Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: Welcome to Five Minute Film Finder, brought to you by Pioneer Library System.
[00:00:13] Speaker C: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Five Minute Film Finder from Pioneer Library System, I'm Samuel, your host for the day. And I'm joined by Tracy. Welcome, Tracy. How's it going?
[00:00:24] Speaker A: I'm okay.
We're talking about some weird films today.
[00:00:29] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:00:31] Speaker C: We have kind of a theme for this episode.
[00:00:33] Speaker A: We do. It's Francis Ford Coppola.
[00:00:35] Speaker C: Yeah.
Maybe one of the most storied directors and so. But kind of there's a twist. We are doing one Francis Ford Coppola movie and then we are doing a
[00:00:46] Speaker A: documentary about the making of a Francis Ford Coppola movie. Yeah.
[00:00:50] Speaker C: Probably everyone's favorite Coppola movie.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: The Document. No.
Sorry, no.
[00:00:57] Speaker C: Well, you didn't think Megalopolis was.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: Here's the thing.
[00:00:59] Speaker C: Breathtaking and groundbreaking.
[00:01:01] Speaker A: I think I liked Megalopolis a lot more than a bunch of other people because I simply let myself have a good time during that film. And I don't think other people did. We're starting off with some, like, inside baseball. Right away, if you don't know about Megalopolis, it was the most recent Francis Ford Coppola film that he put a lot of money into and was a major flop.
We're gonna get into that when we get into the documentary. But do we wanna go.
[00:01:26] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, sorry. I like, dove us right into the documentary.
[00:01:30] Speaker A: I'm constantly trying talk about Megalopolis. So honestly, I'm happy to have the floor too.
Do you have any relationship with the films of Francis Ford Coppola?
[00:01:40] Speaker C: I've watched. I've watched a few. I've watched a few and I've watched. So. So the other one is the Conversation, which we're doing, which my hot take is. It's the best Coppola film.
[00:01:52] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:01:53] Speaker C: So should we just dive into.
[00:01:55] Speaker A: I think we should dive in. Let's go.
[00:01:56] Speaker C: Let's have a conversation.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: Let's have a conversation about the conversation.
Have Wilhelm start the timer.
[00:02:02] Speaker C: Yeah.
Okay. So, yeah. So in 1974, the conversation came out. It can be found on Canopy.
It stars Gene Hackman as basically a bugger. He goes in and he captures conversations. He bugs people's phones.
He will do it from like. So the opening shot is this couple wandering around this busy square in San Francisco.
[00:02:31] Speaker A: This was. So when this movie started and this shot is happening, I was like, oh, right. Because the most recent Francis Ford Coppola film I had seen was Megalopolis.
It started and I was like, oh, right. He's a genius.
Because this scene is incredible.
[00:02:47] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:02:47] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. Please continue to describe. I'm sorry.
[00:02:50] Speaker C: I was just like.
[00:02:51] Speaker A: It's so beautiful.
[00:02:52] Speaker C: Yeah. So you're kind of just slowly, like, craning into the busy square, and then you start to see these people around the square. Like, one guy's, like, on top of a building and he's pointing something, like, at the square. And it turns out it's a microphone. Right. And. And then you have, like, Gene Hackman and a bus. Or not a bus, a van. Right. Like. And they're basically. They have three. Three people coordinated, like, trying to capture this one conversation that's happening in the spizzy square. And. Right. It's supposed to be like, this is the impossible thing to do. If people are constantly moving around in a very noisy environment, you shouldn't be able to capture their conversation.
And that comes up later in the film when. When just his expertise at this is put on display.
[00:03:38] Speaker A: This is a film about Gene Hackman being really good at his job.
[00:03:41] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:03:42] Speaker A: But also, that makes him so sad.
[00:03:44] Speaker C: It does, yeah. Well, you know, and I mean, I think from a technique, like, the technical side of filmmaking, there's a lot of, like, great stuff going on. And I. And I can somewhat appreciate a lot of that. But I think for me, I get really caught up in, like, the stories that films are trying to tell and the emotions they're trying to convey. And that's what I really love about this film, is that, like, Gene Hackman, you get hints that he has, like, a strong moral code.
