Entrevista com FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA

for for for megalopolis is not as easy to to enjoy as your regular Blockbuster uh especially if that's what you used to uh so uh I think that uh do you think that the the audience is ready to receive uh this kind of movie especially in a in a industry that is kind of they go with superheroes only and there are no place for there is no place for for questioning or for thinking or for even I don't know considering what's happening the film Apocalypse Now had the same exact difficult reaction as does megalopolis when

Apocalypse Now came out there were many critics said it's the worst film ever made and there were many people who said it was the greatest film ever made and whenever you have that kind of reaction totally divisive you you must have something interesting because how can one piece of work have views that are opposite to each other and the reason is because it is not playing by the rules of the industry that you speak of or the Blockbusters that have big budgets so one of the disturbing things or confusing things about megalopolis is that that

it has such a big budget because normally art films personal films don't have that kind of a budget so that's a historical first the second thing is that megalopolis doesn't play by the rules of Blockbusters there's a very specific rule that has been set down intending to remove risk from the business of making movies in other words they want to have an industrial art which earns money uh without the chance of it not making money and and that but you know art making art without risk is I've said make like making babies without sex you

you have to have risk or you don't have art I agree and and and and and and and also megalopolis comes at a time the purpose of art by the way in my definition is Art is here to help illuminate contemporary life for people as we all live in these times 2025 but things are going on in the world that are very difficult to understand why they're going on and and and the purpose of art would be to put light on what's going on so that we can talk about it and understand it and that's

what megalopolis wants to do do you think people are uh do people are in need of this kind of of of movie to make you think because what from my experience going to the movies lately it has been like watching the same movie over and over but it is that it's that they want to make movies without risk which means make it get you addicted to Coca-Cola and can Hollywood make people enjoy new ideas well uh I don't know what Hollywood is you know but in other words art is enjoyable I mean there was a

time in the past in France where everyone knew how a picture had to be and there were some people came along and and matis or Monet or or the new but those are the film those are the paintings people enjoy today they don't if you have if I said I'll give you a French painting you're not going to get one from the French Academy you're going to say okay me a matis or give me uh you know but those those paintings in those days nobody wanted there was a wonderful painter I think his name was

HRI Russo and he painted he was a clerk and he painted these pictures of tigers in the jungle and would go to the corner to sell them for you know for a few dollars because he didn't have enough money to have a wife and all he wanted in life was to be able to have a wife and he never did he died without ever having a wife and one of those paintings now you could buy for $50 million so this there's a long old story about something that is new being discredited by what was old

and then being what is valuable the oven guard of the past becomes the wallpaper of the future I see you you've been the aveng guard for a long time and uh one you said something decades ago uh about cameras is becoming smaller and people being able to make their own movies no hassle it has become such and by the way I'm here talking to you uh uh being born of the internet and social media now uh in the future do you see do you see technology uh playing a big part in transformation of the cinema

or it's going to be something more Humane as uh new ideas uh they might be using new technology but the transformation comes from people what do you think it's going to come Tech from the technology or people well that's a tricky question because even the word technology implies uh The Genius of human beings so so uh but but technology uh is not created to limit us it technology is created to further us and and and and and there will always be technology I mean the wheel is technology uh but most of the great technology happened

when we were playing with our children uh everything uh I mean in ancient times they used to put heavy things on trees and roll them and then with the little kid they gave him a little thing to toy and some Twigs but he couldn't he couldn't put the twig so they attached it and and they invented the wheel as a little toy for the kids and then they said well let's build a big one uh movable type uh we know about Gutenberg and the movable type but there's a movable type on a cave painting because

you see big hands and little hands and they blew uh gunpowder was invented by the Chinese to be firworks to Delight the children and became Gunpowder the steam engine was originally a toy so I think yes we will always be uh inventors of Technology but we should do it playing with our children because that's when we are the most creative and let's build robots that do the other kind of Labor and and toil that so we don't have to do it which is totally P that's what I think is going to happen interesting uh and

we are also seeing the how artificial intelligence is taking place in this world do you think it it's also possible to help Cinema somehow well already that we're using artificial intelligence but artificial intelligence do you know what crisper is crisper yeah I do you do so two things that we have invented one being crisper the ability to to cut our genes and artificial intelligence which is going to get a big boost shortly because of the quantum computer those are things that we have to keep in a box because we don't want to fool with our

