A movie almost 47 years in the making, with maverick director Francis Ford Coppola first being hit with the idea of writing a story paralleling the Roman Republic and the United States by retelling a revisionist take on the Catilinarian Conspiracy, Megalopolis (2024) finally released in 2024. The film sparked much debate and left audiences feeling perplexed, both in terms of its film styles and tonality, as well as the messaging it aimed to impart. This is a small attempt to decode the film and what it truly wants to say.
Megalopolis (2024) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
Who are the primary players of New Rome?
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New Rome, an alternate version of the United States, is implied to be what the Roman Empire would have been if it had continued unfettered into the modern age, mutating itself into a capitalistic endeavor rather than a monarchistic nation. This New Rome still maintains the class division of that era, with the society dominated by Patrician families. Unlike their ancestors, whose decadent enjoyment would be displayed to the rest of the working class unfettered, the decadence is strictly behind closed doors.
Julia Cicero’s (Nathalie Emmanuel) night out involves debauchery with the Pulcher sisters and her rebuffing of the advances of their brother Clodio Pulcher (Shia Labeouf). It is while returning home that she comes across the demolition of a building led by mysterious visionary architect Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver).
But more importantly, she is able to witness Catilina managing to stop time immediately after pressing the detonator and then resume time again. The protagonist of the film, or at least one of them, turns out to be Cesar Catilina, a genius and visionary Patrician architect. He would win the Nobel Prize for discovering the magical metal Megalon. He also has the power to stop time.
Catilina is praised as a visionary and the shining light to push Rome towards a newer future away from the slowly crumbling United States, having managed to sway the solely rich Patrician Hamilton Crassus III (Jon Voight), who is also his uncle. But Catilina is also heavily drowning in alcoholism, mourning the loss of his wife. His enmity with the new mayor of the city, Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), is primarily due to Cicero having persecuted him for murdering her. Though Catilina would be acquitted, he suffers from crushing guilt, believing his wife had killed herself due to Cesar working too long and not paying attention to her. His single-minded obsession with his dream and his pining for his lost love lead to Cesar being unable to grant his heart to his mistress, trade reporter Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza), who finally leaves him.
Catilina’s dream would be revealed when he would call for a highly televised press conference over the newly demolished site. While Cicero promises a new casino, free of construction delays and capable of bringing in new revenue, Catilina’s plan is to bring forth a city of forever and not let the “now” destroy the “forever” entirely.
This of course leads to a fierce altercation between Cicero and Catilina, with Julia taking the side of her father and, in a drug-fueled haze, sending a childish letter to Catilina. The next morning, as an act of consternation and also to perhaps facilitate a go-between for the two of them, she goes to meet Catilina at his office. The two of them dislike each other: Catilina for her purposelessness and apparent vapidity, and Julia for his selfishness and arrogance. However, Caitilina is intrigued when he learns of Julia having seen him be able to stop time while remaining unaffected by that process. He is further intrigued when she is able to follow his instructions and visualize his dream of Megalopolis through the ramshackle model of the city, congruently sharing Catilina’s view of the school city, capable of growing and evolving with its inhabitants.
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Julia’s intrigue deepens as she follows Caesar into the insulae—poorer, neglected areas of New Rome that receive little attention and support. Within this foggy and smoky world, where we see statues built of concrete being destroyed or torn apart due to acidic rain, we watch as Cesar rebuilds a memory of his old apartment, the flower place from where he would buy roses for his wife, and walk into the hotel, where it is essentially implied that his wife would have spent her last days.
As Cesar walks into that room, followed unbeknownst by Julia, with the two of them unaware of being followed by a jealous Clodio, Julia witnesses Cesar affectionately whispering sweet nothings into thin air, though he would actually be spending time with the apparition of his wife, content to spend the last few moments of his life, using his ability to manipulate time. This allows her to slowly understand him and perhaps fall for him, as his vision for utopia would allow for the preservation of an olden institution like marriage.
What happens at the Colosseum?
