When Francis Ford Coppola finally started work on his retrofuturist ancient Rome drama-parable Megalopolis (the self-funded passion project he had been nurturing for decades), he invited another director to be a fly on the wall and make a record of his work in progress. This was Mike Figgis, whose limber digital film-making skills were ideal for the task. The result is a thoroughly watchable, respectful, valuable and intimate account of a great film-maker at work – particularly rehearsing actors, a part of directing very rarely shown. (Coppola takes his cast through some wacky exploratory games, like an experimental theatre company.)
It’s always impressive to see the indomitable Coppola in full rhetorical flow: holding forth, opining, schooling one and all on what happens when a film is made and how glorious it is to spend and even lose money in the service of cinema. Coppola is always entrepreneurially magnificent on this subject. And before this documentary, I had thought that Alfred Hitchcock was the last director on earth who came to work in a collar and tie. No: it’s Coppola.
Figgis is tactfully silent over reports of Coppola’s inappropriate behaviour with female supporting actors on set – that is a flaw, though he does cover Coppola sacking his entire VFX team midway through the shoot. Megalopolis cost $120m (£98m) (at least) that Coppola put up himself by selling part of his wine business, and Figgis shrewdly breaks down these eye-watering costs – up to $20,000 (£15,000) a day on catering for big crowd scenes.
Yet what Figgis does mostly is concentrate on Coppola’s attitude to working with his stars, young and old. And there are tender and moving moments showing Eleanor Coppola making set and location visits; that is, Francis’s now late wife (herself a brilliant fly-on-the-wall documentarian who made Hearts of Darkness, about Apocalypse Now). Figgis also shows some rows, including endless arguments with the insufferably difficult Shia LaBeouf, but there are interesting and more relaxed and genial interviews with Jon Voight, Aubrey Plaza and Dustin Hoffman. We also get video clips of the table read from 2001, the last time this project almost got off the ground, with Uma Thurman and Robert De Niro.
I still can’t be convinced that Megalopolis is anything other than an (honourable) failure. But Figgis’s documentary is an absorbing success.
• Megadoc screened at the Venice film festival.
