Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse

"My film is not a movie. My film is not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam. It's what it was really like. It was crazy. And the way we made it was very much like the way the Americans were in Vietnam. We were in the jungle. There were too many of us. We had access to too much money… too much equipment. And, little by little, we went insane." Francis Ford Coppola's 'Apocalypse Now' is one of the all-time great triumphs, a film so mind-blowingly spectacular that we are immediately aware that this is about as good as any film can get. However, behind this epic piece of cinema lies a production story that is riddled with as much drama and uncertainty as the plot of the movie it created. Originally slated as a 16 week production, 'Apocalypse Now' took more than double that to film, and Coppola invested millions of his own dollars to ensure that the picture was completed. Eleanor Coppola, wife of Francis, was asked to produce a video production diary of the film's completion, and her footage – intercut with more recent interviews with the cast and crew – became 'Hearts Of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse.' Throughout her narration, Eleanor Coppola frequently compares the plight of Captain Benjamin L. Willard (played by Martin Sheen in 'Apocalypse Now') with that of her own husband. Just like Willard is simply unable to turn back down the river, as is Francis Ford Coppola. Having invested so much into this big-budget war movie, he feels that he must pursue it to the end. When asked if he ever considered quitting, Coppola replies with, "How am I gonna quit from myself? Am I gonna say "Francis, I quit?" I was financing the movie. How could I quit?" The production period was certainly a tumultuous one. Just one week into filming, Coppola made the difficult (and very costly) decision to replace his main actor, discarding Harvey Keitel in favour of Martin Sheen. During the filming of the opening scene in a Saigon hotel room, Sheen got into character by drinking himself into oblivion, unintentionally smashing a mirror and threatening, at any moment, to attack the crew members or Coppola himself. When Sheen suffered a very serious heart attack, and almost lost his life, the following weeks were restricted to filming distant pick-up shots, with Willard's back to the camera while Sheen recovered. Marlon Brando's somewhat uncooperative actions did not help production, either. Having demanded $1 million a week for three weeks (including a $1 million advance), Brando arrived on the set overweight and unprepared, having completely neglected to read John Conrad's novel 'Hearts Of Darkness,' the distant source for the script. At one point prior to this, Brando had reputedly even threatened to walk away from the film (taking the $1 million dollar advance with him), if production was delayed any further. Even after watching this film, which documents the events of the production in a detailed and compelling manner, I can still only imagine the pressure that Francis Ford Coppola must have been under. In several instances, during conversations that Eleanor Coppola secretly recorded for future reference, Coppola contemplates suicide, absolutely convinced that his film is going to be terrible. This is documentary film-making at its most gripping. If you don't emerge from this film with a newfound respect for Francis Ford Coppola and 'Apocalypse Now,' or even just for filmmakers in general, then I seriously doubt that you were even paying attention. For fans of the film, or of film-making itself, this is a must-see.

source: Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse

Apocalypse Now reveals, more than any other film, the insanity of the Vietnam War. Hearts of Darkness reveals the insanity of Apocalypse Now. Coming off the first two Godfather movies and The Conversation, Francis Ford Coppola took on Joseph Conrad and 'Nam at once, and while he came out of it with another classic, it was his last. The years spent on the movie where EVERYTHING went wrong -typhoons, military interruptions, health problems, Dennis Hopper being Dennis Hopper, etc. - broke him, and while he had several successes afterward, they never rose to the same level. This documentary is the documentation of Coppola using up that last bit of transcendent skill to just get this damn movie out.

A doc that lives up the original movie. There are so many good histories, features, hide details, showing the state of mind at that moment. The exhibition of this doc had became a great complement to the Apocalipse Now. It's important to remind that some legends continues to be unclear, like the departure of Harvey Keitel at the early days of footage. Highly recommended.

I rented this title when it first came out on VHS, and naturally loved it. I can only guess that it is Francis Coppola's massive Hollywood influence and ego that is preventing the film's release on DVD. Like most collectors with any respect for great films, I own the DVD of Apocalypse Now (Redux, in my case,) and would very much love to complement it with this making-of masterpiece. Is Coppola himself keeping this unflattering documentary out of the hands of DVD devotees? I certainly want to own this great film, but the ridiculous thought of purchasing a VHS title makes me glance at the calendar to be sure that it is in fact the year 2005. As I remember it from so many years ago, Hearts of Darkness is a fantastic documentary that deserves to be available to DVD viewers.

I'm still trying to understand what "making of" means. As a film student I was expecting to grasp useful informations that could explain to me why "Apocalypse Now" took so much time to be produced, why Coppola tried to kill himself and so on. Unfortunately I can say it's one of the most tedious making of I've ever watched, because all the horror, the problems, the dreadful filming diary don't explain anything, in the end I feel like the irresponsibility or Coppola own's money took over so that many production problems would come up due to over-pretension. Maybe I'm being harsh, but for me the documentary was pointless to watch, there are very few things you can take into account, I turned off my TV and thought Coppola speaks too much and says nothing on Hearts of Darkness, he's not being clear but redundant all the time. If you are like me and want something more solid, go for "Lost in La Mancha" that tell us Terry Gilliam's nightmare, It's much better, interesting and rather sad.

A documentary that only shows one thing: Coppola being an immature and pretentious child that acts like he did not know what he was in for. The tapes of the discussions between Coppola and his wife just contributes to this child play. One hour and a half with complaining that are everything but surprising. There are better behind-the-scenes documentaries than this. Instead of wasting your time seeing this, use it for a second viewing of the movie it was based on, "Apocalypse Now". --------------- Good movies!

When one sees Coppola saying what a disastrous movie he is making, or sitting on the set and telling the actors (with absolute belief) that the french plantation scene is not at all what he imagined and that it would never never never find its way into the finished film... One wonders at how MONEY changes a man's values. The lesson here is that you do not tamper with a thing after you've put it aside. EVER. Get on with the rest of your life Francis and leave your masterpieces alone. You only succeed in devaluating them for posterity. The documentary film makers should go back and add two or three minutes on how, after a lackluster decade as a has-been film maker in the 90's, Coppola needed major studio backing for his up-coming MEGALOPOLIS, and so enthusiastically went back to pee on Apocalypse Now to curry favor.

I know that Apocalypse Now! has this great reputation and all--even though I don't remember it being so great--but after viewing this documentary I was left thinking of that famous anecdote from Marathon Man. Method actor Dustin Hoffman went without sleep for days to prepare himself for being tortured by Olivier's character--and when he told this to Olivier, the famous Shakespearean actor is reported to have replied: "Why not try acting? Its much easier." I do not think the end results of Apocalypse Now justifies the insane expenses and misery that apparently went into the making of it. If anything, this film shows the crazy extravagances filmmakers will go to in order to make "art," and in this case the end certainly does not justify the means.

No story, no structure, no point. Just a lot of footage, split into 3 min bits, that get scrambled. The whole thing could've been told in 4 minutes: Ford Coppola was with a big ego and wanted to do a movie loosely based on a book called the heart of darkness. So he invested his money and other's to go to a country that had difficulties fighting rebels and endured typhoons. But seeing as he didn't really know what he wanted to do with the movie, and his ego was too big to accept defeat, he kept rewriting, and reshooting, going way overbudget and way overtime, and hired a vain big star. So if you want to learn somehting from this is: instead of making stuff before you know what you want, and then wasting a lot of time and money on it, plan things perfectly before.