Review of Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991) by Brett C — 05 Aug 2014

During the long production of "Apocalypse Now", Coppola's wife Eleanor accompanied him on the shoot and documented the experience through her diaries, audio recordings of her conversations with her husband, and it lead to this making of documentary made n the early 1990s.

The shoot was incredibly difficult, so much so that had the film not turned out to be a critical, financial, and award winning success, it could have ruined Coppola right then and there. The film went over budget, shot long, took a lot of time to edit, and was plagued with production problems such as a lead's heart attack, another actor showing up overweight with completely different creative ideas, and sets being destroyed.

..it's amazing the film ever got made! Somehow Coppola persevered and the film got made and became a successful instant classic. Sadly, the same can't be said for his next ambitious over-budget film.

The documentary is well-made, and using the audio of the Orson Welles' Mercury Theater production of "Heart of Darkness" is a nice touch as well.