2024’s Last Chance: Divine Intervention or ‘Megalopolis’

By Colleen O’Connor

“Ahead of the movie’s world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on May 14, the first trailer for Francis Ford Coppola’s sci-fi passion project, Megalopolis, has been released online.”

Coppola, the magician of movies with relevance (Godfather I and II and Apocalypse Now) worked on his new film for more than a decade.  Part Sci-Fi and part morality play, it may demonstrate a last chance for salvation.  Dwindling audiences define politics while Blockbuster moments prevail elsewhere.

Barbie and Oppenheimer in movies. In sports.  Katlin Collins and the WMBA finals. Add Saturday’s 150th Kentucky Derby crowds and photo finish.  Blockbuster concerts like Taylor Swift. All mega events. All with cheers. Massive crowds of appreciation. Not so in current U.S. politics.

With just 6 months before the next Presidential election, interest is dwindling. With over 60 indictments and multiple court cases involving a former President charged with financial fraud, convicted of sexual assault, claiming “Presidential immunity” whilst no longer President, and spewing his venom and cruelty without regard to consequences, Trump is getting boring.

Biden, likewise.

Examples:

Trump calls Biden’s team a “Gestapo Administration.”  Biden rebuts by calling Trump’s actions “semi-fascism” and “authoritarianism.” (An aside, ask for definitions and skip the latest expletives).

“Trump’s own lawyer, Todd Blanche, read aloud into the court record a social media post made by [Michael] Cohen on April 22 where he called Trump “Von ShitzInPants,” clearly in reference to the dictator-in-training allegedly wearing adult diapers. Yes, this means that Trump’s OWN lawyer called him “VonShitzInPants” on the record and in front of Trump himself.”  The jokes went viral.

Pick a day. Pick a moment.  And then, try to avoid it all.  Big question, can American democracy survive garbage speak?  And the march to chaos?  Or will the United States descend into violence?  Fake electors? Voter Suppression?

Hence, the need to escape.  Sports, hiking trails, travel, gardening and/or movies.  They draw great crowds of supporters. Something to do to avoid being contaminated with “forever hate speech” and banal behavior.

A short history lesson about the “Before Times” so many yearn for.

Start with the “Roaring 1920s” and the following years of upheaval.  Then read Walter Lippman, Eleanor Roosevelt’s favorite author. Precursor to today’s political quagmire.

“Successful…politicians are insecure and intimidated men.  They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements of their constituencies.”

“Ours is a problem in which deception has become organized and strong; where truth is poisoned at its source; one in which the skill of the shrewdest brains is devoted to misleading a bewildered people.”

Echoes of today’s troubles.  How to succeed in a political arena that few support?  And two candidates without majority approval?

Wait for court trials to end?  For ill health to intervene? For more chaos to appear?

Several possibilities occur to avoid a new Civil War.  Biden, expected Democratic Party’s nomination, could release all of his delegates to the floor at the Convention.  A new heir apparent?

Trump, if convicted on multiple counts will push his hand-picked majority on the Supreme Court to dismiss all possible outcomes with “delay, delay, delay.”  Eventually, he will be convicted, and if he wins reelection, pardon himself. His only escape.

Or, if convicted, deprived of property and income, Trump could cut a deal with the U.S. Government and State Attorney Generals, to close off any punishment with a promise never to seek public office again.  This would not foreclose global options, however.

Barring those two options, there remains Divine Intervention, or a possible lesson from Coppola’s film, Megalopolis about “an architect who wants to rebuild New York City as a utopia following a devastating disaster.”

Already nominated for  2024 Nominee Palme d’Or and “among the most anticipated films of the festival,  Coppola’s Megalopolis marks the director’s his first film in over a decade. He’s won the Palme d’Or twice before; firstly in 1974 for The Conversation and then again in 1979 for Apocalypse Now.”

Perhaps, his “new utopia” will provide a glimpse of a more positive future.  Must wait for Cannes opening on May 14th to discover the possibilities.

Until then, skip the news and hope for Divine Intervention.