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'Cause your mornings will be brighter
Break the line and tear up rules
Make the most of a million times no
“I myself however, when a young man, was at first led by inclination, like most others, to engage in political affairs; but in that pursuit many circumstances were unfavorable to me; for instead of modesty, temperance, and integrity, there prevailed shamelessness, corruption, and rapacity…. When, therefore, my mind had rest from its numerous troubles and trials, and I had determined to pass the remainder of my days unconnected with public life, it was not my intention to waste my valuable leisure in indolence and inactivity, or, engaging in servile occupations to spend my time in agriculture or hunting, but return to those studies from which, at their commencement, a corrupt ambition had allured me. I determined to write, in detached portions, the transactions of the Roman people, as any occurrence should seem worthy of mention; an undertaking to which I was the rather inclined as my mind was uninfluenced by hope, fear, or political partisanship.” — Gaius Sallustius Crispus (Sallust), Conspiracy of Catiline
A couple weeks ago, I saw Coppala's Megalopolis at a theater. Francis promoted it being, in part, about the fall of the Roman republic. The film concerns many things, but not much of that. A pity really, as there is no more relevant story for today's America than the ancient republic's tragic fall. Unfortunately, though not unsurprisingly, the movie's a complete disappointment in it's treatment of politics, whether of the republican variety or any other.
It is however very much a movie about decadence. Yasha commented via email, “This is why the first 45 min of Coppola’s Megalopolis is so great.” Webster defines decadence as “a falling off in quality or strength a sinking to a lower state or level.” While decadent is defined as “characterized by or appealing to self-indulgence.” Coppola does a great job sticking us in the middle of the decadent, an obscene self-indulgence, not simply a cinematic take, but very much a documentary of today's America. The greatest artists always capture their times.
As far as decadence — a falling in quality, a sinking — this is not conveyed well, or really at all. Coppola is very much of his generation, the first in American history with no real idea of what democracy is. In practice and in most other ways, democracy in America was largely a thing of the past by the time Coppola was born. Thus, it’s not surprising Megalopolis specifically fails to address republican decline, a democratic decadence beyond a generalized notion of a societal absence of any public ethos, not by any measure is this insignificant, but it could apply to any political system.
Funnily enough, in the bad reality-tv that passes today for politics in America, it is immensely ironic the lines and actions of one of Coppola's great movies, The Godfather, are passed around by the political class and other Americans as some sort of post-republican political scripture. A couple months ago, a handful of Donors, some from Hollywood, couped Old Joe, after having done everything they could six months before to insure he wasn’t challenged in the primaries. Afterwards, one of Joe’s chief aides, Anita Dunn, seriously remarked, “To understand how to succeed in Washington — to understand the use of power, was to know 'The Godfather.'” What a fantastically great unintentionally revealing comment on the rube machinations and thoughts of a cartoonishly depraved DC.
In a review of The Godfather, the insightful Chicago film critic Roger Ebert described the film’s politics as, “The real world replaced by an authoritarian patriarchy where power and justice flow from the Godfather, and the only villains are traitors.” One thing for sure, “authoritarian patriarchy” ain't democracy. One of the movie's great lines, “It's just business,” has become a leading rationalization for the actions of our sad and farcical political class. The Godfather only touched the “real world replaced” republic in talking about payouts to crooked politicians, dirty cops, and a press that can be purchased, a republic criminally controlled, bought and sold. That was Francis’ portrait of the republic fifty years ago.
If you have no idea what democracy is, it's hard to make a movie about a republic. Hollywood’s never done politics well, especially democracy. As one of the early film moguls quipped to a writer, “If you got a message, send a telegram.” In its short existence, the screen rolled over the old agrarian republic, the latest pocket iterations shake the rubble.
The one political theme Coppola does hit on is that of the great man, a most anti-republican notion. Democracy isn’t about the great man, it’s about the great us. Worst, Coppola’s great man protagonist Cesar Catalina looks to save the day with a new technological innovation, not the greatest political message to be sending a technologically besotted society politically clueless about technology.
