MEGALOPOLIS and other MEGA films: Francis Ford Coppola

With MEGALOPOLIS, star director Francis Ford Coppola (85) realised a long-cherished project. The first drafts of the script were written back in the early 1980s. The story: a dystopian New York at the crossroads between preservation and radical renewal, between pragmatism and vision. A New York that has come close to ancient Rome in every respect. MEGALOPOLIS is also a filmic meditation on time and transience. The old master felt this particularly keenly in April of this year: his wife, Eleanor Coppola, passed away at the age of 87. The film is dedicated to her.

MEGALOPOLIS is currently showing at the b-ware! shop cinema. A late work that also inspires a look back at Coppola’s 64 years of filmmaking. Our film art video library makes this possible:

Long before the son of composer Carmine Coppola became the star director of ‘New Hollywood’, he assisted B-movie king Roger Corman. In return, Corman produced Coppola’s early directorial work DEMENTIA 13 (1963): a splatter film about ritual family reunions, inheritances and crazy axe murderers. Even though Coppola would later direct high-budget films such as THE PATENT (1974), APOKALYPSE NOW (1979), COTTON CLUB (1984) and DRACULA (1992), he always honoured low-budget productions. In 2011, he returned to the aesthetics of early B-movies with the Edgar Allan Poe adaptation TWIXT. This horror film about the return of a dead woman is a clear homage to his former mentor Roger Corman. But Coppola’s cinematic work is by no means limited to directing. He also produced the first feature film by future STAR WARS creator George Lucas: THX1138 (1971), a dystopia about the perfect surveillance state where personal names are abolished and sexual acts are forbidden.

Last but not least, Coppola had a distribution company that brought weird masterpieces such as KOYAANISQUATSI (1984) and Abel Gance’s NAPOLEON (1927) to US cinemas.

In other words: there is a lot to discover. It’s ready for you in our DVD rental shop.