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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