When Francis Ford Coppola finally went into production on Megalopolis , the project carried the weight of decades of anticipation and the air of a high-wire act undertaken by a beloved, daredevil octogenarian. At 83, Coppola was committing more than $140 million of his own fortune to a film that the studios had long deemed too bizarre and risky. The scale was staggering for an independent production, the ambition unbounded — and Mike Figgis happened to be there to document it all.

Figgis, the British filmmaker behind Leaving Las Vegas and a string of digital experiments, arrived on set almost by accident. He had met Coppola decades earlier while shooting his Oscar-winning drama with the great director’s nephew, Nicolas Cage. The two stayed friendly. When Figgis heard Coppola was r

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