Timestop

Excited to see this first clip from Francis [Ford] Coppola’s forthcoming, long-gestating MEGALOPOLIS.

It looks gorgeous, though only the central building has real sci-fi design elan. But the Volume system being used to generate the VFX is nicely deployed — much easier to make the building reflective when the clouds being reflected are actually present on set (by way of a huge TV screen).

Those fast-motion clouds are a real Coppola trope, dating back to his production of KOYAANISQATSI and then lifted for his own use on RUMBLE FISH. So that’s a reassuring continuity.

The really odd thing though is the fact that the scene is such a HUDSUCKER PROXY rip-off. A man on a building ledge above a clock face threatening to jump and then stopping time. That’s a pretty specific set of events. I can’t just-now recall is there’s any window-ledge action in the Twilight Zone episode A Kind of Stop-Watch — if there is, then I guess window-ledge-time-stop is on its way to being a meme and Coppola is fully entitled to use it to his own purposes. Still, it’s quaint to see such an obvious borrowing in a passion project.

What I was recently saying re COUNTESS FROM HONG KONG — beware of long-gestated late works — could apply. That’s my fear here. But Coppola always deserves another chance and a second look.