[00:04:12] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:04:13] Speaker C: Right. Like, he gets mad at his sort of underling for taking Christ's name in vain. Right. And then there's a scene of him going and going to confession and. And a lot of it is wrapped up to his work, which he tries to sort of dissociate from.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: Right.
[00:04:28] Speaker C: He's like, I'm just doing a job. I'm just recording conversations and I get paid for it, and I don't care what anyone's talking about.
Well, that gets complicated when he starts to believe that the conversation he's recorded is of an affair, at which point the person he's giving the tapes over to will kill this couple. And then it becomes this moral crisis because we find out that a similar thing had happened to him earlier in his career.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: Yes. And so he really wants to keep that from happening, but doesn't know how to kind of do that and also keep his professional standing. Gene Hackman is incredible in this movie.
[00:05:07] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:05:07] Speaker A: He's so good And I feel like. So there's two different kinds of Gene Hackman that I'm familiar with in a film. There's, like, Gene Hackman that is going to come to your house and beat you up.
[00:05:17] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:05:17] Speaker A: Which is the Gene Hackman I feel like I'm most used to. So at the beginning of this film, when there's that mime who's following him around, I was like, I'm about to see Gene Hackman beat up a mime, because that's the Gene Hackman that I'm used to.
[00:05:29] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:05:29] Speaker A: Or there's really nervy, weird, claustrophobic Gene Hackman, which I feel like comes out in, like, the Royal Tenenbaums in a lot of ways.
[00:05:38] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: And then is what this is, too. And it's so.
I feel like he'd be the worst hang, just in general, because I feel like he gets really into his work, but that is why he was such a good actor.
And this movie, there are other people in it who are famous.
Terry Garr has a bit part in it, which men love to fumble Terry Garr in movies. In between this and Tootsie. I simply would never fumble Terry Garr if I had the chance. Just putting that out there.
But, like, Teri Garr is in it. I cannot remember the other guy who's
[00:06:11] Speaker C: in a young Harrison Ford.
[00:06:14] Speaker A: Harrison Ford is in it. John Cazale is in it. Robert Duvall has an uncredited bit part in it and is menacing, bless him. He's so good at his job.
[00:06:22] Speaker C: Well, even Harrison Ford is very menacing as well, which is not.
[00:06:26] Speaker A: He can be, but not when usually he's young and handsome like this. So it was fun to see, but it's a really claustrophobic film is how I've been talking about it to people.
[00:06:38] Speaker C: Yeah, it. So I watch a lot of 70s films.
[00:06:43] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:06:43] Speaker C: And this is like. This is like, of a piece with so much of, like, the cinema there, which is. Everything's paranoid.
[00:06:50] Speaker A: Mm.
[00:06:51] Speaker C: Like. Like Parallax. View is like the one that immediately comes to mind, which is like, oh, everything is awful.
And no matter what you do, the bad result will happen regardless of, like, you know. And that is Wilhelm interrupting me. But, yeah, I.
You know, the Godfather's good. Godfather Part 2 is good, as I'm
[00:07:16] Speaker A: sure you know, Tracy, I definitely know. I've definitely seen all the Godfather movies.
That was convincing, right?
[00:07:22] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. We won't get any emails or feedback from that.
But. But the conversation, I think, is just. It's just.
It's Chef's Kiss. Perfect.
And weirdly, I think it's still kind of relevant.
[00:07:38] Speaker A: I think it is really relevant. And it's. I will say, a lot of people agree with you that it's a really good film. May I tell you some notes about it?
[00:07:47] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:07:48] Speaker A: So this film was nominated for three Academy Awards. It was nominated for Best Original Screenplay, which Francis Ford Coppola did write this.
[00:07:55] Speaker C: Oh, wow.
[00:07:56] Speaker A: Okay. It was nominated for Best Sound, which I am shocked that it lost for, given that this is the whole plot of the film.
And also, I think the sound in it is incredible.
