Francis Ford Coppola touches politics as he discusses his new film Megacity On Monday, it was suggested that the upcoming presidential election may reflect the fall of Rome.
In a conversation at the New York Film Festival (which was also broadcast live to 65 theaters in the U.S. and Canada with support from Imax), Coppola joined Robert De Niro and Spike Lee to talk about His long journey making “Romans.”
The film follows the conflict between Cesar (played by Adam Driver) and his opposition mayor, Franklin Cicero (played by Giancarlo Esposito). A gifted artist of a utopian future, while his opposition mayor, Franklin Cicero, remains committed to a regressive status quo.
“People always say to me, ‘Why would you want to make a movie about Rome in America?’ Well, today, America is Rome, and they’re about to go through the same experience, and for the same reasons, Rome lost its republic and ended up It was very prescient to make a movie about America as Rome because it would be done in a matter of months,” Coppola declared. “It’s the same reason; Rome was so prosperous at that time, Rome was making a lot of money, so the senators were actually very interested in their own power and their own wealth, and they weren’t running the country. The same thing happened here. Our Senate and representatives are wealthy, they wield power instead of running the country, and then we are in danger of losing it.
“Back in Rome, did they eat cats and dogs?” Lee deadpanned, referring to Donald Trump’s comments about immigration during a recent debate.
Coppola also explained that he “deliberately put people in the movie that he didn’t agree with. I mean, there were actors in the movie who voted the other way, there were people who were canceled…and we were in the movie, We work together happily and creatively,” seemingly referring to co-stars Jon Voight, Shia LaBeouf and Dustin Hoffman.
“I didn’t want them to say, ‘Oh, this is a woke movie, this is just a political issue.'” I think we transcended politics in making this movie, but we still liked each other and were involved and making it together This movie,” he continued. “So I hope we can work even with people who disagree with us [achieve] Higher goals. The filmmaker added that the film specifically calls on viewers to have a debate about the future, “I want everyone to be part of this debate. I want no questions to be allowed.”
Elsewhere in the conversation, the group discussed how they each met, how Coppola sold the family wine company to finance the film, and his insistence on calling godfather sequel The Godfather Part II: “I’m an idiot and started this because there were numbers on the back of the movie. So I apologize.
Li revealed that he had already watched Megacity He told NYU students about the film: “My brother continues to amaze me; his fearlessness, like he’ll do whatever it takes to get the job done, that’s the bottom line.
De Niro noted that decades ago, when Coppola was working on another film, he did a table read for the film with Paul Newman and Uma Thurman, continuing the evening’s political theme.
“I’m worried. I’ve seen similar things in Francis’s movies and so on,” he told the audience. “To me, it’s not over until it’s over, and we have to put our heart and soul into defeating the Republicans — those Republicans, who are not real Republicans. Defeat Trump. It’s that simple. We can’t let that kind of guy run this country.” .Everyone has to get out and vote, and we have to make it very clear what America is.
As Coppola briefly mentioned, he went to military school with Trump – “I was poor, so I was the tuba player in the band, and he was rich, so he was at headquarters where they could play on ‘Taps ‘Then leaving the lights on he couldn’t do anything structured.
Megacity Opens Friday.
