In Defense of Creative Limitations

Or, Maybe Someone Else Should Read This Script, Yeah?

In January I wrote about Francis Ford Coppola’s dedication to his creative vision. That auteurist rigidity produced The Godfather films, The Conversation, and Apocalypse Now, four of the greatest American movies ever made. Through their production he fought off studio executives and money men and Southeast Asian typhoons. 1970s Coppola was the artist raging for his art, a true depiction of Teddy Roosevelt’s Man in the Arena. I idolized Coppola, his dedication to The Idea and his execution. Last week I saw “Megalopolis”. I’d waited years for this movie. Coppola took decades to make it.

Yeah, uh, Frank? We need to talk.

Adam Driver searches for Megalopolis’s plot (he didn’t find it).

It’s ridiculous that a schmuck like me, with five short stories and a as-of-yet unsold novel under his professional belt should criticize an all-timer like Francis Ford Coppola. But the internet exists and I’ve got some time. So here we are. Megalopolis is an incoherent, pompous, unhinged, didactic, faux-philosophical, plotless mess (taken straight from my Letterboxd review). It represents the worst possible outcome when a creator makes the pure heroin version of what’s in their head. Writers generally don’t shit on other writers; it’s bad form. But this movie demands conversation. Mostly involving the phrase, “What the f—k?”

Defenders of FFC—and of big creative swings in general—have erected a shield wall around him. Massive gambles need to be taken, they write, to push the medium further. True visionaries give audiences not what they want, but what they don’t even know they need. And yeah, I’m with that. Twin Peaks: The Return remains my favorite piece of popular American art. It is eighteen episodes of David Lynch drinking full and descending into his own subconscious. It is baffling and incomprehensible and weird and hilarious and stirring and never—ever—dull. It also attracted less than 400,000 viewers an episode. Acceptance by the Normies has never been Lynch’s goal, but it should be noted he hasn’t directed a long form project since. This is a business.

Which brings us back to Coppola.

Megalopolis is rumored to have cost Francis $140 million of his own dollars. Coppola sold off portions of his lucrative wine business to finance its production. This is independent filmmaking on an epic scale. No studio involvement, no oversight of any kind. In theory, this should produce the best work. But wading through 135 minutes of Coppola’s stream of consciousness didn’t excite me; it bored me. Megalopolis tries to tackle every question, and, in doing so, answers none. Again, supporters will applaud his audacity. Years past I might’ve been one of them. Problem is, when legends like FFC receive zero feedback and produce a mess like Megalopolis, it makes it that much harder for younger creatives to be trusted by studios. When big swings work, they push the medium forward. But when they don’t, they herald the return of the flop.

This got me thinking of Kevin Coster’s Horizon: An America Saga Part One. Here we have another Oscar-winning visionary privately funding his four part (?!?!?) movie series about American western expansionism. I saw this in a theater, and somewhat enjoyed it. Mixed into the (many) plot threads are flashes of Costner’s Open Range action chops and Dances With Wolves’s ruminative philosophy. It’s well-made, grounded, and tells a story. Problem is, it’s a television show; Horizon has the pacing and structure of a Taylor Sheridan series. It should have aired over three months on a streamer. But Costner still thinks of himself as a Big Deal Movie Star, a role he hasn’t played in twenty years. Horizon’s box office failure throws into question whether he’ll find the cash for Parts Three and Four (Part Two is in the can, and premiered to lukewarm reviews at the Venice Film Festival in September). Another creative’s dream project failed to connect with audiences.

A possible counter to this argument could be Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. His 2023 adaptation of David Grann’s excellent account of cultural theft and widespread murder of the Osage by white Americans earned ten Oscar noms—but won none. Scorsese worked with the biggest budget of his career—$215 million by some accounts—and delivered a final cut of nearly three-and-a-half hours. KOTFM has many fans. I am not one of them. I found it overlong and tedious. And I don’t need frenetic Goodfellas Era Scorsese; I love Silence and The Irishman and even Kundun. But every scene in Killers ran too long and the structure Scorsese and co-writer Eric Roth chose robs the story of the propulsive energy of Grann’s book.

Again, all this is subjective. Coppola and Scorsese are legit geniuses. They remain among my favorite filmmakers. But their late period projects provide an argument for the imposition of limits. While they worked with little-to-no studio oversight and lots of money, filmmakers with more limited resources have pumped out bangers: American Fiction, Love Lies Bleeding, The Iron Claw, Perfect Days, I Saw the TV Glow, Longlegs, Cuckoo, Strange Darling, Blink Twice, and The Substance provoked and thrilled and hurt and haunted. Younger directors (mostly) working with smaller budgets made many of my favorite films of 2024.

How does this translate into writing?

I’m no poet, but I admire the Japanese haiku. You know, the five-seven-five structure. The constraints of communicating an idea in seventeen syllables forces the writer to cut away everything that is inessential. When fences are erected, you’re forced to think of ways through them.

Novels don’t have budgets. They take time and diligence, but you don’t need $100 million to write a good one. The novel my agent is shopping began as a 133,000 word New York City crime epic (for reference, most thrillers are 80-90,000 words). After feedback from a few writer friends, I shaved that down to 103,000 words. My agent made me cut it to 88,000. Each revision gutted me; it can’t lose any more story; YOU ARE DESTROYING MY VISION! But every draft has been better than the one before. The novel’s become viable because smart people have provided honest insight. Admittedly, this’s easier to do with a nobody than a master.

Don Winslow once told me, “Just tell the story.” I think about that a lot. I have a tendency to sprawl. Sometimes we need someone to read our work and tell us, “Nah, this isn’t working.”

And those constraints? All the cutting? They paid off. An editor at my dream publisher is considering acquiring the novel (fingers crossed). But he cautioned, “it could lose some bulk.” That no longer frightens me. This editor has helped shape some excellent novels. If he buys the book, I’ll trust his vision. Listen to his feedback and adjust accordingly.

Or maybe I’ll sell my vineyard and publish it myself.

Then again, probably not.