And it was also nominated for Best Picture, but it lost.
But don't feel bad for Francis Ford Coppola. He won for The Godfather Part 2 because these came out the same year.
[00:08:18] Speaker C: Yeah, he just.
Incredible.
[00:08:22] Speaker A: But this did win the Palme d' or at Cannes that year, which is the big kind of prize at Cannes. Like the biggest art prize at Cannes is the Palme d'. Or. So he was doing okay.
[00:08:32] Speaker C: Yeah. You just had a wonderful year that year.
[00:08:34] Speaker A: Yes. Can I tell you two notes that I took on this that are extremely unserious?
[00:08:39] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:08:39] Speaker A: The first one is that I wrote if my weird neighbor Gene Hackman played tenor saxophone alongside jazz records in my apartment building, he would need all those locks because I would come and beat him up.
That was crazy to me.
[00:08:50] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:08:51] Speaker A: And then number two is there's a scene that happens at the end of the film that I will not ruin. But I will tell you, to Samuel, I wrote with periods in between every word. He is not getting that security deposit back.
[00:09:02] Speaker C: I thought the same thing.
[00:09:05] Speaker A: He's just not.
[00:09:06] Speaker C: He's not. Yeah, he kissed that one goodbye. That's funny. I will say. But he should be in good shape because I looked up.
One thing I love to do is I love to have an inflation calculator near me when I watch movies, especially when I'm in my 70s cinema era and I'm watching all these films because money comes up and he was paid 15,000 for the job that.
[00:09:31] Speaker A: Yeah. In the film.
[00:09:32] Speaker C: Yeah. And I just plug that in just to see that in 2026. Money.
100,000.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: 100,000. Good for Gene Hack.
[00:09:40] Speaker C: Could you imagine? You're like, hey, do this one job I will give you. I can't even conceptualize.
[00:09:44] Speaker A: No.
[00:09:44] Speaker C: Being good at something, a skill that is desirable enough that someone give me $100,000.
[00:09:50] Speaker A: Neither can I. But Gene Hackman is really good at his job.
[00:09:53] Speaker C: Very good.
[00:09:54] Speaker A: I think I did want to say this movie is rated pg, which is Crazy, because there is a lot of this film was from the 1970s. And some of the language used indicates that there's some slurs used that would not fly in a PG movie, I would say, in the last 40 years. So it's wild that this is rated PG. So don't, you know, go into it keeping that in mind.
But this is a classic for a reason.
[00:10:17] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, it is. Yeah. Not family friendly. Yes. And yeah. Offensive language and yeah, yeah, it's. But yeah, it's a. It's really good. It's a really good film. So, okay, so we've, we've been here kind of singing the praises of Francis Ford Coppola.
Shall we turn to your movie?
[00:10:38] Speaker A: Shall we turn to something that is in. In dark praise of Francis Ford Coppola?
[00:10:45] Speaker C: Should we knock him down a couple pegs?
[00:10:46] Speaker A: Let's knock him down a couple pegs.
So my film. I'll have Wilmhelm start the timer. My film is 2025's Megadoc.
I did look up the IMDb plot synopsis.
It's exactly what you would think. A behind the scenes documentary about the making of Francis Ford Coppola's megalopolis.
[00:11:05] Speaker C: Wonderful.
[00:11:06] Speaker A: So this was directed by Mike Figgis. Do you know much about Mike Figgis?
[00:11:10] Speaker C: I do not. He seems well connected. Everyone knows.
[00:11:13] Speaker A: You know why he made Leaving Las Vegas.
[00:11:15] Speaker C: Okay. Okay.
[00:11:17] Speaker A: Which is the film meant Nick Cage has an Oscar for.
So he has also made a couple of other documentaries. Because I was interested, I was like, why would Francis Ford Coppola ask the guy who made Leaving Las Vegas to make this documentary about what he perceives as to be like the most important artistic work of his career? He'd made a couple others. The two main ones, I guess he is. He made a TV documentary about the national union mine workers strike in like the early 2000s. And he also made a documentary called Somebody Up There Likes Me, which is a documentary about Ronnie Wood, the longtime guitarist the Rolling Stones.
