In Defense of Megalomania. Plus...

Summer is over and, if you care about culture, thank God. We called it early: It was a season of flops. But has fall finally brought America something worth watching? We dispatched some intrepid Free Pressers to find out—and today, we’re bringing you their verdicts on what’s showing, right now, at a theater near you.

First up, our resident culture vulture Kat Rosenfield has been to see Megalopolis, the scandal-plagued passion project of the man who gave us The Godfather. Francis Ford Coppola wrote this insanely ambitious script in the ’80s, then waited for technology to catch up. When it did, no major studio wanted to finance the $120 million production. Coppola literally sold part of his vineyard so he could pay for Megalopolis himself.

What’s the film actually about? The fall of the Roman Empire. Except in New York. And in the future. Also, Adam Driver is there. “It's like an ice cream sundae served in a vat the size of the Trevi Fountain,” writes Kat. “Or, because no compromises, maybe in the actual fountain itself.” Scroll down to read her full verdict.

Meanwhile, friend of The Free Press Paula Froelich has been to see Demi Moore’s new horror film, The Substance. It’s about Elisabeth Sparkle, an Oscar-winning actress who gets fired from her TV show on her 50th birthday—by a man who says things like “We need young, hot—now!!” After that, Elisabeth starts injecting herself with a substance that promises to make her “young, hot—now.” Gruesome things happen.

In her essay, Paula—also a woman who is 50 and works in television—explains why a horror movie is the perfect vehicle for expressing the dread of being a woman who’s fighting to stay young. Confronted with the idea that Hollywood might reject them, men trade in their vineyards to keep making movies. And women get plastic surgery.

To be called a megalomaniac is not, generally speaking, a good thing. The word is synonymous with the worst sort of ambition, the kind of infamy that makes a man recognizable by just one name. Napoleon. Hitler. Mao. The megalomaniac is obsessed with power, and not just amassing it but exercising it, wielding it, using it to shape the world. He is Shelley’s Ozymandias, immortalized in stone at the height of his powers: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

But there’s another type of guy who comes in for the megalomaniac label—one who wields power in a world entirely of his own creation. His mania is for making art, not war. And when you look on his works, what do you feel? Maybe despair, or awe, or terror, or exhilaration. Maybe what you see makes you ache, or weep.

Maybe you can’t look away.

Some people think Francis Ford Coppola is a megalomaniac. A lot of these people are saying so right now, as his long-awaited and ironically titled new film, Megalopolis, arrives in theaters. But it has been said before.

Coppola was one of the first directors to emerge as a star in his own right, out of an era when the studio system ruled the creative process with an iron grip. His 1972 triumph The Godfather, which he directed at the age of 29, is not the movie that launched his career; he was already an Academy Award-winning screenwriter when he was tapped to helm the project. But it did earn him the reputation—for which he is either revered or reviled, depending on who you ask—for being an uncompromising visionary. 

The film was marked by a continuous war between Coppola and the studio—over the expensive but authentic choice to film in New York, and over the casting of a then-unknown Al Pacino and a “washed-up” Marlon Brando in the lead roles. He later described the battle for creative control as “the most frightening and depressing experience I think I’ve ever had,” but it was an experience he would have repeatedly.

No studio would green-light his 1979 Vietnam War epic, Apocalypse Now, because Coppola wanted something they wouldn’t give him: to own the rights to his own movie. So Coppola went rogue, cobbling together the money from other sources—including his own bank account.

The resulting film was nominated for eight Academy Awards, but the greater triumph was in the director’s refusal to cede ownership, ensuring a future in which he could resurrect any darlings he’d killed at the altar of marketability. In 2001, he released a 202-minute director’s cut, Apocalypse Now Redux. Depending who you ask, it is a work of either unparalleled genius or utter masturbatory excess.

To keep reading, click here. . . 

Over the summer I was at a dinner party in the Hamptons when a friend of a certain age—still a society staple but not getting as many invites as she used to—suddenly pounded her fist on the table and screamed: “I AM INVISIBLE! EVERY WOMAN OVER 60 IS!” 

It was awkward and unexpected. We had been discussing the vagaries of traffic. And here she was, furious not only with society, but also at her younger self for not setting her up better for her dotage, by providing her with a great husband or some amazing kids. Almost every woman at the table—there were 12 of us, and at 50, I was the youngest—appeared shocked and embarrassed.

But in the weeks since, most of them privately conceded that they, too, feel passed over, overlooked, not seen—despite the many surgeries they’ve had or the $10,000 outfits they’ve bought. And I—though not yet past the six-decade mark—have to admit my friend wasn’t far off the mark.

I work in TV, on air for NewsNation. So it’s pretty hard for me to ignore the fact that our culture reveres youth and ignores—or shuns—women after they hit middle age. Every woman in the industry remembers the five female anchors, all over 40, who sued NY1 because they felt they were being gradually “pushed off the air.” (In the end, they settled.) And I cover the entertainment industry, so I need to look not ancient. To be fair, my network has not, nor ever would, tell me this, but when the 5D cameras turn on and the many bright lights shine onto my face, I am aware of it illuminating every crevasse.

As I learned in the Hamptons, such things are embarrassing to discuss in polite society. So I applaud the French director Coralie Fargeat, who has just made the inner turmoil of me and my friends into a movie—a cinematic howl of outrage at the position in which an attractive yet aging woman finds herself. It came out this week.

To keep reading, click here. . . 

And, In Case You Missed It. . . 

Earlier this month, we sent River Page to check out Reagan, the new biopic of the 40th president, currently sitting at sixth place in the box office. It is, River wrote, “a deeply bizarre 135 minutes”—a hagiography “so adulatory that it robs the former president of his humanity.” Its defenders claim it’s getting bad reviews because critics are all left-wing, elite snobs. But “you don’t have to be liberal,” says River, “to see that this is a bad film.”

To find out why Reagan is a “a classic example of what is going wrong with conservative filmmaking,” read River’s piece: “‘Reagan’ Is a Terrible Movie. But Not Because It’s Conservative.”

Meanwhile, Ben Kawaller was smoking cigars while interviewing Matt Walsh, who’s just made a film that actually does appear to have been unfairly dismissed by critics for challenging left-wing orthodoxies. Am I Racist? is a mockumentary, in which Walsh poses as a “diversity, equity, and inclusion ‘expert’ who explores the absurd lengths to which a certain set of white people will go to atone for their inescapable racism.” It’s a flawed film, yet a triumphant one, Ben says, but the weekend it was released, there was “nary a review to be found from. . . any major news source.”

If you want to know why, watch Ben’s interview: “Matt Walsh Talks DEI, Division, and Robin DiAngelo.”

Freya Sanders is the associate editor at The Free Press.

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