'This Is a Nightmare'

"A dream project that Coppola spent decades trying to realize, Megalopolis felt for many years like a defining absence in the director's career: the masterpiece he never got to make, the one that would tie everything together. And then he made it - with about $120 million of his own money, after 13 years away from the director's chair. Megalopolis came out last year, got wildly divisive reviews, and made about $10 at the box office."

"Coppola would probably say something similar. For a filmmaker once renowned for his grandiosity, the director has always been surprisingly self-deprecating and conflicted in his own assessments of his work. "I'm not just doing something I know how to do," he says of Megalopolis in Figgis's documentary, speaking to his late wife, Eleanor. "I'm doing something I don't know how to do, and I don't know how that's gonna work out.""

Francis Ford Coppola pursued Megalopolis for decades and ultimately self-financed about $120 million after a 13-year absence from directing. The resulting film premiered last year, drew wildly divisive reviews, earned roughly $10 at the box office, and generated intense public conversation. Mike Figgis's documentary Megadoc chronicles the film's production and is premiering at the Venice International Film Festival ahead of a September theatrical release. Peers note Coppola's habit of pushing through obstacles, and Coppola frames the project as unfamiliar territory that relies on chaos, self-doubt, and creative persistence.

Read at Vulture