[00:11:51] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:11:52] Speaker A: So it's not that he's never made a documentary.
[00:11:54] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:11:55] Speaker A: And I think this is as far as documentaries about semi doomed film productions go.
[00:12:01] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:12:02] Speaker A: Pretty good.
[00:12:03] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:12:05] Speaker A: So if you know nothing about Megalopolis, we did talk about it a little bit earlier. It was a film that came out in 2024.
Francis Ford Coppola sold, I think it says at the beginning of the documentary, $120 million worth of the stake in his winery.
[00:12:22] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:12:22] Speaker A: To finance this film.
[00:12:24] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:12:25] Speaker A: Which he had been planning to make for something like 30 years or more.
[00:12:31] Speaker C: What is It. They have like test shots from the early aughts with like Ryan Gosling and Robert De Niro, Uma Thurman.
[00:12:39] Speaker A: These were all people who were originally going to be in this movie when they started doing table reads and like, I think it was 2003. Okay.
[00:12:45] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: And one of the actors, Giancarlo Esposito, who is in the version of the film, came out also read for the original.
[00:12:55] Speaker C: Yeah. I'm sorry, Whenever I talk about this, I'm just gonna assume people saw Megalopolis, which is really unhinged for me to do.
[00:13:01] Speaker A: I don't think anyone saw Megalopolis. That's okay, friends.
The movie does do a halfway decent job of explaining to you what the plot of Megalopolis is. Ostensibly, yes.
Megalopolis is a film that is roughly based on Roman history, but in a modernized sci fi New York where Adam Driver is a version of Caesar.
[00:13:26] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:13:26] Speaker A: And a lot of things happen. Yeah. So the film Mega Doc, though, is about the making of that film, which was, I'm gonna say, rightfully bad.
[00:13:39] Speaker C: Yeah. The.
[00:13:41] Speaker A: The film sort of gets into. Francis ford Coppola was 82 when he started making the movie.
[00:13:46] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:13:48] Speaker A: That doesn't mean he's not a genius. He is. It just means that this didn't go well.
[00:13:51] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:13:52] Speaker A: And it is sort of from rehearsals through the entire making of the film of what it was like to make this movie, which I think as a documentary of what it's like to make a film.
What a crazy film to be like. This is what filmmaking is like. Because I don't think this is what filmmaking is like.
[00:14:15] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:14:15] Speaker A: You talked about a little bit earlier, you're like, does Francis Ford Coppola, does
[00:14:20] Speaker C: he understand how films are made?
[00:14:22] Speaker A: I think he understands how to make a Francis Ford Coppola film.
[00:14:25] Speaker C: Yes.
The thing that hung me up the whole time was, to me, making a movie is like the biggest teamwork piece of art you can ever do.
And. And maybe that's the problem with the project was doomed from the start because it was his brainchild.
And so there was. And. And because he funded it. So there was no room for him to compromise. There was no room for him to work with people who are talented artists in their own right who are trying their best. Like, the set design stuff is just. I wish we could have dug more into that because that conflict was wild.
[00:15:02] Speaker A: There is a whole part of this movie where. And it was. It covers how it was covered in the press that I think two weeks into filming, he fired the entire art department for this movie.
[00:15:11] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:15:11] Speaker A: And they had to start from scratch. So that's just scratching the. The sort of surface of what. Because he also hired a lot of controversial and notoriously difficult to work with actors.
[00:15:22] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:15:23] Speaker A: And that comes back to bite him.
Notably, this film does star Jon Voight, who I think has worked with Coppola before, but I think does have a history of fighting with Coppola.
[00:15:36] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:15:37] Speaker A: And also has Shia LaBeouf in it, who was at the time that the film was being made to this day, kind of. He says it himself, Persona non grata in Hollywood. And I think he makes a really good case of proving that that is correct.
[00:15:55] Speaker C: Yes. If.
Oh, I think we. We got hit by.
[00:16:00] Speaker A: Has gone.