Meanwhile, Wow Platinum seduces and manipulates Crassus Hamilton III into marrying her. They would throw a decadent wedding reception at Madison Square Garden (basically the 3rd iteration of the Madison Square Garden, interspersed with the visual identity of the Colosseum, to recall a picture of the debauchery prevalent during the Roman Empire, as well as the carnival freak shows and circuses that had been a staple of that era during the 40s). The headline of that reception would be under the hands of pop star Vesta Sweetwater, ensuring the continuation of the puritanical society of New Rome by promising to remain chaste until marriage.
Within the reception, as Julia, who has taken the role of Cesar’s personal secretary, tries hard to bring Cesar back to sanity as he goes on a drug-fueled bender, Clodio works behind the scenes to neutralize the rise of Catilina. He waits until the final moments of Vesta’s performance to hijack the video feed and leak paparazzi footage of Cesar and Vesta caught having sex. This leads to Cicero condemning Catilina and announcing the forcible stepping down from the post of the head of Design of Authority.
Meanwhile, Cesar, heavily involved in brawls while in the middle of the bender, is arrested by Cicero for statutory rape. Julia vehemently protests against that arrest and chooses to investigate with the help of one of the Pulcher sisters. They discover that not only Vesta had lied about being born in the US, but that she had actually faked her age and was actually in her twenties. She tries to go to her father and convince him about Cesar’s innocence, but Cicero’s distrust over Cesar’s flexible morality doesn’t allow him to see things her way, and he tears the document. Nonetheless, she presents proof exonerating Caesar, as the District Attorney reveals that the footage had been doctored. Ironically, the revelation of Vesta’s real age allows her to rebrand herself as a teenage rebel pop star.
However, within this trauma, Cesar finds himself lacking the power to stop time. Lamenting the loss of his power, and thus, in a way, his creativity, it is rejuvenated when he is asked to stop time under Julia. Holding her hand, he tries to stop time and is successful. This brings them together in a creative as well as romantic collaboration.
What occurred after the crash of the Carthage satellite?
Multiple things converge at a similar time. Cicero dreams about a hand snuffing out the moonlight, and Catilina levels an entire neighborhood for the creation of Megalopolis, leading to Clodio finally germinating with the idea of standing up as a crusader and driving the crowd over a frenzy. Meanwhile, a social satellite, ironically named Carthage, crashes into New Rome, destroying much of New Rome. In a press conference, when asked for a new way forward, Cesar argues for a utopia where love could drive the way while allowing for questions and thoughts about newer artistic methodologies to be raised and supported. He begins to build Megalopolis over the ruins of New Rome, financing it with his own familial fortune.
Julia tries to be the bridge between Cesar and his sorrow and guilt, mildly assuaging it with news of her pregnancy. She also tries to bring forth a kinship and provide a table for Cicero and Cesar to exchange ideas and philosophy regarding Cesar’s utopia and its practical implications, but Cicero finally walks out of the room when he learns about Julia’s pregnancy. Meanwhile, Nush Berman, the fixer, takes the strand of suspicion regarding Clodio’s involvement in Catilina’s imprisonment, but it is heavily implied that he would be murdered by Clodio. Clodio, meanwhile, acting as a thinly veiled allegory of Trump, becomes a populist leader, preying on the fears of the New Rome “plebs”—the uneducated and the unemployed.
Meanwhile, Cicero visits Catilina at his home in the Chrysler Building and requests Cesar to leave Julia, in exchange for Cicero revealing that he had known about Cesar’s wife having killed herself and maliciously prosecuting him anyway. Cesar is implied to have agreed, even though he bids Cicero adieu by reminding him that it is impossible to stare at two things for long—the sun and one’s own soul.
How does Wow Platinum orchestrate a hostile takeover?
