Labors of Love: Megalopolis, The Apostle, Coriolanus

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.