Saturday, December 8, 2012

Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse


Apocalypse Now is probably the second best Vietnam picture I’ve seen so far (I still think Eastern Condors takes the cake but just to let you know they’re very different takes on the topic).  And it pains me that I have to knock Full Metal Jacket down to third but c’est la vie, right? 

Anyway, the making of Apocalypse Now is just as interesting as the actual film itself.  I don’t know if every one of Coppola’s films had a real rough shoot (because Dracula(1992) had plenty of production problems) but this seemed like a nightmare to make.  It took him sixteen months to shoot the goddamn thing and another couple of years to edit it.  Coppola took over the reins from George Lucas who was initially going to direct it (yeah, you read that right) and after shooting began he even replaced leading man Harvey Keitel with Martin Sheen.  Plus he had to deal with a typhoon, the Pilipino government, Marlon Brando threatening to drop out of the movie, Martin Sheen having a heart attack which put him out of action for a couple of weeks, filming inane dialogue and other nonsense for the ending that he had no idea how to put together and was sure was not going to work at all and a million other things.  It’s pretty amazing that the film turned out so well.  It’s just like with Dracula where you don’t see or feel any of the problems in the final product.

I highly recommend both Apocalypse Now and Hearts of Darkness.  One is a trippy journey through the minds of several people trying to figure out what the fuck Vietnam was all about to the real men who were in it and the other is Apocalypse Now.  But watch the actual picture first before you see the making of.  Use your head.  

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