Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis: An Original Graphic Novel debuts as a hardcover this month courtesy of Abrams ComicArts. To celebrate the book’s release, we spoke with writer Chris Ryall on adapting the movie into the graphic novel format with artist Jacob Phillips.
What was the first Coppola film you ever saw, and what kinds of memorable experiences do you have of watching his films? How did your knowledge of his work and his impact on the film community make you feel about working on this project? What attracted you most to the project?
Chris Ryall: It was either The Outsiders, at an age where seeing that one was appropriate, or else it was Apocalypse Now at too-young an age. It was certainly the latter that made the bigger impact on me. Years later, The Godfather films likewise hit me so hard, since those first two are such a showcase for the ultimate potential of what film can do. But I think throughout my life, the one that’s bounced around in my skull the most of Hearts of Darkness documentary.
All of which I tried my best to compartmentalize while working with Francis on Megalopolis, since the idea that the guy that made those movies, the person who has made such massive contributions as those to American pop culture, was now dealing with me on a graphic novel could’ve been too overwhelming. Because ultimately, to properly adapt anything from one form to another necessitates some changes to make it work as well as possible. And it was hard to reconcile rewriting that guy but to be true to the material and the graphic novel form, you also have to do it.
The converse of that stress is, what attracted me the most of working on this was the chance to create a graphic novel directly with that guy.
What were your first impressions when you first saw the movie, Megalopolis? Did you see it before or after you signed on for the graphic novel? Why do you think the film generates so much discussion and such polarizing opinions?
Ryall: The movie was still being filmed when we got the book under way. I did visit the set a couple times toward the tail end of shooting but for the most part, I worked from a version of the screenplay, concept art pieces, and conversations with Coppola. That was all the source material I needed.
Along the way, Coppola was musing at one point about the polarizing headlines even during the making of the film, and wondering why the media and fanbase that seemed to always pull for him now seemed to be rooting against this project from the start. To which I had to explain modern social media… I mean, this is a film that is fully one man’s vision, which some took to mean one man’s folly, but either way, we seem to be in an era that frowns upon individuality, on stories and ideas that ask more of viewers or readers than what they’re used to. Megalopolis is a polarizing film for sure, but that’s not a bad thing. The movie being Coppola’s singular vision doesn’t mean people are wrong for not sharing his vision but the vehemence of some of the reviews were often pretty lopsided. But the movie was and still is a part of the discussion, as people try to understand it or they watch the Megadoc documentary to try to get more inside his head or, hopefully, they read the graphic novel and maybe re-contextualize it in their heads. Certainly, people thinking about it and talking about it, good or bad, is better than indifference, I think.
What were some of your greatest challenges and what was most rewarding about adapting a story as narratively rich and complex as Megalopolis?
Ryall: The challenges are rewards were pretty much the same thing, as they often are with adaptations from film to graphic novel: how do we do with static images what the film accomplishes with moving images and sound? Especially a movie that’s a stylized fable without a straight-forward narrative in the ways that people expect? I loved the challenge of it, and I loved even more the way Jacob Phillips handled the art and colors to present our own version of Coppola’s new world.
Who were your favorite characters to write for the Megalopolis graphic novel, and why? In which ways did the actors’ portrayals on screen influence your writing and which ways did the characters develop and grow on their own in your adaptation?
Ryall: On the latter question, we mostly avoided trying to do specific actor likenesses for various reasons, but mostly because Coppola encouraged us to make this book its own thing. Jacob also had no film stills or footage to work from, which again encouraged he and I to tell the story without being overly beholden to what the film was doing.
And while I didn’t take too many liberties with the dialogue throughout, it was Cesar (Adam Driver’s character, who was also a bit of a stand-in for Coppola in many ways) who was the most fun to handle. He was the builder, the artist who could stop time (as we did on every panel of the graphic novel, really), and the rebel who didn’t want to follow a staid status quo that was determined to hold society back from advancing in helpful ways.
Francis Ford Coppola stated that he hoped that Megalopolis: An Original Graphic Novel would be, “a sibling of the film, rather than just an echo.” How did that objective influence your process, and what are some steps you took to make the graphic novel different from the source material? What are some things that fans of the film will find new, different, or expanded upon in the graphic novel?
Ryall: His approach, and his encouragement to us, was so freeing. It was amazing, to adapt a version of the story that wasn’t beholden to his final cut, didn’t have levels of approval to contend with, and that allowed me regular and immediate access to the creator of the story.
So our graphic novel has added scenes, we re-shuffled some of the scenes, added transitions, and generally presented a bit more of a linear story that better suited the graphic novel form.
I really love the “sibling” description, making us part of the family rather than a simulacrum.
Megalopolis is visually unique, complex, and full of interesting colors and visual details. How did the visuals of the film influence your writing? Did your script include any visual or artistic suggestions for Jacob Phillips, or did you focus exclusively on the written words?
Ryall: Since Jacob didn’t have the benefit of seeing the film along the way, my script had plenty of visual descriptors and suggestions, while still allowing him the freedom to interpret a scene or setting as it worked for him. His color approach likewise was something that perfectly fit the story and evolved out of both some of the concept art pieces and some suggestions I offered up along the way.
While I tried not to let the rough cuts of the movie as they came together influence anything in our book, there were certainly some instances of me revising some sequences in the script once I had a better sense of Coppola’s staging for some scenes.
If you had the choice to adapt any other movie into a graphic novel, what would it be and why? How would your work on Megalopolis: An Original Graphic Novel influence how you might approach it?
Ryall: I usually tend to think more about books I really want to adapt to graphic novel form – novels like Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles or Kavalier and Clay or The Shadow of the Wind or even The Phantom Tollbooth – but I think if I was going to circle in on some movies I’d love to adapt, it’d either be animated films like The Iron Giant or Hayao Miyazaki movies, or films where it’d be fun to work in additional scenes (something like E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial, although I’d stop short of adapting the scenes in the novelization where E.T. is a bit too taken by Elliot’s mother…). But more than adapting films to graphic novel, I’d love to do sequels in this form: again, E.T. 2 would be a blast, since Spielberg had something so different in mind if it came to pass; or Kill Bill: Volume 3, and so on.
Okay, also, Machete and Machete Kills and why isn’t Machete a huge comic-book star…?
Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis: An Original Graphic Novel is available now. Stay tuned to Conskipper for all things comics and pop culture as soon as it breaks!