Coppola New film is a Roman lesson in democracy for US, says director

The United States, whose founders tried to emulate the laws and governmental structures of the Roman republic, is headed for a similarly self-inflicted collapse, the director Francis Ford Coppola has said at the premiere of his first film in more than a decade.

- Philip Oltermann

"What's happening in America, in our republic, in our democracy, is exactly how Rome lost their republic thousands of years ago," Coppola said at a press conference at the Cannes film festival yesterday. "Our politics has taken us to the point where we might lose our republic." 

Coppola, who turned 85 last month, added: "America was founded on the ideas of the Roman republic. We didn't want a king, Rome didn't want a king, so they invented a new form of government called the republic with the senate and with Roman law and with all of the things which we embrace."

Megalopolis, which premiered at Cannes on Thursday night, draws inspiration from the Catiline conspiracy to overthrow the rules of the Roman republic in 63BC and is setina New York-like city of the future.