Lyon (AFP)
Francis Ford Coppola said Saturday that he was working on a pharaonic project he has been thinking about for several decades: "Megalopolis", a film "about utopia", which he defines as "more ambitious than" Apocalypse Now + ".
"I worked on + Megalopolis + twenty years ago, I really tried, I wanted to make a film about utopia, about what heaven is really about on earth," said the giant of American cinema a press conference in Lyon, where he received the Lumière Award for his entire career.
"I have a screenplay, and I think it gets closer to what I want, that I approach for the first time the goal," added the director of 80, who had abandoned this project following the attacks September 11, 2001 in the United States, before resuming it.
"I would say it's my most ambitious film, even more ambitious than Apocalypse Now +," a cult film about the Vietnam War, Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1979.
"I think it would be more expensive than 'Apocalypse Now +', which had a budget of $ 30 million at the time," he added.
"That's the problem," he acknowledged, because it's a "Marvel-scale" film in terms of production. "I have to find a way to get there."
He also said that this film, in which an architect is trying to build a utopian vision of New York, destroyed by a cataclysm, told the story "of a man who has a vision of the future" and spoke of the "conflict" between this vision and the "traditions of the past", and also contained "a love story".
"I've always wanted to make a big love affair, and I've never done it, but I'd like to do it before I leave," he said.
Asked about Martin Scorsese, who said that super-hero films like those of Marvel Studios were "not cinema," Francis Ford Coppola said Scorsese was "right".
"Cinema is expected to bring us something, enlightenment, knowledge, inspiration," he continued. "I do not think anyone removes anything from always seeing the same movie."
"Martin was nice when he said it was not cinema, he did not say it was despicable, that's what I say."
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