It’d shock anybody who learn my evaluate of Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis to study that I noticed it once more opening weekend. Sure, I did name the film “the world’s costliest cautionary story” (and after viewing it a second time, that opinion hasn’t shifted). However I had two good causes for a reprise: One, I had promised my cinephile father that I’d go together with him, and two, I used to be very inquisitive about what the AMC web site referred to as a “reside participation component within the theater.”
The “reside participation component” of Megalopolis has been a recognized amount of the film since its Cannes premiere: Vainness Honest editor Radhika Seth, who attended the Could 2024 screening, described it as follows:
Someplace in the midst of the movie, as [Adam] Driver’s Cesar is talking to digicam, the display screen briefly went clean. There was a confused smattering of applause from those that thought it was throughout — if solely we’d been so fortunate — however then, with the lights nonetheless down, a person ran onto the stage in entrance of the cinema display screen from the wings, holding a protracted microphone… Positioning himself on one aspect of the stage, and now lit by a highlight, the person then confronted Driver, now again on display screen, and requested him a query, as if collaborating in some unusual pandemic-era Zoom press convention. Driver answered, and the person then rushed off stage once more.
Seth then went on to hope that “this nonsensical element is replicated throughout the nation” when the movie was launched in theaters, and wouldn’t you understand it? It was. On a really restricted foundation.
For context, my first expertise seeing Megalopolis happened on a Saturday morning at IMAX Headquarters in Playa Vista (south sufficient of Los Angeles correct to really feel such as you’re making a trek to New Jersey). There have been about six different folks within the theater, which is at all times awkward, and it solely received extra awkward when the home lights went up throughout the aforementioned press convention scene.
All that occurred in Playa Vista was that the lights within the theater turned on during the press convention scene, the theater returning to correct blackness when it was carried out. As is my behavior, at that time I had prevented any evaluations or commentary concerning the Cannes premiere (I hate feeling probably influenced by exterior opinions beforehand), so I had completely no context as to what was occurring. Thus, when the credit completed rolling, I walked as much as the projectionist, sitting at a desk in the back of the auditorium, to ask why the home lights had gone up throughout that scene. All she was capable of inform me was that it wasn’t an accident — it was a deliberate a part of the movie.
On the AMC Century Metropolis on Saturday, Sept. twenty eighth, although, I used to be capable of get what was billed as “The Final Expertise”. On this case, what occurred was really fairly easy: When Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) confronted the digicam for a press convention, the home lights did activate once more, and a person carrying a jaunty fedora and carrying a mic stand entered the movie show from the identical entrance as we had earlier that night.
The performer then positioned himself stage proper/home left, on the aisle behind the primary few rows of the theater — that means his again was to the vast majority of the viewers. (Sucked to be the folks in these first few rows, for whom this complete factor was meaningless.) He then mimed together with a pre-recorded query, projected from the audio system within the again left nook of the auditorium, to which Cesar responded on display screen.
The obvious indication that one thing was meant to be totally different about this scene was that the side ratio modified; as a substitute of filling the total huge IMAX display screen, Adam Driver’s face appeared in a scaled-down sq., positioned on the backside of the body. This really labored out fairly efficiently by way of ensuring that Cesar’s eyeline (now nearer to viewers stage) would match up with the place the performer was standing.
A notable side of the way in which this labored at an on a regular basis movie show versus Cannes is that on the Cannes premiere, the viewers had no concept that somebody was going to stroll onto the stage. AMC, in the meantime, not solely famous it on the web site however made a degree of projecting a card earlier than the movie performed, alerting the viewers to the upcoming “reside participation” component. Which, given real-life horror tales of films being disrupted by viewers members, appears like a sensible precaution.
For those who’re curious how this labored exterior of “The Final Expertise,” a buddy of mine additionally noticed the movie in IMAX final week, however with out the reside component (a lot to her disappointment). At Alison’s theater, the home lights by no means went up throughout that scene. As an alternative, the audio of the journalist’s query simply performed off-screen.
For the file, there was no upcharge for the pleasure of “The Final Expertise” — ticket costs are in fact fluid relying on the placement and time, however our tickets on Saturday night time price $24.49 every, which is commonplace IMAX pricing in Los Angeles at this level. It’s additionally the identical worth these seeing Megalopolis this upcoming Tuesday, on the similar time on the similar theater, pays.
Francis Ford Coppola and Adam Driver behind the scenes of Megalopolis, courtesy of Lionsgate
