Editor’s Note: This is the third post in our theme for February 2025 “Celluloid City” which explores the role of and interplay between cities and film. You can see all posts from the theme here.
By Jannat Suleman
Since the introduction of the theoretical 15-minute city, there’s been significant nitpicking at the so-called socialist concept of urban planning from politicians, sociologists, and the average X user. Often relegated to conversations in Congress, parliaments or lecture halls, the mere thought of a utopian city–whether 15-minute in nature or not–isn’t one that the everyday cinemagoer encounters on the big screen. Nevertheless, Francis Ford Coppola’s equally controversial Megalopolis, released towards the end of 2024, proved rather crucially that the conversations around urban history and the construction of modern cities have much more to discuss than our headlines make apparent.
The 15-minute city is named as such for its commutability, ease of access, and communal features all interlinking to provide a utopian urban lifestyle where anything you need is less than 15 minutes away at all times. (Here’s more on the 15-minute city.) There have been incredibly reactionary debates around the concept, specifically from right-wing commentators who believe that, rather than creating spaces for communities to thrive, the concentrated centers will instead allow criminal activity to prosper, isolation to manifest, and censorship to champion above all. Of course, the theorization behind the city isn’t entirely new to America: the commute has been a significant part of the country’s urbanization and improvements to mass transit, showcasing the correlation between urban planning and the development of human needs. In theory, the remodeled city would eliminate burdens on public services by compartmentalizing offices, hospitals and schools, creating mini-communities connected by walking and cycling routes. Criticisms of this urban planning format suggest that there will be a reduction in originality and freedom of movement, which those championing the changes refute and suggest that fearmongering and political misinformation is tarring the image of the potential utopia. Interestingly enough, most of these fears are curiously well-presented in Megalopolis.
To fully appreciate Coppola’s commentaries on the American city and his visions for betterment, a brief understanding of how utopian cities have been historically defined is essential. Its underlying theories have been subject to widespread musings from Aristotle to Thomas More to Le Corbusier with the general understanding that perfection is key: alluded to by seamless equality and, ideally, a futuristic functionalism. To be utopian, a city must break the bonds of society as we know it and be a total remodeling–a revolution–of the current urban landscape. Whether it was Le Corbusier’s Ville Contemporaine or the persistently documented concepts of Ebenezer Howard and Frank Lloyd Wright, their outlooks were burdened by the complexity of modern decay, wasteful expansions, and unnecessary, dysfunctional magnitude. Of course, such a grand remodeling of urban planning as suggested by these great visionaries must be underpinned by an unwavering ideology and thus, accompanied by the motivation to instill social change.
Ebenezer Howard, the first of these three visionaries who went so far as to produce plans for their utopias, believed in the power of greenery and birthed the idea of the Garden City: healthily sustained by the cooperation of its citizens and (supposedly) realistically manageable due to its small community size. Wright went a few steps further and broke the city right down into individual homesteads for each citizen: entirely decentralized cities connected by superhighways, prioritizing ownership and self-expression. Then with Le Corbusier, the vision of the utopian city was upended with his notion of radiance. Skyscrapers of glass rising out of parks and gardens, luxurious high-rises, and a denseness dedicated to fostering further prosperity. It goes without being said that unfortunately, none of these visionaries were lucky enough to see their theorizations play out and even if they did, the deep aversion their societies would have to a remodeled metropolis would create an unimaginable backlash hauntingly similar to the affront attributed to critics of the 15-minute city. Nonetheless, as is always the case with theorists of the past, it’s important to consider the truth of their visions: Le Corbusier’s visions often failed to incorporate the changing will of humanity and its capacity to change, thinking only of pure functionality, infrastructure, and efficiency. He created concepts beyond the scope of human construction, preferring to use his genius to revolutionize design through the use of modern materials: glass, concrete, and steel. Similar to the divisions seen in Coppola’s latest, Le Corbusier’s utopia seemed to dabble dangerously close to an elitist paradise. Burdened by the perspective of perfection and ambitions beyond the horizon, Corbusier paid little mind to the notion of public consultation; a welcome improvement to the processes of urban planning in the past century, which has inadvertently opened the floodgates to mass uninformed opining on the modern city.
For those who have seen Megalopolis, it has been an incredibly polarizing self-funded project from legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, whose previous credits include the hailed Godfather films and Apocalypse Now. Critics of the film have simultaneously sung Coppola’s praises for his dedication to his vision whilst voicing utter confusion at his intentions, citing plot holes and unconvincing performances for its failures. Although frequently interpreted as Coppola’s thoughts on modern America and the American Dream, the main plot documenting the trials and tribulations of modern urban planning is undeniable.
Set in the city of New Rome, architect and self-proclaimed genius Cesar Catalina (played by Adam Driver) has discovered a new material, everlasting and definitively utopian in its regenerative qualities, called Megalon and has decided to use it for remodeling urban landscapes. This is met with severe disagreement and major discord from the Mayor of New Rome, Cicero (played by Giancarlo Esposito) who suggests that Catalina is attempting to disrupt New Rome’s way of life. Coppola has used Roman language, architecture, and aesthetics in Megalopolis to create an archaic America; one bogged down by inequality, the impoverished, and the impossible problem of perfection. However, there are futuristic elements to Coppola’s New Rome: an advanced Times Square with holographic advertisements and perfect flows of traffic echoes the sentiment of most fictional futuristic cities, that technology is all-encompassing, and the city is uncongested. Between the etched stone and the 4D marketing, Coppola seems to be associating negative connotations with modern urban life, alluding to its inconsistencies and inequalities to demonstrate its unraveling.
