We’ve all seen movie-marketing campaigns that try to pull the wool over our eyes, taking out-of-context quotes and trying to pretend that a widely derided film is actually a widely beloved one. Every once in a while, a movie will go in the opposite direction, playing up the fact that it’s been divisive among critics. Famously, the ads for David Lynch’s Lost Highway touted Siskel and Ebert’s “two thumbs down” reviews of the film. At first, this new trailer for Francis Ford Coppola’s much-anticipated, decades-in-the-making Megalopolis seemed to be taking a turbo-loaded approach to that latter strategy, going back in time to give us examples of critics hating on Coppola’s earlier masterpieces. And not just any critics: These are quotes from people like Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris, two of the greatest names in film criticism.
Except that it looks like they might not have said any of this. Pauline Kael, for one, totally adored both The Godfather and The Godfather Part II. She lavished praise on the adaptation, the direction, and the performances, and said of the whole epic, “This is a bicentennial picture that doesn’t insult the intelligence. It’s an epic vision of the corruption of America.” The alleged quote attributed to her in this trailer — that The Godfather is “diminished by its artsiness” — is nowhere to be found in either of her (glowing) reviews of the first two films. (She was less keen on Part III, but that phrase doesn’t appear in that review either.) If anything, Kael felt that Coppola’s refinement and skill — his artistry, in other words — greatly improved Mario Puzo’s admittedly trashy source material.
I know that Sarris, ever the delightful contrarian, was less keen on The Godfather, but that was to be somewhat expected. Still, the quote attributed to him in the trailer (“a sloppy, self-indulgent movie”) is not to be found in his review either. Vincent Canby does not appear to have called Apocalypse Now “hollow at the core.” He was, however, mixed about the film. Rex Reed did in fact pretty much hate Apocalypse Now, but his quote from this trailer doesn’t appear in his review either. And, no, Roger Ebert’s mostly positive review of Bram Stoker’s Dracula does not include the words “a triumph of style over substance.” Instead, he says this: “The movie is an exercise in feverish excess, and for that if for little else, I enjoyed it.” He gave it three stars, which was actually one of the nicer reviews the film received at the time. Is it possible all these quotes are made-up? I’m not going to bother looking through John Simon’s archives — I’m in a rotten mood as it is — but I wouldn’t be shocked if his quotes had also been modified or entirely made-up.
What’s the intention here? Did the people who wrote and cut this trailer just assume that nobody would pay attention to the truthfulness of these quotes, since we live in a made-up digital world where showing any curiosity about anything from the past is seen as a character flaw? Did they do it to see which outlets would just accept these quotes at face value? Or maybe they did it on purpose to prompt us to look back at these past reviews and discover what good criticism can be? If so, then it worked, in my case. I’ve read a lot of Pauline Kael reviews in my life, but I’d never read her review of The Godfather. I encourage you to do so as well.
But there’s another issue here. Yes, Coppola has built a career on films that perplex some critics and audiences when they first come out but are eventually revealed to be visionary works of art. I wrote a whole column about this! And, yes, Megalopolis will be a divisive movie. It already is. Many of us saw it at Cannes and were left both baffled and enthralled. It’s a totally crazy, totally unforgettable work. (You can quote me on that.) The movie isn’t just divisive among critics, it’s divisive within the mind of the individual critic; I suspect many viewers will have a similar reaction. I also know that Megalopolis, like many of Coppola’s more dismissed pictures over the years, plays far better on a second viewing. The film is full of thorny and intriguing ideas and bold stylistic choices — the kinds of things that critical voices are often very helpful for teasing out. Taking on critics might be an exciting and cathartic marketing tactic, but I suspect Megalopolis will need critics championing it when it actually comes out. And making up fake quotes from our heroes is probably not the best way to get us on your side.
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