Hearts of Darkness

Ten years before The Godfather was produced, Francis Ford Coppola had an idea to direct a movie based on the novel Heart of Darkness. It would be ten years before he was given the opportunity.  When it came to pass Coppola put together a production team and went to the Phillipines for a sixteen week shoot, he originally wanted to take a skeleton crew to Vietnam and shoot it there, but no one was really going for that wacky authentic angle.  So he instead chose the place which looked very much like Vietnam and was also in serious political and social tumult.

While the film was made Coppola's wife Eleanore filmed and recorded the making of the film.  This insider’s perspective, which includes snippets from the film and personal interviews with a great narrative voiceover, is the father of the DVD commentary, which is common with most deluxe format DVD’s of today. 

This movie is no behind the scenes look which talks about quibbles and affairs.  In Hearts of Darkness: we see a movie –Apocalupse Now- which took over a year to make.  We see the replacement of the star (Harvey Keitel), the near death of his replacement (Martin Sheen), chaos on the set which makes Hearts of Darkness stranger then fiction. 

While producing the film, Coppola figured all hope was lost and was sure he’d be bankrupt and run out of Hollywood.  Excluding Robert  Duvall everyone on the set was on drugs to the level of near incompetence.  Dennis Hopper was a major antagonist but delegated as being a Harlequin, once Brando turned up on the set about seventy pounds overweight and un polished on the script or story. 

What makes Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse such a good movie is the fact that it is a documentary which is not neutral nor disassociated from the film which it derives it’s content..  Instead you are given a film which plays like a abbreviated watching of Apocalypse Now, with an incredibly in-depth perspective on what it took to develop not only the shots, but the mood which makes Apocalypse Now the movie it is. 

It is also rare to see the fear and the uncertainty. Documentaries and there slothy cinematic relative The Makings of, are all too often a marketing tag to psyche up interests, thus it’s all upbeat interviews and snappy clips from the film.   With almost twenty years between the movie and the documentary you are given a very candid and honest view of what it took to make one of cinemas significant movies.
 

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