Tema: Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola, 2024)

Ya se donde vere la pelicula si los horarios me lo permiten

Brian Tallerico, para el sitio web de Roger Ebert. Crítica recién salida del horno.


Ignore the star rating at the top of this review. It’s there because it has to be, and it’s high enough to indicate that you should see “Megalopolis,” Francis Ford Coppola’s four-decade passion project finally brought to the screen in all its insane splendor. That doesn’t mean you’ll like this movie. I wouldn’t argue that strongly with someone who hated or loved it. And I truly think my rating could be higher or lower on the next watch. There’s too much to take in on first viewing, especially in the throes of exhaustion. The truth is that I’m not sure a traditional review of this cinematic insanity can possibly convey what it’s like to watch it, an experience that sometimes feels like wandering through the dreams of one of the most important filmmakers of all time.

“Megalopolis” is a film drenched in its science fiction and classical influences, captured with insane filmmaking choices that often place shallow performances against a backdrop of deep cinematic flourish. It is alternately baffling and breathtaking, a film with a relatively traditional story when one steps back to consider its entire arc. But this isn’t a film about storytelling as much as it is about the wonder of Coppola’s wild vision. It’s very clearly a deeply personal project, and somehow, the timing feels right for it even this long after its inception. Societies rise and fall, and only the dreamers and visionaries matter. It’s almost comforting to think that art will survive after our modern Romes burn.

Here’s where the plot usually kicks into a review. Bear with me. “Megalopolis” is set in New Rome, which looks much like New York City, and contains similar political and personal struggles. Adam Driver plays Cesar Catalina, an architect who can Neo-like stop time and works with a magical material called Megalon. Yes, the scenes in which Cesar literally uses a lens to look around his city from high above it are supposed to remind you of a director placing elements on a set. At least, I think so. Everything in this movie is open to interpretation, and I think some elements may even defy it.

Back to Cesar, who has been battling with the mayor of New Rome, Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito). The theme of how old systems respond to new visions weaves through “Megalopolis” as Cicero and Catalina battle for control of the city, which gets more complicated when Cesar falls for the mayor’s daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel), much to the dismay of Cesar’s cousin Clodio Pulcher (Shia LaBeouf), who also carries a torch for Julia. His father, Hamilton Crassus III (Jon Voight), is the city’s multi-billionaire power broker, and the old man becomes involved with Cesar’s mistress at the beginning of the film, a TV reporter named, seriously, Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza). Those are the key six players, but Laurence Fishburne, Jason Schwartzman, Kathryn Hunter, Grace VanderWaal, and the legendary Talia Shire also appear.

“Megalopolis” is an explosion of ideas about societal structures and how they often fail humanity due to their lack of vision. It not only recalls an actual Roman coup attempt in 63 BCE (which had players named Cataline, Cicero, and Caesar), but Driver’s first big scene consists of quoting Hamlet at length. The literary and historical references fly like Marvel Easter eggs from this point, including Siddhartha, Marcus Aurelius, Sappho, the list goes on. Coppola builds a foundation of classical philosophy and dramatic storytelling in his betrayals and political machinations and then attempts to push it all into a vision of the future. Cesar is described as “A man of the future so obsessed by the past.” That’s the movie. One that weaves Hamlet into a tale of an impossible substance that can shift reality. It’s Julius Caesar, told by someone who wanted to make his own “Metropolis.”

Clearly, that’s an enticing vision, but some people will walk out of this film enraged by its inconsistencies. It is foundationally unsound at times, feeling almost like something went wrong in the edit or Coppola didn’t shoot the scenes he needed to connect his ideas. He’ll start a thread like a satellite crashing to Earth and then do basically nothing with it. The end seems to build to a large-scale riot, which is even mentioned, and then nah. Yet, many of the biggest swings here are breathtaking; a shot where Cesar drives through the streets of New Rome and statues like the Scales of Justice slump over from exhaustion is stunning, a visual representation of a city in its final days. Some sequences are practically incomprehensible, at least on first watch, or go on for significantly too long—the first real drag is a centerpiece Colosseum-inspired wedding, where one realizes Coppola may have lost the narrative thread in favor of the cinematic excess.

It’s also clear that this explosion of ideas left some of Coppola’s actors struggling to find something to hold onto. The older performers manage well enough with Driver, Esposito, and Voight figuring it out, but the younger ones sometimes seem adrift, unsure if they’re playing archetypes or real human beings. There have been several reports that Coppola was improvising new ideas on set, shifting meaning and character in a way that had to be impossible for his cast. At times, it’s easy to tell.

