Watching Megalopolis Reminded Me Why Francis Ford Coppola Was Once a Genius (But That's Over Now)
Everything that was once good about him is six feet under the CGI and green screen of this movie.
You’re probably asking, “Why is this paywalled?” Paid subscribers are the backbone of The Film Maven and becoming one shows support for independent journalism, as well as female- and disabled-created content.
Paid subscribers are the backbone of The Film Maven who support independent journalism, as well as female- and disabled-created content. Paid Film Mavens get access to two-three exclusive articles a week including access to my series The Trade and Popcorn Disabilities, as well as the ability to chat with me on The Film Maven's Discord server.
I spent the last week reading Paul Fischer's book The Last Kings of Hollywood, a book focused on the ways directors George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Francis Ford Coppola shook up filmmaking in the 1970s and '80s. Coppola and Lucas are the main focus of the narrative and the former is presented on the page as a perfectionist genius who struggled to know when to say when, both as a director and as a man. There's no denying Coppola's run in the 1970s transformed filmmaking, and while films like Apocalypse Now and The Godfather have been hijacked by a subset of insufferable film bros, their power as cinematic masterpieces remains.
Since then, Coppola has struggled to remain relevant in a changing landscape. And not like when I brought this up with regards to James L. Brooks and Rob Reiner in my Ella McCay piece. Where those directors felt unable to hit the same nerve with their sentimentality, Coppola, always at odds with his own vision versus the need for a commercial movie to sell, left directing in the late '90s. He returned in 2007 with highly esoteric movies that came and went thanks to shaky distributors, garnering scalding reviews in their wake. He's like Brian De Palma now, both directors seeking audience respect but just being too pretentious to make headway.
