FilmStack Inspiration Challenge #29 | 'MEGADOC'

Coppola performs and Figgis observes the making of a vision.

Dear Moviegoers,

The first time I watched Hearts of Darkness - Eleanor Coppola’s ultra-intimate behind-the-scenes document(ary) of her husband Francis making one of the greatest movies of all time, Apocalypse Now - it was as a bonus DVD or, really, as a special feature to the box set of its subject. It certainly wasn’t a disservice to have it as a supplement to the main feature, but Eleanor’s film IS a main feature by itself. Above Burden of Dreams and anything director Kevin Smith can conjure together for his physical media, Hearts of Darkness is the definitive movie of its sub-genre.

For me, its stature is not because of the conflict that is depicted - Francis nearly going mad and out of his mind in the jungle, spending money and time on such a spectacle - but rather the influence that is evoked. Throughout its duration, there’s an uncomfortable feeling of tension and caution, as if things are so delicate that even the audience must remain calm. Afterward, however, when one can breathe again, there’s a sensation of weightlessness, like being on the Moon, that gives the personal impression that anything can be achieved.

Somewhere midway through, co-writer John Milius recalled going to Francis in an effort to bring about some sanity to the chaotic filmmaking. Milius left the meeting believing a Nobel Prize was possible, or so he says.

Now, allow me to flash forward from the 1970s to the 2020s, where Francis Ford Coppola is about to make a long-gestating passion project. Once again, he’s going all in on a risk, except that, more than with Apocalypse Now, the production is entirely funded by himself. To maintain independent control? Because no other studio would do this?

Maybe all of the above.

This time around, the observer of his newest movie isn’t his wife Eleanor, but fellow independent filmmaker and video evangelist Mike Figgis (Timecode and Leaving Las Vegas). What becomes of his casting as the “making of” documentarian is MEGADOC, released to theaters a year after its subject, Megalopolis (should the title be in all caps, too?).

Figgis states early on that watching and capturing everything that happens would be a challenge for him, as he had never been on another director’s set before. Indeed, Eleanor Coppola had this as an advantage over him, being not just a life partner but a comrade in crafting movies. In one of her two appearances in MEGADOC, Figgis asks her what he should do, and, kindly enough, she just says to do his best. A master asking for guidance, and the guidance being a question for the master to resolve within himself.

Did he find an answer? MEGADOC does capture almost everything from art department trouble to actors being cute and fussy, but more than anything, it’s a book about process through performance. Yes, a book. About a director searching for a thread of a story from another director’s in-progress story. And most interestingly, it’s a book without a satisfying ending. A happy one, sure, but one made out of desperation rather than found during the making. It’s a documentary that’s not about the conflict in another movie, but about its own limitations in discovering a story to share.

Does this make Megalopolis a failure?

Far from it.

Does this make MEGADOC a disaster? Far from that, too.

In bouncing back and forth between Hearts of Darkness and MEGADOC, I see a thread of individual challenges. Eleanor’s was not in finding a story to tell, but in dealing with the responsibility of being so close to the subject and getting pulled in too far. By contrast, Figgis was challenged not by being too close but by being too careful. The mindfulness he has with his camera, dead pixels and all, exudes gratitude and anxiety, and it’s as if he, while trying to make something of his own, becomes a cog in Megalopolis itself.

Was this intentional? Did Figgis accept this role? Yes and yes. Figgis as crew for Coppola as director for himself. Figgis as subject, capturing more of what isn’t on screen than what is in front of him. It’s a different kind of intimacy, entirely conceived and built in, not as a “fly on the wall” but more like a ghost haunting a house. Why is the spirit there, and why is it scaring people? What is Figgis doing, and why is he collecting footage? “That was very ‘Werner Herzog’ of you!” a cast member exclaims in one moment, while Figgis likely smirks.

It all reminds me of Coppola’s recent filmmaking experiments, as were jotted down in “Live Cinema and Its Techniques,” where he outlined and dreamed up ways to perform a movie beyond light on a screen. If MEGADOC is more text than picture and more notes than paragraphs or chapters, does that mean it’s an agent of its own chaos? Like Jazz music, perhaps (which makes up the score).

I could be reading too much into this book/movie, but MEGADOC is one of my favorite pieces of puzzling documentary cinema that I’ve seen since Alex Ross Perry’s Pavements and Videoheaven. Like how Coppola says that Megalopolis is a crazier production than Apocalypse Now at one point, MEGADOC is more of a struggling presentation than Hearts of Darkness. And, it’s in that struggle that inspiration arises. That a thread is found. That a prize is earned. 5/5

MEGADOC is coming to Prytania Canal Place on 9/19 and Zeitgeist Theatre & Lounge on 10/3.

Sincerely Yours in Moviegoing,

⚜️🍿

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