One of the first shots in Megalopolis obsesses over height, with Catalina at the top of his towering office, looking down as if about to fall, only for him to stop himself through manipulation of time. Coppola not only engages the notion of the city with his latest feature, but he also weaves science fiction into it, too. With a gold sheen in the sky, unobstructed roads and seamless pedestrian crossings beneath him, Cesar Catalina is the Le Corbusier of Coppola’s world, with Mayor Cicero an incredibly apt metaphor for modern-day critics of the 15-minute city. As the two of them tussle over what future is best for the city, Catalina channels the ideologies of Wright and Howard as he shares his musings on a “misguided civilization” with “no dreams” and no “time for the future,” evidenced by Cicero’s proposal to introduce a waterfront and casino into the rebuilding of New Rome. He calls Cicero a “slumlord” who “takes money from those who don’t have it” by prioritizing the construction of a city that “has services people pay for.” Catalina believes New Rome is dystopian in its overuse of concrete and steel–outdated, ancient materials that have stripped the people of their purpose–and instead suggests Megalon as the ultimate tool to create his utopia.
Of course, Coppola is fair in his depictions and does not entirely champion Catalina’s vision, clearly demonstrating how the ‘Design Authority’ (an organization run by Catalina to create Megalopolis) must destroy existing housing facilities to make way for the utopian construction. Authoritative, dictator-like and the perfect potion for inciting hatred and discord, Coppola involuntarily showcases how challenging the proposition of a utopian city can be for those entrenched in a dystopian one. Later in the film, we see the beginnings of a protest with sloganeering such as “hands off our homes” blazoned over posters and signs amongst stoked fires to mimic rioting in response to the demolition of an apartment block. It is clear that there is a fear of change and subsequent panic stoked by Cicero, who still criticizes Catalina’s plans even though the Megalon material has been successful. Catalina doesn’t shy away from criticism; like a fabled genius, he admits that destruction is necessary for creation–an extreme ideology to say the least.
This Megalon substance is also incredibly interesting, as the great urban planners also believed that the materials from which a city was built would define their functionality and their purpose. The 15-minute city isn’t dependent on a specific material, but it does share the same values that Catalina holds dear: interconnection and multi-purpose facilities. Megalon allows for “free movement” and “manipulation” according to Catalina and can grow with its people. Appearing to mimic nature, the material can give shelter from the rain as it grows over its citizens and is persistently shown in Catalina’s visions to have curvature, softness and regenerative movement: all in sky-high layers. Coppola’s utopia is brushed with the aforementioned science fiction, and thus slightly overstates its plausibility even in comparison to Le Corbusier’s Radiant City. As the construction develops in the film and Catalina builds a home for himself and his wife, their home is bathed in natural light with plenty of shrubbery with spherical corridors throughout.
In a rather tense scene between Cicero and Catalina, the former criticizes the mere notion of a utopian city in light of some promotional material Catalina has put together. In it, he says that “to ask questions of each other, about the way we live, that is basically a utopia.” Later on, as he puts together a mini model of the white energy walkways powered by Megalon (similar to airport travelators), we see advertising with “whatever you want, whenever you want” plastered on digital billboards, seemingly powered by the same substance. On this, Cicero warns Catalina that any utopia “turns into dystopia” and that he shouldn’t “waste time fantasizing about perfect choices,” quoting Marcus Aurelius in the process. Coppola is, with great accuracy, showcasing the pessimistic responses our modern 15-minute city planners have received. Where politicians both British and American have suggested the idea to be too eccentric, a form of isolation, or similar to a lockdown, the Catalinas among our urban planners have been trying to prioritize communal living: learning, celebrating, and living together rather than alone. Nevertheless, similar to real-life critics, Cicero remains unimpressed and argues that utopias offer “no ready-made solutions,” an idea which, almost comically, directly contradicts the beliefs of our three great planners.
As the film draws to a close, Megalopolis does in fact launch and is unveiled rather dramatically after accusations that it has cost too much power, workforce, and resources to create; perhaps valid criticisms when applied to our own urban realities. After all, when the state of current cities across the world is assessed, we see dystopian crises even after the centuries of industrial improvement. Although Megalopolis provides each adult with their own private garden, and its homes can expand as needed, the final images of the film showcase how minute Catalina’s utopia is in comparison to the vastly dystopian remainder of New Rome. Much like the ideas of Howard, Wright and Le Corbusier, Catalina’s vision for the world remains (even at the launch of Megalopolis) a gimmick, not fully realized nor fully accepted by its citizens. Coppola’s passion project may have been ambitious (much like Catalina’s own mission), but as evidenced throughout the film, a utopia can only be achieved through the support of its citizens, something neither Megalopolis nor Le Corbusier had. What Coppola suggests, in the context of the 15-minute city, is that there can be cooperation between the urban genius behind modern urban planning and our population. Through careful attention to the needs of the people, transparency in motivation and considerate construction, each stepping stone on the way to the next urban model has the potential to be widely embraced, beneficial and prosperous: just as Cesar Catalina intended.
Jannat Suleman is a British-Pakistani film critic, writer and programmer based in Yorkshire. With a vested interest in spotlighting South Asian talent, uplifting the underrepresented and expanding cinema to communities often closed-off from the big screen, Jannat has worked with community organizations and national publishers both in the UK and US to tell stories about film, on film and its surrounding culture.
