, they destroy things. There is absolutely no initiative, especially in regards to change, coming from below.

Megalopolis is an elite scheme forced on those at the bottom, people who have absolutely no input in the project and whose concerns are ignored. Opposition to Megalopolis comes from a faction of the elite, who speak in the name of the people, but act on their own ideas, prejudices, and concerns. And, yet, the people are suffering and something must be done to help them – or to keep the whole of the elite in power. Finally, New Rome settles on “utopia” as defined by one person. Clodio is defeated and Megalopolis is built with total elite backing.

Our future is designed and created by the elite, with little examination of what is really being proposed, what is happening, what impacts it will have, and so on (quotes from Aurelius and Emerson don’t count). If Megalopolis’s elite has anything to say to the people, it is “Trust us. We know what is good for you.”

Maybe you are wondering, “Are there any women in this story?” Yes, there are quite a few, but they are only adjacent to men. They are lovers, mothers, antagonists, and muses. They entertain, cajole, complain, and scheme, but not much more. Remove all the female characters from the script and you essentially have the same movie.

Part of me would like to have seen more powerful women in Megalopolis. Same with a perspective from below, perhaps the inclusion of a prole-born revolutionary. However, I understand that Coppola is giving us a fable about power how it impacts everything. Coppola draws from Ancient Rome, where women and the masses were powerless, and modern-day America, where the mostly-male, monied elite dominate. More powerful women and more masses would make for a more “representative” film, but would confuse and already confusing fable and ring untrue.

As a movie, well, Megalopolis is interesting and good to look at. There are problems with some sub-plots plots and the dialogue, as well as some shaggy dog moments (such as the subtheme of controlling time). But I think what Megalopolis suffers from most is the acting. The acting is not bad, but it doesn’t fit the film.

When Paul Verhoeven cast Starship Troopers, he got former teen-idols who could act corn authentically. The casting helped make that movie a classic. Megalopolis is a homage to old Shakespeare movies. To totally pull that off, Coppola needed true hams, not actors playing the ham. Laurence Fishburne is a great actor, Adam Driver is a good actor, but they aren’t hams. Aubrey Plaza can do kitsch and Shia LaBeouf can play maniacal, but they aren’t hams. Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman can ham it up, but it’s not their essence. What Megalopolis needed are actors like Steven Seagal, thespians that are completely oblivious to both their natural hamminess and the concept of irony.  

Despite the muddle, Megalopolis is a very good, maybe even great, political fable about power. It is definitely a movie that has gotten me thinking, which is rarely the case with contemporary film. I’ve also grown to like it better the more I think about it and I am looking forward to seeing it again.