Starring: Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel and Shia LaBeouf
Distributor: Madman Entertainment
Runtime: 138 mins. Reviewed in Sep 2024
Reviewer: Peter W Sheehan
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This science fiction drama is set in an imagined America being rebuilt after a disaster. The film is directed to link the future of the US with the fall of Rome.
Cesar Catilina (Driver) is an idealistic architect, who clashes with a corrupt mayor, Franklyn Cicero (Esposito), in efforts to rebuild the destroyed city of New York. The film reunites Francis Ford Coppola with multiple collaborators he has used in the past. The destroyed New York is a ‘New Rome’, and Catilina has the task of building a new utopia. The mayor of ‘New Rome’ wants to preserve the status quo, and there is serious conflict between the two. Catilina’s life is complicated by the fact he has fallen in love with Cicero’s daughter Julia (Emmanuel)l, who is dazzled by the influence and power which Cicero yields –Cicero can even change time. Coppola spent US$120 million of his own money to mount the film.
In Coppola’ eyes, the fall of Rome sets the stage for a better US. His film was partially inspired by the Roman historian and political writer, Gaius Sallustius Crispus (Sallust, 86-35/34 BCE), who was a Roman statesman, historian and politician of the Roman Republic. The film draws explicit parallels between the fall of Rome and the future of the US, and it uses characters drawn from a factual Roman conspiracy, that was a major threat to the welfare of the Roman Republic.
The film is Coppola’s personal comment on the future of the US. Cicero wants answers to humanity’s pressing needs, and they have relevance to Coppola’s desire for a better US.
The film is an extraordinarily ambitious project that stretches the imagination at almost every turn. It has a unique style that references classical history in a highly liberal and creative way. It freely mixes psychedelic drug trips with political debates; puts chariot races into Madison Square Garden; designs art deco scenarios to intentionally solicit surprise reactions; and it embeds the film’s plotline into the politics of Ancient Rome to raise pointed questions about contemporary US political and social issues.
Coppola uses incredible imagery to fuel his intent. He has a fertile imagination, and the film runs riot with it. He combines a mixture of melodrama with emotionally-filled science fiction, and fuses them together in a way that is reminiscent of Fritz Lang’s 1927 film, Metropolis, which Coppola (at 85 years of age) admires greatly. This is a film that is filled with utter invention. It is highly critical of where the US is heading, and it makes for original viewing.
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