Film Shapes

Woof, it was hard work getting through this one. Francis Ford Coppola, paterfamilias of a filmmaking dynasty (many of whom are a part of this mess), has been sitting on this idea for decades. The kernel comes from the Catilinarian conspiracy of 63 BCE (thanks again Wikipedia) where a Roman politician, Catalina attempted to overthrow Cicero. By transposing this story over the crumbling American Empire, Coppola is biting off a lot. You'd think if anyone can chew all this, it'd be this guy, who not only gave us the Godfather films, The Conversation and Apocalypse Now , but also paved the way for the new wave of young tearaways of US cinema in the 1970s and 80s. George Lucas, Brian De Palma, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, among others, all owe some debt to the ground-laying of Coppola. So what happened with Megalopolis ? There's a film in here but you have to clear away the extraneous clumps of dirt hanging onto the edges of it. For argument's sake, let's say t...

As per the film's title, this is all about the last legally sanctioned duel in France. In 1386! Wikipedia gives a more recent 1547 and Ridley Scott himself directed a film (his first) in 1977 called The Duellists , set around the early 1800s, though I take it the duels in this film were not judicial. Anyway, The Last Duel is a pretty fine film. It's neatly structured into three parts, though crucially, not three acts. Each part is named 'The Truth According to....', covering the main characters, played by Matt Damon, Adam Driver and Jodie Comer. These are Jean de Carrouges, Jacques Le Gris and Marguerite de Carrouges respectively. Add Ben Affleck's delicious portrayal (replete with quality swears) of Count Pierre d'Alençon, and you have some excellent turns; just the right side of smallgoods. The 'three truths' structuring will, of course, conjure thoughts of Rashomon (and the many examples of  films or TV shows using the Rashomon Effect), but the icing...