I have not seen Megalopolis. I know that a lot of people walked out on it, while some critics found some artistic merit. This is not a negative blog, so I will draw no conclusions about it. My point is that it is a labor of love.
Francis Ford Coppola spent decades working on this movie.
Instead of a production company shouldering the cost, he reportedly sold part
of his wine business to finance it. This is what makes a movie a labor of love:
A man considers himself a visionary (women don’t tend to do this), he spends years
working on a project, and he cannot convince people in the business to pony up
the funds for it.
These labors of love usually don’t work. The visionary isn’t
as great as he thinks he is. Years of work poured into a project doesn’t make
it great. And there are usually good reasons why people in the business do not
want to invest in it.
Having said that, I have seen two labors of love that have
worked.
The older one is The Apostle. This was written by,
directed by, and starred Robert Duvall. He had had a career high when he won an
Oscar for Tender Mercies. He then had a good but ordinary career after
that. Somewhere in there he was working for years on this labor of love. Producers
turned him down because they said audiences didn’t want to see a movie about
religion, so he had to use his own money.
He plays a holy roller preacher who is a raving egomaniac.
No matter what he does, he considers himself a servant of God, though he admits
he is a “womanizer” and commits a horrific act of violence. Farrah Fawcett
gives a surprising turn as his wife, who wants a divorce. Contrary to what some
people have said, this is not a story of redemption. He christens himself The
Apostle and starts a new church.
Critics and audiences alike consider it a masterpiece. I was
astonished by Duvall’s fearless acting. You really need to see Robert Duvall as
a holy roller in the rural South.
The other triumphant labor of love that I have seen is Coriolanus.
This was directed by and starred Ralph Fiennes. I believe he spent five years
on this project. He didn’t pony up his own money, so I may be contradicting
myself here. But he made the controversial decision to show the story in modern
dress, using modern military equipment. I usually detest such things (there was
one modernized version of Hamlet that I truly hated). But I was suitably
impressed by this version of Coriolanus.
Purists will note that whole swaths of dialogue from the play were left
out, as they decided to make a trim, taut story. His mother (Vanessa Redgrave)
and his wife (Jessica Chastain) are turned into fierce women, which is fine by
me. Warning: One character commits suicide, which was not in the play, and may
be disturbing.
So choose a labor of love and see what you think.
