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All Movie Info
Starring:
Sam Bottoms, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Duvall, Laurence Fishburne, Frederic Forrest, Albert Hall, Dennis Hopper, George Lucas, John Milius, Martin Sheen, Eleanor Coppola
Directed By:
Fax Bahr, George Hickenlooper
Written By:
Fax Bahr, George Hickenlooper
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Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1992)
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Movie Review by Jarrod
January 28th, 2008
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Several movies about making movies have been made over the years, mostly in Europe, where Fellini and Truffaut offered two distinct films, 8 ½ and Day for Night, that allowed some insight into how they approached the creative process, and what kinds of problems can arise during a production, and how the director deals with them, how much commitment he has to a project. Neither Fellini nor Truffaut faced the same dilemmas as Francis Coppola when he set out to make Apocalypse Now. 'Hearts of Darkness' is a remarkable and penetrating documentary about everything that went wrong. Only Lost in La Mancha can reasonably compare to it, in the scope of the troubles and frustrations it displays. Coppola reveals much about himself, far more than most people would be willing to, but then he put everything on the line to make the movie, sacrificing his home and the future of his children (he had three at the time, including Sofia, who was the youngest), all with his wife Eleanor's consent; her loyalty to him and his artistic vision is truly extraordinary. Eleanor kept a diary, and passages of it are read, and she also recorded private talks with Francis, without his knowledge, and this is why we hear his deepest thoughts and feelings, things that might otherwise stay hidden. Coppola went more than 200 days over schedule, his sets were destroyed by monsoons, and he contemplated suicide more than once. The script, originally written by John Milius, kept changing, with Francis adding to it as he shot it.
Marlon Brando was paid $1 million a week, arrived totally unprepared, discusses his character with Francis for hours on end, often seems disinterested and bored, even announcing at one point that he cannot think of any more dialogue and calls it a day. Dennis Hopper's mind was fried on drugs, and most of his lines are the result of brilliant improvisation, as Francis finds it impossible to talk sensibly with Hopper about what he is supposed to do. Martin Sheen replaced Harvey Keitel, and we learn that in the opening scenes, he is really very drunk, which explains his erratic and angry behavior. Sheen would suffer a heart attack and be on leave for several weeks. Sam Bottoms was high a lot. Laurence Fishburne was only 14 when the film was made, and reflects on his role, intended he believes to represent the naïve kids sent to fight in Vietnam. Coppola obtained permission to film in the Philippines from Ferdinand Marcos, who even lent him helicopters and pilots, but these were called away occasionally to battle with Communist insurgents in the southern part of the country.
This, of course, was a costly disruption. Coppola provides bitterly and brutally honest commentary, as does Eleanor, Milius, George Lucas, the cast, and even Vittorio Storaro, the cinematographer. This is a fiercely intimate and harrowing look at what transpired behind the scenes, and what Coppola went through to bring us one of the greatest of all American movies, which explored the utter insanity and madness of war, and you get a good sense of that here. The Joseph Conrad novel had previously been tackled by Orson Welles, whom we learned abandoned that undertaking and focused instead on Citizen Kane. As with War of the Worlds, Welles read Conrad's story over the radio in the 1930s, and selections from that are used here, and I often thought Welles sounded like Vincent Price.
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