When it works, it’s a feature, not a bug. There are sections of “Megalopolis” that feel like they’re exploding, especially as the IMAX screen splits in three and each third has something rivetingly shot by the remarkable Mihai Mălaimare Jr. (who not only lensed FFC’s “Youth Without Youth” but “The Master,” among others). I truly wondered at points if characters were about to break into song; it feels that consistently broken from reality, expressing itself in ways that traditional character and dialogue cannot.

Coppola’s improvisational approach feels most detrimental in the final half-hour, which is when I realized I legitimately didn’t really care about how it was going to end. It’s not that kind of film. I’m not even sure Coppola expects you to traditionally care about the fate of Cesar and Julia as much as to think about how we tell these stories of the future. “Utopias turn into dystopias,” says one character in “Megalopolis,” and it struck me as a line that could have worked in the tumult of Coppola’s prime in post-Vietnam America as much as it does today. Shakespeare’s time, too. Even 63 BCE. And I think the cyclical nature of human existence is ultimately one of Coppola’s defining themes. As utopias turn into dystopias over and over again throughout history, it’s the visionaries that will matter. The visionaries like Francis Ford Coppola.

Francis Ford Coppola ha demandado a Variety por 15 millones de dólares en concepto de libelo (denigración y difamación del buen nombre de una persona o una afrenta a su honor e integridad), y pedirá además una compensación adicional por daños y perjuicios..


A su vez, Lauren Pagone, la extra que se quejó públicamente del comportamiento de Coppola en el set, ha interpuesto una demanda civil contra Coppola el pasado 10 de Septiembre, donde directamente le acusa de agresión sexual.

Pagone quiere compensación economica por daño emocional incuantificable, y desea un juicio con jurado.


El abogado de Coppola ha emitido el siguiente comunicado:


“Some people are creative. Very few people are creative geniuses. In the world of motion pictures, Plaintiff Francis Ford Coppola (“Coppola”) is a creative genius. Some people are jealous and resentful of genius. Those people therefore denigrate and tell knowing and reckless falsehoods about those of whom they are jealous. Here, Variety Media, LLC (“Variety”), its writers and editors, hiding behind supposedly anonymous sources, accused Coppola of manifest incompetence as a motion picture director, of unprofessional behavior on the set of his most recent production, Megalopolis, of setting up some type of scheme so that anyone on the set who had a complaint of harassment or otherwise had nowhere to lodge a complaint, and of hugging topless actresses on the set. Each of these accusations was false and knowingly so. They were made to harm Coppola’s reputation and cause him severe emotional distress. That harm has been caused.”






“Defendants claim to have had anonymous sources for the defamatory statements in the Article. All the sources were allegedly on the set with apparently one being a crew member who took the videos attached to the Article. Defendants knew that all cast and crew members on Megalopolis signed an NDA in which they promised to keep confidential any information about Megalopolis and its production (among other things). The signatories to the NDA agreed to hold all such information in the strictest confidence and assure that the confidential information not be published. Defendants knew, therefore, that their sources were unreliable and did not tell the truth when they signed the NDA. Nonetheless, Defendants relied on these supposed sources and, by doing so, acted with reckless disregard for whether the sources, this time, were telling the truth or not.”






Mientras tanto, otra de las extras presentes en el vídeo filtrado, Rayna Menz, quién defendió públicamente a Coppola en su momento, ha seguido defendiendo su inocencia en las redes sociales, y negando las acusaciones contra el director.



Veremos en que queda todo esto.


Muy triste todo, en cualquier caso.

Iniciado por Branagh/Doyle

“Some people are creative. Very few people are creative geniuses. In the world of motion pictures, Plaintiff Francis Ford Coppola (“Coppola”) is a creative genius. Some people are jealous and resentful of genius. Those people therefore denigrate and tell knowing and reckless falsehoods about those of whom they are jealous. Here, Variety Media, LLC (“Variety”), its writers and editors, hiding behind supposedly anonymous sources, accused Coppola of manifest incompetence as a motion picture director, of unprofessional behavior on the set of his most recent production, Megalopolis, of setting up some type of scheme so that anyone on the set who had a complaint of harassment or otherwise had nowhere to lodge a complaint, and of hugging topless actresses on the set. Each of these accusations was false and knowingly so. They were made to harm Coppola’s reputation and cause him severe emotional distress. That harm has been caused.”

Me congratula enormemente ver que Coppola ha decidido poner pie en pared, cuando bien podría pasar del tema debido a su edad y a la "inconveniencia" de esta publicidad previa al estreno.

