2024-10-08 07:25:00
“There are many people who, shortly before dying, say that they would have liked to do this or that, but when they are about to die I will be able to say that I was able to do this, see my daughter win an Oscar, I was able to make wine”. And I also allowed myself the pleasure of making the films I wanted. And anyway, since I’ll be so busy thinking about all the things I still have to do, I know that when I die I won’t even think about it.”
Francis Ford Coppola at the press conference Megalopolis.
Cannes Film Festival 2024
May 17, 2024
CANNES FILM FESTIVAL. 16 MAY 2024
The 23rd film directed by will be released on May 16, 2024 Francis Ford Coppola in the 77th edition of Cannes Film Festival. The premiere had a unique moment of interaction from the broadcast room to the film and vice versa. An actor gets up from the audience and at a certain moment approaches the stage, holding a microphone. It is placed in front of the screen. The frame has been cropped and the image is concentrated in the center and at the bottom, also in a rectangular format, very close to the actor, covering only 20 percent of the screen. César Catilina, the protagonist of the film, played wonderfully Adam Driverit seems that he looks at the man, and, in perfect synchrony with his question, answers him and shares with him (and with the public) a diatribe on his conception of love, on a change in the way of living in society, in a explanation that ends up converging with the conception of utopia.
At the end of its 138-minute screening, the film elicited a final ovation from the audience in the hall of the conference building, which lasted approximately 10 minutes. It seems clear Megalopolis It’s a film that belongs in the ecosystem of a film festival.
Cannes is a festival very dear to the filmmaker. In 1974 he received his first Palme d’Or for a film of extreme beauty, which summed up the conspiratorial political paranoia of the 1970s, while at the same time summarizing the essence of The steppe wolfthe magnificent novel by Herman Hessethe story of an individual and his general difficulties in relating to the world, which emotionally unravels between his humanity and his uprooting. His title: The conversation (The conversationUnited States, 1974).
In 1979, with his daughter Sofia on his shoulders, the filmmaker returned to stroll along the Croissette. This time he receives the Palme d’Or for monumental Apocalypse now (USA, 1979), his particular adaptation of The heart of darknessthe novel by Giuseppe Corradowhose story, one man’s advance up the Congo River to relieve another from his position at a company outpost in the 19th century, is extrapolated to the Vietnam War in its peak year, 1969. The prize was awarded ex aequo with The tin drum (The tin drumGermany, Poland and France 1979), from Volker Schlöndorffanother anti-war film of a very different nature. Without a doubt, that May afternoon in 1979 must have brought enormous satisfaction to the director who had spent years in the Philippines filming his magnum opus, amidst various well-known calamities.
Homage to George Lucas
The octogenarian director waited until the Festival’s closing ceremony in 2024. The wait was not trivial. His friend, disciple and contemporary George Lucas was to receive the Palme d’Or of Honor for the merits of an entire career dedicated to cinema, without which, the seventh of the arts would not have known the same evolution in terms of sound and visual effects and absolutely integration in the narrative.
Both directors have had an intense relationship since the beginning of their careers. Thanks to the management and efforts of Coppola, Luca could do for Warner Bros., THANK YOU 1138 (USA, 1971), released at Cannes. The same goes for American graffiti (USA, 1973) for Universal Pictures, a huge box office success that heralded even bigger ones. As the years went by, it would Luca for those who were there Coppola. Thanks to the first, the second was able to do it Tucker, the man and his dream (Tucker, the man and his dreamUnited States, 1988).
With great satisfaction, on Saturday 25 May, after the announcement of the prizes for the films in competition, Coppola He appears on stage where his friend is waiting for him. Megalopolis It was not among the awarded films. It didn’t matter. Being there for that wonderful week, among friends and with his family, was reward enough for an 85-year-old man who felt a mixture of “relief and joy” when he heard his well-deserved ovation. Another American film, Anora (United States, 2024), from Sean Bakerreceives the main prize, something that has never happened for an American film since Terrence Malick would have received his for The Tree of Life (The Tree of LifeUnited States, 2011).