[00:16:02] Speaker C: Please keep talking about it.
[00:16:03] Speaker A: I think that it's. It's a really interesting movie about difficult people, but then also how fun it can be to work with fun people, because you can tell that Mike Figgis and Aubrey Plaza love each other.
[00:16:15] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah.
I. So this was. This was fascinating. Like, the kind of the peek behind the camera a bit, because. Oh, yeah. Shia LaBeouf crazy.
And feels like Coppola and Shia are like oil and water. Like, Coppola's not the kind of guy who seems to be able to work with crazy.
As I was watching this, I realized if I had to work with Aubrey Plaza, I would go insane.
[00:16:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:39] Speaker C: Because there's a certain level of, like, insincerity to everything she does that I think if I was earnestly trying to accomplish a task, I would, like, be like, can we just. Can we stop? Like, can we stop with the jokes? Can we just, like, get this done?
[00:16:54] Speaker A: I think you come across as a really earnest person, and I. When you were starting to say that and he's gonna say he wouldn't vibe with this. I, unfortunately, would vibe with that very hard. I think Aubrey Plaza and I would have a great time.
But I think. I don't know. I think it's a really interesting documentary with inserts from Mike Figgis about how weird it was to make this documentary, which I found really humanizing in a way.
The other note that I have on this that I just wanted to bring up is that Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas have a history of a relationship together. And I think this movie proved to me that I would never want to be friends with George Lucas.
[00:17:32] Speaker C: He kind of, like.
[00:17:33] Speaker A: He's a huge jerk.
[00:17:35] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He. You know, it's. I mean, it is that thing of, like, Coppola is like, this dreamer who has this big Vision. And you can question the wisdom of that, but, like, it's like, oh, George Lucas, like, gotta start working under Coppola. And here he is being like, the dude's impractical. This was. This was a. This was gonna be a failure. I just know it. He just dives. He just. He just throws himself at brick walls. Like, it's just like, whoa, bro.
[00:18:03] Speaker A: It's crazy. If it's. This is a great movie to watch if you ever have wanted to see what it might be like to be truly on the set of a film. Because I think they gave Mike Figgis a ton of access to set, which is really, really, really cool to see. And another great reason to watch this film is if you ever wanted to validate your feelings, either Shia LaBeouf or George Lucas.
[00:18:23] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:18:23] Speaker A: Because you're gonna come back just being like, I was correct about those.
[00:18:26] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:18:27] Speaker A: But it's a really interesting movie. I don't think you necessarily have to have watched Megalopolis to understand it, because I don't know that anyone understood Megalopolis.
[00:18:35] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:18:35] Speaker A: Yeah. So if you are interested in filmmaking, I would say check out Mega Doc.
[00:18:39] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:18:39] Speaker A: It's also on Canopy. It is unrated, but they're definitely swearing a lot.
[00:18:43] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:18:44] Speaker A: So keep that in mind.
[00:18:45] Speaker C: Yeah. Another not family friendly pick.
[00:18:47] Speaker A: Definitely not.
[00:18:48] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you, Tracy.
[00:18:51] Speaker A: This is.
[00:18:51] Speaker C: This has been delightful.
[00:18:52] Speaker A: It always is.
[00:18:53] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. I love talking movies and also like the process of making movies. It's fun to kind of dig into that aspect on.
[00:19:00] Speaker A: Definitely. We don't get to do that a lot on this show, so that was really fun.
[00:19:02] Speaker C: Yeah, that's awesome. Well, thank you for joining us on the podcast, everyone, and we hope to see you next time.
[00:19:08] Speaker A: Bye.
[00:19:11] Speaker B: Five Minute Film Finder is a digital program brought to you by Pioneer Library System in Oklahoma.
All opinions expressed in this episode are those of the host and not those of the organization.
Five Minute Film Finder is produced, recorded and mixed by Ben C. Theme music by Ben C.
If you have any questions, concerns, or comments, please email podcastioneerlibrarysystem.org Remember to, like, review and subscribe. Thanks for listening.