genome because we might cure your son's sickle cell anemia that's okay but if it gets into the big Genome of us we don't know the result I mean it could be in 50 years all of a sudden the spider ha will come out of our head we don't know so they people in around the world including China have restricted fooling around with the human genome and we have to also not allow artificial intelligence to just wander through the internet because it can write code and that's very dangerous to have something so smart be able to

have all the knowledge of the universe and right you know how hard it is even with without AI writing code today I mean you can't do anything without it saying well you got to go here and get the number there and so be careful keep those two things in a box okay uh there are some uh did how did the uh excruciate I I I don't know how did the experience of making apocalypse now prepare you or in some way uh make you a better a person uh able to make better decisions when filming uh

megalopolis well because I was very worried when Apocalypse Now came out because it had such negative reviews and it was not you know it didn't win any Oscars or it wasn't noticed but but but it people kept going to see it again and again and again and to this day for 40 years Apocalypse Now is always making money so you know there's two ways to make money in a a movie the normal way where you make a lot of money so you can pay your debts but the other way is my way which was to

make films that people are still looking at 50 years later and I am have no doubt in my mind that megalopolis is going to play for the next 50 years okay uh right but so it was not a difficult decision to decide to fund it yourself it's always a difficult decision no one wants to go in you know in Apocalypse Now uh which I own the debt in those days was 21% you ever hear of Interest being 21% well that's what it was during Apocalypse Now it's not so bad today what is it about 8%

so so so the trick is that that you have to pay the loan off at some point and uh and um you know the way I did it is I may just uh have a way to handle it also uh but you you can't be afraid of the dominance of money because money didn't always exist you know money is a recent invention uh when you think of our human family being 300,000 years there was only money beginning in when there were was armies going places when they had coin so they didn't have to just steal

the chickens so there's a great book by the way by uh David greyber called debt the first 5,000 years that you you should many great books that you can read people don't read very much yeah yeah they don't read very much well uh I'd say that I you have children I do I have two children how old are they they are 11 and nine don't you want them to live in a beautiful world that's the the what I want the most right well that's what megalopolis wants and that's what NE is preaching well uh but

for us to end we don't have a lot of time so uh you've been one you are one of the most admired uh movie directors in the world especially in Brazil uh with many uh famous works uh Mega lopolis is the would you say that megalopolis is the the movie you would like to be remembered for I don't mind being remembered for uh any of my movies uh uh I I I like the ones I wrote my yourself the most like the conversation or or the rain people or or uh some of those movies but

I'm going to be remembered for my children well I think you're going to be remembered by a lot of people what about the the movie distant Vision yes that's the one that I would love to be able to make that's the one that really would be my idea of of my most ambitious most unusual and and as a writer most difficult uh project I'm going to go work on that after I do one more little film for fun I I I'm entitled to have a little bit of fun okay uh about distant Vision uh how

what do you mean by live fuming well I wrote a whole book about it so it's hard to explain so there is a whole book about it which I hav it's called live Cinema and it's techniques is there one here I don't know okay I I'll check it out but basically it's like I can explain it this way in literature the basic unit is the sentence if you have a great sentence you have the beginning of what could become great writing in in cinema the the basic unit is the frame but the it's built out

of going from this Frame to that frame but it's not possible to do unless you have the time to set up the camera and change and change the costumes and stuff like that there are ways where you can do it now using new technology that was invented for sports that enables you to make a film that looks like a movie but has BEC coming to you live with live performances where the actors are doing the timing and not the editors okay I hope you get to to put that in the world thanks a lot Mr

to me too it all depends me living longer let's hope you do mister I hope do too well as fate thanks Mr next time we talk a little bit about kurich I know you like it a lot well Kuba was a very Innovative Place uh I'm anxious to see if it's still as wonderful as I remember when Jamie larer was there he he is like a caesar in my movie yeah I heard about it but uh I used to live there for four years and it's an amazing scene how many years four years four years

four years two years ago for four years I went there in 2016 it depends if the new mayor keeps the Traditions well it does feel like an amazing city with a good Mobility good everything I I live in s Paulo because I need to for for for d fore