(Toronto) Giancarlo Esposito read the screenplay for the first time Megalopolis by Francis Ford Coppola more than twenty years ago, and he says that in some ways it seems more relevant today.
The actor, who plays corrupt prosecutor-turned-mayor Francis Cicero in Coppola’s $120 million self-financed passion project, says that when he returned to the project decades later, he marveled that something so long in the making could remain so relevant.
“I wonder if Francis has a crystal ball. How did he do that?” Esposito said in an interview at the Toronto International Film Festival.
The film, a sci-fi fable about a moody architect’s efforts to save his declining city, pits a visionary against the “establishment” – represented by Esposito – while a well-funded populist conspires to seize power.
The film is inspired by the Catiline Conspiracy of 63 BC, in which Roman aristocrat Lucius Sergius Catiline planned to take control of the government and cancel all debts – including his own – until Roman consul Marcus Tullius Cicero exposed the plot and accused him of treason, maintaining the status quo.
Coppola’s film is set in a futuristic New York City known as New Rome, with the director reimagining the original story’s villain, Catiline, as his hero: Caesar Catiline, played by Adam Driver.
If Catiline’s conspiracy had ended differently, Coppola seems to ask in the film, could the Roman Empire have survived?
PHOTO COURTESY OF LIONSGATE
Adam Driver and Nathalie Emmanuel in Megalopolis
Perhaps the key to Coppola’s apparent prescience, Esposito says, is that he looked back, noting that tragedy seemed to repeat itself again and again in contemporary American politics.
“I think about the cyclical nature of what we’re going through and how history repeats itself,” he explained.
He was initially inspired by David Dinkins, the first black mayor of New York.
Esposito said that, like Mayor Cicero, Dinkins failed to achieve his goals during his tenure, from 1990 to 1993.
“As we moved forward in the process of making the film, another person, a newly elected Eric Adams, became someone to watch,” he said.
“Not only by the way he behaved, but also by the fact that he was a former police commissioner, someone who worked in law enforcement, that also played a role in my thinking about how we control the masses.”
Megalopolis premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in France earlier this year and received very mixed reviews. Some criticized the project as a bloated and overly complex mess, while others praised its ingenuity and willingness to explore complex themes.
Esposito said he was pleased with the film’s reception at the European festival, but he’s more eager for North American audiences to see it. The film screened at TIFF on Monday and was scheduled to play again on Tuesday. It’s scheduled to be released in Canada on September 27.
“This round really counts,” he said.
” Megalopolis is a film that reflects not only a global message, but also a North American message in many ways.”
The Toronto International Film Festival runs until Sunday.