Review of Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991) by Omar L — 23 May 2011

Heart of Darkness is an excellent documentary on the making of Francis Ford Coppola's masterpiece Apocalypse Now. Coppola's passion and support from his wife is the only thing that got him through a personal hell in making the film. The film was plagued by Murphy's Law; whatever can go wrong will go wrong. Coppola is forced to tap into his own funds and risks going bankrupt if the film doesn't profit. A huge typhoon wiped out all the sets of the movie and they had to rebuild them, Harvey Keitel is fired as the main lead, Martin Sheen has a heart attack, the Philippine army takes away the movie's helicopters at will to fight rebels that are nearby, and I couldn't stop laughing at Marlon Brando.

He shows up on set towards the end of filming weighing 150lbs overweight for the character he is supposed to play, Coppola is shocked to learn he hasn't read the book or done any preparation for the role that was asked of him which forces Coppola to do it for him and causes more delays, he demands the script be changed to his whims, wants to be his own director, forces coppola to abandon his planned concept for Brando's character and has to reinvent it on the fly. Brando is credited with causing long scheduling delays and is otherwise uncooperative in every area possible. The end result is two Academy Awards, it makes a huge sum of money worldwide, and it is now widely considered to be one of the best films of all time. 10/10 from me.

Eleanor Coppola: The film Francis is making is a metaphor for a journey into self. He has made that journey and is still making it. It's scary to watch someone you love go into the center of himself and confront his fears, fear of failure, fear of death, fear of going insane. You have to fail a little, die a little, go insane a little, to come out the other side. The process is not over for Francis.

Francis Ford Coppola: To me, the great hope is that now these little 8mm video recorders and stuff have come out, and some... just people who normally wouldn't make movies are going to be making them. And you know, suddenly, one day some little fat girl in Ohio is going to be the new Mozart, you know, and make a beautiful film with her little father's camera recorder. And for once, the so-called professionalism about movies will be destroyed, forever. And it will really become an art form. That's my opinion.