Wow tries to force Cesar to leave Julia and marry her, implying that she will soon have power over Crassus Bank. When he refuses, Wow learns about banking from Crassus, enough to freeze Cesar’s accounts. Unbeknownst to her and Clodio, Clodio’s right-hand man orders a hit on Cesar, leading to Cesar being shot outside the construction site of Megalopolis. The doctors would use Megalon as well as a strand of Sunny Hope’s hair to rebuild Cesar’s skull and muscles from the inside.
The trauma and the event of that incident rattle his brain, and in his daze, he reveals to Julia the secret of Megalon. It was born out of his sadness and desperation after losing his wife, who drove her car off a bridge to kill herself upon learning of Caesar’s infidelity. She would also be pregnant at that time, and visions that Cesar apparently hallucinates reveal that she had been pregnant with twins.
Wow tries to convince the injured and somewhat delusional Cesar again, reminding him that he could simply ask for the unfreezing of his accounts if he accepted Wow’s proposal, but he refuses. Wow, not deterred, seduces Clodio into working with her, hatching a plan to name him interim CEO while both Clodio and Wow orchestrate a hostile takeover. While the plan doesn’t pass muster in front of Caesar, he has a stroke upon learning of that plan and collapses.
Megalopolis (2024) Movie Ending Explained:
Does Cesar’s Megalopolis ultimately get built?
The Saturnalia festival of December coincides with Cesar and Julia’s marriage, as well as Crassus’ removal from the board of Crassus Bank by Wow and Clodio. While that occurs, Clodio drives the mob to a frenzy, resulting in riots outside the Capitol. City Hall and the construction at Megalopolis. Cesar manages to quieten the mob down by asking them to believe, to tear down the shackles and the slums that the people running the world strive to push them into, to believe in his urbanist utopia, to believe in their dreams, and to allow to exist with living with the option of fulfilling that dream.
This corresponds to Wow and Clodio sneaking into Crassus’ room to taunt him, only for Crassus, who had been pretending to be paralyzed and bedridden, to kill Wow with a hidden bow and arrow disguised as his erection (yeah, I can’t believe I am writing this), while embedding two of the arrows into Clodio’s behind. While Clodio is rescued from those arrows, due to it being pulled out, his team wouldn’t be safe from the crowd, who, having been emboldened by Cesar, kill him by hanging him upside down.
Crassus invokes the contingency clause, leaving all his patents and his wealth towards Megalopolis. On New Year’s Eve, with the inaugural opening of the utopia of Megalopolis, Cesar promises Cicero that he will build a future for Cesar and Julia’s child. But as Cesar wonders whether they have time to accomplish so much, and they kiss, Julia stops time, but only the baby Sunny Hope remains unaffected.
Megalopolis (2024) Movie Themes and Contexts:
The Catilinarian Conspiracy – A Revisionist take
“Megalopolis” is heavily inspired by the Second Catilinarian Conspiracy of 63 BC, which states that after the defeat of Lucius Sergius Catilinia (Catiline) in the consular elections of the previous year, he would assemble a coalition of people against the current consulate and plan a coup d’etat to throw the consul led by Marcus Tullius Cicero and Gaius Antonius Hybrida by force. In November of 63 BC, Cicero exposed the conspiracy, causing Catiline to flee Rome and raise an army at Etruria. In December of 63 BC, nine more conspirators were discovered by Cicero and executed at the senate without trial. The plot would finally come to an end in January of 62 BC when Cicero would finally defeat Catiline in battle.
Critics argue that the entire conspiracy was orchestrated by Cicero as a means of cementing his legacy and ensuring the lasting impact of his consulship in history. According to historian KH Waters, Catiline had been forced to depart Rome due to false charges being implicated upon him and would create an army by joining with fellow insurgents united under a common cause. Most historians, though, reject Waters and fellow historian Robin Seager’s take but do concede exaggeration of the events under Cicero’s perspective.
Interestingly while Catiline would pass away, and Publius Clodius Pulcher would exile Cicero after charging him with overreach, Cicero would publish his four Catilinarian Orations in written form. Ultimately though, one of the two major backers of Catiline, Julius Caesar (the other being Crassus), would take on the role of a populist politician and soon take over the Roman Republic, paving the bloody way towards the Empire.
