Legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola isn’t optimistic about the state of politics in the United States.
The Godfather and Apocalypse Now director warned that the U.S. is nearing the point of losing “our republic.”
“What’s happening in America, in our republic, in our democracy, is exactly how Rome lost their republic thousands of years ago,” Coppola said during a press conference Friday at the Cannes Festival where he debuted his long-in-the-works Megalopolis.
“Our politics has taken us to the point where we might lose our republic.”
Megalopolis — which Coppola funded himself to the reported tune of $120 million — depicts a futuristic New York-like city that is in the throes of decadent decline, much like the late-stage Roman empire.
Coppola later added: “My feeling was to make a Roman epic set in modern America, and I had no idea that the politics of today would make that so relevant.”
Megalopolis has sharply divided critics at Cannes, with some praising the movie’s vaulting, go-for-broke ambition, while others derided it as a hubristic folly. Adam Driver leads the cast that also includes Laurence Fishburne, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, and Jon Voight.
Coppola has yet to announce a U.S. distributor for the movie.
“America was founded on the ideas of the Roman republic,” he said at the Cannes presser. “We didn’t want a king, Rome didn’t want a king, so they invented a new form of government called the republic with the Senate and with Roman law and with all of the things which we embrace.”
“One of the things I might say about our wonderful cast is that they reflect all sorts of political ideas,” said Coppola.
