Review of Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991) by Harry W — 04 May 2014

As Apocalypse Now is one of the single greatest films I've ever seen and is famously for its largely troubled production, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse is one of the top priority documentaries for me to see.

Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse also proved important for me to see, as an up and coming filmmaker, because it exposes the challenge of creating an epic film which cannot stop growing and going over budget, as well as being faced with nearly every conceivable problem possible for a film production, including destruction of nearly every constructed set, the heart attack and mental breakdown of its lead actor Martin Sheen and the issues pertaining to the overweight cast member Marlon Brando.

Hearts of Darkness: A filmmaker's Apocalypse is important for anyone who is interested in filmmaking to see because although Apocalypse Now is deemed a masterpiece of epic war cinema, it is also famous for being arguably the most troubled production in cinematic history. Thanks to Eleanor Coppola's documentation other.

Husband's film as it went through production from 1974 to 1979 and encountered all kinds of trouble. It has a lot of ground to touch upon and although it may not go into as much depth as you may hope due to having so much to deal with, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse reveals the much talked about nature of the production of Apocalypse Now very well.

Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse reveals the endeavour of Francis Ford Coppola as a filmmaker through how he created a film instead of through an actual film he created. Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse documents him taking steps from pre-production all the way through to post production as a way of revealing the dedication he has to the art and simply how he refuses to let anything stand in his way to achieve his dream. Many films take an optimistic approach to achieving ones cream while Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse captures the realistic and gruelling nature of it. Considering that Francis Ford Coppola's dream was to create a perfect war film which is thoroughly convincing and also captures the complicated concept of human nature and the kind of corruption that war causes all against the backdrop of the novel Heart of Darkness, he clearly had a huge dream. To achieve that dream, he went through spending $31.5 million which in 2014 dollars is equivalent to $107,570,000, one of the most expensive film productions of the time. Yet unlike the 1980's epic western catastrophic box office bomb Heaven's Gate or the 1982 box office bomb war film Inchon, Apocalypse Now actually went on to become a massive box office success and one of the greatest films of all time, an opinion shared globally. Yet the film cannot escape the trouble of its production, and the Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse reveals that through the excess of hard work placed upon people and all the pressure, Martin Sheen succumbed to having a mental breakdown on set which is filmed and actually made it into the movie Apocalypse Now itself, as well as the fact that many of the extras were treated poorly at times.

Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse finds a decent balance between capturing the large scale of the production problems as well as the issues relating to its actors. I mean, some of the behaviour of the actors that were cast in Apocalypse Now is shocking such as the aforementioned mental breakdown of Martin Sheen and the way that Dennis Hopper was high on drugs the whole time, so much that he got himself into the headspace of the character he played easily. While others is more understandable yet still wrong such as Marlon Brando showing up on set overweight and demanding that everybody else work around his schedule. Yet it doesn't neglect the fact that most of the cast members are dedicated to their work which explains how they ended up all giving such fine performances in the final cut of the film. And Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse also emphasises the personal strain that it had on Francis Ford Coppola himself while reminding viewers of how it also affected his family as well. Yet the whole time, Eleanor Coppola is supportive of him and reveals to audiences just who he is as both a person and a filmmaker. So Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse is clearly a very honest documentary which has interesting subject matter and covers it very well. Though it could stand to run for a bit longer to cover the true epic depth in the film production. I guess really no film could honestly cover everything in Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse without running for too long or stretching things out for a bit more than they needed to be, so Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse does a job which is good enough and entertaining enough which also captures Eleanor Coppola's experiences on the set of the film, so it gets a fair and strong first person perspective into the process of filmmaking. The only thing that Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse could have worked a bit better on was explaining the cultural context of what was going on in the Philippines at the time which could have explained how it further affected the filmmaking process, so I walked away from Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse with a few questions left unanswered. But all in all as a documentary, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse does take an in depth look at everything happening without hiding certain unsavoury aspects away, and it is hard to forget because images such as Dennis Hopper out of his mind on drugs and Martin Sheen losing all of his mental wellbeing during filming are unforgettable.

So Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse is a fine documentary which shows the complicated process that went into making one of the greatest movies of all time, and it captures the difficulty of the production and the dedication of the filmmakers which reveals just what it takes to be a director or an actor.