Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse

The making of Apocalypse Now was nearly the unmaking of director Francis Ford Coppola. No wonder his alternate title for Fax Bahr and George Hickenlooper's 1991 Emmy Award-winning documentary about its legendary troubled production is Watch Francis Suffer. Inspired by Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Apocalypse Now, which changed the setting from Africa to Vietnam during the war, starred Martin Sheen as Captain Willard, assigned to “terminate with extreme prejudice” the seriously gone-off-military-script Colonel Kurtz, portrayed by Marlon Brando. To watch Hearts of Darkness is to wonder how Apocalypse Now was ever completed. The obstacles Coppola faced seem insurmountable: overwhelming heat and humidity, the firing of the film's original star (Harvey Keitel), a typhoon that destroyed sets, Sheen's sudden heart attack, and an unprepared and overweight Marlon Brando (“I can't think of any more dialogue today,” he mumbles at one point). An unprecedented peek into the filmmaking process, Hearts of Darkness features incredible on-set footage shot by Coppola's wife, Eleanor, which is fleshed out with interviews of cast and crewmembers, including Sheen, Robert Duvall, Laurence Fishburne (then a 14-year-old), and Dennis Hopper. Watching her embattled husband risk his money and his sanity was, according to Eleanor, “scary and exhilarating,” which could also be said of this amazing documentary. Debuting on DVD, extras here include separately recorded audio commentary by Eleanor and Francis (who somewhat defensively puts his spin on events—“I have a perspective maybe a little different from anyone else who worked on this documentary”), and the new hour-long “CODA: Thirty Years Later,” which Eleanor filmed on the set of Youth Without Youth, Coppola's first film in a decade. Highly recommended. Editor's Choice. (D. Liebenson)