The most disappointing aspect of the film was the promoted pretense it was about the fall of the Roman republic, one of history’s great tragic events. In fact, the fall does offer a century worth of entertaining, educational, and literally classic tales to tell, all relevant today. Coppola said he used the Cataline Conspiracy as a theme, outside the names, there’s little connection. I have no problem with poetic license, after all, as scion of Hollywood and McGovern campaign manager Frank Mankiewicz remarked The Good Doctor Thompson’s book was the least factual and most accurate account of the consequential 1972 election.
The conspiracy would have been a fine story to simply retell. Thirty years before the end of the republic, Cataline was a Roman patrician, a Senator accused in 63 BC of fostering a coup. Plutarch, writing a century after the events, provides an excellent picture of the then ailing republic's political environment,
“Rome was most dangerously disposed towards change on account of the irregularity in the distribution of property, since men of the highest reputation and spirit had beggared themselves on shows, feasts, pursuit of office and buildings. Riches had streamed into the coffers of low-born and mean men, so that matters needed only a slight impulse to disturb them. It was in the power of any bold man to overthrow the commonwealth, which of itself was in a diseased condition.”
Sallust, a contemporary of Cataline and future ally of Caesar, draws the man,
“Cataline was a man of noble birth, and of eminent mental and personal endowments, but of a vicious and depraved disposition. His delight, from his youth, had been in civil commotions, bloodshed, robbery, and sedition; and in such scenes he had spent his early years. His constitution could endure hunger, want of sleep, and cold to a degree surpassing belief. His mind was daring, subtle, and versatile, capable of pretending or dissembling whatever he wished. He was covetous of other men’s property and prodigal of his own. He had abundance of eloquence, though little wisdom. His insatiable ambition was always pursuing objects extravagant, romantic, and unattainable.”
Cataline ran for the annual term of Consul, the equivalent of Roman president, though there were two of them. He campaigned on debt relief. At this stage, both a growing number of patricians and almost the entirety of Roman plebeians were shackled in debt. Sound familiar? Cataline lost the election and planned a coup. In response rose Cicero, who funnily enough has come across history as a great defender of the republic. In the republic’s last several decades it had no defender, all worked its destruction in the name of saving it.
The Senate met concerning the conspirators and at the urging of Cato, another supposed conservative defender of the republic, called for without trial the completely unconstitutional execution of Cataline and his co-conspirators. Cicero, the incumbent Consul, carried out the extra-constitutional executions.
The conspiracy was also Caesar's noted entrance into the republic's affairs. At the Senate meeting on the conspiracy, he called on centuries of republican tradition against executing the conspirators. Nonetheless, fifteen years later, he'd march his troops on Rome, declare himself perpetual dictator, the republic for all practical purposes dead, buried fifteen years later by Caesar’s adopted son Octavian.
As it declined, the last century of the Roman republic was filled with “great men” such as Marius, Sulla, Caesar, Pompey, Crassus, Antony, and finally Augustus. All had a hand strangling a not much loved, eminently corrupt, and dysfunctional republic. Megalopolis does depict a completely debauched elite, devoid of any notion of commonweal, avaricely self-indulgent, and driven only by power, as true of today's America as it was of ancient Rome.
I'd like to see Megalopolis again without any pretense of it concerning any republican value. I've long been a fan of Coppola's movies. In many ways, this movie is a beautiful homage to Hollywood — for better and worse. It has excellent imagery and some great lines, but unfortunately, in the end, it's just a love story, and damn, the last thing the world needs now is another Hollywood love story. I left the movie thinking way back to 2005 and Gore Vidal telling me over afternoon whiskies of Coppola having sent him draft scripts of what became Megalopolis. Upon reading them, Gore would scrawl on the front, “Try again Francis,” and send them back. In regards to the fall of the Roman republic as any lesson for today, all one can say is “Try again Francis.”
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