Iniciado por Branagh/Doyle

Lauren Pagone, la extra que se quejó públicamente del comportamiento de Coppola en el set, ha interpuesto una demanda civil contra Coppola el pasado 10 de Septiembre, donde directamente le acusa de agresión sexual.

Pagone quiere compensación economica por daño emocional incuantificable, y desea un juicio con jurado.

Hermana, yo NO te creo.

Parece que la demanda contra Variety no solo se debe al artículo (y al vídeo filtrado), que publicaron en su día acusándole de comportamiento sexual inapropiado, sino a todo un año de ataques indisimulados contra la producción y el rodaje de Megalopolis (de los que se nutrió The Guardian para publicar aquel infame mini reportaje), donde en opinión de Coppola y su abogado se ha traspasado toda línea roja admisible (tildando al director, entre otras cosas, de incompetente, caprichoso, irracional, drogadicto, irresponsable, dictatorial y en definitiva, de que es un señor de 85 años que ya no está en su sano juicio y no sabe lo que hace ).

En opinión de Coppola, todo esto se debe a una campaña orquestada por el sistema -los grandes estudios- para hacer fracasar la película.


Y ha dicho basta.

Recién salida del horno.

Llamame Francis, soy viejo, pero no TAN VIEJO.

Hice Megalopolis por mi cuenta para no tener jefes dictando que podía o no podía hacer. Para que no hubiese un sistema, una jerarquía.





En un momento determinado le pregunta al entrevistador si conoce a Ozu. Y comenta sobre la evolución de su estilo. La cara del chavalín es un poema.









85, el jodío. Está más lucido que yo.

"...compensación económica por daño emocional incuantificable...". Osea, que el daño no se puede cuantificar pero la compensación sí. Muy riguroso, todo. Lo que "emociona" a Pagone (qué apellido más acertado), por decirlo suavemente, es la perspectiva de forrarse.

Iniciado por Kaa

"...compensación económica por daño emocional incuantificable...". Osea, que el daño no se puede cuantificar pero la compensación sí. Muy riguroso, todo. Lo que "emociona" a Pagone (qué apellido más acertado), por decirlo suavemente, es la perspectiva de forrarse.

Además, la cosa se complica porque otra de las mujeres que participaron en dicha escena -y a la que Coppola también besó en las mejillas- Rayna Menz, ha estado poniendo de mentirosa para arriba a Pagone estas últimas semanas en las redes sociales.

Veremos.

Crítica muy positiva del pasado 10 de Septiembre (Festival Internacional de Cine de Toronto), por John Corrado. 4 estrellas le da.


It takes a filmmaker like Francis Ford Coppola to pull off something as audacious as Megalopolis, the Godfather and Apocalypse Now director’s self-financed, $120 million epic that he has been trying to get produced for a few decades now. And now it exists, and I’m actually kind of in awe at what Coppola has pulled off.

It’s bold, visionary filmmaking, as Coppola draws upon a variety of cinematic influences (Fritz Lang, Federico Fellini, even a little Orson Welles) to tell an ambitious story that mixes Roman Empire history with New York City politics. There is a theatrical quality to it as if Coppola is playing with form, yet the film feels almost classical in its scope and ambition, harkening back to a time when directors were mad men risking everything to transfer their visions to the screen.

Adam Driver stars in the film as Cesar Catilina, a brilliant but controversial architect who leads the Design Authority in New Rome, a futuristic city modelled after New York (there are some recognizable allusions to what that city went through over the past several decades. Cesar also has the supernatural ability to stop time, doubling as metaphorical representation of what all artists do with their work. Cesar has plans to build Megalopolis, utilizing a new material he has discovered. But he gets pushback from Mayor Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), who wants to keep the status quo.

There are various subplots involving the other people in the orbits of these two men. Cesar’s uncle, Hamilton Crassus III (Jon Voight), owns the city’s bank, while his cousin Clodio Pulcher (Shia LeBeouf) is like the young prince becoming too ambitious for his own good. Things are further complicated when Cesar becomes involved with the mayor’s daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel). There’s also a mistress in flirty TV anchor Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza), while Fundi Romaine (Laurence Fishburne) serves as both Cesar’s personal assistant and the film’s narrator

Men and families jostling for power is a familiar theme for Coppola (it’s what underpins his Godfather trilogy, which is really the saga of America). In Megalopolis, Coppola branches out even further to explore how whole civilizations fall due to corruption and greed, or are crushed under the weight of man’s ambition. The Ancient Rome decadence of how the elites live in Coppola’s film stands in stark contrast to the lives of the peasants whose houses are in the way of the new city.