According to Sam Wasson’s The Path To Paradise (2023), Coppola would read about the story of Catiline in the book Twelve Against the Gods (William Bolitho Ryall) and would outline a plot idea about Catiline and whether his idea to remake Ancient Rome had been actually a better one. And how that revision would have impacted history.
The section of the film where Franklin Cicero denounces Catilina for sleeping with Vesta Sweetwater, with video footage of their consummation leaked by Clodio Pulcher, is taken heavily from history. In the first Catilinarian Oration by Cicero, he strongly denounces Catiline for having slept with a vestal virgin, which is punishable by death, as well as accuses Catiline of having murdered his first wife, whose iteration too drives this film’s plot. A paraphrased version of that entire speech would be stated by Cicero in the film, with Cesar Catilina arrested for statutory rape before being finally exonerated by Julia Cicero’s investigation into Vesta’s origins.
References and Revisionist Takes of the Roman Republic
The Roman architecture and symbolism, along with a similar class structure of patricians and plebeians, mirror the social hierarchy of ancient Rome, with the patricians holding most of the wealth. However, this version of America, or ‘New Rome,’ is also burdened by debt, with nearly all remaining wealth concentrated in the hands of Hamilton Crassus III.
The echoing of Roman symbolism doesn’t stop there. As explained in the previous article, a majority of the second act takes place in the Colosseum, which is in itself a reimagining of Madison Square Garden. According to Coppola, though, this iteration of Madison Square Garden is much more reminiscent of the third iteration of said Madison Square Garden (1925–1968), which would be famous in and of itself for exhibitions of circus and major carnival acts.
The decay of the Roman Empire as it stands, as well as the decay of existing capitalism, is showcased by Cesar’s trip to what he calls “Purgatory,” where we witness older buildings and statues breaking apart as marble, and thus the spirit of the city itself is weakened on its dying days. The people live in abject poverty, facing a lack of education and high unemployment.
The revisionist take of Clodio Pulcher (Shia Labeouf) is in itself a reference to Publius Clodius Pulcher (92–52 BC), who would turn out to be a noted rival to Cicero as well as being capable of utilizing aristocratic connections and garnering mass support as a populist politician. However, this iteration of Clodio is also referenced as being heavily in an incestuous relationship with his sisters, which hearkens back to Roman Emperor Caligula having an incestuous relationship with all three of his sisters. The most obvious parallel is Clodio becoming a thinly veiled allegory of Donald Trump as he incites the mob to an insurrection. Clodio’s death, on the other hand, feels very much like a heavy-handed reference to the death of dictator Benito Mussolini, whose body would be hung upside down from the roof of a service station.
The Carthage reference is a laughable and a wilder one in context. The conflict between Ancient Carthage and the Roman Republic would result in three Punic Wars. The Third Punic War (149–146 BC), which would take place entirely within Carthage (currently Tunisia), would result in a decisive war that would force Carthage to surrender. In 146 BC, the Republic, determined to keep Carthage in ruin, would launch a systematic demolition attack that would destroy the city of Carthage and kill its inhabitants.
In the film, the Soviet satellite titled Carthage, falling over New Rome, would be simultaneously a revisionist take of history as well as Coppola’s heavy-handed reference to the destruction and loss faced by the United States post-9/11. Considering that “Megalopolis” has been in development since 1977, the inclusion of a version of this storyline isn’t too out of place.
What does Cesar’s control of time ultimately mean?
The power to stop time by Cesar becomes a literal personification of an artist’s ability to stop time or constrict and expand time within his own stories and creations. So while everything remains frozen around him, he or his creative genius works overtime to figure out a solution. This strain of creative genius is implied to be shared by only a select few characters open-minded enough to look beyond the usual constraints of New Roman society.