The veteran director from Detroit presents the award to his friend, the director from Modesto, California. Luca I didn’t know it was going to show up.”his older brother, his mentor”, to present him with the award. After a moving embrace and the awarding of the Palme d’Honneur, the older brother solemnly utters some words:
“It’s a rare thing to be here to celebrate the imagination, tenacity and success of your little brother, the first one he ever had. I met George Lucas when I was a student at the University of Southern California (USC), which had a competing film school, UCLA, and he was there to see me direct my first film for a studio, with a team much bigger than me, all dressed in suits and ties. When I asked this 19-year-old, dressed casually in a sweater, who he was watching, he didn’t say much else. I was so happy to have someone of my generation that I suggested he continue to come every day, but on the sole condition that each day brought some brilliant suggestion, which he consistently did. Thus began a lifelong collaboration, as we continued to stay in touch, as I observed his brilliant ideas throughout his career, including the first musical track for one of the most successful songs of its time, a completely different soundtrack , the first film to contain a brief explanation of what happened to each character at the end, and the first film to have the credits in the middle. He continued and continues to make the history of cinema, the history of the film industry, and now he is making it in the country where cinema was born with the Lumiére brothers, and where cinema is celebrated with more passion than anywhere else to the world. I also remember, Georgewhen he returned so sad and rejected after going to the owners Flash Gordonprotagonist of a 1934 space comic, and said that he had been told that he was not important enough to entrust him with his famous character, protagonist of a series of films that he had loved so much since he was a child. He looked at me and said, “ok, I’ll make my own movie”, I’ll call it “space truck battle”. Star Wars or something like that, and he did. In the process he risked everything to achieve it. Congratulations, George. Not only do I tell you and your many friends that I am proud of you, but that the entire world is here proud to honor you.”.
Francis Ford Coppola, writer and screenwriter of Megalopolis. Photo: Phil Laruso
Megaproject
Francis Ford Coppola He had his whole life to be able to talk about his megaproject with a multitude of directors, like his dear friend and disciple George Lucas. Among the thanks, in addition to the family, there are the names of Giovanni Miliusthe screenwriter of Apocalypse nowyour editor and sound designer, Walter Murchand a group of directors as varied as they are legendary: Mike Figgis, Barry Levison, Matthew Robbins, Steven Soderbergh or the most contemporary Brad Bird, Ryan Coogler, Guillermo del Toro Yes Jon Favreau.
All these names, and others, appear among the master’s final thanks Coppola in the credits of Megalopolis and certify the passion of a filmmaker in the autumn of his life to update himself in cinematographic technique and his constant vocation for learning and personal enrichment.
It makes sense that such a revolutionary film would come and go in the minds of Coppola since the 80s of the 20th century. It is a decade in which the filmmaker has to think a lot about his next steps, as his films from the 1970s continue to be the best of his filmography and undoubtedly, in their own right, are part of the history of cinema.
In the 80s, Coppola had another extremely expensive dream: Intuition (One from the heartUSA, 1982), which crowned the previous failure of films such as Cursed Burden (SorcererUnited States, 1977), William Friedkin, New York, New York (United States, 1977) Martin Scorsese, 1941 (United States, 1979), from Steven Spielberg (this is a relative failure), or Big Wednesday (Big WednesdayUnited States, 1979), Giovanni Milius and above all the failure of Gate of Paradise (Gate of ParadiseUnited States, 1980), Michele Ciminofilms that today, with the passage of time, have the reputation of being legendary (at the time they were highly criticized), of personal works and shot within the industry, but in complete freedom, by their creators. The economic failure of such films, especially that of Ciminoin some way, the conquests (other dreams) of freedom of a generation of directors who undoubtedly changed the concept of cinema forever sank for the industry.
Hollywood tightened ranks around producers, limiting the power of filmmakers and using the failure of such films as an excuse. With the passing of the last representatives of this generation of filmmakers, an entire era and a specific way of making cinema will disappear. Unlike the other failures mentioned (relative, we insist, in the case of the film Spielberg), where production companies that had invested in their budgets lost money, the bankruptcy of Intuition It was for the artist (the budget of almost 30 million dollars was provided by the director from his own pocket). Coppola is bankrupt.
Megalopolis It was already in his head, but now wasn’t the time.
Official poster of Megalopoli. Triphoto
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