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Megalopolis Can Only Imagine Genius As a Brand
Francis Ford Coppola’s passion project about a visionary architect is a banal paean to stale ideas about great men.
In Catilina’s swashbuckling conviction in the would-be utopia he’s trying to build, and in his clashes with mayoral nemesis Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito) and the Establishment he represents, you can see a frustrated auteur railing against the business-oriented executives who want to deny him the resources and permission to make his masterpiece. But the truth is that his self-described fable, for all its focus on a singular talent gifted with the ability to literally stop time, doesn’t end up being about the need for boundary-breaking ideas so much as it’s a plea for the continuing relevance and indulgence of men like his revolutionary hero. In fact, when Catalina finally unveils his project, he placates the rioting masses who’ve gathered at its gates by saying something along the lines of a point that Coppola himself has repeated in interviews, that “we are in need of a great debate about the future.” It’s a laughably underwhelming statement — people talk about, fret over, and express hope for the future all the time.
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