THE EPIC INSTINCT: In praise of Francis Ford Coppola

We’re a few weeks out from Cannes 2024. 85 year old Francis Ford Coppola returns to the festival with his epic, self-financed, decades in the making Megalopolis.

So far the word on the street is that the movie is. . . .a mess. Stories of previews leaving potential studio buyers stunned and confused are making the rounds.

But there’s a deeper story here. Good or bad or somewhere in between or beyond the realm of description, Megalopolis represents the kind of risky director driven picture Hollywood would sometimes make in its past. But almost NEVER makes anymore.

And Coppola has had the epic instinct from the beginning. The Godfather 1 & 2, Apocalypse Now, One From the Heart. Coppola has been willing again and again to put his reputation on the line because of an internal drive to do something mind-blowing. Even his more intimate movies like The Rain People, The Conversation, Rumble Fish, Tetro showcase a restless director searching out some kind of original way of communicating things cinematically.

Coppola himself has acknowledged that he’s a restless experimenter and innovator who may have genius but no talent. While that statement at first blush could be read as egoistic, it actually feels quite self-aware. Coppola points to someone like Steven Spielberg as having “God given” filmmaking talent. Talent Coppola himself doesn’t feel he has. Instead, Coppola has a story sense, a writer’s sense, and an insatiable drive to be great.

What’s always been fascinating to this writer is how the story of Francis Ford Coppola’s long, varied moviemaking career is inspiring, terrifying, and cautionary all at once. Coppola’s 1970’s run of The Godfather 1, The Conversation, The Godfather 2, and Apocalypse Now made back to back to back to back is about as great a run as ANY director in the history of cinema has had. Only Hitchcock’s Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, The Birds run, Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria, La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2, Juliet of the Spirits run, or Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, Sanjuro, High and Low, Red Beard run feel comparable.

In other words, a run so great it belongs in the pantheon of all-time runs.

But after Apocalypse Now, Coppola had an even longer more painful period of near bankruptcy, debt, and unbearable stress. It wasn’t until the take-off of his side wine business in the 1990’s that Coppola fully and truly came out of a very troubling, dark period.

And now, at 85, Coppola is about to return to Cannes (where he won the Palm D’Or for The Conversation and Apocalypse Now in the 1970’s) with his most controversial and buzzed about movie (for better or worse) SINCE Apocalypse.

In fairness and in commitment to some kind of objective truth, this writer feels compelled to admit that IT WILL be a big bummer if Megalopolis turns out to be more disaster than diamond. This writer doesn’t think a moviemaker should get a pass just because of their past body of work. For cinema to continue and thrive, we all of us have to be involved in the collective project of trying to make TRULY great work. And we owe each other the respect of honest candid appraisal. Otherwise word of mouth and real value will lose its critical currency.

At the same time, whatever Megalopolis’s ultimate fate, there is something inspiring in an 80-something moviemaker like Coppola swinging for the fences and taking REAL chances.

Coppola feels like he’s sending a message to the current generation. To all of us who believe in cinema and want to continue to make it great for generations to come. Coppola’s Megalopolis, good, bad, indifferent, failure, or mixed bag, is the kind of movie a visionary director makes because their heart beats to the rhythm of the epic instinct of the maverick. Kubrick’s heart, Robert Altman’s heart, David Lean’s heart, Tarkovsky’s heart all felt attuned to a similar rhythm.

This isn’t to downplay more recent amazing moviemakers like James Cameron, Peter Jackson, Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino, Alfonso Cuaron, or Paul Thomas Anderson, all of whom have made epic movies that have swung for the fences.

But it is to put the spotlight on a moviemaker who has put his reputation and his money on the line again and again and again and again. I’m not sure any of us could have the fortitude that Coppola has demonstrated across four decades now. At some point, most of us don’t want to get smacked by the two by four of chance anymore.

But Francis Ford Coppola is a moviemaker possessed. Driven by some deep internal need to try to do the near impossible each time out.

It’s commendable. It’s inspiring. It’s horrifying. It’s amazing.

Craig Hammill is the founder.programmer of Secret Movie Club.