This leads to the connection between Julia and Cesar when Julia reveals having seen Cesar utilize his power before the demolition of the building site. When Cesar, post the bender and imprisonment, finds himself unable to utilize his power of stopping time, it is heavily implied that the trauma of that event caused a creative block, which would only be opened by a collaboration, both artistic and romantic, with Julia Cicero.
What is Megalon?
Akin to the older sci-fi epics of the 1920s or 1930s like “Metropolis” (1927), or “Things to Come” (1935), “Megalopolis” deals with ideas rather than detailed conceptualizations of said ideas. Megalon is believed to have been created from an emotional and creative outburst of imagination by Cesar, post the death of his wife.
It works as a liquid metal responsible for crafting essentially organic architecture under the control of human sensibilities and imagination, as well as crafting as a mirror or as an emotional sensor, as evidenced by the metal showing the scenes of Sunny Hope’s suicide when Cesar is wracked with guilt, or with the metal changing color during the dinner-table conversation between Cicero, Cesar, and Julia. Megalon along with a locket of Sunny Hope’s hair, becomes an elixir in bringing Cesar not only back to life, but also heavily hinting at his daughter being infused with the same material, and thus for that similar reason being immune to the power of time stoppage.
According to Coppola’s interview with Architectural Digest, the idea for Megalon came from designer and former professor Neri Oxman’s ideas about mediated matter, while the architectural designs, resembling organic lifeforms and wavy structural patterns, came from architect Antoni Gaudi’s designs. The idea of Megalon could also be a reference to Rearden Metal, the lighter alloy stronger than conventional steel, that is referenced in Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged.
What does Coppola’s Magnum Opus actually want to say?
The heavy association of the Roman Republic with the American present isn’t simply a world-building exercise. Similar to how he recontextualized Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad for the Vietnam War, he wanted to recontextualize the Catiline Conspiracy for the modern day. He also believes “Megalopolis” to be a commentary on America, especially the darkened future that America is leading towards similar to that of the Roman Empire. Coppola’s belief had been that considering the founding fathers had borrowed ideas from the Roman senate for the creation of their own democracy, he believes that learning from history and this recontextualized tale would work as a suitable commentary on American society.
Or at the very least that’s what he believes because the messaging in this movie is heavily muddled. On the one hand, it is a film about the grandiosity as well as the effectiveness of the artistic vision, and the freedom that should be afforded to that same artistic vision to succeed, rather than be dragged down. There is a heavy meta-commentary of his own obsession with bringing his magnum opus to fruition with Cesar Catilina’s own obsession with his urbanist utopia.
But while “Megalopolis” clearly feels heavily indebted to Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” (1927), where the aloof rich man and the idealist dreamer fall in love and come together to create a new future, Coppola is heavily on the side of Cesar, the character he entrusts not just the future of this utopia, but also names his son as Francis. That is partly self-insertion and partly just Coppola bafflingly losing the plot. The Metropolis connections also don’t hold because unlike Metropolis where Lang would bring the character of Fredrer to the lower levels, allowing his rose-tinted glasses to fade away, Coppola is less interested in the exploration of the plebians, instead focusing on the insanities and inanities of the Patrician high society.
I do think Coppola’s optimism about men embracing their dreams to battle against injustices and working together to build a utopia runs counter to a singular creative person holding the power to change the world only after he has suffered majestically. After all his main character itself is an inverted representation of architect Robert Moses, who would be responsible for New York’s infrastructure but would be heavily criticized for not favoring minorities. Instead, Cesar Catalina would be an Ayn-Randian representation of Robert Moses, finally taking the reins of bringing in change for all walks of society. So his optimism is in and of itself giving power to an enlightened genius, which is again such a confused and naive prospect.
The movie ends again as a homage to another Lang film – “M” – with an impassioned plea for the children, though in a completely different context than that 1931 masterpiece. But the question and the impassioned plea for the species of this world, so capable of creating wonders, to create a better world for their children, feels strangely naive and yet moving, struggling to move past the love for the central character and the “great man” narrative.