It’s richly layered, weaving in subtext and deeper themes, with a story that, at least on the surface, is fully comprehensible (there’s a reason the film’s subtitle is “Megalopolis: A Fable”). The film is also deeply entertaining, thanks to both its involving performances (Driver commands the screen, continuing to prove he is one of our best actors currently working), and almost operatic high camp moments. I was absorbed from start to finish.

This is Old Hollywood epic, only with digital backdrops instead of painted ones (it’s fascinating to think what this film might’ve looked like if Coppola had produced in the 1970s or ‘80s). Through modern visual effects, Coppola conjures up images that are unlike any I have seen before (like magical realist moments when Cesar stands on floating construction beams suspended thousands of feet in the air). At times it recalls a graphic novel with its triple split-screens, while cinematographer Mihai Mălaimare Jr. conjures up compositions that feel like moving paintings.

It’s also a gloriously wide-reaching artistic statement that still feels strangely personal; does Coppola view the misunderstood architect trying to secure a legacy by creating something larger than life as a stand-in for himself? And will this film get a similar critical reappraisal to some of the director’s other works? It’s fun to simply watch one of cinema’s great masters playing around on this large a canvas.

Regardless of how you ultimately feel about Megalopolis itself (I loved it, many others have not and will not), it’s impossible to deny this is anything but the exact movie that Coppola wanted to make at this stage in his career, no matter how divisive it might be. What I will never understand is why so many were rooting for this to fail. We should all just be happy that this film exists at all. Long live cinema!

Iniciado por Branagh/Doyle

Recién salida del horno.

Llamame Francis, soy viejo, pero no TAN VIEJO.

Hice Megalopolis por mi cuenta para no tener jefes dictando que podía o no podía hacer. Para que no hubiese un sistema, una jerarquía.





En un momento determinado le pregunta al entrevistador si conoce a Ozu. Y comenta sobre la evolución de su estilo. La cara del chavalín es un poema.









85, el jodío. Está más lucido que yo.

Para que no hubiese una jerarquía....que no fuese la suya.

Porque ha cosido y descosido a su antojo. Lo cual es legítimo.

Pero que el único que ha tenido libertad creativa es él, como financiador. Los demás han seguido su batuta o han pasado por guillotina.

Iniciado por calita

Para que no hubiese una jerarquía....que no fuese la suya.

Porque ha cosido y descosido a su antojo. Lo cual es legítimo.

Pero que el único que ha tenido libertad creativa es él, como financiador. Los demás han seguido su batuta o han pasado por guillotina.

Cierto es, con la posible excepción de los actores, que han hablado de que se les ha permitido improvisar, sugerir, y cambiar cosas del guión.

Driver incluso se pasó por la sala de montaje y dio su opinión al respecto.

Iniciado por Branagh/Doyle

Cierto es, con la posible excepción de los actores, que han hablado de que se les ha permitido improvisar, sugerir, y cambiar cosas del guión.

Driver incluso se pasó por la sala de montaje y dio su opinión al respecto.

En eso Coppola siempre ha sido muy profesional, permitiendo que los actores se expresaran como artistas.

Claro, que ha trabajado con gente impresionante en ese sentido, como para no escuchar a De Niro, Pacino, Brando u Oldman.

Spot/clip con nuevo metraje:

Y nuevo trailer cortesía de Utopia:

Iniciado por Branagh/Doyle

En opinión de Coppola, todo esto se debe a una campaña orquestada por el sistema -los grandes estudios- para hacer fracasar la película.

Y ha dicho basta.

Entre los demandados esta Tatiana Siegel (famosa por escribir una pieza en la que afirmaba que Snyder era un pederasta por una secuencia de Watchmen)

THE GATES OF MEGALOPOLIS ARE OPEN!

Creo que no se ha puesto los invitados del Q&A del estreno del día 23

Ya tengo planes para el 27



El precio para socios es 5€ y 8€ respectivamente

No sé si ya se ha posteado pero Coppola le cascado 5 estrellas a su propia peli en Letterboxd!
Me encanta lo troll que es.

Bruce, ¿vas a ir el fin de semana del estreno si la exhiben en tus cines habituales?.

Yo si. De hecho, ya lo tengo todo organizado.

Ahora a rezar para que el cine de mi localidad la estrene.

Lo intentaría si se exhibiese, pero no las tengo todas conmigo. Son muchas decepciones ya. El ninguneo a Erice ya fue como para quemarlos con gasolina. Eso sí, para las chorradas mainstream perpetradas por los "sospechosos habituales" siempre tienen salas de más...